"Harley," I said.
"Isn't it strange how water that we need to live can also be deadly. Look at it, how pretty it is rushing over those old jewels. Put your hand into it today, and it will feel so good, so cool. Then put more of yourself until you're completely in it and it will claim you and smother the life out of you.
"Do you think that's true of everything. Summer, everything that's pretty, that tempts you?"
"No," I said.
He nodded, a crazed smile on his lips.
"What happened to her. Harley? Why did she go swimming in her nightgown so early in the morning?"
"Swimming?" He laughed. "You think she went swimming?"
"I don't know. Daddy said Uncle Roy said..."
"She didn't go swimming. Who knows what she saw in the water? Maybe she saw Latisha calling her or maybe she looked out at the lake and thought this was a cool, beautiful way to get back with Latisha. Maybe she saw what had almost happened to your aunt Alison and it gave her ideas.
"My mother wasn't much of a swimmer. Summer. You know that. You could count on the fingers of one hand how many times you and I ever saw her go swimming. And she never swam anyway. She just waded."
He paused and looked down.
"Maybe she was walking in her sleep. I don't know. No one knows. They can only do what I'm doing. guess."
"What did Uncle Roy say?" Harley didn't respond.
"Harley?"
"He said it was his fault for falling into such a damn deep sleep. He was exhausted from working all day and then spending all that effort and energy on your aunt Alison. So he didn't hear my mother get up and go off, but he still expected she would be in the house, maybe in Latisha's nursery pretending she was holding her or maybe downstairs making something for her to eat. When he didn't see her in the house, he thought she was up at the grave, and when he didn't see her there, he started to get worried and frightened. That was when he turned his eyes to the lake.
"His scream woke me." Harley said. "It was the most god-awful scream, like an animal. I actually shook for a moment. Then I got up and pulled on my pants, grabbed a shirt-- practically tripped and killed myself getting my feet into my sneakers-- and ran out to see what was going on.
"By then he was pulling her in and then carrying her in his arms. 'Call Austin!' he shouted and I called your father. He was over here in minutes and tried the same CPR stuff on my mother, only it wasn't working so he told Roy to call the paramedics. You saw the rest, I guess."
I nodded and sat beside him.
"Maybe she's better off." he muttered. "Oh Harley, don't say such a thing."
"I don't know what else to say. She wasn't getting any better; as you know, lately she got worse. But there used to be times when she would stop mourning, stop praying, stop thinking about Latisha for a while and look at me as though she really saw me."
He smiled.
"She had this look on her face sometimes, this look like she had just woken from a long, long sleep and realized I had grown up.
"'You're going to be a handsome young man. Harley.' she would say. 'Your daddy was very handsome. Poisonous handsome,' she called it because all he had to do was smile at a woman and she would weaken in her knees. I'd be her to tell me more about him, but she would shake her head and remember her religion, 'No, he was the devil. The devil can have a very pleasing face.' she told me. 'Don't think about him. I shouldn't have spoken like that. God forgive me,' she would say and go pray for a pardon.
"When she saw me like that, really saw Inc, she would talk to me like my mother should, asking me questions about school, about what I liked to do. It was a torment though, a torture that I grew to hate, Summer."
"Why?"
"Because she would soon return to her dark, depressing state of mind, and when I spoke to her, she would look at me as if I was just a dream. I stopped talking to her, stopped asking her questions, sometimes stopped seeing her. She became a ghost long before she drowned today, Summer. My mother died a long, long time ago. I've been an orphan longer than I care to remember." he said.
He tossed his little branch into the stream and we both watched the water carry it off.
"Oh. Harley. I'm so sorry. It's so terrible." "Yeah," he said. "Terrible."
He leaned over and scooped some water into his palms.
"You happy now?" he screamed at it. "You satisfied? You've got her! You've got her!"