“Lily, stop it,” Karen said. “Don’t gossip.”

“What? You think I should just keep quiet? Is that it?” said Lily, going red.

“You’re emotional because you’re pregnant,” Karen said, stone-faced.

“Oh good,” Lily said. “The diagnosis of a medical professional!” She sat up and plunged both feet in the water, splashing Karen and me. Her voice rose to a shriek. “Fuck! What’s this tumor growing out of my stomach? Why is it kicking? It’s alive!” Her chin crumpled and her lips were wet. She turned to me. “Why do I put up with this?”

“It’s not gossip,” I said. “Or it is gossip. Tell me.”

Lily began to cry, gulping in air. On the far bank the honeybees took slow laps around the yarrow. Everything was doing what was built into it, and would keep on until it died. Karen started talking.

“Rudy and Shane showed up at the Land Trust one morning,” she said. “Me and Lily were at our place. I was whittling. Lily was weeding. It was a workday. We heard the chain saw going back there at first, but then we heard shouting, a lull, then buzzing. A low whine, something shrill, I can’t say what it was. But I stopped whittling. And then Shane came out of the woods, white in the face, a gash on the side of his head. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there.”

“Didn’t you ever see that gash?” asked Lily, passing the backs of her hands over her eyes.

“He came home with his face cut up,” I said. “But he said it was nothing.”

“Right. For him it was nothing,” Lily said.

“Lily, stop interrupting,” Karen said. Lily began to cry again, quietly, but Karen kept talking. “Where’s Rudy? I asked him. Rudy, Shane repeated. Tell us, I said. Where’s Rudy? Then I just dropped my knife and took off at a dead run through the woods. Rudy was back there on the ground. He was out. There was vomit all down his beard, a blue and red bruise at the front of his head. His shoulder was pinned beneath an ash branch. I pushed at the branch, but couldn’t move it. Shane had followed me, but he just stood there with his mouth open. He said, I dropped it on him. I killed him. It was an accident.”

“But he didn’t kill him,” I said.

“Nearly did,” Lily said.

“Why didn’t he roll that branch off Rudy?” I asked.

Karen looked at me, long and cool. “How should I know why your boyfriend does things or not?” she said. “All I know is I tried to push that branch off Rudy. He’s not dead, I told Shane. You have to help me. I can’t move it on my own. I can’t, said Shane. You have to, I said. Okay, he said like he was waking up. He knelt down and heaved on that branch, and it rolled off into the leaves. You could see the marks up and down Rudy’s chest. He wasn’t breathing.”