He’d found her in Seattle four months ago, years between their last meeting. His surprise was evident when he noticed her behind the counter of Bar Henry, a spot he’d stumbled into by chance. But it wasn’t chance. He knew it had to be fate, walking into that particular bar on that particular night. He didn’t even like wine, and that was virtually all they served.
Fate.
The man didn’t know what she’d say if she saw him, or if she would recognize him after all that time. So he’d visit, night after night, watching from the end of the bar as she’d pour booze into the empty glasses of strangers, flashing a bewitching, coy smile their way. How he yearned for her to look at him with such fervor.
But he kept his distance and eventually moved to observe her from a high-top table in the corner, shrouded in soft candlelight, promising himself that someday he would speak to her. Until that day arrived, he watched her from behind novels to remain as inconspicuous aspossible, worried a coworker would notice if he blatantly stared in her direction. Planting a tiny spy camera behind a wall sconce came to mind, but he swiftly dismissed the idea. He wasn’t astalker, he assured himself. Admiring an old fling was all it was.
One rain-drenched spring evening a short while later, he finally gathered the courage. He pulled up a stool right at the bar and gave her the chance to remember him. But she didn’t seem to recognize him. Maybe she was feeling sheepish, he thought. Keeping all the thrill of seeing him imprisoned inside her, ready to flood out like wine from all the bar’s bottles. But if that’s how she felt, she never showed it. When she turned around to make his drink, he dashed outside, his exit only visible by the flash of his coat out the doorway. He hoped she’d think she dreamt it, of him.
As the rain pattered down, he waited, and waited, and waited in a diner across the street for her to finish work. A mug of lukewarm coffee in his hand, he did nothing but stare out the window waiting for her to stroll by.
Each time the bouncy-haired waitress stopped by to check on him or refill his cup, he became more enraged. Had he missed Imogen walking past? Had she taken a different route home? Sometimes he didn’t even reply to the inquisitive waitress. Unflinching, his gaze would hold on the street beyond the glass. He wasn’t going to let this woman ruin his chance of spotting Imogen. But still, she’d hang around and ask, “Sir, would you like more coffee?” or “Can I get you anything else?”—impatient for an answer that would never come. In his mind’s eye, he’d heave the coffee at her face and demand she leave him alone. Such a thought brought a tiny, satisfied smile to his lips, as if he’d actually done it.
Two hours into his stakeout, his eyes burned, begging him to surrender. The glaring diner lights reflecting off the window werebecoming impossible to bear in his peripherals. He rubbed his eyes, one eyeball at a time, keeping his gaze fixed outside. Until finally, Imogen strolled by in a hurry. Hands in her pockets and scarlet coat buttoned tight against her, she squinted her eyes against the downpour.
The man slammed the laminate tabletop with cash and discreetly rushed up behind her, keeping a healthy distance between his front and her back. Another smile cracked his face, feeling as though he was escorting her home. It was romantic, he thought. Better to guide her from the shadows, the way a man guards what’s his.
When they reached her building a few blocks away, he bid her good night inside his head and waited across the street for her unit’s lights to turn on, ensuring she had gotten inside. Considering she lived on the fourth floor, he could only see the top half of her body as she came in. But that was enough to satisfy him. The man couldn’t help but hold his gaze as she dropped the coat off her shoulders and hung it on the rack by the front door. Even though she shut her blinds seconds later, he sensed that she wanted him to stay, protecting her from the dangers of the city. So he remained at his post, his mind on fire imagining all the things she could be doing. It was so ablaze that he considered marching up, letting himself in. But he knew it wasn’t time.
He’d tried to focus on other girls after Imogen, thinking he’d never see her again after what happened. For a stretch, the other girls worked as distractions. But they teased him, mocked him, neglected him, even though he’d given them everything. In the end, they twisted things, made him out to be cruel. As if loving someone too much was a bad thing. What he had to do to the last girl was such a pity.
So here he’s been. In Blair. Patiently awaiting Imogen’s return. He’d wondered if Alice’s passing would prompt her to come backand meet him where their story budded. And it came true. Because as he’d sat in the window admiring the dark skies overhead this afternoon, he could see across the way as her car rolled up the Bly driveway, heading toward her dead mother’s house.
The man’s gut tumbled in knots so violent that he almost became sick at the fleeting sight of her shadowed profile as she drove past. All he wanted to do was chase after it and take her into his arms. But he’d calculated every move thus far to bring them together again, and he wasn’t about to spoil his plans.
Seattle wasn’t the right setting for their reunion. It had to be here, where it all started.
3
AMELIA
We didn’t ask for an autopsy. They’re not automatically performed in all situations in our state, not that Imogen or I knew the rules, with this being our first encounter with death. Our healthy and fit mother dying at fifty-four didn’t make sense to us, or anyone else who knew her. But without signs to the contrary, her death was determined to be a tragic drowning accident, with no reason to question that conclusion.
We came to learn that Washington state law permits medical examiners to perform autopsies if they see fit, but since the crinkly skinned man at the county office didn’t find grounds to perform one, our mom was set in line for cremation without the intrusion.
It was simply an attack by Mother Nature, fastening Mom’s name to a list of thousands who die annually from vicious storms: lightning, wind, earthquakes, fires, and, in her case, rain.
Mom was a serial pedal boater. It had been her daily exercise for as long as I can remember, something she usually did before dusk, as the sun made the surface of the water glow orange and pink, when she could pretend she was gliding on sherbet. She’d be out for over an hour, weather permitting, listening to birds or the water oscillating through the rear wheel. Imogen and I would watch her from the living room sometimes, like a remarkably uneventful reality TV show that would bore anyone else. She’d pedal across the two-mile surface that makes up our private lake, returning after dark with a smile. They’re beautiful memories that have only recently withered to something rotten and wicked. When I look at the lake now, all I see are the waves snuffing her out. No more birdsong or cheer, just death, ever since the officers arrived at Lake Blair that dreadful Wednesday morning, finding her body washed up on the shallow shore near the community center after a freak end-of-summer storm, dripping in a cream nightgown, her body still, her skin an unnerving shade of blue.
I spoke to her on the phone the night before, and she was tired. She told me she hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks—though she didn’t explain why—and, being the restless woman she was, the only thing she felt would help wear her out enough to doze off was more exercise. I didn’t feel good about her going out at night, without even the light of the moon to guide her. But being in Seattle, I couldn’t stop her. And with Lake Blair being so safe and familiar, I’d never truly imagined something would happen out there to my I’m-going-to-live-forever mom. Even though she didn’t passthatnight, she must have gone out late again the following evening. Though I’m not sure why she was wearing her nightgown.
I was told the storm came out of nowhere, raining harder than it had in two years. For whatever reason, she took our old kayakout, something she hadn’t done in a while, to my knowledge. Like I said, serial pedal boater. It was found snagged on a neighbor’s canoe across the lake early the next morning, turned over on its face withBLYwritten underneath it in worn Sharpie.
I picture her rapidly paddling to get back to the dock after the rain began, water filling the boat faster than her paddle could propel her across the lake’s surface. The pure sense of regret ringing in her head, knowing there was little she could do, being up against a vicious and unpredictable force. That’s a difficult reality I had to face. That there were likely multiple minutes of terror and suffering that she endured, wishing she could teleport to shore. That thought will never leave me.
The kayak had eventually capsized, with rain beating her face hard enough to make breathing a challenge. Until finally, she couldn’t keep her mouth above the waves, and they took her under. The lake reaches forty feet at the center, so if she was caught offshore, she’d be unable to touch the soft mud below, with quick-swimming trout and bass darting around the space between her feet and the bottom.
Late the next morning, my mother’s ex-partner and longtime friend, Leo, drove down to the community dock to check for storm damage before heading into the offices across the street—he’s the de facto contractor of the area, doing all the building and repairs around here. Mom hadn’t shown up for work yet, Leo had been told by the woman who helped her run the lake club. With the neighborhood losing power from the storm, he figured she was running behind. But while checking for general destruction at the community docks, he saw splayed blonde hair and a foot, lightly bobbing in the waters below. That’s when he found her, at the mouth of the lake’s beach, lying on her back, as though she were having a peaceful morning float. It would have been easy, however, to tell that wasn’t the case,even without touching her. I can picture the overcast light hitting her cloudy, unblinking eyes. A neutral expression on her pale lips. Like a hollow mannequin greatly out of place.
I wonder if Leo made a sound when he saw her. A guttural cry that echoed on the still water, hitting the windows of every home in earshot.
These are the thoughts that haunt me.
After calling the police, Leo dialed me next. There was no reason to wait for officers to arrive and assess the scene, because he knew without a doubt that it was her, and he didn’t want another second going by without me and Imogen knowing she was gone. I hadn’t seen him in years, so when his name appeared on my phone, a knot immediately formed in the base of my abdomen. I didn’t even know what I thought was wrong, but it certainly wasn’t what he explained.
Not that.
He shakily whimpered into the phone, knowing how much of a loss this was, not just for the family, but for the entire community. For it to happen right there on the lake in a way that was completely avoidable made it that much more tragic.
