He stops, seems to be overcome by the force of his own emotion.

“I hated you, Paul. I didn’t know what to do.”

I try to take slow, deep breaths, but a trembling has begun in me.

He takes a long drink from a small glass I hadn’t noticed before. Takes a deep breath. Shakes his head. I can tell that part of him is telling himself to shut up and the other part is forging ahead.

“That morning, when the three of us took out our kayaks—Shirley and Mary and me—and you stayed back with John, it wasn’t supposed to be that way. I had invited Mary to go out. Just Mary. I was up early that morning, couldn’t sleep because of how I felt for her, and she came down, radiant.”

His voice trails off, then returns with regret in it.

“I never meant for that. For Shirley to come along. I couldn’t find my oar, and I was pretty sure it was Shirley’s fault, that she had borrowed it the night before. So I took the heavy wooden canoe oar with me. You know, the one we found in the woods? And I got upset at Shirley while we were paddling out. How was I supposed to tell Mary how I truly felt while Shirley was there? But really I was angry at the world, Paul. An ocean of anger. It kept building and building. And on top of everything, a fly.”

He shakes his head and laughs, but it’s a laugh completely devoid of any humor, the kind of laugh that chills to the bone. I feel myself tense, ready to run.

“This horsefly, Paul, you wouldn’t believe it. This thing kept landing on me. And it bit me right when we got out to The Point. I crawled up onto the rock, and the girls were down in their kayaks, not sure what we were doing out there, why I was getting so worked up over a fly, but it was so much more than that.”

“Why are you telling me all this, Tom?” I ask, but he waves me off.

“Even when I climbed up on those base rocks around The Point, the fly wouldn’t leave me alone. In one instant I saw it clearly, hovering, and I raised that oar and swung it as hard as I could. I put every ounce of anger into that swing, Paul. How I felt about everything. All for a stupid fly.”

There is sadness in his voice, and regret, but also the heaviness of guilt. My stomach drops.

“I missed.”

Those two words empty me of everything.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. And as the oar swung around, it struck the rock of The Point so hard that it stung my hands. I dropped the oar, Paul. That’s how hard it hit.” His voice trembles. “But when I turned to pick it up, I realized I hadn’t hit the rocks. Paul. I hadn’t hit the rocks.”