Bark was the only one home when I got to Nan’s. I opened the door. He let out a long, desperate whine when he saw me. I bent to pet him and he knocked me over, frantically licking my face. He sniffed at my hair. Pushed his head under my hand. Maybe he’d thought I wasn’t coming back for him. Maybe he thought he’d done something wrong.
“Oh, buddy. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Fat tears ran down my face. He shoved his head into my armpit.
“Barky,” I said, kissing his head. “I’m not going to do that again. I’m not going to leave you.”
When he was done inspecting, reasonably certain I had come home in one piece, he ran from the hallway and came prancing back with Murray dangling from his mouth. He looked at me and stepped toward the living room, and then looked back at me. A few more steps. Another look. Like he was trying to use Murray to lure me into following him.
Bark settled on the couch. I sat next to him, tugging at Murray’s leg as Bark tugged back. I felt forgiven. I knew there was more work, that it wasn’t as easy as Murray and kisses and a good scratch behind the ears. But he didn’t hate me. He wasn’t afraid of me.
“You’re a good boy,” I said. He watched me with his mismatched eyes, soulful and sweet. Then he shook Murray to get me to tug again.
When Bark was done playing, I searched for the remote and noticed Luca’s camera, hooked up to the TV. I got up and turned it on.
The footage was queued to the start of the show, but I went back further. This was the camera at surface level. Toward the beginning of the file, I found myself. No one was manning that camera when it happened, so I was spared a close-up view. I was a screaming figure at the side of the pool, but it was clear enough to see the terror in my eyes, even from a distance. I yelled at Mo. My voice sounded hollow, unfamiliar.
When I attempted to lift Bark out of the pool I was singular in focus. Fast. Strong. Even in the struggle. What had felt like ages only lasted forty-three seconds.
I rewound, and watched the moment when he jumped in. Forty-three seconds. Rewind. Watch again. Before I got to him, Bark was fine. Swimming to me. He wasn’t drowning. But when I got him out of the pool, his legs shook with fear.
I did that to him. I turned what was okay into something that wasn’t.
The front door opened, but I couldn’t stop watching. Horrified. Aching.
“Hey.” It was Luca.
I’d worried so much about what I would say to Luca on the way home, but the first thing that came out of my mouth was “You’re not going to use this, are you?”
“Of course not,” Luca said, kneeling on the floor next to me. “Of course not. I was going to delete it, but when I saw it—your fear was so primal—I thought maybe if you saw that, you’d be more kind to yourself. Mo said you were embarrassed. But what happened, it doesn’t look like something you could help.” He touched my arm. “Like when you tried to save me?”
I turned away. “You knew. You were the only person at school who knew what happened to my dad. And then you jumped in.” I felt a twinge in my bottom lip, and willed myself not to cry.
“But I didn’t die.”
“You could have.”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t even care. When I pulled you out, you didn’t even care.” I remembered that there’d been a pack of peppermint gum in the pocket of my puffy coat. When I walked home, hands in my wet pockets, the gum made my fingers sticky and my eyes stung when I wiped tears away.
“I was embarrassed,” Luca said softly. “I didn’t need saving.”
“You can say that for sure, because I saved you. You were so drunk. I thought you were dead. When they called for you, you didn’t call back. I thought you were dead.” I couldn’t shake the feeling of being trapped in wet down.
“I didn’t do it to scare you.” Luca’s voice was heavy and careful. “I felt like the other kids. For like five minutes, I felt like a normal kid.” He sniffed. Ran his hand along the stubble on his cheek. “I could help. I would do anything to help. But you can’t expect everyone to sit vigil for your fears, Katie.”
“That’s not—I don’t—” I thought about all the people dressed in black at my father’s funeral. No one else mourned him long enough. No one mourned me. I stopped being normal and no one ever mourned for me.
“So that’s why we ended?” Luca asked, rubbing at his forehead with his palm. “Because I jumped in the quarry?”
“I couldn’t stand how much I loved you.” My voice sounded hollow, like it had in the video.
“That’s stupid,” he said, a flash of anger in his eyes. “That’s so stupid. You loved me so much you had to marry someone else? I thought you didn’t love me. I always thought that was the problem.”
“I’m not good enough,” I said. I could almost smell wet feathers. “I wasn’t then. I’m not now.”
“Don’t.”
“What am I supposed to do, Luca? I just got divorced. I lost two babies. I wasn’t okay to begin with. I’m not going to suddenly be fine now.”
“Twice now,” Luca said quietly. “Twice now, we slept together, and I thought it was the beginning of something.”
“I’m sorry.” I wanted to cling to him for comfort, but that wasn’t fair. His hurt lived in the back of his eyes. Like mine. It could get worse, it could wane, but it would never go away. I didn’t want him to pay the price of me on top of everything else. “I’d love to believe you can come along and fix me, but you can’t. And I can’t get better by dragging you down.”
“I thought I got you back,” Luca said.
“I’m going to go,” I said, holding back sobs. “I don’t want to watch you leave.”
Luca sighed. Tears in his eyes. “If that’s the way you feel about me leaving, how . . .” His voice trailed off.
He hugged me, and I hugged him back, for a moment, then I pulled away.
I whispered, “I won’t be gone long!” to Bark, so softly that only he would hear it, and walked out the front door without stopping for my shoes.
I ran to Bitsie’s and hid in Bunny’s room, sewing scrap squares together to make a quilt. The rhythm of the sewing machine told me over and over that I’d made a mistake.