The House Across the Lake(3)

I’m on my own.

I grab the paddle again and start to row toward the person in the water. A woman, I see now. Her hair is long. A one-piece bathing suit exposes a tanned back, long legs, toned arms. She floats like driftwood, bobbing gently in the boat’s wake.

Yet another image of Len pushes into my brain as I scramble for the anchor tied to one of the cleats on the boat’s rim. The anchor isn’t heavy—only twenty pounds—but weighty enough to keep the boat from drifting. I drop it into the water, the rope attached to it hissing against the side of the boat as it sinks to the lake’s bottom.

Next, I snag a life vest stowed under one of the seats, stumble to the side of the boat, and join the anchor in the water. I enter the lake awkwardly. No graceful dive for me. It’s more of a sideways plop. But the coldness of the water sobers me like a slap. Senses sharpened and body stinging, I tuck the life vest under my left arm and use my right to paddle toward the woman.

I’m a strong swimmer, even half drunk. I grew up on Lake Greene and spent many summer days more in the water than out of it. And even though fourteen months have passed since I’ve submerged myself in the lake, the water is as familiar to me as my own bed. Bracing, even on the hottest days, and crystal clear for only a moment before darkness takes over.

Splashing toward the floating woman, I search for signs of life.

There’s nothing.

No twitch of her arms or kick of her feet or slow turn of her head.

One thought echoes through my skull as I reach her. Part plea, part prayer.

Please don’t be dead. Please, please be alive.

But when I hook the life vest around her neck and flip her over, she doesn’t look alive. Hugged by the life vest and with her head tilted toward the sky, she resembles a corpse. Closed eyes. Blue lips. Frigid skin. I connect the straps at the bottom of the life vest, tightening it around her, and slap a hand to her chest.

No trace of a heartbeat.

Fuck.

I want to shout for help again, but I’m too winded to get the words out. Even strong swimmers have their limits, and I’ve reached mine. Exhaustion pulls at me like a tide, and I know a few more minutes of paddling in place while clinging to a maybe/probably dead woman might leave me just like her.

I put one arm around her waist and use the other to start paddling back to the boat. I have no idea what to do when I reach it. Cling to the side, I guess. Hold on tight while also holding on to the likely/definitely dead woman and hope I regain enough lung power to scream again.

And that this time someone will hear me.

Right now, though, my main concern is getting back to the boat at all. I didn’t think to grab a life vest for myself, and now my strokes are slowing and my heart is pounding and I can no longer feel my legs kicking, even though I think they still are. The water’s so cold and I’m so tired. So scarily, unbearably exhausted that for a moment I consider taking the woman’s life vest for myself and letting her drift into the depths.

Self-preservation kicking in.

I can’t save her without saving myself first, and she might already be beyond rescue. But then I think again about Len, dead for more than a year now, his body found crumpled on the shore of this very lake. I can’t let the same thing happen to this woman.

So I continue my one-armed paddling and numb kicking and tugging of what I’m now certain is a corpse. I keep at it until the boat is ten feet away.

Then nine.

Then eight.

Beside me, the woman’s body suddenly spasms. A shocking jolt. This time, I do let go, my arm recoiling in surprise.

The woman’s eyes snap open.

She coughs—a series of long, loud, gurgling hacks. A spout of water flies from her mouth and trickles down her chin while a line of snot runs from her left nostril to her cheek. She wipes it all away and stares at me, confused, breathless, and terrified.

“What just happened?”

“Don’t freak out,” I say, recalling her blue lips, her ice-cold skin, her utter, unnerving stillness. “But I think you almost drowned.”





Neither one of us speaks again until we’re both safely in the boat. There wasn’t time for words as I clawed, kicked, and climbed my way up the side until I was able to flop onto the boat floor like a recently caught fish. Getting the woman on board was even harder, seeing how her near-death experience had sapped all her energy. It took so much tugging and lifting on my part that, once she was in the boat, I was too exhausted to move, let alone speak.

But now, after a few minutes of panting, we’ve pulled ourselves into seats. The woman and I face each other, shell-shocked by the whole situation and all too happy to rest a few minutes while we regroup.

“You said I almost drowned,” the woman says.

She’s wrapped in a plaid blanket I found stowed under one of the boat’s seats, which gives her the look of a kitten rescued from a storm drain. Battered and vulnerable and grateful.

“Yes,” I say as I wring water from my flannel shirt. Because there’s only one blanket on board, I remain soaked and chilly. I don’t mind. I’m not the one who needed rescue.

“Define almost.”

“Honestly? I thought you were dead.”

Beneath the blanket, the woman shudders. “Jesus.”

“But I was wrong,” I add, trying to soothe her obvious shock. “Clearly. You came back on your own. I did nothing.”