Lily let the baby swim a few more times, and then she got out. She wrapped a towel around Loo and one around herself and then she changed the baby’s diaper and Hawley watched her putting more sunscreen on the baby’s legs and arms. She sat in the lawn chair and fed the baby a bottle. Then she walked up and down with her on the beach and finally she put the baby into the stroller and pulled down the shade to keep off the sun and Hawley could see that the baby was asleep. Lily stretched out next to the stroller on the blanket and soon she was asleep, too.
Hawley watched them from the end of the dock. When Lily put her head on the blanket, he turned over and tried to float, keeping one hand grounded on the edge. Overhead there was light coming through the hemlocks and dappling the water. Hawley took a deep breath and felt his body lift higher on the surface. Then he exhaled and he began to sink, just enough for the water to rise around his face and slide inside both ears. He couldn’t hear the trees anymore. The only sound came from inside him—his own heartbeat, and his lungs taking air, and the tiny splashes of his hands and feet, magnified as the waves rolled over them and the movement of the current broke and slid around his body and then came together on the other side of him and continued on, just as it passed through everything else, gently but surely in the same direction, past the dock and the fish and the stones below.
And then Hawley heard someone calling his name. Through the echo of the water. A voice was saying his name over and over and it was Lily.
Hawley righted himself. He felt for the floor of the lake but he’d drifted too far out. Some water got up his nose and he coughed and tasted the warmth of algae and rust. His hand grasped for the dock. He got hold and steadied himself. He looked toward the shore.
There was a man sitting on the lawn chair. Resting on one of his knees was a pistol with a suppressor attached to the barrel. On the other knee, nestled into the crook of his arm, was Loo. The man was wearing dark jeans tucked into boots, a flannel shirt and a fishing vest. The pockets of the fishing vest were stuffed with ammunition. At least fifteen loaded magazines. He looked like an old biker, bristly gray hair and sideburns down to his chin. His body had become thin beneath his fishing vest. His skin pulled sharply over the bones of his face, but Hawley knew him at once.
Talbot said, “Sure took me awhile to find you.”
All Hawley could think was that he didn’t have a gun. How could he not have brought a gun? He watched the old man slide the pistol back and forth against his leg. Overhead, the leaves stirred and shadows played across the lawn chair and across the face of the sleeping baby. Just a few feet away, Lily was kneeling Japanese-style on the blanket in her green bathing suit. Her shoulders were twitching and her hands were palm down on the sand in front of her like they’d been nailed in place and her eyes never left Loo.
“I’m just going to enjoy this for a minute,” said Talbot. “I’m going to sit here and take in the scene.” He rocked back and forth in the chair, and each rock drove him a bit farther into the sand, until there were two furrows around the aluminum legs. The baby slept on in his arms.
“What do you want?” Hawley asked, but he already knew.
Talbot scratched his knee with the back of the pistol and Hawley inched forward, staying low in the water, feeling for the bottom of the lake. It was there, soft and rotten beneath his toes. He planted both feet deep in the muck and stood. He tried to catch Lily’s eye but she only stared at Loo. He could see her lips moving, stringing one word after another: Please, please, please, please, please, please, please.
“Let them go. And we’ll settle things. However you want.”
Talbot shifted his boots in the sand. He seemed intent on this for a moment, his jaw set. Then he stopped and squinted up at the sun. He wiped his brow with the back of his arm, the one not holding the baby. “You got any sodas in there?” He pointed at the cooler. He was talking to Lily but she didn’t answer.
“I’ll get you one,” said Hawley.
Talbot lifted the gun. He kept the pistol on Hawley but his head turned toward Lily on her knees, her arms still spread across the sand.
“I’ve been watching you for weeks. I’ve been watching you live your life. I’ve been sleeping in my car and watching you and it made me miss having a wife to serve me a cold drink when I wanted,” Talbot said. “You can move those hands now.”
Lily clawed her fingers into the sand and leaned slowly back on her heels, drawing her palms to her knees. She blinked her eyes like she’d been released from a trance. The cooler was sitting between the blanket and Talbot’s lawn chair. She shifted on her knees, then lifted the lid, and took out an orange soda, opened it and handed it across to Talbot.
Talbot took a long sip. “It’s been years since I had an orange soda.” He took another drink and some of it spilled on the baby’s face. Loo woke up, pushed against the elephant blanket wrapped around her and started to fuss.
There had to be a second gun. That was what Hawley was hoping for. That Talbot had brought a second gun or even a third. He watched the old man drink his soda. He took a step forward. And then another. His toes sinking into the silt of the lake. He could tell Loo’s crying was screwing up Talbot’s nerves. It was the cry she did when she was hungry.
“She’s only a baby,” said Hawley. “She never hurt anyone.”
“You think Maureen ever hurt anybody?” Talbot blew air out of his cheeks. “And look how she went. Over a fucking watch.”
“You’re the one who shot her.”
Talbot kept his eyes on Hawley, but he moved the pistol so that the muzzle was now pointing at the baby. Lily started to get up from her knees, as if the gun had a rope that was pulling her toward it.
“Stop,” said Hawley. He raised his hands out of the water. He took another step closer to shore. “You’re right. And it’s your right to come. I won’t give you any trouble. But you need to let them go.” He waited to see what Talbot would do next. He didn’t want to move again until the old man was ready. But Talbot just leaned back in the lawn chair and took another sip from the orange soda.
“Her name is Louise,” Lily said. “She just got baptized yesterday. We call her Loo.”
Talbot said nothing in response, but Hawley could tell he was listening. He put down the can and pressed his palm against his knee, wiping the condensation onto his jeans.
“She swam for the first time today, just before you came here.” As she spoke, Lily lifted her hands and inched toward Talbot and the baby. “She sleeps through the night, and she’s started eating real food. Rice cereal. Mashed bananas. She cut her first tooth last week. And she laughs. If you kiss her hand, she laughs.” Lily leaned over and smiled at the baby. Loo’s crying slowed, and then stopped at the sight of her mother. Talbot was watching, out of the corner of his eye, not really looking at them but looking. Lily took the baby’s hand and bent down, her face so close to the gun Hawley’s stomach ached, and pressed her lips against Loo’s tiny knuckles, making a big, exaggerated mwah.