The baby’s eyes went wide, and all at once her mouth opened and a small noise came out, so perfect and clear it was like a made-up sound of a baby laughing. Then Loo lifted her hand all on her own, like a queen, so that her mother would kiss it again.
Talbot looked embarrassed. He shifted the baby onto his other knee, as if Lily were a stranger, bothering them in a supermarket line. “Get out of the water,” he said to Hawley. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Hawley made his way slowly out of the lake, thinking of ways to wrestle the gun away from Talbot, and dismissing them all. Either the baby or Lily was bound to get shot. He calculated distance, tracking escape routes. It was too far to the tree line. Even if he could snatch Loo away from Talbot, the old man would have time to shoot all three of them before they reached the woods. Hawley’s eyes went down the length of the dock and rested on the metal canoe. And then he remembered there weren’t any paddles. He stood dripping in front of the blanket. A breeze swept down and his skin turned cold.
The trees shifted overhead.
“You can pick one,” said Talbot. “One gets to live.”
Talbot’s words joined them all tightly together. Hawley could sense every tremor and thought of Lily, frozen in fear on the blanket, every breath of their child, warming Talbot’s lap, every shift of the old man’s finger on the gun.
But Hawley was made for decisions like this. And he didn’t hesitate.
“My wife,” he said. “I pick my wife.”
For the first time Lily’s eyes left the baby. She stared at Hawley like he’d just pulled off a mask. “No,” she said. “No.”
But Talbot seemed satisfied. He slid to the edge of the lawn chair. He bounced Loo on his knee, then waved the gun at Lily.
“Tell her not to call the cops.”
Hawley said, “Don’t call the cops.”
“If she does I’ll come after her, too.”
“You’re a terrible person,” said Lily.
“Tell her to go now,” said Talbot. “Or that’s it for chances.”
There was no time to waste. No time to let the old man change his mind. Hawley grabbed his wife by the arm and yanked her from the blanket. When she struggled to get away, he slapped her in the face and shoved her toward the path. And when Lily spun and came back pushing at him, he hit her harder. Hit her with his whole fist. She stumbled and fell to the sand. She stared up at him.
“Get the fuck out of here,” said Hawley.
Only then did she seem to get it. Hawley did not have to hit her again. She was up and hurrying across the beach and barreling into the forest, toward their house and Hawley’s guns. If Lily ran the whole way she could make it home and back in fifteen minutes. When she reached the top of the hill she paused and glanced over her shoulder. He tried to think of a way to say he was sorry, but all he could do was touch his forehead, like he was tipping a hat that wasn’t there. His wife stood looking ill for a moment and then she wrinkled her nose and turned away, and she was gone.
Hawley returned to the blanket and stood in front of Talbot.
“Now what?”
The old man gestured at the cooler.
“You got any food in there?”
“Sandwiches and pie.”
“Ham and cheese?”
“Baloney.”
Talbot grunted his approval. He made Hawley pull the cooler over to him and open it. He transferred the baby from the crook of his arm onto his lap so he could keep the gun pressed against Loo’s stomach while rummaging inside. He pulled out some sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil and cellophane and the small plastic container that held the pie. He never took his eyes off Hawley, feeling blindly and throwing the food out onto the blanket. He told Hawley to unwrap the cellophane from one of the sandwiches and Hawley did and gave it over. Some mustard slipped out from the bread as the old man took a bite and landed on his fishing vest. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I brought Maureen to the clinic in Oak Harbor,” said Talbot. “The bullet was from my gun so they thought it was some sort of domestic dispute. The police locked me up so I wasn’t with her when she died. Then they found your car, and some of your blood in the house. They let me go after that. But once they did, I wished they hadn’t.” Talbot took another slurp of his soda. “Hand me some of that pie.”
Hawley opened the plastic container. He found one of the forks they’d packed. He imagined sticking the tines in Talbot’s neck. The old man took the fork from him and ate the crust and peaches with a slow and exhausted look, like it was the last course of a giant meal he’d been making his way through for days. Like the pie was something sweet he didn’t need or have any desire for but felt he had to finish.
“We’d been together a long time,” said Talbot. “And I didn’t know how to breathe without her. Everyplace I looked there was a part of her and I just about lost my mind with thinking about her and going over everything in my head of what I’d done wrong. And that dress. That fucking wedding dress. I dragged it out to the cliffs one night and threw it over the edge. Almost threw myself over, too.”
Talbot dropped the fork into the container. He put the container on the ground. “You’re still a young man and you don’t know anything,” he said, “but one day God is going to remember all the things you’ve done and then He’s going to bring down His judgment and teach you more than you ever wanted to learn.”
“It was just a job,” said Hawley. But already he was remembering Talbot’s wife, and the way her violet eye turned cloudy as she clutched her veil.
Talbot took a sip of orange soda.
“You know I’m not the only one looking for you.”
At the end of the dock, the canoe stretched the length of its rope and then swung back, bumping against the worn-out wood.
“I heard you bungled things in Alaska.”
“Something like that.”
“You’re lucky I found you first,” he said. “King wouldn’t have given you a choice.”
Hawley wasn’t sure what to say about that. In his mind he tried to count the minutes, each second bringing Lily closer to the guns. He tried shifting, bit by bit, hoping Talbot was so caught up in talking that he wouldn’t notice. The old man poured the rest of the soda out onto the beach. The liquid sizzled and fizzed, darkening the color of the sand. He stared at the spot.
“Know where we went on our honeymoon?”
“No,” said Hawley.