Stranger in the Lake

by Kimberly Belle

  But I don’t know this woman.

  I take in her milky skin and sky blue eyes, the light smattering of freckles across her nose and high cheekbones, and I’m positive I’ve never seen her before. She’s the kind of pretty a person would remember, almost beautiful even, though she’s nothing like his type. Paul likes his women curvy and exotic, with dark hair and ambiguous coloring. This woman is bony, her skin so pale it’s almost translucent.

  I step closer, holding up my hand in a wave. “Hi, I’m Charlotte Keller. Paul’s wife.”

  The woman gives me a polite smile, but her gaze flits to Paul. She murmurs something, and I’m pretty sure it’s “Keller.”

  The hairs soldier on the back of my neck, even though I’ve never been the jealous type. It’s always seemed like such a waste of energy to me, being possessive and suspicious of a man who claims to love you. Either you believe him or you don’t—or so I’ve always thought. Paul tells me he loves me all the time, and I believe him.

  But this woman wouldn’t be the first around these parts to try to snag herself a Keller.

  “Are you ready?” I say, looking at Paul. “Because I came in the boat, and we need to get home before this weather blows in.”

  The talk of rain does the trick, and Paul snaps out of whatever I walked into here. He gives me that smile he saves only for me, and a rush of something warm hits me hard, right behind the knees.

  People who say Paul and I are wrong together don’t get that we’ve been waiting for each other all our lives. His first wife’s death, my convict father and meth-head mother, they broke us for a reason, so all these years later our jagged edges would fit together perfectly, like two pieces of the same fractured puzzle. The first time Paul took my hand, the world just...started making sense.

  And now there’s a baby, a perfect little piece of Paul and me, an accidental miracle that somehow busted through the birth control. Maybe it’s not a fluke but a sign, the universe’s way of telling me something good is coming. A new life. A new chance to get things right.

  All of a sudden and out of nowhere I feel it, this burning in my chest, an overwhelming, desperate fire for this baby that’s taken root in my belly. I want it to grow and kick and thrive. I want it with everything inside me.

  “Let’s go home.” Without so much as a backward glance at the woman, Paul takes my hand and leads me to the boat.

  * * *

  We’re smack in the middle of Lake Crosby when it starts to snow, lazy fat flakes dancing down from a canopy of white. Flurries, but there’s more coming. Those are snow clouds spilling over the mountaintops.

  Paul has the bow pointed to home and the throttle buried, and I don’t blame him. His fleece was bad enough in town, where there were warm shops to duck in and brick buildings to huddle behind. Out here on the open water the wind is fierce, and he might as well be shirtless.

  He’s hunched low behind the windshield, steering the boat with his knees, his hands shoved deep in his pits for warmth. I take in his blue lips, his chattering teeth, and wince. I should have brought his coat.

  Tell him. Just open your mouth and say I’m pregnant. Do it now.

  “Hey, Paul?” The words get lost in the roar of the engine, but there’s no stopping now. Not when I’ve finally summoned my courage. I tap him on the shoulder and try again. “Paul.”

  He pulls back on the throttle, slowing the boat to a crawl. “What’s wrong? Did you forget something?”

  I shake my head. An hour ago, I left the house with exactly two items, the boat keys and my cell phone, both of which are here with me now. The keys dangle from the ignition, and I tucked my cell in the cubby by my seat, along with the Curtis Cottage drawings.

  “You know how I’ve been feeling kinda out of sorts?” I don’t have to tick off my symptoms—the bouts of nausea, the bone-tiredness I can’t seem to shake. Paul brought me chicken soup from the market in town, covered me with blankets whenever I’d nap on the couch.

  “You had the flu.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. But who has the flu for three whole weeks?”

  I stare at him hard, waiting for the realization to hit, but Paul’s face is a complete blank. I can’t tell if it’s because he doesn’t understand where I’m going with this, or if he’s trying to contain his panic—or worse, suspicion. Will he accuse me of flicking my pills into the toilet, of forgetting to take them on purpose? His mother certainly will.

  I look away. “Anyway, it wasn’t the flu.”

  He reaches up and kills the engine. All around us, the air goes quiet the way it can only here, in the middle of a lake cradled between mountains and trees. A strange kind of muffled silence punctuated by the far-off cry of a hawk.

  Paul swivels on his seat to face me, his voice laced with worry. “What is it? Are you sick?”

  “No.” My answer is swift, and I make sure to look him in the eyes. Paul’s already lost one wife. Of course his mind would go there. I probably should have led with my good health. “No, I’m fine. Better than fine. Healthy as can be.”

  My heart is pounding now, but that’s to be expected. I think of the matching pink lines on the sticks, wrapped in toilet paper and buried at the bottom of the wastebasket. The instructions said one line may come out lighter than the other, but any hint of a second line meant I was pregnant. All three times I pulled a new one from the wrapper and peed on it just in case the ones before it were defective, the lines were so pink they were almost purple.

  I see the second the quarter drops. Paul huffs out a breath, and the twin lines between his eyebrows smooth out. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” He sounds stunned, not angry. In fact, he kind of sounds the opposite, happy and hopeful—but maybe that’s just me.

  Still. I bite down on a smile. “That depends. What do you think I’m saying?”

  “Charlotte McCreedy Keller, don’t play games with me. My brittle old heart can’t take it.” He stands, reaching for me with icy hands, pulling me out of my chair. “Are you going to make me the happiest man on the planet? Are you going to make me a father?” He wraps his hands around my biceps and gives them a little jiggle. His eyes are gleaming, his smile stretched clear to his sideburns. “Are you?”

  After a second or two, I nod.

  Paul whoops, and a flock of swallows bursts from a bush on the shore, birds and batting wings swirling in the air. Suddenly I’m in the air, too, my legs wrapped around Paul’s waist, his hands firm on my backside. He twirls me around in the tiny space between the seats, and I laugh, from relief and at Paul’s reaction—a stunned but unapologetic joy.

  “You’re pretty strong for an old man.”

  “I’m not an old man. I am the man. My swimmers are badass. They are fierce.” I laugh, and he puts me down. “How do you feel? Any other symptoms?”

  “A little tired still, and kinda pukey in the mornings. Once I eat something, I’m usually fine.”

  “This is...this is amazing. I can’t wait to tell everybody. Let’s go home and make some calls.”

  “Paul, can we just...I don’t know...keep this quiet for a little while longer? At least until I see the doctor and she gives us the green light. I want to know everything’s okay before we go telling the whole world.”

  Worry flits across his brow. “What, you think this baby might not stick?”

  “No, but it’s still so early. I want to see this baby with my own two eyes and be sure. Let’s just wait until after the first ultrasound, okay?”

  “Okay, but so you know, I have a good feeling about this little guy. He’s going to be fine.”

  I lift a brow. “Little guy?”

  “Well, yeah. An adorable baby Keller to carry on the name.” He presses a hand over my lower stomach and smiles. “Paul Junior.”

  Now, that his mother would approve of, a carbon copy of her precious son. I think back to Diana�
�s reaction when we told her we were getting married, the fake smile that tried to crack open her cheeks when Chet walked me down the aisle. I am not what she pictured for Paul—I’m too young, too unpolished, too poor and crass. She thinks that sometime very soon, her son will snap to his senses.

  But a baby... A baby changes everything.

  “What if it’s a Paulette?”

  Paul makes a face. “God, no. I can’t saddle my daughter with a name like Paulette. She’ll grow up and go on Dr. Phil, talking about how we ruined her life. She’ll never speak to us again.”

  Neglect, alcoholism, a felon father and a mother who had no business ever pushing out kids—now, those are some things to bellyache about on national television. This baby will have everything Chet and I didn’t: a real house with real walls to keep out of the cold, a fridge filled with food, clothes that don’t come from a church basement bin. Two parents who stick around, who don’t disappear for days at a time or get carted off to jail.

  And, as corny as it sounds, love.

  I smile over our hands at my husband. “I do have one more request.”

  “For the love of my life? The mother of my child?” He lifts my hand to his lips, presses a frosty kiss to my knuckle. “Absolutely anything.”

  “When it’s time, you get to tell your mother.”

  3

  When I wake up the next morning, I’m alone.

  I stare at the black sky pouring through the bedroom window and listen for the sounds of Paul, pulling on clothes in the closet or banging around in the kitchen downstairs. There’s nothing but silence. An empty house, holding its breath.

  Already left for his daily morning run, a six-mile trek around the hills to the west of our house, which means there must not be much snow on the ground. When we went to bed last night, it was really coming down, but the ground was probably too warm still for it to stick.

  The clock on the nightstand reads 6:04, earlier than usual for Paul, but not unheard of, though I wouldn’t have expected it today. Not after the glass of red he downed with dinner, followed by a gold-labeled bottle he pulled from the wine fridge, champagne that costs as much as a month’s worth of groceries.

  Paul’s not normally much of a drinker, but yesterday’s news sent him sailing far past his tipping point. I picture him huffing up Suicide Hill, cursing himself for that last glass, and maybe the one before. Poor guy must really be hurting.

  My untouched flute stands full on the nightstand—“for toasting,” Paul said as he poured, “not drinking.” The last of the carbonation clings in tiny bubbles to the glass, next to Paul’s empty one. I eye the liquid in the bottle, only a few inches or so. Paul is the only person I know who recuperates from a hangover with an early-morning run. One good hill, and his metabolism will have burned through the alcohol like propane, which, now that I think about it, is probably why he looks so good.

  But all last night, he googled and drank, googled and drank.

  “It says here there’s only one percent chance of getting pregnant on the pill,” he’d said, looking up from his laptop.

  We were in bed, our backs propped up by pillows and the headboard, our bare feet tangled on top of the comforter.

  He grinned, his eyes shining with pride and champagne. “One point three, to be exact. That’s some pretty shitty odds, but I really cracked that nut, didn’t I? I really got in there.”

  I laughed. “You really did.”

  He reached for the bottle and topped off his glass—his third by my count—then plunked it back to the nightstand. “Apparently, you calculate the due date by the first day of your last period. When was that?”

  I shrugged, not considering my calendar but whether or not I should suggest going easy on the booze. My father used to drink like that, in greedy pulls that turned his words mushy around the edges and sent Chet and me skittering for the opposite end of the trailer. He was a mean drunk, but a lazy one, too. The trick was to stay out of range.

  Paul frowned. “You don’t know, or you don’t remember?”

  “My periods have always been wonky. But I can figure out when it was supposed to be if I count the pills left in the pack.”

  He read aloud a long, boring article about folic acid, and how I should be taking it to prevent birth defects. He searched out every local ob-gyn and settled on one in nearby Highlands with a degree from Johns Hopkins and a five-star rating on healthgrades.com. He declared ginger tea the best remedy for morning sickness and that it’s important to hydrate, even though one of the symptoms of early pregnancy is more trips than usual to the bathroom. He claimed sex was allowed and so was cheese, as long as it’s pasteurized, but no more sushi for me.

  By eleven, he’d passed out, smiling.

  I push back the comforter and step out of bed, padding naked across the plush carpet. Paul designed every room in this house to showcase natural light and killer views, which means one entire wall of our bedroom is shiny black glass—the glossy blackness another sign we didn’t get much snow. A solid coating on the ground would lighten things up to a foggy gray, even though the sun won’t rise for another half hour.

  I press my face to the glass, gazing out on woods that are still dark and raw. A ghostly steam hangs over the water like smoke, creepy and picture-perfect.

  But I was right about the snow; we only got a light dusting.

  I grab my robe from a hook in the closet, wrap it around me and head downstairs.

  Another sign Paul drank too much—the normally pristine kitchen is a disaster. Dirty dishes, crumpled napkins, food wrappers and a forgotten carton of milk on the counter. I pour it down the drain and straighten the mess while I wait for the espresso machine to warm up. It’s Paul’s prize possession, a complicated Italian gadget that cost more than a normal person pays for their whole kitchen. But I’ve got to give it to him—the coffee is divine.

  While the machine spits out a foamy dark stream, I lean a hip against the counter and think through my day. Paul should be back soon, and then he’ll need a ride to town to pick up the replacement car, which should be waiting in the office lot. On the way back, I can drop off the drawings for the Curtis Cottage at the client’s current home.

  And that’s when it occurs to me. The drawings are still in the boat. Right where I chucked them, along with my cell phone, in the cubby under my seat. In our hurry to get up the hill and into the house so we could start the celebrating in earnest, I left them there.

  I look out the window. The sky is brighter now, daylight lighting up tree branches sifted with snow, even though it’s dry for now. But if some of that snow made its way onto those drawings, Gwen is going to have a fit.

  I set my coffee cup on the counter and rush to the mudroom—a space I never knew existed before I started dating Paul. And honestly, what’s the point? A whole room specifically for muddy shoes and jackets—is that really necessary? Ours is a rectangular space with a slate floor, a wall of custom cabinets and cubbies, and exactly zero mud. No Keller Architecture house comes without one.

  I shove my feet into a pair of snow boots, faux fur–lined and with a steady, deep tread, and pluck my coat from the hook.

  Outside on the upper deck, the wind hits me, and I duck my head and hurry down the stairs to the lower level. Icy currents billow my robe around my legs, skating up my bare skin and prickling in my nose with the scent of moss and pine.

  I think of Paul, conquering the hills on the other side of our house, and shiver. A hundred bucks says he didn’t think to take his gloves.

  I’m careful navigating the hill’s steep steps, pressed gravel held together with reclaimed railroad ties. The treads are uneven, and the snow has coated the ties in slick patches, making the descent slow going.

  Above my head, a hawk calls out, and I look up to see him tracing lazy figure eights just above the tree line. There must be something dead nearby, because an animal with a
ny sort of sense would be hunkered down somewhere warm.

  The dock is a skating rink, and it doesn’t help my balance any that it’s floating, the waters here too deep to drive in stakes. I grip the posts and move across it with cautious, steady steps. There’s good fishing under this dock, but things that fall in here don’t always come back up, not until much later. It’s called Skeleton Cove for a reason.

  My teeth are chattering and my fingers numb by the time I lower myself onto the boat. Paul left the keys dangling in the ignition, and I jiggle them loose and drop them into my pocket. The drawings are right where I left them, a little damp but not soggy, thank God.

  I feel around the bottom of the cubby until my fingers connect with a smooth, icy object. My cell phone. I pull it out and poke at the screen, but nothing happens. The battery is dead, probably frozen to death. I slip it in my pocket with the keys, grab the drawings and step to the bow.

  I’m hoisting myself onto the dock when I see it. Something long and white in the water below me, drifting like seaweed on the surface.

  I lower one foot back onto the leather seat, then the other. Bend down and look again.

  I shriek and scramble backward.

  Not seaweed. Hair. Human hair. It fans out from the back of a blond head, twisting and swirling in the water like smoke.

  I take another step backward, putting some space between me and the corpse, but there’s nothing behind me but air. My body pitches off the seat and onto the carpet of the bow’s cockpit, my back slamming into the opposite seat. I land on my right hip with a thud. Automatically, my hand goes to my belly.

  Don’t you come unstuck, little guy. Don’t you dare.

  I pause, waiting for what comes next. A dull cramping, a searing pain. I wait, not moving for the span of five full breaths, but there’s nothing but a throbbing in my upper back where I hit the hard edge of the seat.