Page 55 of The Final Cut

I come back to myself slowly.

The motor is silent.

The boat drifts.

Reva is still wrapped around me, breathing hard, face tucked into the side of my neck. Her hair is soaked. My shirt is plastered to my back. We are both going to be cold in about thirty seconds.

I do not move.

Neither does she.

The rain softens at the edges, steady now instead of violent. Water runs down the inside of the boat and gathers near my boots. Somewhere beyond the reeds, the heron calls once, sharp and disapproving.

Reva huffs against my throat. I feel it more than hear it.

“What?” I ask.

“I think the bird is judging us.”

“It should mind its own damn business.”

Her arms tighten.

The small silence that follows is different from the one we left at the cabin. Less hollow. Still full of pain, but the pain has room around it now. It can breathe without swallowing her whole.

I press my mouth to her wet hair.

“We should go back,” I say.

She does not lift her head. “I know.”

That is not agreement yet.

I wait.

At last, she loosens her legs from my waist and sits back carefully. I hold her until she is steady, then help her stand in the rocking boat and pull her leggings up over wet skin. When she sits on the middle bench again, she looks wrung out, soaked through, and more present than she did when I brought her out here.

I start the motor and turn the skiff toward the cabin. Rain dims the marsh ahead of us, but I know the way back. I always know the way back from here.

Reva sits facing forward, arms wrapped around herself, eyes on the channel.

After a while, she says, “Shiloh needs someone to tell him it wasn’t his fault.”

“He will not believe me.”

“You think he’ll believe me?”

“Maybe.”

She nods once, storing that away.

Then, quieter, “And Cal?”

“Nash will call if anything changes.”

“If nothing changes?”

“We call him when we get back.”