“Thank God,” Evan said, relief washing over him in a warm wave.
He saw Shaun’s small form nestled in his chair. The boy was moving, but something was wrong. Shaun wasn’t wearing a coat, or even a sweatshirt, and his feet dangled down low enough that the washing waves rushed up and covered them. Becky stood a few steps away, staring at Evan as he approached.
“What the fuck?” Evan said, cutting the motor down to guide his way to the dock.
He drifted the last few yards and let the front end of the craft bump into the planking. In two strides he stood on the dock, and looped a rope around the pontoon’s railing. Then he was moving again, anger filling the void left by panic.
“What the hell’s going on here?” he asked, hurrying past Becky to where Shaun sat.
His anger flared brighter when he saw the blue tinge to his son’s lips and they way he shook from the cold.
“Fucking shit,” Evan said, peeling off his long-sleeved shirt before unstrapping Shaun from his chair. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He tugged his shirt over Shaun’s head and picked him up. Shaun shivered and pressed his face into Evan’s neck. When he turned back toward the water Becky still hadn’t moved.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” he said, as he stepped before her.
Becky’s half-lidded eyes stared across the lake, toward town. Her lips hung apart, revealing her teeth clenched together, her jaw muscles contracting over and over.
“Becky, are you okay? Are you hurt?” he said, moving closer. “Why did you come down here?”
Shaun shivered against him, and Evan hugged him tighter. With a shaking hand, he reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder.
“Becky, come back to the house—”
Her head snapped around so fast Evan expected to hear her spine break. Her eyes were wide, unseeing, looking through him, and her lips peeled back from her teeth even further, in a rictus. Evan yanked his hand back as though touching a hot burner.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.”
The sound came from behind Becky’s teeth, and her tongue darting wildly between the gaps in them. With slow movements, he retreated up the hill, clutching Shaun.
“Da,” Shaun said, into Evan’s neck.
“It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay.”
He kept walking backward, his eyes locked on Becky, who continued to stare at the spot where they’d been. “I’ll be right back,” Evan called down to her, and jogged to the house. Once inside he set Shaun on the couch and began to pile blankets on him.
“What happened, honey? Did she hurt you?”
Shaun gazed at him, his teeth chattering while another shiver coursed through his small body. Evan dug into his pocket for his phone, wondering who he should call. Becky’s employer at the hospital? The police? An ambulance?
The sound of a boat engine starting made him look up from his phone.
“No way,” he said, walking to the front door.
Becky wasn’t standing in her spot near the lake anymore. She was in her father’s boat, and as he watched, she cut a short swath and turned the craft toward the opposite side of the lake, accelerating more and more.
Evan stepped out of the house. “Hey! Becky! Becky!”
His yells did nothing to slow her. She piloted the boat away, a V of water gliding in the wake, her back turned toward him. Soon the craft was only a speck dotting the gray waves.
Evan shut the door and walked to the couch, his eyes unfocused. “Let’s get you in the tub, buddy.”
After checking Shaun’s body for marks and welts of any kind and finding nothing, Evan gave him a bath, warming him up. As Shaun splashed and played in the soapy water, he kept replaying Becky’s behavior in his mind. What the hell had happened? When he’d left that afternoon, she’d been a normal young woman, capable and trustworthy. What could possibly alter someone so much in a matter of hours?
“Ow?”
Evan came back to himself and realized that the water in Shaun’s bath had begun to cool. “Sorry, honey. Let’s get you out of there.”
After drying him off, Evan set him on the couch, rewrapping him in the blankets again. He sat and stared at his son for a long time, taking in his features. Shaun looked back, grinning from time to time. It was like seeing glimpses of Elle behind a fluttering curtain when he smiled, her lasting gift to him.
“You got your mom’s smile, you know that, buddy? I’m so glad I still get to see it.” Tears filled his eyes. “I’m sorry I left you.” His voice became hoarse, the horrible ideas of what could’ve been flowing through his mind. “I didn’t think anything would happen. I’m sorry you got cold, I’m so sorry you got cold.”
“Ky?” Shaun said, his brow furrowing.
“I won’t cry,” Evan said, wiping at his eyes before leaning forward to kiss him on the brow. As he sat back, he glanced over the back of the sofa.
The basement door was open a few inches.
Evan stood and took a step toward it, waiting for it to fly open all the way, pushed from something behind it. But it stayed motionless. Had it been closed when he left? Yes, he was almost sure.
“I’ll be right back, honey,” he said over his shoulder.