For a moment it seemed like Hawley himself, or perhaps Hawley as he might have been, if he had lived to be an older man. Thick shoulders and gray hair, a flannel shirt and work boots. Hawley floated up into the lake and the man floated down into the lake and the two of them met in the middle. And then Hawley saw there was a hole in the center of the man, blasted through his chest. He could see right through the hole. He could see the gleam of sunlight coming down from the surface through the bloody water. He could see the edge of the dock, the flannel shirt blooming and the man’s guts trailing behind like the tail of a kite.
Talbot’s eyes were open and staring past Hawley, past the reeds and past the floor of the lake. He looked more surprised than angry about the hole, his mouth open and taking in water, the remains of his fishing vest torn to pieces. Hawley pushed at Talbot’s shoulders, and for a moment they were tangled in each other, arms and legs heavy, Talbot’s sideburns brushing Hawley’s cheek, the fishing vest casting hooks into them both, tying the men together, metal to skin. Then Talbot dropped down into the dark of the reeds and Hawley continued to rise.
His first breath was half water, half air. His lungs vibrated deep in his chest from the effort. His head knocked against the side of the dock and he was sputtering and thrashing, bile rich and deep snaking its way up his throat. He tried again and the next breath was easier, less pressure against his ribs, but his vision blurred and then he was under again.
The bullets burned. He could barely move his legs. He threw out his arm once more, groping for the float, and a set of thin, strong fingers snatched hold of him. Lily’s fingers. Hawley would know them anywhere.
She couldn’t heft him onto the dock and so she towed Hawley to shore, dragging him along the edge of the wooden floats until he felt the lake bed beneath his back, his whole body clenched around the pain. Lily pulled him onto the sand. She put her mouth on his but she didn’t kiss him. She squeezed his nose and blew down into his lungs. Hawley coughed. He turned to the side and retched.
“I’m okay,” he wheezed, the air ripping his throat. “I’m all right.”
And then Lily was hitting him, smacking his shoulders and his face. She was kneeling in the sand. There was blood spattered across her green bathing suit, across her face and shoulders and legs. Hawley couldn’t tell if she was screaming or crying. His right ear was blocked and the left was still ringing from where the bullet had torn through.
“Louise!” she shouted. “Where’s Louise?”
Hawley rolled up onto his elbows, an agonizing hurt threading along his spine. He peered across the lake. The canoe was nowhere to be seen.
“She’s in the boat,” he said.
Lily pushed to her feet and started limping back down the length of the dock, holding on to her right side. She scanned the horizon. Hawley crawled after her, the pain too much to stand, his mind whirling. They swayed together like drunks. Lily’s whole body was shaking. Her hands covered with blood as she lifted them to block the sun from her eyes. Hawley’s twelve-gauge shotgun was at her feet.
“You’re hurt.”
She looked at her own trembling fingers. Then at the dark stain spreading across the fabric of her bathing suit. “His gun went off when I pulled the trigger. I don’t think he meant to shoot me. It was some kind of reflex,” said Lily. “I don’t feel anything.”
“That’s the adrenaline.” Hawley reached up and put pressure on the hole with his fingers. There wasn’t an exit wound. He worried about the caliber and what it might have done to her insides. If the bullet had torn through her kidneys or liver. If it had ruptured her stomach. If it had nicked an artery or major vessel, she would bleed out right here on the beach. He pressed harder. Lily screamed.
“Stop it,” she said.
“You’re in shock. We need to get you to a hospital.”
Lily’s eyes darted left, then right.
“I pushed the barrel against his chest. He let me walk right up and do it.”
“You had to.”
“No. I wanted to kill him,” she said. “The shotgun made a hole so big—I could have put my hand right through his body.”
Every movement she made seemed both frantic and slow. Beneath their feet, the dock was splattered with guts and fragments of bone. While overhead the sky was filled with the sound of a sputtering engine. A Cessna was chugging somewhere above the clouds, the pilot probably looking down on this very patch of blue water.
“What if she drowned? What if the boat sank?”
“It’s a good boat. A steady boat.”
Hawley kept his hand tight against her waist. Lily’s breath was coming in short, small bursts.
“You could have saved her. Instead of me you could have saved her. But you didn’t.”
“I was trying to save all of us,” said Hawley.
The sun emerged from behind a cloud and the lake began to shimmer. Hawley could still hear the airplane. He imagined it falling, wings askew, the propellers churning empty air. And then he was certain the crash was going to happen, as if he’d dreamed fragmented pieces of this lake and this plane and this exact sky all before, and was only now understanding how they fit together. He grabbed Lily’s arm and waited for a plume of smoke, the smell of gasoline. He cast his eyes on the horizon, and the flash of aluminum came like a sign.
“There,” he said, and pointed across the lake.
The canoe was nestled in a grove of trees on the opposite shore. A large branch covered the nose of the boat. Hanging over the edge, soaking up lake water, was a corner of the elephant blanket.
Lily ripped away from him and then she was stumbling along the length of the dock. She ran past the shotgun, past Talbot’s blood soaking through the boards. She leapt from the edge, pushing the splintered wood away with her feet, and dove headfirst into the waves. She stayed under for a long time but then surfaced, some twenty feet away, and as soon as she did she started working a fast crawl, until there were only her arms churning, elbows bending in and out of the waves and the occasional flash of her face dipping to the side to snatch a breath. The silver canoe that held their daughter floated in the distance, and his wife swam toward it, met by her own reflection, moving away from Hawley and the dock with such speed that she left a wake behind her, a V of flattened water that spread from her body like a formation of birds flying south for the winter.
And then, about halfway across the lake, her pace began to slow. Her face tilted more often for air. Her arms lowered and then barely lifted. She switched to a breaststroke, and then a sidestroke and then she stopped to rest. Her head tilted back. Her mouth open.
Hawley jumped off the dock. He tried to make his way to her.
He thrashed.
He sank.
He choked.
He tried.
He sank.
He choked.
He grabbed the dock. He looked out across the lake. She was still treading water.
“Lily!” he shouted. “Come back!”