Blue Water Read Free Page B

bed and the big bay window overlooking the lake. Rex, who was so gentle, so elegantly soft-spoken. Rex, who’d worked as a public defender for his first five years out of law school, protecting the rights of murderers and rapists, drug dealers and thieves. Not that I didn’t understand. In fact, I agreed with everything he said. Mornings, I woke with an ache in my throat, a sourness in my stomach, that had nothing to do with Evan. The truth was that, with each passing month, he was harder to remember, harder to see. I felt as if I were grasping at the color of water, the color of the wind or the sky.
    And this only made me angrier. My mind returned, again and again, to Cindy Ann, to what she’d done. When I passed Evan’s room, the closed door like a fist, I thought about how Cindy Ann had destroyed us. When I saw other people’s children, I promisedmyself that someday, Cindy Ann would pay. When I managed to get myself to mass, I always lit a candle for Evan, but as I knelt before the flickering light, my prayers were for vengeance, my words red with blood. I imagined choking Cindy Ann, beating her with my fists. I had dreams in which I walked up to her front door with a gun. I constructed scenes in which she begged my forgiveness, even as I turned my face away.
    I would never have guessed myself capable of hating another human being the way I hated Cindy Ann Kreisler: virulently, violently. How can I explain the sheer cathartic power of such rage? Whenever I gave myself over to its spell, I felt nothing but that one, pure thing. The nuances of sorrow, of guilt, of grief, burned away like so much kindling. I was terrible in my anger: strong, and fierce, and righteous. I could have led an army. I could have marched for days without food, bootless, euphoric, mile after mile.
    â€œMaybe you could get some kind of counseling,” Lindsey said, when, at last, I joined her at the Shanty, sliding into my usual seat at our usual table overlooking the harbor. My fish fry had arrived, but I couldn’t touch a bite of it. Until then, Lindsey had been doing her best to hold up both ends of the conversation, chattering about her husband, Barton, the golfing lessons he’d gotten her for Christmas. Bart was an avid golfer, and he was always trying to interest Lindsey in the sport. Usually this amused me, but today I just stared out the dirty windows, wishing I hadn’t agreed to come, wishing Lindsey would do something about the gray, puffy coat and piano keyboard scarf she’d been wearing for the past ten years.
    â€œWhy should I get counseling?” I snapped. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
    â€œIt’s counseling, ” Lindsey said. “Not punishment. I just think it might help you feel better—”
    â€œFeel better ?” I said. “When the person who murdered my child is walking around, free as air? When we have to face the rest of our lives in this prison, this—”
    I was too angry to finish.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Lindsey said, quietly. “It was just a suggestion.” She began looking for her keys, digging around in her oversize purse. “I hate to see you suffering, that’s all.”
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    Early in May, on our first warm day of the year, I saw Cindy Ann and her oldest girl, Amy, in the grocery store. Five months had passed since the accident. There they were, standing in front of the dairy case, picking out a carton of ice cream. Ice cream . It seemed inexcusable, unbearable, that they should indulge themselves in such pleasures, that they should enjoy themselves, in any way, ever again. I took a step toward them, and with that, Cindy Ann saw me. There was nothing in her face, not sorrow, not guilt or fear. She simply stared at me, hands at her sides, waiting for whatever it was I might say.
    â€œYou—” I began, the word squeezed from my throat, and then I was running out of the store, into the parking lot, the