“Of course.”
“What did I say?”
I open my mouth and nothing useful slips out. He folds his arms over his chest. This is unfair because his chest is bare, his arms are ridiculous, and I am a woman trying to perform basic listening under unreasonable working conditions.
“You said…” I point vaguely at the water. “Important safety things.”
“Specific.”
“I’m more of a big-picture thinker.”
“You’re a second-grade teacher.”
“Yes, and sometimes the big picture is that everyone survived recess.”
That earns me the actual smile, though it’s brief. It is also devastating. It should be regulated. Hudson shakes his head once and steps beside me, close but not touching.
“This ledge drops clean into the deep pocket of the cove. No shelf underneath. No rocks. No debris as of this morning.”
“As of this morning?”
“I checked.”
I turn my head. “You checked?”
“Yes.”
“Before I got here?”
“Yes.”
I don’t know why that touches me. It should only be practical. Hudson seems built out of practical. He checks ropes, boards, trails, weather, lake depth, shoe soles, loose rocks, and probably the moral character of clouds before noon. But the idea of him checking the water before I arrived makes something inside me feel soft. I’m not sure I ever felt that in my marriage. Hudson came early to make sure I would be safe.
Harold used to promise summer trips by saying, “We’ll see how this quarter looks.”
Hudson promised me nothing except the chance to jump, then got up early and checked the water. I do not know what to do with the difference.
Hudson points to a darker patch below. “You jump straight out. Not down the rock face. Not at an angle. Out. Knees soft. Arms in close before you hit. Don’t lock up.”
“Don’t lock up,” I repeat.
His eyes move over my face. “You’re locking up right now.”
“I’m processing.”
“You’re overthinking.”
“That’s processing with a college degree.”
He looks down. I follow his gaze and immediately regret it. My toes have curled inside my water shoes like they are trying to dig a trench through rubber.
“Shoes off,” he says.
I stare at him. “Excuse me?”
“For the jump. You wore them for the trail. Good. Now you need your feet.”
“My feet are not emotionally prepared for public service.”
