If all else fails, just follow your nose and find the lake. You can stick to the shore until you come across the cottage.

Round Lake had a very definitive odor, a hard-to-classify tang that smelled like childhood summers, fishing with his grandfather, and clear yet simple possibilities. He’d been soaking it up like a bloodhound on the back porch every day while he read. Three books, short police procedurals, were already on his ‘done’ pile. Sitting outside with an afternoon cocktail and a book, glancing over at the lake between chapters, had become his favorite pastime.

Well, his only pastime to this point.

Running around a wide tree that looked to have been standing since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Andrew headed for home. His legs were getting tired, not used to this style of running. The ground was uneven and hard on his ankles.

He needed to run today because he was starting to feel discouraged. Yes, he’d finally felt the stick fall from his ass two days earlier. He’d stopped thinking about work, stopped checking his phone for messages. But Kate was still bedridden, unable to even join him on the porch.

What really bothered him was the source of his frustration. Was it her illness, or Kate herself?

Sometimes, he just wanted her to slough off what was squashing her down at the moment and fucking live. Use whatever incredible willpower had pushed her through a dozen surgeries, a year on life support, and that night she’d been given last rites by a somber Nigerian priest, to get up and just do something. How hard would it be to walk out that door and sit on a dock? She knew he’d carry her if she needed, and she still didn’t try.

What the hell was the sense of all this fighting if she wouldn’t even try to really, really live? Being trapped in a house with old movies and an old dog wasn’t life. At best, it was purgatory.

Stop it!

Andrew felt sick to his stomach even thinking it. So he ran, picking up his pace, pushing those forbidden thoughts away, deep into the dark corners of his subconscious where they belonged. It was evil to even contemplate such things. This wasn’t her fault. Why blame her? She was the victim, not him.

Shut…the fuck…up!

He didn’t see the tree branch that had been bent into a mini St. Louis Arch over the narrow path until it was too late.

Chapter Nine

The one good thing about pain was that it could only hit certain heights before your nerves started to dull and your brain shut down. Kate was still very conscious, but had started to lose feeling on her left side. Her spine had cooled down (which was an odd thing to say, even to herself), but attempting to move was out of the question.