“Pull over,” said Libby.
The brake lights lit the trees behind them as they came to the shoulder, then the reverse lights lit them low and white, like a dropped flashlight in the woods. Tom came within twenty feet of the thing. The doe struggled to stand. She tried to shift herself in their direction, to face her death, and in doing so, in one last expression of bravery, of instinct, save herself. Tom had felt this diving in after Libby, the moment the water hit his chest. The water, cold enough to make him gulp for air, was at most fifty degrees. That spring he had failed the YMCA lifesaving course when he almost drowned trying to tread water without using his hands. But he had thought, I swim, she lives; I breathe, she lives; I live, she lives. He told Melissa that story when he realized he wanted to be a father. When he realized he wanted to be brave. Sensible and brave. He and Libby had never talked about it. He wasn’t sure she even remembered.
Gwen got out of the car, the hardscrabble of the shoulder crunching under her feet.
“We’ll just wait for the police,” Tom shouted after her. He needed to find his phone. He needed to catch his breath. His chest hurt. He felt cold and not the way he wanted to. Danny was already on his hands and knees heaving into a stand of ferns. Libby was rubbing Danny’s back. Melissa sat in the open door looking after her. Tom, sitting in the driver’s seat with his seat belt still on, heard Danny mumble something about lobster rolls. Gwen laughed.
The car doors were open, and the car’s insistent dinging, requesting closed doors and seat belts fastened, drowned out most of Danny’s words. But Tom could still hear his voice. Then Danny’s tone changed. Something in it went quiet and into the back of his throat.
“Tom?” Libby called to him. Tom had visions of the deer hurtling toward his sister. He’d heard of animals’ crazed instincts and power in their final moments. What if she charges?
The seat belt recoiled as Tom jumped out of the car. Gwen’s purse lay on the ground. She leaned against the trunk of the car facing the doe. In her hand she held something thick and heavy.
“Jesus Christ, Gwen, a gun?” said Tom. “Where did you get a gun?”
Melissa jumped out of the car and stood behind Libby, peering over her shoulder.
“You’re a vegetarian,” said Danny.
“Our mother grew up on a farm,” said Gwen.
“Not a munitions farm. Is it loaded?” Tom.
“She got it when the Boston Strangler was loose, used to sleep with it under her pillow,” said Libby to Melissa. “I thought she got rid of it.”
“Can I shoot it?” asked Danny.
Gwen ignored them all. “I’m going to shoot it.”
Melissa whispered to Libby, “How do you forget your shoes but remember your gun?” Libby put her finger on her nose.
“Jesus Christ, I’ve been driving with a loaded gun in the car? How many laws does that break?”
“What about the right to bear arms?” said Danny, looking at Tom. “I thought you were into that.”
“I’m not a Libertarian.” Always ribbing him for voting Republican. Lincoln was a Republican.
“Holy God, both of you shut up,” shouted Gwen, looking over her shoulder. “We are going to do what needs to be done here.”
She walked forward in the glow of the reverse lights and stood between the car and the panting, bloodied deer. They could see its mangled hindquarter clearly now. Its clumped fur. The deer’s eyes glowed a quick iridescent flash in her shadow. From fifteen feet away, Tom could hear Gwen whisper something to the doe. “I’m sorry.”
Gwen lifted the gun and held it steady with both hands. Her feet were together, and she looked as if she were about to say a prayer, or take a bow. And then flash flash, crack crack. The animal slumped over.
Shaking, Gwen got back into the car, leaving her purse in the dust of the roadside. She found Tom’s phone and was talking. Melissa and Libby got back in the car and seemed to be comforting Gwen, rubbing her shoulders as she spoke into the phone. They are all insane, thought Tom. Danny and Tom looked at each other over the roof of the car, listening to Gwen. “North Haven Road just before Murch’s Brook, not in the road, off the road, on the shoulder . . .”
“She’s probably the leader of some underground sect, a militia of underappreciated artists,” said Danny. “I should’ve seen this coming.” He started to laugh, but it devolved into a grumble. Danny got back in the car, a hand on his stomach.
Tom, walking to scoop up Gwen’s empty purse, thought that the stand of ferns looked particularly appealing. He wouldn’t mind purging himself into that green fringe. But instead he had to swallow it down.
TEN
ANOTHER SUMMER
Gwen is eleven years old. She stands on the covered portion of the front porch. A cut on her bare leg births a thick drop of red. She is in the shadow, watching Libby play with dolls in her tin dollhouse. The blood begins to make its way down her leg, slow and steady. Gwen stands there while her parents are on the other side of the screen door.
“I can’t keep her tied to the house like a dog,” says their mother.
“You could try watching her, telling her what she can and can’t do,” says their father.
“She’s your daughter too.”
Back and forth they go, while Gwen stands there and the blood slides into her shoe, wet sneakers, no socks. Where had she left her socks? Her pointed anklebone sends the rivulet around and down. Drops from the sea still cling to her ankle. Her clothes are wet, her hair matted in thick strings that send salt water down her back, slow through her cotton shirt. The blood is dark on her leg; the cut is starting to sting. It hadn’t hurt, but now the wind brings it sharp to her attention.
“Did you know what she was doing?” her father asks.
“The locals jump the tower all the time,” says her mother. “I didn’t know that she did it.”