He’d always been good with words, an English major before he quit college to come up here. Soon after Luke and I became lovers, he’d gone to Florida for six months. Occasionally he called, and twice that winter he drove up to Clemson to spend a weekend with me, but it had been his letters that made it so easy for me to fall in love despite the physical distance between us.

But this evening it wasn’t just Luke’s eloquence that made his words so powerful. Most people in the room knew he was voicing what he truly believed. He was voicing much of what I believed as well.

“That’s a pretty place you’ve put Ruth,” Kowalsky said, “and maybe it is a holy place.” He looked at Luke as he spoke, and his words weren’t sharp-edged with anger or irony. It was as though a truce had been called, a truce they both knew would soon enough be broken but which Kowalsky seemed to want to preserve a few moments longer. That was understandable, the need for a reprieve. Here was a man who had been able to get things done all his life through anger and intimidation and will, but also a man who’d now learned that none of what had made him a successful businessman could bring his daughter back. What could be worse for a man like that than to watch a river take your daughter under and not be able to do anything, to watch your wife dive into that river while you stood on the bank?

Then Kowalsky shook his head, and whatever vulnerability he’d allowed himself vanished so quickly it was almost as though it hadn’t been there at all but something we had imagined for him.

“But my wife could never see it that way,” he said. “No, our daughter can’t be left in the river. I won’t let that happen.” He stepped back and turned to Brennon. “Go ahead and finish what you were saying.”

“There’s not much else to say, except this dam can be installed, used, and disassembled in one day. One day. One time.” Brennon paused and looked around the room, then back at Kowalsky. He looked like he was trying to get his bearings. “I just don’t understand why this is a problem,” he said. He sounded not angry or even irritated, just be-mused.

Luke stood up again. “It would set a precedent,” he said. “It would open up the Tamassee for all sorts of damage. If you cut new trails for this you can cut them for ATVs. If you can put up a dam you can put up condominiums or a Ferris wheel and water slide and charge admission. What good is a law that’s not enforced?”

Luke turned his gaze to Phillips.