“Absolutely incredible,” Tom says again, and now he is standing right behind me.

That’s when you emerge from the hallway. Your dark hair is shining and braided perfectly. You’re not wearing anything particularly fancy, only blue jeans and a gray T-shirt, but there is something about the flashing of your eyes, the sheen of your hair, and the way you bounce as you walk that scream “life!”

Tom and I are taken aback.

“Hello,” you say bashfully, your eyes suddenly dropping. You glance up at me long enough to see if I have said anything about the rug, the floor, the disgrace of a room. I subtly shake my head. You purse your lips and look as though you might tell him yourself.

“Tom showed me your map, Pearl,” I say. “How did you do it?”

You give me a serious look. “I had help.”

Tom walks back over to the kitchen. “Your drawings are very detailed. Do you like to draw?”

“Sometimes.”

“You’re very talented.”

You come over and stand beside me. I can’t take my eyes off the map, and that’s when I see a tiny red X on the detailed sketch of our old cabin.

“What’s that?”

“That’s where she wants to go next,” you whisper. “That’s where she thinks the door might be.”

The same old chill races down my spine. I glance over at Tom to see if he is listening. He’s not.

“Did you tell Tom?” you whisper.

I shake my head.

“Now, now,” Tom calls from the kitchen. “No whispering. No secrets.”

You and I look at each other, not knowing what to do.

“Let’s go,” he says, pulling some things from the refrigerator and tossing them into a bag. “It’s a beautiful day to be out on the water.”

And he’s right.

We walk out onto the deck and go down a flight of wooden steps I didn’t notice before. Tom goes ahead of me and you come along behind, your footsteps light, barely touching the ground. I glance at you once, and you stare at me with hesitant eyes. I can still see the guilt there, and I don’t have any more anger, only sadness that you did it, that you destroyed something precious to Tom. I nod, reach back, give your tiny shoulder a squeeze. You give me a sad smile.

At the bottom of the steps is a wooden pier, about forty feet long, that goes straight out through a boggy, swampy area of high grass and marsh. It leads out into the lake and ends where the water is deep and a small motorboat thumps against the wooden posts.

“Here we are,” Tom says in the flat voice I have come to recognize as his. It is nothing like the voice from our teenage years, when it was always on the edge of laughter or teasing or sarcasm.

He reaches for your hand and helps you down the short ladder and into the boat, beckoning me to follow. It’s awkward backing off the dock and onto the ladder and taking that first swaying step onto the boat. He follows us both down, bringing along the rope that had tied the boat to the dock. He drops it onto the floor, where it curls up like a dead snake.