Myron took him up on the offer. This chair too was turned to the lake, so that Myron and Hunter sat side by side, both facing the view rather than each other. Win stayed standing.

“We really need to find Patrick,” Myron said.

“Did you call Nancy?”

“She’s not answering. Where are they?”

Hunter still had the rifle on his lap. His hand had been slowly sliding toward the trigger, almost indiscernibly. “He needs time, Myron. Can you imagine what his last ten years have been like?”

“Can you imagine,” Win said, “what Rhys’s current year is still like?”

Hunter winced when he heard that and closed his eyes. Myron was tempted to grab the rifle, but Win shook him off. He was right. The rifle was not a threat. Not with Win nearby. If they snatched it away, Hunter would clam up, get defensive. Let him keep his security blanket.

“You met Lionel,” Hunter said. “Dr. Stanton, I mean. He says that if you want Patrick to open up, he needs time. We want a quiet, simple life for him.”

“Is that why Nancy is moving him out here?”

A slow smile came to his lips. “This place has always been my solace. I’m third generation here. My grandfather taught my father how to fly-fish on that lake. My father taught me. When Patrick was little, I taught him. We’d catch sunnies and trout and . . .”

His voice faded away.

Win looked at Myron with flat eyes and played the air violin.

“I realize how hard this must have been on you,” Myron tried.

“I’m not looking for pity.”

“Of course not.”

“It’s like . . .” Hunter never took his eyes off the lake, never so much as glanced at Myron or Win. “It’s like I’ve lived two lives. I was one person—a normal, ordinary person, really—up until that day. And then, poof, I was someone else entirely after. Like we all walked through some science fiction portal and entered a different world.”

“Everything changed,” Myron said, trying to keep him going.

“Yes.”

“You got divorced.”

“Right.” His hand found the bottle, his eyes still glued to the vista. “I don’t know. That might have happened anyway. But yeah, Nancy and I broke up. The constant reminder of what happened, the horror, and this person, your life partner, she’s just there every day, in your face, poking your memory, you know what I mean?”

“I do.”

“The pressure becomes so great. I mean, maybe if there are no cracks to start with, you can get past it. But I couldn’t handle it. So I ran away. I lived overseas for a while. But I couldn’t move on. The horror, the images . . . I started drinking. A lot. Then I would do AA, get better for a little while, start drinking again, sober up. I kept cycling like that. Lather, rinse, repeat.”

Hunter held up the bottle. “Guess where I am in the cycle now?”