Lonnie didn’t speak. She handed me a paddle and I pushed it into the water, surprised at how hard it was after a few strokes. I couldn’t get the timing right, matching my strokes with hers, and we inched along, zigzagging. We hadn’t gone far when Lonnie tapped my shoulder and signaled for me to put my paddle down. I laid it on the floor of the canoe and she continued to paddle. I turned to look at her, moving the paddle from one side of the boat to the other with strong, evenly timed strokes, something she’d no doubt been trained for at camp. We glided smoothly across the water and I tried to swallow my sense of failure.

There was no one else on the lake and, except the cottages peeking through the trees, no sign of human life. We docked at a tiny island, just a little mound of earth growing a handful of pines. The ground was covered in brown needles and I regretted not putting on shoes, but didn’t say anything. We were in some kind of storybook now, the tiny island more like an imagined place.

Lonnie and I crisscrossed the land, separating and meeting again. She smiled and I mirrored her. Eventually we sat side by side, our backs resting against the same tree trunk, looking off in two different directions. She spoke then. “This is Rum Island.”

“Named by children pretending to be pirates?” I replied.

She was quiet again, but the silence was weighted somehow, as if she were trying to work out something else to tell me. I noticed a pain and looked at the sole of my foot to find it bleeding, a little gash just below my toes. I pressed my hand over the wound.

“You know,” she said eventually, “Jimmy. I still want to sleep with him. We still sleep together all the time.”

I had no idea what to say. I pressed my hand harder against my foot, the skin turning white from the pressure. I wanted to look at her, but I wanted to be sure my face communicated the proper reaction. But what was the proper reaction? What reaction would make her tell me more? I thought of several emotions—confusion, curiosity, sympathy—and tried to make my face reflect them all at once, but it was impossible. When I finally dared to turn she didn’t look back. Instead, she rose and stretched.

“Anyway,” she said and headed back to the canoe.

When we reached the cabin, William was just waking up, babbling happily to himself in his portable crib, his blanket to his nose and fingers in his mouth.

I’ll say this now—that was the only time we ever talked about her marriage.

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