On Mystic Lake

He looked stunned for a second, then he burst out laughing.

The cold hung on for two days, and when it was over, Annie was left feeling tired and weak. Her stomach stayed queasy afterward, but she refused to pay any attention to it.

On Friday, she and Nick and Izzy drove to Kalaloch and spent the day beachcombing. Izzy squealed with delight every time she found a sand dollar or a crab. They raced down the beach together, all three of them, turning over rocks and sticks in their search for hidden treasures, and when the sun was high in the sky, they had a picnic lunch in a secret cave. Afterward, they waded and splashed in the icy cold water until their cheeks and ha

nds and feet turned a stinging red. Finally, when the sun began its slow descent, they returned to the car and headed home.

Annie sat in the passenger seat of her Mustang, with a plastic bucket of shells and rocks in her lap.

“Daddy, can we stop and get ice cream, Daddy?”

Nick answered easily, laughing. “Sure, Izzy-bear. ”

Annie glanced at him, mesmerized. In the past few weeks, he’d become a new man entirely. He smiled all the time, and laughed easily, and spent hours playing with his little girl. Sometimes, like now, when the sunlight hit his profile and cast him in golden light, he was so handsome, he took Annie’s breath away.

But there was more to Nick; his vulnerability and his strength moved her, and the tenderness of his care had almost undone her. She’d never known anyone who loved as deeply, as completely as Nick. That was why life had been able to pummel him so brutally. Nothing was easier to shatter than the fragile shield of an idealist.

She was still watching him hours later, after she’d put away the last dinner dish and picked up the last of Izzy’s crayons. He was standing down at the lake again, his body a shadow within shadows, but Annie was well aware of the subtle differences of light and dark, the pale outline of his hair, the broad shelf of his shoulders, the moonlight that glimmered every now and then off the metal rivets on his jeans.

She threw the damp dishrag on the kitchen counter and headed outside. She wanted to be with him, and though the realization frightened her, it also set her heart racing with anticipation. When she was with Nick, she was a different woman. Some of his glitter fell onto her and made her feel beautiful and sparkly and more alive.

There were stars everywhere. Frogs and crickets sang in a staccato chorus that died at her approach. The grass was cold and wet on her bare feet.

Nick stood motionless, his shoulders rounded, his head dropped forward.

“Hi, Nick,” she said softly.

He spun around, and she saw the pain in his eyes.

“Hi, Annie. ” His voice was low, and as rough as old bricks. A cool night breeze caressed her face and slid between the buttons of her cotton shirt, like a man’s cold fingers, inching tenderly along her flesh. She had come to know him so well in the past weeks that his longings were obvious to her. “You want a drink. ”

He laughed, but it was a sharp, bitter sound, not his laugh at all. He reached out and held her hand, squeezing hard.

She knew from experience that he needed the sound of her voice now. It didn’t matter what she said, anything would do; he simply needed an anchor to hold him steady. “Remember the senior party, when Kath disappeared for a half hour or so?” she said quietly. “We were at Lake Crescent. You and I sat by the lake, right in front of the lodge, and talked and talked. You said you wanted to be a cop. ”

“You said you wanted to be a writer. ”

She was surprised that he remembered, and though she didn’t want to, she found herself remembering the girl who’d wanted to be a writer. The old dream was heavy now. “That was before I’d learned . . . ” Her voice faded into the breeze and fell silent.

He turned, gazed down at her. “Learned what?”

She shrugged, unable suddenly to meet his gaze. “I don’t know. How life slips away from you while you’re standing in a grocery line, waiting to pay for a quart of milk . . . how time passes and takes everything in its path—youth, hopes, dreams. Dreams—it takes those most of all. ”

She felt his gaze on her again, and she was afraid to meet it, afraid of what she’d see in his eyes.

“Sometimes I don’t even recognize you,” he said, gently tilting her chin up. “You say things like that and I don’t know the woman who is speaking at all. ”

She released a laugh that fluttered like a moth into the darkness. “You’re not alone. ”

“What happened to you, Annie?”

The question was startling in its intimacy. The night fell silent, awaiting her answer, so quiet that she could hear her own rapid intake of breath. She pushed the poisonous words out in a rush. “My husband is in love with another woman. He wants a divorce. ”

“Annie—”

“I’m fine, really. ” She tried to think of something to say that would make them both laugh, but when she looked in his eyes, she saw a terrible, harrowing compassion, and it was her undoing. The strength she’d been gathering and hoarding for the past weeks fell away from her. A single tear streaked down her cheek. “How does it happen? I loved Blake with all my heart and soul and it wasn’t enough. . . . ”

He sighed, and the sadness of the sound bound them together. She watched as he tried to find the words to answer her, saw his frustration when he came up empty.