Verity(65)

He sat down at the edge of the dock and stuck his feet in the canoe. I was surprised it hadn’t floated away yet. It was hanging by a threadbare rope.

Crew doesn’t know it, and maybe he’ll find out one day, but he was conceived in that canoe. The week I lied and told Jeremy I was pregnant was the most prolific week of sex we’d had to date. But I’m pretty sure it was the canoe that did the trick. It’s why I wanted to name him Crew. I wanted a nautical-themed name.

I missed those days.

There were a lot of things I missed, actually. Mostly I missed our lives before we had children. The twins, anyway.

Sitting on the shore that day, watching Crew, I wondered what it would be like to only have him. It would be another adjustment if Harper were to pass, but I figured we’d get through it. I wasn’t much help after Chastin died because for a while, I was grieving too. But if Harper were to pass, I could be more help to Jeremy during his recovery.

This time, there would be very little grief on my part since all my grief was reserved for Chastin.

Maybe most of Jeremy’s grief was reserved for Chastin, too.

It was a possibility.

I used to assume that the individual deaths of a person’s children would be equally difficult for them. Losing a second or even third child would hurt just as much as the first experience.

But that was before Jeremy and I lost Chastin. Her death made us swell with grief. It filled every crevice inside of us, every limb.

If the canoe were to capsize with the children in it—if Harper were to drown—Jeremy might not have room for more grief. Maybe he was at full capacity.

When you’ve already lost one child, you might as well have lost them all.

With no room for more grief and Harper no longer around, the three of us could become the perfect family.

“Harper.”

She was several feet from me, playing in the sand. I stood up and wiped the back of my jeans. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go for a ride in the canoe with your brother.”

Harper jumped up, unaware as she stepped foot onto the dock that she’d never know what the earth felt like beneath her feet again.

“I get front,” she said. I followed her to the edge of the dock. I helped Crew climb in first, then Harper. Then I sat down and carefully lowered myself into the boat. I used the paddle to push away from the dock.

I was in the back of the boat, and Crew was in the middle. I paddled us out to the middle of the lake as they leaned over the edge, running their fingers in the water.

The lake was calm as I looked around. We lived in a cove with 2,000 feet of shoreline, so we didn’t get much of the lake traffic out here. It was a quiet day.

Harper sat up straight in the canoe and wiped her hands on her leggings. She turned around, her back to me Crew and me.

I leaned forward, close to Crew’s ear. I covered his mouth with my hand. “Crew. Sweetie. Hold your breath.”

I gripped the edge of the canoe and leaned all my weight to the right.

I heard a small yelp. I wasn’t sure if it came from Crew or Harper, but after the yelp and the initial splash, I heard nothing. Just pressure. The silence pressed against my ears as I kicked my arms and legs until I broke through the surface.

I could hear splashing. Harper’s scream. Crew’s scream. I swam toward Crew and wrapped my arms around him. I looked toward the house, hoping I could make it back to shore with him. We were farther out than I’d realized.

I started swimming. Harper was screaming.

Splashing.

I continued to swim.

She continued to scream.

Nothing.

I heard another splash.

More nothing.

I kept swimming and refused to look back until I could feel the mud seep between my toes. I gripped at the surface of the lake like it was a life vest. Crew was gasping and coughing, bobbing up and down, clinging to me. It was harder than I thought it would be to keep him afloat.

Jeremy would thank me for this. For saving Crew.

He’d be devastated, of course, but thankful, too.

I wondered if we’d sleep in the same bed that night. He would be exhausted, but he would want to sleep in the same bed as me, hold me, make sure I was okay.

“Harper!” Crew yelled as soon as he cleared his lungs of water.

I covered Crew’s mouth and dragged him to the shore, plopping him down on the sand. His eyes were wide with fear. “Mommy!” he cried, pointing behind me. “Harper can’t swim!”

Sand was all over me, stuck to my hands, my arms, my thighs. My lungs felt like fire. Crew tried to crawl back toward the water, but I pulled his hand and made him sit down. The ripples from the commotion of the water were still lapping at my toes. I looked out at the lake, but there was nothing. No screaming. No splashing.

Crew was growing more and more hysterical.

“I tried to save her,” I whispered. “Mommy tried to save her.”

“Go get her!” he screamed, pointing out at the lake.

I wondered then how it would look if he told anyone I didn’t go back out into the water. Most mothers wouldn’t leave the water until they’d found their child. I needed to get back in the water.

“Crew. We need to save Harper. Do you remember how to use Mommy’s phone to call Daddy?”

He nodded, wiping tears from his cheeks.

“Go. Go to the house and call Daddy. Tell him Mommy is trying to save Harper and he needs to call the police.”