Eventually while we were walking around the neighborhood after dusk, I told Philippe the details of what had happened on the boat—I didn’t want to talk about Madeleine in the house and I didn’t want to see his face as I told him. He listened, and when I finished, he pulled me toward him and held me tightly. And then we walked on, and never mentioned it again.
We did have several talks about us, late in the evening after Paul had gone to bed. We’d been through too much to be coy with each other, but we both had things to work through. I wasn’t the person I’d been at the start of all this, but I wasn’t quite who I wanted to be yet either. Philippe had spent years living with a wife who had turned out to be a murderer, and I suspected he was having bad dreams of his own.
Maybe someday I would transplant myself into a new life, but it would have to happen when I was ready, and I wasn’t yet. And I wasn’t going to leap into Paul’s life full-time and let him consider me a permanent fixture, then have him lose me because Philippe and I had jumped into something too soon.
I didn’t know if I belonged in Lake Placid any longer, but it was my home for now.
It was time to go.
I hugged Elise, and then Philippe. “Come back when you can,” Philippe said, and folded me in his arms. I hugged back, hard. Then I knelt and gathered in Paul and held tight, and shushed him as he sobbed.
“I’ll see you soon,” I whispered to him, but he wouldn’t look at me.
I was having trouble getting enough air. I felt dizzy, as if at high altitude, and had to concentrate to move my body into the car. I put a half smile on my face and waved goodbye. I knew this was what I had to do; I knew this was right for me, for all of us.
I drove away, seeing Paul in his father’s arms in my rearview mirror until I turned the corner. A mile or two away I stopped the car and cried, great gasping sobs, until my breathing evened out and I could drive. Tears trailed down my cheeks until I reached Cornwall and started across the bridge into New York.
Sometimes you know you’ve made the right decision, simply because of how hard it is.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO:
Meg Waite Clayton and Mac Clayton for their help and encouragement; early readers Dee Dee O’Connor, L. K. Browning, Kimberly McCall, and the now-defunct Nashville Writers Group; Mike Modrak and Linda Yoder for their support; Linda Allen for telling me to rewrite the middle.
Michael Carlisle, Ann Close, Leslie Daniels, Sands Hall, Sue Miller, and others from the Squaw Valley Writers Conference; readers Sandy Ebner, Carole Firstman, Cat Connor, Bevan Quinn, Amanda McGrath Anderson, Robert Smolka, Persia Walker, Steph Bowe, and Reed Farrel Coleman.
Jamie Ford, whose quiet assurance that I would do this was more help than he knew; Michael Robotham, who had me change the title; Persia Walker, who helped give me insight into the mind of a small child; Reed Farrel Coleman, who saved me from my worst writing instincts.
The RCMP, Ottawa Police Service, and Québec Police Service; Celine Temps, Gisele Grignon, Gaël Reinaudi, and Inga Murawski for translation help; Luke Ringrose, who breathed life into Paul simply by existing; Patti Gallagher, for being there; SFC, who titled this book and believed in it.
And my wonderful agent, Barney Karpfinger, and editor, John Glusman.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARA J. HENRY has been a columnist, soil scientist, book and magazine editor, website designer, writing instructor, and bicycle mechanic. Learning to Swim is her first novel.
Table of Contents
Cover
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Part III
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Acknowledgments
About the Author