Page 49 of Based on You

Olivia and I headed down the sloping path to the lake.

We sat at the edge of the wooden dock, dangling our feet above the cold water, the morning air brisk and still around us. The wide lake held the early light in long, flat, glittering strips. We didn't say anything for a while.

Then Olivia spoke. "Mom always said the lake was a really special place for her. She said it was yours and hers."

I looked out at the glassy water. "It is. There's a reason for that."

Olivia turned her head to look at me, waiting.

I told her the story.

"We were young," I began. "Elena was twelve, I was fourteen. This is where our family came during the summers. Elena couldn't swim. Neither could I, not well. We'd both been forced into lessons that gave us the theory of swimming without any of the confidence. I was showing off on the very edge of the dock, right where it drops off into the deeper water." I paused, the memory surfacing. "I slipped."

Olivia turned to face me fully, caught.

"I went straight in. The cold hit my lungs, and I panicked. The panic was the real problem, not the depth. I couldn't get my arms to listen to my brain. I was going under." I stared at the rippling water. "Elena was on the dock right above me, screaming for help. There were adults further up the shore. She was screaming and pointing, and I could see her terrified face from below the surface."

"And then what happened?" Olivia breathed.

"She stopped screaming."

Olivia's eyes went wide.

"She jumped in. She couldn't swim. She knew she couldn't swim. She jumped in anyway. She grabbed my hand underwater." I paused. "We went down into the dark together. We were still holding hands when someone finally pulled us both out."

Olivia let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh, the disbelief still working its way across her face. "She jumped in knowing she couldn't swim?"

"She did."

"Oh my God."

"Afterward, when the adults were wrapping us in towels and asking a million frantic questions," I said, a sad smile touching my lips, "someone asked Elena why she hadn't just kept calling for help. Why she jumped in instead." I looked at Olivia. "She thought about it a moment and said, 'I didn't want to leave him. I'd rather have died with him than watched.'"

Olivia's eyes filled with fresh tears.

She looked out at the water and didn't say anything for a long, heavy moment. "She really loved you," she whispered.

"I know. I loved her too. And losing her—" I stopped, the words snagging on the way out. I looked out at the water. "It opened a darkness in me no light is ever going to reach all the way. That's just what it is."

Olivia was quiet another moment. Then she said, "I'm so sorry I shut you out all these months."

I let out a short, hollow laugh. "If I didn't have a company and responsibilities, I'd have shut you out too."

She made a wet sound that was almost a laugh.

We sat on the wood a long time. We talked openly about Elena. We talked about her late husband. We talked about heavy things we'd avoided since the funeral, two grieving people wildly out of practice but trying. We talked until the cold of the dock seeping through our clothes mattered more than anything else, and then we walked back up the dirt path.

When we came through the kitchen door, I stopped where I stood.

Balloons now ran along the ceiling, trailing their curling ribbons. The heavy table had been reset with nice plates and the lopsided cake at the center, candles waiting in it, unlit. Colorful streamers stretched the length of the room. The small banner had been flanked by two more, slightly crooked, clearly hurried, but there. Violet was wiping down the counter. She turned when we came in and said nothing, just stood back and watched Olivia take it all in.

Olivia slapped a hand over her mouth.

She stood there a long moment, looking around the transformed room. Then she leaned in close to me and whispered, "Maybe she's the light, Uncle Simon."

I looked across the kitchen at Violet, who'd turned back to the counter and was straightening a twisted ribbon on one of the balloons.

I didn't say a word. The darkness she was naming was real. Losing Elena had ripped something foundational out of the house, and I'd been numbly living in what was left. Violet walked into rooms, and the whole atmosphere changed. That was what she brought. It wasn't the same as what Elena had brought. It was hers.