Page 17 of Buried in the Woods Below

The dimples on his cheeks peek out. “You heard it here first. Whenever I need them to do something they don’t want to do and they ask me why, I say it’s the government.”

“For example?”

“For example. Kids, it’s eight p.m.—time to go to bed. Why? The government says all children must go to bed at eight. My hands are tied. It’s the law.”

“And that works?”

“Of course. You don’t want Dad to go to jail, do you?” A honey chuckle.

“Of course not.”

He eases the boat in a wide arc around a sailboat heading to shore. A cool mist of lake water spritzes us.

“Okay, what else you got?” I say, taking another sip of bootleg, my cheeks flushing from the vodka and gin.

“I can go all night. Let’s see. Never, and I mean never, cut short physical activity. I don’t care if they’ve been swimming for six hours and all you want is to take a nap—don’t do it. Because if you do, you’ll be paying for it all night. The key is you’ve got to tire them out.”

“Fatigue them. Got it. Like prisoners released for supervised time in the yard.”

“Exactly.”

He pushes forward on the throttle, zooming us through the bay.

“I’m only half serious. The girls can be a little difficult, but they’re good kids.”

The phrase sticks with me. A little difficult. But I say nothing.

For the next five minutes, we coast beneath a sky streaked with orange and periwinkle. We pass lakeside mansions with immaculately manicured lawns, striped boat slips, and the stray weeping willow tilting over the water. Eric schools me on his unorthodox babysitting best practices, and I soak in the boat ride. After five years under fluorescent lights and in nonstop meetings, standing under open sky feels like a reset. I peek behind me. My mom is so at ease she may never wake up. Maybe we both needed the break.

But then he taps me on the shoulder and the energy changes. He points in the distance. “There it is. Big Island. Isn’t it beautiful?”

I shift my gaze and see Big Island rising like a specter from the water. But it’s not beautiful—it’s haunting. Mist creeps along the surface of the water and then drifts toward the sky, casting the island in an eerie veil. An impenetrable wall of trees guards the shoreline, their trunks twisted and bent. In the twilight, the sliver of land appears isolated, imposing. Black birds circle the canopy, their caws a warning cry. The air grows noticeably cooler. The lake, narrower and stiller. Darkness cloaks the landscape.

I glance at Eric, but his face reveals none of my trepidation. It’s quite the opposite. His head is high, his chin is up, his eyes twinkle. “Look at that mist! Isn’t it charming? This season, it drifts in nightly. The water’s warm from the summer, then the cool fall air drifts over it, and boom.”

I wrap my arms around myself to ward off the chill. “How did you all decide on Big Island?” I ask in the least judgmental tone I can muster.

Eric flashes a self-satisfied grin as he pulls back on the throttle. “It was my idea.” He points to a waterway cleaving the center of the island. “You see that channel? My great-grandfather used to own the land on one half of the channel. I loved visiting as a kid. Back then, the island was even less developed than it is now. It was a paradise. There were animals of all different sorts. Sheep, goats, deer. You could literally walk side by side with the deer. I used to pretend that I’d been stranded on a deserted island. Like in Lord of the Flies.”

“That didn’t turn out great for the kids in Lord of the Flies.”

Eric chuckles, crescents in his kind cheeks. “Yeah, I think I missed that part of the book’s messaging.”

“So, is that where we’re staying? Your great-grandfather’s place?”

A deep line forms between Eric’s eyebrows. He stares into the fog as though searching for a memory. “No, my great-grandfather ran into hard times and sold the place to another family. Didn’t go over well.” His Adam’s apple bobs.

“What’s going on over there?” I gesture toward a scattering of boats anchored in the bay opposite the island.

“That’s Cruiser’s Cove. Used to go there every weekend as a teenager and tie up boats in one massive flotilla. Big parties. You should see it on July Fourth. You can walk from boat to boat for half a mile.”

I smile, but a different memory of July Fourth flits through my mind. When I was eleven, a drunken boater ran over my classmate’s brother while he was swimming.

The propeller split his skull in two.

I shake the thought and return my attention to Eric.

“It’s so isolated out here.”