The Drowning Child

47

Shannon Fuller walked through the living room and down the hallway to Seth’s bedroom. She knocked.

‘Enter!’ he said.

She opened the door. He was sitting on his bed, watching a video on his laptop.

‘Did you hear who died?’ said Shannon.

‘No,’ said Seth. ‘Who?’

‘Roger Lyle.’ She waited for a reaction. ‘You remember Mr Lyle? The swim coach.’

Seth nodded. ‘Of course I remember him. What happened?’

‘Well,’ said Shannon, ‘apparently, he killed himself. He was out in the retirement home and he went into his closet, hanged himself.’

‘Well, they won’t be putting that in the brochure,’ said Seth. ‘“Lots of hanging space”, “sturdy closet rails to take the weight of your abandoned loved one”.’

Shannon’s eyes widened. ‘Seth, that’s not very nice – Mr Lyle was always very good to you.’

Seth nodded. ‘He was.’

‘You won so many medals.’

‘I did,’ said Seth. ‘What a champ.’

‘Where are your medals?’ said Shannon.

‘I have no idea,’ said Seth. ‘They weren’t anywhere when we were moving here.’

‘Really?’ said Shannon. ‘That’s a shame. They would have looked great on the wall.’

Seth looked at her with a patient expression. ‘You’d want to be pretty desperate to rely on glory dating back over ten years. Child swimming champ...’

Shannon smiled. ‘I have no doubt you will go on to great glory in the future, so I guess you won’t need your medals to fall back on.’

‘Jeez. I hope not.’

‘The memorial service is on Thursday,’ said Shannon, ‘they’re waiting for some family members to arrive from overseas. Do you want to come with me, pay your respects?’

Seth nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘Poor Jimmy—’ said Shannon.

‘Yeah,’ said Seth. ‘Poor weird Jimmy.’ He paused. ‘Well, at least a space has opened up in the retirement home. Pay it forward.’

Shannon was frowning. ‘I think you got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.’

‘The cold side,’ said Seth. He stood up, stretched his arms. ‘I’m going to go take a walk.’

He grabbed a hoodie and pulled it on.

‘Walk?’ said Shannon. ‘At midnight? Where?’

‘Just into the woods,’ said Seth. ‘I thought maybe I could check the cabins, see what kind of mess the cops made of them. I feel people are stepping all over our lives.’

‘Aw, Seth, sweetheart,’ said Shannon. ‘We’re going to be OK.’ She hugged him tight.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know.’

Seth kept the beam on the flashlight low as he walked the path down to the cabins. The air was freezing, he had forgotten his jacket, his eyes were streaming. His hands were stuffed into his pockets for warmth. There was a bunch of keys in the right one, two single keys in the left.

As he walked, his shoulders were tight, he was hunching, holding his breath again.

‘Breathe,’ he said to himself. ‘Breathe.’

He tried to relax his body. He was tired of having to keep reminding himself to. It didn’t come naturally. He couldn’t remember a time when it had. But he guessed it was before his eighth birthday. He remembered his eighth birthday. It was the last one he spent with his mama – she was dead before the year was out. It was the best birthday he ever had.

His eyes were streaming now, not from the cold, but from the tears. He was aware of every sound in the woods, the leaves as the breeze blew through them, whatever critters were scurrying about, the lapping of the water. The crunch of his boots on the path felt loud and almost unbearable. But he loved all these sounds, because they weren’t prison sounds. They weren’t the sounds of caged men, desperate to avoid silence. Twenty-four seven the noise went on and sometimes he thought his head would blow.

He stopped at the farthest cabin. Instead of going left down to it, toward the water, he went right, up a slope with no path, no trail, no evidence that there was anything up there. There was certainly nothing that made it on to any map, nothing that would have appeared on an aerial view of the property.

It was a small hut, no bigger than eight by ten. The roof was covered over by earth, ivy grew around it, and it was sheltered by trees. It had thin windows with wooden shutters, and strong locks. Clyde Brimmer had built it back in the late eighties, and spent a little time every spring maintaining it as best he could.

Seth had just taken the key from his pocket when he heard footsteps coming toward him. He froze. He turned around. A woman was standing in the shadows, close enough that he could smell the liquor on her breath. She was swaying back and forth.

A cloud shifted in the sky, and she was illuminated by the moon. Seth squinted into the hazy light.

‘Isabella?’ he said.

‘I can’t stand this any more,’ she replied.