Lake Effect by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

Author:Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney [Sweeney, Cynthia D’Aprix]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2026-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Eight

Nina was already fidgety when they landed. The flight from JFK to Rochester had been delayed—they wouldn’t see any of the children tonight. After a brief awkward call to Sam they’d both agreed Nina should wait until morning to see the girls. At the baggage carousel they bumped into Finn’s old friend Hugo, who came right up to him and clasped a hand on his shoulder and asked if he was okay.

“Sorry?” Finn said.

“Tough business, this,” Hugo said, shaking his head. “But one small incident can’t take down the Finnegan legacy. You all will get through it.” As Nina was about to ask what he was talking about, Finn shook his head slightly, indicating she shouldn’t say anything.

“Thanks, buddy,” Finn said. “I’ll be right back,” he told Nina and headed for a newspaper vending machine, dropped two dimes into the slot, opened the door, and took out a paper. Nina watched him read the front page and then rub one palm over his face. When he turned to walk back, he was pale. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Finn had smeared newsprint all over his left cheek, and she took a hanky out of her handbag and tried to wipe some of it off. He handed her the paper.

“Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Finnegan’s Grocer Sickens City Residents”

“Oh no,” she said. “You didn’t know?”

“Of course I didn’t know,” he snapped. “You think I wouldn’t tell you? Helen knew where to reach me. I can’t believe she didn’t call. I need to call Dennis.” He found a pay phone on the other side of the baggage area. Nina spotted their bags coming out and collected them. Waited for Finn to finish his phone call. She paged through the paper, not really paying attention to what she was reading until she got to the Society section and saw the headline at the top left of the page, right above a brief missive on Princess Margaret’s recent escapades—“Finnegan Remarries”—and started to read.

“What were you thinking?” she said once they’d loaded their bags in the car and started driving toward the rental house, their new home.

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“But who knew?”

“I had to tell Helen. Our families know.”

“I hardly think Sam or Honey called the papers. Why would Helen do that?”

“Dennis did it.”

“Shit, shit, shit.”

“It might not be bad, in the long run.”

“Pardon?”

“He did it to embarrass me, but why not rip off the Band-Aid? Get it all over with.”

“But the kids must have seen this. Their friends. What was Helen thinking?”

“I don’t know what got into Helen in the space of three days.”

Nina sighed. Put her head against the freezing car window. She didn’t want to start a fight on their first night home, which was already feeling disastrous.

“I have to stop at the store,” Finn said, referring to the one nearest their old houses and now the new house. “This is bad,” he said, as they pulled into an empty parking lot and a deserted supermarket that at nine p.m. on a Saturday night should have been open.

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