“Don’t walk away from me,” he said.

I felt his hand on my shoulder, and without conscious thought I turned and punched him in the face. He went down in the dirt, and I stood over him. I saw a flash of color, my mother’s last second on this earth, and spoke the thought that had tormented me for the past few years.

“It was supposed to be you,” I said.

Blood spread from his nose, down the right side of his mouth. He looked small in the dirt, and I saw the day she did it: the way the gun leapt out of her lifeless hand, how the coffee scalded my fingers when I dropped the cup. But there had been an instant, a flash on her face as the door swung wide. Surprise, I thought. Regret. I used to think it was imagination on my part.

But not now.

“We came back to the house,” I said. “We came back from the woods and you went to check on her. She asked you to bring her coffee.”

“What are you talking about?” He smeared the blood on his face, but made no effort to rise. He didn’t want to hear it, but he knew.

“The gun was against her head when I opened the door. She wanted you to see her die.”

My father’s face went white.

“Not me,” I said.

I turned to walk away.

And I knew that he would let me go.

I left the road and went back to Dolf’s house by the trails and footpaths I still remembered. The place was empty, so no one saw how I slumped in the corner, how I almost broke. No one saw how I fought to pull myself together and no one saw me throw my stuff in the car; but Dolf pulled up as I was leaving, and I stopped out of respect for his raised hand and because of the blunt dismay in his face as he read my intentions through our open windows.

He climbed out of the truck and put his hands on the roof of my car. He leaned in close and I saw him take in the bag on the backseat. His eyes lingered on my face before he spoke.

“This is not the way, Adam. Whatever he said to you, running now is not the answer.”

But he was wrong; nothing had changed. Distrust was everywhere and my choices still came down to grief or anger. Next to that, the numbness sounded pretty good.

“It’s been great to see you, Dolf. But it’s not going to work. Tell Grace that I love her.” I pulled away and saw him standing in the drive, watching me go. He raised a hand and said something but I missed it. It didn’t matter. Robin had turned on me. My father was lost.

It was done.

Over.

I followed the narrow roads back to the river, to the bridge that spanned the border of Rowan County. I parked where I had parked before and I walked to the water’s edge. The jugs were still there, and I thought of the lost boy my father pined for, of a time when nothing was more complicated than keeping a scabbard oiled or taking a catfish off the line. I wondered if there was any of that boy left in me, or had the cancer, indeed, eaten him all away? I could remember how it felt. One day in particular. I was seven, and it would be more than a year before a strange, dark winter bled the heat out of my mother.

We were at the river.

We were swimming.

Do you trust me? she asked.

Yes.

Come on, she said.

We were holding onto the edge of the dock. The sun was high, her smile full of mischief. She had blue eyes with yellow spots that made them look like something on fire. Here we go, she said, then slipped beneath the water. I watched her legs scissor twice, then she was gone beneath the dock.

I was confused, but then her hand appeared. Squeezing it, I held my breath and let her draw me under the dock. The world went dark, then I rose beside her into the hollow place beneath the boards. It was quiet, green in the way that the forest could be. Light slanted between boards. Her eyes danced, and when light touched them, they flamed. The space was hidden and hushed. I’d been on the dock a hundred times but I’d never been under it. It was like a secret. It was like…

Her eyes crinkled and she put a hand on my face.

There is such magic in the world, she said.

And that was it.

It was like magic.

I was still pondering this when Dolf’s truck coasted to a stop on the road above me. He moved down the bank like an old man.

“How’d you know I’d be here?” I asked.

“I took a chance.” He picked up a handful of stones and started skimming them across the water.

“If I cross that bridge now, there’s no coming back.”

“Yep.”

“That’s why I stopped.”

He threw another rock. It sank on the second skip.

“You’re not very good at that,” I said.

“Arthritis. It’s a bitch.” He threw another one; it sank immediately. “Want to tell me the real reason that you’re here?” he asked, and put another rip in the water. “I’ll do anything I can for you, Adam. Anything I can to help.”

I picked up four stones. The first one skipped six times. “You have enough on your plate, Dolf.”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. Doesn’t really matter. The offer stands.”

I studied the asymmetry of his face. “Danny called me,” I said. “Three weeks ago.”

“That right?”

“He said that he needed my help with something. He asked me to come home.”

Dolf bent for more rocks. “What did you tell him?”

“I asked him what he wanted, but he wouldn’t get specific. He said that he’d figured out how to fix his life, but needed my help to do it. He wanted me to come home, to talk about it face-to-face.” Dolf waited for me to finish. “I told him I couldn’t do it.”

“What’d he say?”

“He got insistent and he got pissed. He said he needed me and that he’d do it for me if the situations were reversed.”

“But he wouldn’t say what he wanted?”

“Nope.”

“You think he wanted you to talk to your father about selling? Try to talk him into it?”

“Money can fix a lot of problems.”

Dolf weighed what I’d said. “So, why did you come home?”

“There were times that Danny could have walked away from me when I was in trouble, but he never did. Not once. When I thought of Danny and me, it was a lot like you and Dad. Tight, you know. Dependable. I felt bad, like I let him down.”

“Friendships can be difficult.”

“And they can die.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how I could have been so wrong about him. I keep coming back to the money.” I threw another stone, thought about Grace. “It’s messed up.”

We fell silent, watched the river.

“That’s not the only reason I came home.”

Dolf caught the change in my tone, perked up. “What’s the other reason?”

I looked down on him. “Can’t you guess?”

I saw it register. “To make peace with your father.”

“I’d buried this place, you know. Just moved on as best I could. I had jobs, a few friends. Most days I never thought about this place. I’d trained myself against it. Talking to Danny, though, it got me thinking. Wheels started turning. Memories came back. Dreams. It took a while to get my head straight, but I figured it was probably time.”

He hitched at his belt and could not look me in the face. “Yet, here you are, throwing stones in the river and debating which way to go. That way.” He pointed north. “Or back home.”

I shrugged. “What do you think?”

“I think that you’ve been gone for too long.” I said nothing. “Your dad feels the same, whether he told you so or not.”

I threw another stone, but did so poorly.

“What about Grace?” Dolf asked.

“I can’t leave her now.”

“I guess it’s really that simple then.”

“I guess it is.”

I put the fourth stone in my pocket and left the bridge behind me.

I followed Dolf back to the farm, then climbed into his truck when he said that he had other things to show me. We drove past the stable, and I saw Robin there along with Grantham. They were in clean clothes, but still looked tired, and I was amazed by their tenacity. They were talking to some of the workers and making notes on spiral binders.