As soon as she said it, her breath caught like a rock in her throat and she wished she could take it back. The heaviness in the air was palpable, and when she looked over at Travis, the humor was gone from his eyes.
“No,” he said. “I don't remember.”
He started for the door, but Carrie rushed after him. She couldn't let him walk out like that.
“Come on,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind and kissing the middle of his back. “Let's get dinner started. You can get the grill going and I'll get all the food ready in here. Okay?" He didn't respond and she moved around him, not taking her arms away. "Okay?"
She searched his eyes as he stared down at her. After what felt like an eternity but had to have been only a few seconds, Travis nodded. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned down for a kiss and Carrie felt her body relax. There were too many of those moments. She hated every one of them. They made the hole in her heart burn and regret darken the edges of her thoughts.
Maybe it would just take time. Those moments would go away. And so would the thoughts.
Violet ran back into the room with a doll in each hand, and Travis scooped her up again. They went outside and Carrie headed into the kitchen. She stopped herself from warning Violet not to get too close to the grill or run toward the water.
Later, when the food was done and it was so dark the light from the front porch was the only illumination they had under the cloudy sky, Violet played in the grass. Carrie looked over at Travis and watched him watch their little girl.
She found herself doing that every day. Sometimes all day. There were times when Carrie felt as if she watched Travis watch Violet more than she looked at her daughter herself. She wished she could identify all the emotions she felt as his eyes took in every detail of the four-year-old who had his laugh and her hair. Her nose and his intensity. There was happiness, of course. That would have to be. That was a natural way to feel.
They were a family now. It made her happy to see them getting along so well. But there was something else. It was more than the pain of the guilt and the secret she had carried for so long. It was a kind of heaviness she didn't want to define. Something that made the back of her neck prickle.
When that happened, watching him turned to staring at him. She wanted him to feel her eyes on him, and for that to draw his attention to her. She wanted to see his eyes. To watch the emotions change. To see if one would drain away and another would rise up.
But he rarely turned. Not until she said his name, and then he seemed to remember she was there, too. In those moments she did her best to swallow her feelings. She needed to be more patient, more understanding. But she couldn't help the questions that came rushing through her mind. The loudest and most persistent being what might have happened if she could go back five years and make just one little change.
Where would they be? What would life have given them if they could go back to before that fight? Before she watched him walk away and decided not to chase him?
Before Violet.
Above them, the clouds parted just enough to let a slice of moonlight come down. It highlighted the ripples on the lake. Maybe tomorrow the weather would be nicer. The sun would come out and they could have a day on the water.
Travis
Sixteen years ago …
Travis woke up in that early morning hour when the first of the sunlight hadn't quite burned away all of the morning mist. But there was enough light for him to know the clouds of the day before they were gone. They would have a sunny day. Perfect for their first full day of camping.
Carrie wanted to go out on the lake. He'd seen the wooden rack of weathered canoes down close to the water and wondered which of them was the one she’d been sitting in when she’d had her first kiss. She’d told him that story once long ago. Her words were so soaked in gin they’d smeared through the air like watercolors.
The canoes held history for her. The lake held history for her. This entire campground held history for her.
It belonged in Carrie's life. But so did he. That was why they were there.
He rolled over from staring at the window and realized she wasn't in bed with him. He got up and tossed on the lightweight bathrobe draped across the back of an old spindle chair near the foot of the bed. The temperature inside the cabin had already started to creep up. The place had a vacuum cleaner tucked conveniently away in the closet, but not an air conditioner.
The ceiling fans cranking at full blast churned the air enough to make some difference in the heat of the living room. The cooler temperature hit him when he opened the bedroom door and brought with it the sound of Carrie and Violet talking in the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Carrie said when he went into the kitchen.
He noticed both of them were already dressed. They'd been awake for a while.
“You two got up early,” he observed.
“Violet always does when ’re here. I thought she was too little to remember, but apparently she does,” Carrie replied.
“I didn't mean to sleep in,” he said.
“Oh, you didn't,” she said. “You looked so peaceful when I got up, I didn't want to wake you.”
“Well, I had planned
