Junior Year Box Set

We decided to go in for lunch and found that Dad had beaten us back. We hadn’t been able to contact Dad’s group because there was no cell service. Nor, for that matter, was there Internet service. It actually was kind of nice that we could be so out of touch with the rest of the world this week.

The resort office had a satellite phone you could use if you had to. But not being able to use our phones or have any Internet access was one of the big reasons Dad and Uncle John had picked this lake.

The resort also provided a free shore lunch. All you had to do was give them the fish, and they would fry it up for you. Paul went with Phil and Greg to show them how to clean the walleye they’d caught.

Talk about a perfect lunch. Freshly caught fish served with fried potatoes and onions. Of course, if you had this for any length of time, your arteries would clog up, but dump stuff into hot oil and get it crispy … yum.

I even joined everyone in drinking a beer.

◊◊◊

The wind picked up, so we took the afternoon off to kick back and relax, or that was what they told me. I suspected the others needed to sleep off their hangovers. I’d downloaded some e-books before leaving home, so I stepped out on the deck that overlooked the lake, found a chair, and sat down and read. After a while, there was movement inside; it was Uncle John. It looked like his nap was over.

I’d started to get antsy with the questions I had from last night, so I went to talk to him.

“Got a few minutes?”

“I wondered how long it was going to take you,” he said as he smiled up at me.

He followed me back out to the deck and sat beside me.

“I’ve been contemplating my circles of trust. You said that family was normally in the first circle, the one you trusted the most, but then again they may not be. I can see that, and for the most part, I agree that my family will be in my closest circle. What I was wondering was, does that trust have to be for everything, or is it situational?” I asked.

He got a smile on his face that was both thoughtful and sad. Somehow, I knew not to ask about it. So instead, I told him about Mom’s blind spot with Tami and how it affected me and how I felt about it. I also talked about when he wouldn’t keep Angie’s deliberately getting pregnant to himself, and the fallout from that revelation to the rest of the family. I had a real problem with trust, even with my own family, and I realized it bothered me a lot more than I’d ever consciously realized.

When I finished, Uncle John smiled gently.

“I’m not going to get into that situation specifically right now, but let me give you a few more factors to consider,” he said.

“First, everyone—everyone—finds at some point in time that people they trusted have let them down or betrayed them. Each time that happens, they’ll start to doubt their friends, and they’ll even begin to doubt themselves.

“You can’t go through life that way. When it happens, you have to recognize that they’re human, and they’ll make mistakes. When it happens, take a deep breath and decide if it was a mistake or if it was done deliberately to harm you. That’s when you have to evaluate what happened, learn from it, change your evaluation of the other person a bit, and move on.

“But you can’t wall yourself off. We’re social beings, and you know better than most that you can do anything, but you can’t do it by yourself. One of your most admirable traits is that you’ve always known to get coaching or help from others when you needed it, while not losing yourself in the shuffle. Keep doing that.

“Looking at it from the perspective of circles of trust, this isn’t about one size fits all. With anybody, there may be hot buttons or blind spots where the trust isn’t as deep, or may not be there at all. That’s normal, and you won’t share your deepest thoughts with someone about those facets of your life, even if you trust them with everything else.

“There also are some things you might not like to have happen, but that those you trust will do for the greater good. For example, if your mom or your dad, or I, believe it’s in the best interests of the family as a whole to share something, we will. And that’s even if it’s been told to us with an expectation of privacy. We won’t do it lightly, but we will always be guided by the thought of what’s best for everyone in the family.

“I want you to view this as a framework for your guidance. It’s not something rigid. There will always be small exceptions or cautions when you apply the perspective you get from it. The number of circles you use and what you call them is up to you. Just make the concept a useful tool for yourself and try to keep it simple so the thoughts don’t overwhelm you,” he explained.