Kate listened intently.
“That sounds like fun,” Simon said.
Jack smiled at him. “Let’s not experiment. And where we sit is important, one person in front, one in back, and—”
Simon quickly said, “I call front!”
“We can—carefully—take turns. But we all get to paddle. Need to, actually, so—”
The attendant returned with three faded orange life preservers.
“Try these,” he said.
Kate got hers on fine, but Simon put his on backward, which Jack quickly righted. Both looked a little roomy, but they weren’t heading out into the Atlantic.
Jack’s was snug. He could barely buckle it.
No matter, he thought.
“The paddles are in the boat,” Freddy said.
“Okay crew, let’s—”
Freddy put a hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Few rules.”
Jack stopped and turned. Rules.
“Yeah.”
“No standing or moving around—”
“I was just telling them that.”
“Boat tips, any damage—you’re responsible.”
Jack nodded.
Freddy rubbed his chin. “We close here at five. All boats back by five.”
“Doubt we’ll be that long.”
“And…”
A last rule coming. Slipped into the others as if it was just as obvious.
“You see that spot out there, on the right? And also over there, on the left?”
Jack turned and looked. The beach on either side of the lake gave way to brush and trees that ran midway around the lake. But that shoreline girding the lake ended in abrupt rocky faces and gradual cliffs that ran clear to the mountains on the other side of the lake.
“See those rocky points there?”
“Sure do.”
“Don’t go past there. You get there, you turn around. Got it?”
Jack nearly said aye, aye to the insistent boat boy.
Why? he wondered. Why the hell couldn’t they canoe all the way to the other side?
“Okay. Anything else?”
The attendant shook his head.
“Okay kids, guess we’re good to go.”
* * *
Simon kneeled in front, his strokes doing a mix of helping the canoe go forward and then stopping it. Getting that rhythm … not easy.
Jack took the middle, applying paddle strokes to either side as needed. Kate took the rear, a spot she seemed happy to have since she could steer and turn the canoe.
Control was good. At least in her universe.
His right leg ached in the position needed to make the boat go. Sand from the beach ground into his knees, and his scar felt the pressure, the stretching and pulling as he squatted in the middle.
“How am I doing, Dad?”
“Super. Keep those strokes nice and steady, Simon.”
He looked back at Kate and gave her a wink.
Jack thought of the last and only time he’d ever canoed. Ten years old, with his parents and his older brother. Only a few years before he’d lose both his mom and dad to cancer.
One of his last good family memories with his older brother, who never came back from the Mideast. He became a name in a box in the
He remembered the few minutes of instruction from an old man who ran the Irish Alps place they’d stayed in.
The J-stroke. And how to hold the paddle. Even how to right a tipped canoe.
Then, a few hours of exploring the lake. A memory you hold forever.
Maybe like today.
Jack looked up at the icy blue sky.
The memory of last night faded under the brilliant sun and the gentle sound of his kids paddling.
* * *
Jack looked right and left. Rocky cliffs suddenly appeared at both shores. The turnaround point.
He turned back to Kate. “Okay, kiddo, work your magic with the paddle.”
Kate smiled, but when she put her paddle in the water, it sent the canoe gliding farther away from the camp.
The boat now arced straight toward the mountain, moving quickly past the turnaround point. Simon had actually gotten into the steady left–right rhythm. The canoe moved sleekly through the glass-flat water—but in the wrong direction.
Again, back to Kate.
He smiled, not wanting to start up with her again.
“Hey there, Captain, think you need to get that paddle in the water out, like so. To steer us back.”
He demonstrated the angle she should take.
Jack thought he might try to guide the canoe from the middle. But that could make it rock.
They were pretty damn far away from the beach.
“I’m
Her smile evaporated. Her new paddle position only made the canoe zig a bit to the left. The beginning of the cliffs were now well behind them.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get it.”
Jack felt powerless. He couldn’t change positions with his daughter, and so far, his instructions had little effect on getting the boat turned around.
“Keep trying, honey.”
What was the worse that could happen? A reprimand from the attendant?
A scolding from Ed Lowe?
Canoe rights revoked?
As Jack turned left and right, looking at Kate’s attempts to hold the paddle in the water at the correct angle and make the canoe obey, a flash of light, a reflection from the cliff to his right, caught his attention.
He stopped looking at Kate for a moment.
The flash of reflected sunlight vanished.
But he saw something else.
On the cliff. Hard to make out at first.
The kids occupied with rowing. Jack squinting at what he could see through the trees.
