79
ANSON
Libby brushed her fingertips through my hair, this gentle caress.
We were at the edge of my lake near my parents’ house in Simpsonville, lying on a blanket next to the tree where I had once kept a cat.
That all seemed so long ago. The sun was high in the sky, warm even for such a mid-July day.
Libby had packed a lunch in an old basket I found in my parents’ basement.
One I vaguely remembered from my childhood.
Trips to the park with my parents. Sandwiches and homemade lemonade, sometimes pie.
Aside from the ripples in the surface from a duck near the center of the water, the lake was quiet. Birds chirped from the branches of the trees above, and tiny critters scurried about the forest floor, watching the two of us with curious eyes as they foraged for food.
I imagined a house here, nestled in the trees, edging the lake. Nothing too fancy—just a small cabin with a porch. A few windows that looked out upon the water and the woods beyond. The sound of children running through the brush, all giggles and playful laughter.
“You were right, Anson. It’s beautiful here.”
I brushed a flake of dried leaf from her cheek. “You’re beautiful,” I told her.
Oh, and she was. Her hair, pulled back in a ponytail, had taken on a golden shimmer in the sunlight. Her skin, slightly flushed with the warm summer air, radiated with life. I could get lost in her eyes. I could spend hours studying the lines of her full lips.
She leaned closer and kissed me with those lips, and I let her. I didn’t want her to stop. She did, though; she stopped and leaned back on her heels, this mischievous grin forming. “Has it been thirty minutes yet?”
I shielded my face and looked up at the sun, studying its position. “Closer to forty.”
I leaned in to kiss her again, but she pressed a fingertip to my mouth. “You promised we could go for a swim after thirty minutes.”
Mother’s warning to never swim within thirty minutes of a meal again flashed through my mind.
I had never once gotten a cramp after eating, yet her words weighed on me every time I took a bite while remotely close to a body of water.
I had shared the warning with Libby as we finished off the last of the potato salad.
While she thought it was silly, she’d known me long enough to understand—if Mother said, I’d do, so thirty minutes it was.
Libby rose from the blanket and stretched, then stepped to the water’s edge and dipped her foot in. “It’s a little cold, but not too bad.” She glanced up at the sky. “Perfect under the sun.”
I watched as she gripped the bottom of her white tank top and pulled it over her head.
She shucked out of her jean shorts and made a little show of removing her bra and underwear.
I did my best to appear disinterested, but it was all I could do not to go to her and take her right there at the edge of the water.
My heart raced like a jackhammer. I wanted her so.
Naked, she waded in. When the water was just above her waist, she dove forward and vanished under the surface with the grace of a mermaid, barely creating a ripple.
Considering she hadn’t grown up anywhere near a lake, pool, or ocean, I had no idea where she’d learned that.
All this time together and yet she still surprised me daily.
She broke the surface about twenty feet from where she started, tilted her head back, and brushed the water from her face before smiling at me.
“Are you coming in, Mr. Bishop? A girl could get chilly in this water all alone.”
I offered a slight tilt of my head, this noncommittal shrug. “I don’t know. I was thinking about maybe taking a nap instead.” I stretched in a mock yawn and leaned back against the base of the tree.
“Suit yourself!” With a quick shrug of her own, she did a somersault and dove back under.
For a brief second, both her long legs shot up from the water, her toes pointing perfectly at the sun, the water shimmering on her bare skin, then she was gone again.
This insanely beautiful mirage I’d never tire of seeing.
I had no intention of really leaving her in that water alone.
I quickly tugged off my clothes on the way to the shore and jumped in.
Nothing remotely as graceful as Libby’s dive.
The water was maybe eighty degrees at the surface and quickly cooled in the deeper spots.
Not particularly cold, but not warm either.
It hit my skin like an electric current, woke every cell, and caused my heart to thump even wilder than it had at the sight of Libby.
When it grew too deep to walk, I swam out to the spot where she had gone under and waited for her to reappear, paddling slowly to stay afloat.
Nearly a minute slipped by before she did, and when she did come up, she was about fifteen feet from me, close to the center of the lake.
It was deepest there. I didn’t know how deep exactly, but Father had once told me there was a significant drop-off near the center, like Mother Nature had carved out a bowl at the bottom.
“Playing hard to get, Mrs. Bishop?” I started toward her with slow, lazy strokes. Then I froze when I realized the smile had left her face. “What’s wrong?”
She was paddling in place, as I had been, but bobbing oddly, only using her feet and one hand.
“I found something,” she said, and held up what looked like a rock, but wasn’t.
I realized it was a black garbage bag encircled with duct tape.
Several small slits had been cut in the plastic and water drained out, leaving this dark, rusty color. Her nose wrinkled. “It stinks.”
If my heart had been beating hard a moment ago, what it did in that particular moment would have punctured a hole in concrete.
I knew exactly what was in that bag.
The memory of tugging my red wagon out to the lake all those years earlier came rushing back.
The weight of the contents in back caused me to huff and puff by the time I reached the water’s edge.
Mother and Father had killed our neighbor, Mr. Carter, chopped up his body, and tasked me with disposing of his remains.
I’d cut those slits in the plastic myself with my knife, hoping the fish would help make Mr. Carter go away.
Father had been pleased when I told him.
Mother, not so much. She simply shook her head and made a good point.
“What about the plastic? The fish won’t eat the plastic, and if they do, it will surely kill them. ”
“Drop it, Libby. Just drop it and swim over to me.”
She didn’t, though, and somehow, she appeared to be standing. Although I knew the water in that part of the lake was far too deep, her other hand appeared and began tearing away at the plastic, opening the package. Each move more frantic than the last.
“Libby, don’t—”
Her eyes grew wide, and the color washed from her face. She didn’t stop, though. She kept ripping away the plastic. I saw Mr. Carter’s hair, one of his ears. His cheek, but no longer whole. The fish had eaten clear through to his jawbone.
A shrill scream echoed out from the lake, bounced off the surrounding trees, and found me where I bobbed in the water.
This horrid cry. And when Libby turned the head in her hands, when she turned it to face me, I realized it wasn’t her who screamed—it was Mr. Carter.
And the second time, he screamed louder still.