I push that thought away.

I dive in—don’t give myself time to think about it, to anticipate the cool of the water. Which turns out to be cold. I surface, shrieking and spluttering, pushing my hair back. Refreshing, though, once I have a moment to acclimate. I stroke across the water away from shore, and then turn on my back and float. The sounds of the world are muffled, and the sun is hot on my face and the parts of me that aren’t covered in water. I splash in circles, open my eyes to reorient myself, make sure I’ve not floated too far away from shore. I know I’m still pretty weak, and if I were to accidentally float toward the middle of the lake, I could be in trouble.

Eventually, I start to feel a little cold, so I roll back to my belly and breaststroke back to shore. When I get there, I see Nathan’s truck, but not him, not at first. It’s not until I climb onto the deck and wrap up in my towel that I see him. The tree line of the forest starts a good twenty yards behind the cabins, and he’s off just inside the trees, skinning a deer. He pauses, glances my way, sees me and waves. I wave back, but head inside.

Adrian tried hunting once, when we were first dating. A friend from college invited him, so he went. He hated it. Said it was cold and early and boring, and when he did finally manage to get a shot off at a deer, he both missed and felt horrible for shooting at it. Said he’d have felt even worse actually killing the thing, and when his friend made his shot and brought down a buck, he felt nauseated. Which was only worsened when his friend cleaned the carcass right there.

He never went hunting again.

My dad used to hunt a lot, when I was little, so the sight is fairly familiar to me. I’d wake up late on a Saturday morning and I’d see Dad out under the big old oak tree behind the house, a deer hanging by its hooves. We’d have venison steaks that night, Dad’s specialty. He’d freeze most of the rest of the meat, and then in the winter, when things were tight and lean, he’d break out back straps and steaks and ground venison and whatever else.

Then he passed away when I was a teenager, and I’d wake up on Saturday mornings for weeks and months afterward expecting to see him out there with a deer, and I’d remember all over again with crushing sorrow that I’d never see it again.

All this flits through me in an instant, from seeing Nathan out under the tall pines in the cool shadows, his hands pinked with blood as he expertly skins and cleans.