“Yes, sir,” Joshua said, standing taller.
I reached for his hand to keep him close. He seemed so grown-up just now. I remembered Ray pawing at the photo I’d left him, his misery at the years already lost. I couldn’t change most of the mistakes I’d made. But there was one I could. Was Ray real? It wasn’t my call anymore. We would have to figure things out together, this kid and I. This young man.
Russ glanced apologetically toward the figure in the bed. “Got some papers for you to sign to release this—fugitive.”
He held out a handful of forms.
“Can’t we do this later?”
“Why’s everything have to be on your schedule, Ms. Winger?” Russ said. “I need you to sign—right below me.” He dropped them into my lap.
At the bottom of the top page, a signature. His signature. It was an unsteady hand, half print, half script. A nervous hand, this one, but I didn’t mind. He didn’t look away when I signed and gave the papers back. I said nothing. It wasn’t good business to give it away.
“I’m a fugitive?” Joshua shuffled his feet. “Will you arrest me?”
“Not this time,” Russ said. “Although I do have some ideas on how you can repay some of the trouble you’ve put my team to, chasing you up to the hinterlands.”
I pulled Joshua’s hand to me before he could chew his nails. “How did you get up here?”
“Hitchhiked,” Russ said. “He worked it all out in that chat room in his game. An eight-hour head start and the ride-share was a college kid going up to Canada, took him most of the way. We finally got a bead on him when a semi driver picked him up at a rest stop. We let him roll right into town.”
“You knew I was here?” Joshua said.
“Had a guy in the lot the whole time,” Russ said. I knew he meant Mullen, that he’d put his best man on the job and been let down a thousand times over. He’d had all that faith in other people and now he might have to see things the way I always had, with none. “I’m thinking about fifty hours of community service to run concurrently with any punishment you have coming from other quarters.”
Joshua’s eyes cut in my direction. “Am I grounded?”
“So grounded,” I said. “As soon as we get home.”
The word home had such a nice tone that I didn’t want to say anything else. It had power no mere word should have. Did I mean Parks? I didn’t mean Sweetheart Lake, but there were so many places we hadn’t been.
Russ watched me with feigned casual attention. That heavy look.
I’d said home as though I knew where that was. What I meant was that I could make one. I could find a way to be part of something. An image came to me: bright pink running shoes rushing out of the hospital. If I went back to Parks, maybe I could find a way to put all this relevant experience to use. I hoped I could.
Joshua must have felt a little of the same hope. He settled on the armrest of my wheelchair without my pulling him in and eased an arm around my shoulders. He touched his temple to mine, careful with my bandages, careful with me.
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the solid weight of him against me. I was going to tell him, anything he wanted to know. Minus a few details, maybe.
I might start by saying, “On the day I died. . .” And he would probably stop me, call me dramatic, call me out for the wording. He would have an opinion on things from now on. I would have to hear them all.
No, I would say. Listen: on the day I died, I dragged the new oars down to the lake. But I didn’t know it was the last day, and I didn’t know I would get another chance. I didn’t know you yet, but on the day I died, you saved me. You save me still.
On the first day of my new life, I bought sandals and pants at Theresa’s store, along with a bright Sweetheart Lake sweatshirt. Theresa tsked over the state of the back of my head and threw in an equally bright bucket hat. We hugged for a long time, making the kind of promises I had never made. But if I brought Joshua up for a trial visit with Ray next summer, some promises, at last, might be kept.
One last errand. Not a lake, I said, directing him out of town. The river. Downriver from Sweetheart, on its way to somewhere else.
At the water’s edge, I rolled up the pants and slipped out of the sandals. The water was freezing.
Someone should say something.
I glanced up. Russ stood at the top of the riverbank, waiting. Behind him, the sky was clear and bright. It had not been in my mother’s power to trust blue skies, but I could. And greener grass, and yellow rooms. I felt only the water and a warming trill of nerves and possibility—I could dwell here. Here, where I was both certain and uncertain, but most of all grateful.
I pulled the zipper bag open and bent, the current rushing around my knees as I dipped the bag into the clear water and let the river draw the ashes. A cloud caught under the surface, brief, and then was gone.
For a moment, real grief gripped me. I tried to think of each fleck of ash rushing away from Sweetheart Lake at last.
I stood and picked my way out of the water, across the rocks. Up on the road, Joshua waited in Russ’s truck, fully outfitted from the sporting goods store on Pine Street. Russ had put away his uniform and hat. For the ride home, he was wearing jeans and a gray Sweetheart Lake fleece with soft pockets. We would arrive back in Parks, festooned as tourists, lauded as heroes, a ragged family of hitchhikers and liars and whatever Russ turned out to be.
“Anna,” he called. He pointed further downriver, where a large bird pinwheeled high in the air. An eagle, maybe. I slid my wet feet into the sandals, hurrying. I was ready to find out: the eagle, the man, whatever came along. Ready, just this last time, to get on the road.
Acknowledgments
This book started as a short story about ten years ago and has lived many lives since, giving me many people to remember here.
Grateful thanks to my agent, Sharon Bowers of Miller Bowers & Griffin Literary Management, and my editor, Margaux Weisman, for making this book possible. Thanks also to the good people at William Morrow, including Jena Kamali, Serena Wang, and Owen Corrigan.
Special thanks to Terence Faherty for giving me the heads up I needed to see this project the right way, and Midwest Writers Workshop for, among many other things, introducing me to Terry.
Also special thanks to Christopher Coake, who read this book years ago when it was terrible and said nice things, anyway.