“I don’t really want to talk about it, Tom. It’s okay. Let’s let it go for now.”

Tom nods. “Fair enough.”

“There’s something else though,” I say.

Tom looks at me. I’m still staring at you out there in the water, afraid to take my eyes off you in case you sink down into the depths. I can feel Tom’s gaze on the side of my face.

“It’s about Pearl.” I tell him the story you told me, and when I finish talking, the day is quiet, the morning breeze has died down, and the boat is almost completely still. You are still floating, eyes closed. The sunlight glares off the water.

“Yes,” Tom whispers to himself. “Yes, I see.”

“So, what do you think?” I ask him, still not taking my eyes off you.

“What do I think?”

“Yes.”

“I assume you mean, do I think Pearl is suffering from some form of psychosis.”

I bite my lip and nod. “That sounds about right.”

“Paul, things are not as simple as that. Psychosis is not an off-or-on switch—this person is, this person is not. Pearl may well be exhibiting subtle signs of psychosis, but I would only be able to determine the extent of that after meeting with her regularly, over a series of sessions.”

“She’s having conversations with people who don’t exist,” I whisper. “She’s on a mission to save me, and this mission has her flying through the woods and going down endless stairs in a house we both know doesn’t have an endless stairway.”

Your arms flutter in the water, and I stand, causing the boat to shift. But you regain your composure, and soon you’re floating again, completely still.

“Doesn’t that count for something?” I continue.

“Perhaps,” Tom admits.

I find myself fuming at him. But before I can come up with another comeback, he speaks again.

“You know, it might do her good to stay out here for a little while. For both of you to stay. Only if you’d like, of course. A change of scenery might be exactly what she needs in order to shed some of these things.”

Your delusions feel more serious to me than that. But Tom hasn’t seen the carpet. He wasn’t there when I found you in bed this morning after you had obviously been wandering the woods late at night by yourself. I don’t know what else to say.

“Let’s give it some time,” Tom says, and I can’t help but feel like a placated child.

As we sit there at the back of the boat, your eyes pop open, staring up at the sky. You peek into the water out of the corner of your eye, as if straining to see something barely outside of your vision. Panic comes over your face.

You quickly roll over onto your belly, duck your head under the water, and you’re gone, down into the depths of the lake.

The Loss of You

Pearl!” I cry out, getting ready to jump in and follow you. But the boat leans hard into the water and then rises so quickly that I stumble backwards. Tom has jumped in. I take a few sharp steps to the back of the boat. I experience again what I lived through on the day Mary left me. Even in the midst of the chaos, I recognize the smallest details: the warmth of the late morning sun; the far-off edge of the lake where it curves over to meet Tom’s house; the way the haze is clearing from the sky, the bright blue taking its place; and the pale, daytime moon hanging wispy and transparent over the trees.