Loo tore the Bible page into pieces, carried it into the bathroom, dumped the shreds into the toilet and flushed, the ink swelling and bleeding and then spinning down the hole and out of her life. Loo washed her hands at the sink, and then, when she turned off the faucet, she heard the toilet start to ring. The bowl had flushed fine but there was a vibration in the water. Loo jiggled the handle. The ringing continued. She jiggled some more. The ringing would not stop, steady and high-pitched and irritatingly insistent. She eased down the toilet seat, and then lifted the heavy porcelain lid off the tank.
There was something in the water. A row of containers set along the bottom, underneath the float. Loo reached down into the cold wet and pulled out a jar and set it dripping on the counter next to the sink. The glass was clouded, the metal top beginning to rust along the edges. She pulled out three more jars. Then she opened one. The metal ring left traces of red dust on her fingertips, and the scent of licorice filled the room.
The candy was long and thin as black shoelaces. Loo threaded her fingers into the sticky nest and felt something hidden underneath. She dumped the licorice into the sink and behind it came fat rolls of hundred-dollar bills, held tightly together with rubber bands. Loo pulled one loose and counted ten thousand dollars. The money was crisp and stiff, like it had never been used, and the bottom of each bill was stained a brownish red, the same color that had been left on Loo’s fingers when she’d turned the lid. She opened the other jars and dumped out the same candy and rolls of money. She counted it all. She counted it again. There was more than $450,000 in the sink.
Loo sat down on the edge of the tub. She tried to remember the last time she’d opened the back of the toilet. Was it two months ago? Three? There had never been anything inside but murky water. She picked up one of the billfolds and examined it closely, running her finger along the edge. The stain was not powder or rust. It was blood that had soaked through the bills to the center of Hawley’s money. All she could think about as she replaced the bandaged rolls, covered them with candy and set the jars back inside the tank was who that blood had belonged to. Then she reached into the water and adjusted the float and stopped the pipes from ringing.
—
SHE FOUND HAWLEY at the marina, surrounded by motorboats and catamarans and day sailors and cruisers of every shape and size—in dry dock or hitched up to moorings in the harbor. The crane operator was in the cabin overhead and calling down instructions and Hawley was securing chains and canvas straps around the hull of Jove’s sailboat, which was still perched on top of its trailer. They were using the basin’s stiff-leg crane, which was normally busy this time of year hoisting fishing trawlers and luxury yachts out of the ocean and onto their winter storage cradles. Loo locked her bike to the fence, then started across the parking lot, running into Jove as he came out of the harbormaster’s office.
“Good—you’re here!” he said, shoving his wallet into the front of his pants. “Now you can do the christening, and my send-off will be properly blessed. I’m sure you’re sick of having me hanging around the house.”
“I’m not a priest,” said Loo.
“You’re a woman,” said Jove. “That’s close enough.”
He was wearing clothes from the catalog Loo had found at their house—fancy leather boating shoes and a windbreaker covered in reflective decals that was supposed to double as a tent in bad weather. He even had the captain’s cap, with the gold braid. He tipped the hat now at Loo, then hurried off to talk to the crane operator.
Across the dock, Hawley lifted his head when he heard her voice. He tied off the ropes he was handling underneath the boat and waved her over.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’ve got something for you.” Loo held out the Polaroid of Lily in the hospital, smiling and holding her newborn baby.
Hawley wiped his fingers on his T-shirt and grabbed the picture. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the image and then—was it joy? Was that what she was seeing? It was as if the sun had shifted to brighten every inch of his skin.
“I brought the Firebird back to Mabel Ridge,” Loo said.
Just as quickly as it had come, the happiness drained out of Hawley’s face. His hand tightened around the photograph. “What did she tell you?”
“She said you left me after Mom died.”
Loo could tell this was not what her father had expected to hear. His gaze faltered and drifted back to the picture, so that when he finally spoke, it was as if he were talking to Lily and the baby instead of her. “I never wanted you to think I didn’t care,” he said. “That’s why I never said anything.”
“So it’s true.”
“Yes,” said Hawley. “But I came back.”
“After four years?” Loo said. “What the hell were you doing?”
Hawley would not look at her. He stared at the photo instead. Then he tucked the picture under his palm and slid it into his pocket. Loo realized, as she watched him steal it away, that he had probably been the one behind the camera, framing the image, adjusting the flash, taking the shot.
“Did you kill her?”
“What?”
“Did you kill my mother.”
Hawley took a step back, as if she’d just hit him with her rock-in-a-sock. She nearly felt sorry for him, even though she was so angry at him for abandoning her, even though she’d had to dig the truth about who he was from the back of the toilet with her own hands. Her father’s jaw went tight. She knew he was making up his mind how to answer. And then his face smoothed out, the way it did right before he was about to throw someone off a pier.
“She’d be alive if she hadn’t met me,” said Hawley. “So yes. It’s my fault she’s gone.”
Loo felt sick. Her father would not meet her eyes. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, but his voice remained steady and cold and hard as he told Loo the rest of the story she’d been waiting to hear. About a young family enjoying a day at the lake, about a shadow stepping in between them, about a baby and a gun and a father and a mother and a body slipping beneath the surface. As he spoke Hawley’s voice became more hollow, as if he’d created some distant version of himself, a shell that was standing in for his own body.
“Talbot came after us because of something I’d done. I’d hurt somebody he loved and he wanted to hurt me back. But your mother protected me. She protected us both.”
“So he killed her.”
“Yes.”
“And I was there, too?” It had never occurred to Loo that she had been a part of this story. That the blue dot on the map that fit beneath her finger had contained her as well as her parents. Somewhere, hidden deep inside her consciousness, were her own memories of what had happened. A thorn from a teacup fallen into a crack on the floor. If she could find the right tool to slip it loose, that day would no longer belong just to Hawley, and she would finally know what her mother’s breath had felt like on her cheek.
“Yes,” said Hawley. “But we made you safe. We made you safe together.”
The crane rose and the chains clanked into place. There was a groan as the sailboat lifted off its trailer.
“There she goes!” Jove cried.
Hawley put his hand on Loo’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” he said.
“You told me never to say I’m sorry.”