Chapter 4

The Secret: Frank Returns

Usually Frank would not return to Blue Lake until the end of the first or second week of September, but he was lonely. This was the second summer he had spent north without Luella. Last summer he had been grieving and had kept very busy building an edition on the cottage and flying far and wide to lakes he had never explored. Flying was demanding enough that when he was piloting, he was concentrating on the intricacies of the job and there was no room for unrelated thinking. Frank was a very good and very careful pilot. This summer he was through the grief stage but now he realized how lonely he was. So, during the last week of August, he was in the air and headed for home. He made a pass over the house and shed a tear. When he was up flying alone, he always made a pass over the house to let Luella know that he was about to land. But there was no Luella to run down to the dock and wave at him. She had always run out from under the trees which covered their lot so he could see her. Then she would help him tie up the plane and carry his gear up to the house. Unknown to Frank a new pair of eyes noted his low pass, but the eyes stayed hidden under the trees.

Frank tied up the plane and moved his gear up to the house. He was tired and emotionally drained. Arriving home had not helped. It had only brought back memories of Luella.

He cooked a simple dinner and laid down on the couch for a minute. When the minute was up he opened his eyes to discover that the sun had already set which meant that he had slept several hours. He went to the kitchen, and that is when he noticed a light through the trees in his neighbour’s window. He could see the light but the houses were too far apart to see anyone inside. Hmm! He thought. I guess that I have new neighbours. I hope that they aren’t noisy.

A week later Frank had still not seen the new neighbours. He had noted two delivery trucks during the week but one had been a grocery store delivery van and the other had been a propane truck filling the neighbour’s tanks for the winter. He would have expected a moving van. It was strange. They didn’t go to the door and knock or appear to leave a bill. The food was just left on the porch near the door. A while later he noticed the food was gone. A good thing he thought. Probably city slickers who didn’t know better than to leave food out that would attract raccoons. And if the raccoons were attracted bears would not be far behind.

Frank had lived in the forest so long he had forgotten that he was himself originally a city slicker. He had studied engineering at Waterloo but spent much of his time working on his computer courses going far beyond what was required for the courses. After obtaining a degree in engineering he switched programs and completed a masters in computer science which was called a degree in mathematics since his education was before computers became a separate discipline. He started his Ph.D. but found he was distracted by constant demands from former classmates who wanted to pick his brain about computers for their businesses. He struggled through his last year serving two masters, his degree program and his fledgling business as a computer consultant. After completing the Ph.D. he was still being overwhelmed with business opportunities, and he had to hire staff. And then he had to hire more staff. And then he had to hire managers to manage the staff. He was putting in a hundred hours every week. Then he met Luella whom he discovered sitting at a terminal writing code for his company. Suddenly he had found something more interesting than computers. She was a recent grad from the mathematics program. He was shy but determined and kept coming up with excuses to consult with her. After six months of frequent visits to her desk, she said,

“Frank, you have already run out of reasonable excuses to talk to me, and they are becoming sillier with each visit. When are you going to ask me out on a date?”

Frank said, “Ugh, I was going to do it six months ago, and I was just screwing up my courage.”

They both had a good laugh at his bashfulness. They wanted to have privacy about their relationship, and so they spent many evenings out of town where they would not likely be seen by his staff. After two years of working together and dating, he asked if she was getting bored with computers, and she admitted the shine had gone off the job. He said he was going to retire and that all he needed was a good reason, and she was the reason he had in mind.

“Will you marry me?” 

He held his breath.

“Of course,” she said.

They were married the next day in a civil ceremony unbeknown to any of his company’s executives. They returned to work, and he called a meeting of the senior staff which for some time had included Luella. He said he was going to retire with his new wife and offered them the opportunity to buy him out before he went to the open market. In their excitement about the opportunity, they forgot to ask about his new wife. They quickly took a poll to see who wanted in and who wanted to continue as an employee. They were startled when the only person declining to opt-in was Luella. She was easy to work with and sharp, and they wanted her to be part of the partnership. After much cajoling, she finally raised her eyebrows at Frank who nodded his approval.

“I won’t be joining the partnership because I AM THE NEW WIFE.”

The room fell into shocked silence and then a cheer went up for the newlyweds.

The buy out had been very lucrative. Although he could have gotten considerably more on the open market he had told Luella that they now had more than enough money that they would never have to work again, and he was happy with the choice of new owners.

They spent the first two years of their married life travelling to every corner of the globe.

In a frank discussion, as occasionally occurs in good relationships, Luella admitted she wanted to settle down somewhere and call it home. Frank surprised her when he said,

“Me too. I was thinking of something not pretentious on a nice quiet lake in Canada.” 

When they had purchased the land on Blue Lake years previously it had been a quiet relatively unknown body of water with a few cottages scattered around its shores and a few full-time residents. As the years passed more cottages were built every year until the lake no longer resembled the pristine waters of their first and only home.

Frank had learned to fly, and then he built his CH701 which now had over three thousand fun hours on it. No one knew that Frank and Luella were wealthy as they led their low key lives blending into the community. They had no children by choice as they grew less and less impressed with the direction the world seemed to be taking.

Now Frank felt alone in the world with new neighbours who appeared to be even more withdrawn than he had thought he was. He wondered what the new neighbours were like, not realizing that he was about to find out in a dramatic way.

*****