The feathered arrow signs were supposed to look hand painted, but they weren’t. At least not by the owner. That kind of sign would have given me some advanced notice. Who was this Ray Levis? This lake-living, place-owning Ray Levis who wouldn’t hurt a fly? My gut twisted into a fist, but I drove through it.
At the last turn into his gravel drive, I paused. It was not too late to turn around. Up ahead I could see a clearing, a deck, and a steep drop to a lake. Trees blocked the house. Again I hoped to see Joshua strolling across the open lawn with a paper plate of sandwiches, going down to the dock. I drove up the lane into view of the house, a single-story ranch. I figured I had the element of surprise, and so parked and walked quickly to the door and knocked, all business.
When nothing happened, I turned and took a better look at the property. There was a shed to one side of the house, a neat stack of cut logs, a hammock, a picnic table. The deck that overlooked the lake stood empty but for a grill. I heard a splash down at the lakeside and followed the sound.
Steps led from the deck down to another level, with a table and chairs and more steps down to the water.
At the end of the L-shaped dock stood Joshua.
He threw a stick into the water. A black dog leapt in and paddled out to fetch it.
A sob caught in my throat. Joshua turned—
It wasn’t Joshua. Just the one person I should have been prepared to see.
Ray, wearing a ball cap and the same profile as my son, turned all the way around and stared. We regarded each other as the dog swam up from the lake to a shallow spot and launched back onto the deck. The dog dropped the stick, shook water off its coat, and, catching sight of me, bolted up the steep stairs, howling.
I turned and fled, bile rising in my throat.
“Magic!” Ray yelled. “Magic, no! Knock it off!”
I heard his footsteps up the stairs and didn’t know whether I was running from Ray or the dog.
“She won’t bite!”
I found the door of the truck before the dog could bite or not bite, and hopped inside. I was shaking: my hands, my whole body. My heart battered against the inside of my chest. The dog ran up to my window and sat below, crooning. I locked both doors of the truck just as Ray reached the top deck but couldn’t begin to roll up the window. I held onto the steering wheel to keep from shaking. He came to the driver’s side and scolded the dog. The dog’s tail thumped against his leg.
He took his time meeting my eyes. I waited, wave after wave of nausea washing over me.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “Do you know—?” But he wouldn’t ask whatever it was.
“You had to expect I’d show up,” I said. “At some point.” I glanced toward the house to see if Joshua had come out yet. Surely the dog was doorbell enough.
“Fifteen years ago.”
“Thirteen.”
He turned to face me through the window. He was too close. I wished I’d rolled up the window while the dog was still yowling.
“Thirteen, then,” he said. “What the—what does it matter? Thirteen years ago, your friend tried to convince the cops I’d killed you and dug you a grave in the woods.”
“No, you would have weighted me down in the middle of Sweetheart Lake.”
His hand froze on the dog’s square head. I glanced toward the house again and back at Ray. Now that I’d brought it up, it felt like anything could happen. Probably best not to turn my back. I was here.
“Really, Ray, tell me that wasn’t a plan you had in the back of your mind all along.”
“I never—”
“You’d better think hard about what you never did before you say so,” I said. “There are very few things you never did.”
He contemplated the open lake. “I guess you wouldn’t take an apology.”
“Is that the apology? No, I don’t really need an apology.”
“I looked for you. I hired a private eye.”
I remembered the call. Three moves from state to state hadn’t been far enough. The call in the night, no one saying anything when I said hello. I had calmly stripped our lives out of that apartment, packed Joshua and what little I could grab, and driven through the night, looking for a place to land. I remembered every trigger, every flight. “I know,” I said.
“That was you, wasn’t it? That time.” His face stretched into an awkward, triumphant smile. “You hung up.”
“I hung up and moved to a different state.”
“But,” he said. The smile disappeared. “They thought I killed you.”
I wanted to say that he had, but he wouldn’t understand. “You almost did.”
The dog shifted and whined at Ray’s feet. He knelt on the pink dirt and scratched at the dog’s ears. “We’re going in circles here. If you’re not here for your apology—why are you here?”
I took a last look at the house, but there was no movement at the windows, no one coming out to see who was in the drive. “But—”
And then I knew. Joshua had never made it to Ray’s.
Ray stood, saw the look on my face. “What?” He stepped up to the truck. I slid away from the window. “Oh. Look,” he said. “I’m not that guy anymore.”
I took a deep breath and let it shudder out. “Why would I believe that?”
“I guess you wouldn’t.” He backed away, his hands raised. “But it’s true.”
I thought of my dad, angry as long as I’d known him and probably before I’d been born. I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t.
The dog barked and darted out from under Ray’s hand to meet a small white car pulling into the drive. Ray went to meet the driver. A woman got out, scratched the dog’s ears, and straightened to accept a cheek kiss from Ray.
“It’s been a weird couple of minutes,” he said to her. The woman watched Ray with concern as they walked up to the truck. I unlocked the door and slid out, the dog racing over to sniff at my legs.
Ray swept his hand in my direction. “Mamie, this is Leeanna Winger.”
We looked each other up and down, me looking for signs that Mamie was the same kind of girlfriend I had once been. No bruises visible. She was sturdy, almost plump. Her hair was a fading blond, cut short and left to do whatever it wanted.
Mamie’s mouth fell open. “You mean—”
Ray nodded and Mamie jumped into his arms. When she twisted her head on Ray’s chest to see me, there were tears in her eyes. “It’s been such a long road,” she said.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
The couple parted slowly, their dog wedging in between their feet. “It’s just,” Mamie said. “Well, you wouldn’t believe the looks he gets in town. The way our neighbors would pull their daughters away from him on the street. It was just—we had to move.”
A hot rage was beginning to boil in my belly. “You had to move? Out to the lake? You poor, poor people.” I had moved six times, eight, whenever a cloud looked a little too gray, whenever someone gave me that don’t-I-know-you look.
“You don’t understand—”
“No, I don’t think you understand,” I said.