We were spending the night with loaded weapons. Some of them were guns.
Flynn trekked off up the hill, and I sent Becky and Chan on a walk-through of Hazzard. Chan came back and gave Rudy the lay of the land. “Bad news. The threshold between the dock and the boat is too wide. I’ll have to carry you. Good news. After that, the entryways are wide.”
There was a prickly moment wherein I was torn between being upset for Rudy, who clearly hated this news, and delighted by Chan. He might not like Rudy but he wouldn’t emasculate him; he had far too much empathy for that to be the way he wounded an enemy.
“I’ll sleep in the truck,” Rudy said.
“That’s crazy,” Chan said.
“Would you want me to carry you?” Rudy asked.
“Hell no, but we’re all doing things we don’t want to do on this trip.”
In the end, Chan carried Rudy over the gap and the guys retreated to their corners. A good idea since they probably had to share a bed later.
Chan commandeered the table, burying himself in his sketchbook. I sat nearby, watching the weightless way his pencil glided over the paper. Granddad’s barn appeared with the door skidded sideways and the cavernous bus in shadows. On the corner, he roughed in his own face. He flipped the page over quickly and started another sketch. Caroline’s eyes. He flipped again. His hand was heavy now, pressing lead to the page.
I watched for an hour, and that was my limit. I went out to the deck, passing Becky on her way in. Her head was bowed, her posture sagging. I caught her arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, but she meant everything. Her eyes were on Caroline.
“I’m here,” I said, the words just popping out.
“I know you are.” She paused long enough for me to rest my forehead against hers. Becky Cable didn’t need me—she never had, but she appreciated my stilted attempt at comfort. There were many ways to be strong, and Becky was all of them, even as she was walking away from a situation she didn’t know how to solve. “See if you can help her.” Caroline was a heap of shadows perched on the edge of the boat. “I’ve tried all my tricks.”
That was the problem with tricks. Tricks could make a sad person laugh, but they couldn’t keep them laughing after everyone went home. I sat near Caroline and listened to the frogs and the stars and the water striders doing their breaststrokes. Liquid pooled around Caroline’s clothes, ran down her outstretched hand and returned to the lake, ran sideways on the aluminum deck and wet my shorts. She watched droplets fall like they were each a favorite television show. Her flesh was goose pimpled, and I heard the clatter of her teeth, but she didn’t complain. April in West Virginia was many things, but it wasn’t pleasant for swimming. A dip in this lake bordered on dangerous. No wonder Becky was upset.
It was a long time before I spoke. “What happened on the Gravitron?”
“Nothing. Everything. I flipped around upside down.”
I pictured this.
The Gravitron was an enclosed spinning ride that generated g-forces. At maximum speed, you looked like a shrink-wrapped human. Clothing tightened. Bodies pressed against the wall. The floor dropped three or four feet and you were suspended. You felt like you were dying when you turned your head to see the person next to you. If Caroline was inverted when the ride slowed . . . I saw why Chan had been furious. She might have broken her neck.
“Why would you do that?”
Her heels bounced against the hull of Miss Hazzard. “That’s what Becky asked.”
“It’s a decent question.”
“Come on. Tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
“Turning myself upside down on the Gravitron? Because no, I haven’t. I feel like we have wildly differently ideas of what makes a ride fun.”
“We have wildly different ideas.”
“I think that’s fine.”
“Jennings, I wasn’t asking for your permission.”
“You’re wet as a fish. You’re sitting on the back deck alone. You’re asking for something, honeypie.” I had to take the risk. To ask the real question I hadn’t stopped asking since Rudy brought it up in the bathroom. “Caroline, did you come on this trip to kill yourself?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Did you tell Chan?”
“I didn’t have to, but he knew. He’s not mad at me. He’s scared. Maybe you forgot the difference. Or maybe you don’t get scared anymore.”
I was scared right then. “Do you have a plan?”
“Yes.”
And we sat there weighted down with her admission, unsure of what came next. Could I say, I’m not going to let you, when a person was not a thing you could carry in your pocket like a wallet or a phone? There were so many words in the English language, and maybe doctors and psychologists had ones that fit this situation, but I didn’t. I felt small and afraid and inadequate.
I moved closer. Our thighs touched. I slung my arm around her back, not caring that my side was damp and then wet. Not caring about anything except keeping her connected to me. “I wish you wouldn’t.” I turned sideways to say this, and in my peripheral vision, I caught a glint of moonlight in her lap.
Metal.
She had a gun.