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53
A. M. Arthur
Carl. Dad. They re both here.
Why isn t Roman here? Is he hurt, too?
 Hey, sport, Dad says. And then someone s squeezing his other hand.  You
gave us a good scare.
He isn t sure what he s done, but he didn t mean to scare them. He ll tell
them that, too, as soon as he can talk better. And after someone tells him where
Roman is.
 Roe? It s all he can get out.
Silence. He works at his eyelids, but they feel swollen shut. He squeezes
both of their hands, asking, urging. Please.
 You boys had some sort of accident on the creek, Dad finally says. His
voice is funny, tight.  Some hikers found you floating down near the Basin
Landing, and half of the canoe, too.
He doesn t remember an accident. All he remembers is being with Roman
in the tent. He has a thousand questions, but he still needs to know where
Roman is. He can t breathe right until he knows.
 Honey, Mom says,  Search and Rescue is out there looking up and down
the Dunkill.
What are they looking for? He can t seem to get the question out.
 They won t stop until they find him, she adds.
Until they find  no. His heart seizes, and a sound rips from his throat.
Mom starts to cry.
Roman s still out there on the Dunkill without him. Alone. Maybe hurt.
And Lee has no earthly idea why.
54
Chapter Nine
ee added three pieces of split wood to the fire, and then poked the embers
L until it roared back to crackling life. He closed his eyes against the heat
searing his face, soaking into his skin. He still felt the chill of those hours in
the hospital, suffering from hypothermia and water inhalation and a serious
concussion. And the consuming fear that stayed with him for weeks afterward.
Fear that became his lifeline to Roman, even as the rest of the town lost hope
of ever finding him.
He sat on the hardwood floor and stared at the flames, the burning wood,
remembering a campfire from long ago. Lifting Roman s shirt and seeing those
bruises. Bruises nearly identical to the ones this adult Roman still carried on his
abdomen. But they couldn t possibly be the same bruises. It didn t matter that
Roman had been stuffed back into the clothes he d worn when he disappeared.
Bruises healed after ten years.
Period.
Search and Rescue found their tent and backpacks half a mile downstream
from the other half of the canoe. Their best guess was that Lee and Roman set
off in the morning and they hit a rock. No one could figure out which rock
they hit, or exactly how, to crack the canoe in half like that. Lee hadn t been
wearing his helmet when he was found, just his life vest. A week later, Roman s
helmet and vest were found tangled in some brush three miles from Winfield.
Lee pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing those memories to
come back to him. To remember that Saturday night, when the love of his life
was swallowed up by Dunkill Creek, only to emerge ten years later a familiar
stranger. The same, and yet totally different.
A. M. Arthur
 Ten years ago tonight, Roman said, his voice so unexpected that Lee
yelped and scrambled to the side.
He hadn t even heard Roman come up the stairs. Heart thudding against
his ribs, Lee held one hand to his chest, trying to breathe again.  Yeah, was
all he managed.
 Every anniversary marked by a blizzard.
 Yeah.
 It s not a coincidence, Lee.
 Then what is it?
The corner of Roman s mouth quirked in a sad smile.  Grief.
 Grief? Lee couldn t stop a snort of disbelief. He thought back to his
childhood, asking his mother why it rained so hard sometimes. She d told him
it was because God was sad and crying for his unhappy children. He d looked
at her, smiled, and told her that he was happy, so God shouldn t cry anymore.
Mom had hugged him and made him hot chocolate.
 Yes, grief. Roman sat on the floor across from him and drew his knees
up to his chest. His face was calm, reasonable, always with a hint of sadness.
 Your grief, Lee.
 What? He might as well have told Lee that the sun rose because a man in
Australia pushed it into the sky. It made no sense.  Grief doesn t make it snow,
any more than it s God s tears when it rains. That s stupid.
 Stupid, Roman parroted.  Okay, well what about bruises that never heal?
He yanked up the hem of his t-shirt and sweater, and Lee saw the purple marks
on his stomach. One the size of a fist, the others the right shape for a man s
boot. The same damned bruises.
 That s not possible.
 When you re out on the creek, do you ever feel a pain in your back? An
ache, up between your shoulder blades? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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