No, Lisa determined, the secret of what she had done that night, and the possibility that Rae could have seen it, could never, ever be made known. She would have to hope that Ryan would reach the same conclusion—she couldn’t risk communicating with him to confirm this—that he would have the good sense to let his own memory of that night die within him as well. After all, he’d been the one to say it: It was just a dream.

When the autopsy results came in, the coroner listed the cause of death as asphyxia due to aspiration of air passages and hemoconcentration. In other words, accidental drowning.

Lisa moved through the days following Rae’s death in a shell-shocked state, as delicate and easily confused as a patient just released after decades in a psychiatric ward. She forgot the word for “cup” and “door.” She allowed herself to be led by Scott and Poppy, who were both constant and loving, through offices and interviews and the attention brought by the local press covering the tragic drowning of a young vacationer, and then back home to Warrenton. Scott and Poppy helped her through phone calls with family, through conversations about the preferred casket and the benefits of different methods of embalming, and through Kimmy’s questions: Why didn’t she change into her swimsuit if she was going to go out for a swim?, Kimmy wondered. Did she know she was drowning while she was drowning?

24

RYAN DISMANTLED THE hydroponic setup in his bedroom as soon as his family returned to Wheeling. He cleaned out his cartons of materials and flushed the last of his weed down the toilet. He gave Ham his cut of the Fripp Island deal and told him he was out of the game. He was sickened and confused by thoughts of the Daly family and everything associated with the vacation, including the cash that had gone missing from his stash beneath the sink. He remained deeply unsettled by this, and by the idea of adding to the lies and secrets that were already sewn inside himself.

Poppy traveled back and forth between Wheeling and Warrenton to care for Lisa’s family following Rae’s death. John had to return to work immediately upon their return, so Ryan spent lots of time with Alex in the days and weeks following their time on the island. He took her fishing and biking, to the Blockbuster to check out movies, and to the post office to buy stamps, so that she could send letters to Kimmy. Lots of hotdogs. Lots of TV. Alex was very somber. She didn’t ask questions. She seemed to have little desire to know anything beyond the very basics of what had happened to Rae.

Ryan had great difficulty sleeping. Thoughts of his moment of intimacy with Lisa became the most vivid after dark, when the memories wrapped themselves around his mind like hard rope, and all night long they squeezed. Nothing brought relief except the first blue whispers of morning, which did nothing to diminish his guilt but simply assured him that even if there was little hope that it would be any better, each day was something new, and perhaps the newness of a day—if nothing else—could make it worth living.