Andrea Barrett - The Forms of Water

After that, Wendy had given up hope of finding anyone and had begun to wish only that they’d somehow find their way back to Roy’s car. Roy had ignored her; all his energy had been taken up with Delia, who had collapsed on a tussock of bent grass and refused to go any farther until Roy promised they’d head home in an hour or two. Lise had cursed Wendy for being fool enough to bring her bag along, and Win had grown so pale and tight-lipped that he’d frightened Wendy. And yet here they were, separated from their mother only by a sheet of smooth water, separated from Grunkie only by another, larger sheet. Those sheets seemed, at first, like nothing.

“Wendy?” her mother called across the water. “Win? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Christine sent us,” Wendy called back, unable to think of another explanation.

“What?”

“Christine,” Wendy said again, and then, “Where’s Dad?”

Wiloma pointed toward the wooded land behind her. “Up there. With your uncle Henry.”

Lise dragged Delia a few feet forward. “Can you see him? Where is he?”

“I can’t see anything,” Delia said. “No, wait — there’s someone in a blue shirt up there. Is that Dad? Or Uncle Waldo?”

Win came up to Wendy and rested his arm on her shoulder. “We found them,” he said. “I don’t believe it.” His voice was tired and puzzled.

“You found them,” Wendy said. “We never would have gotten here without you.”

Win shrugged as if his navigation had been nothing, but she could tell that he was pleased. “So we found them,” he said. “Now what?”

She didn’t know. Her mother and father and Grunkie and Uncle Henry were all here, and all of them appeared to be safe, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to do. Her mother called, “How did you get here?” and she called back, “Roy!”

Roy, Wiloma thought. Who was Roy? On the shore across from her she saw Lise and Delia, who must have come with Wendy and Win; a fifth person stood near Delia, a boy with long hair and legs in black jeans. Was that Roy? She dimly remembered Kitty complaining about some hoodlum Delia had been seeing, but this boy didn’t look so bad and it seemed a miracle that they were here at all. Last night Christine had said they were sleeping — except that, Wiloma remembered now, those had not been Christine’s words exactly. When she’d asked for Wendy, Christine had said it was very late and that she could talk to Wendy in the morning. Not a lie exactly, but a deception all the same. Wiloma felt a prickle of anger at Christine, but she pushed it down and concentrated on her delight at finding the children here. Between them and Waldo, Henry wouldn’t stand a chance; whatever strange plan Henry had in mind was doomed.

Win called, “Mom? Are you all right?” and she heard the fear in his voice. He and Wendy worried so — they acted as if she were always on the verge of breaking down again, as if they didn’t understand how the Church buoyed her up and kept her safe. “I’m fine,” she called, and on the opposite shore Win turned to Wendy and said, “I guess she’s okay.”

“She’s all right,” Lise said impatiently. “But can’t you hear Dad? I don’t know who he’s yelling at.”

“Probably our father,” Wendy said. “Mom must have sent him up there after Uncle Henry.”

“Wonderful,” Lise said bitterly. “Thanksgiving all over again.” Wendy remembered the two men fighting at a holiday dinner years ago; something about the one development they’d worked on together. She and Lise had been children then, and the fight had terrified them.

“I wish we had one of those boats,” Win said, pointing to the row on the opposite shore. “There’s no way for us to get over to Mom, except to walk back into the woods and see if we can find the mouth of the cove and cross over there.”

Wendy looked down the cove, which cut back so deeply that she couldn’t see its end. The shore of the point where their mother stood ran parallel to them. “This must be the mouth of a river. A stream must come through those trees.”

Win followed her gaze. “I guess.”

Wendy looked again at the sheet of water separating them from their mother. “It’s so narrow. And it’s so warm out — we could just swim it.”

Roy left Delia’s side and came over to Wendy and said, “No,” even as Win’s eyes lit up. “Why not?” Win said. “It’s so shallow — it’s nothing.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Roy said. For a second, Wendy let herself think that he was protecting her. Then he said, “Delia and Lise won’t go for it — Delia hates the water. And we ought to stick together. It won’t take that long if we walk.”

Win ignored him. He had already stepped out of his sneakers when Delia walked to the edge of the water and began shouting toward the boat. “Grunkie!” she called, waving her arms. “Grunkie! Hi! It’s me!”

Lise joined her. “Grunkie! Come back!”

Brendan had kept his back toward Wiloma and the sounds Henry was making in the distance, but when he heard his nickname he craned his head over his shoulder and saw Lise there, and Delia and Wendy and Win, lined up on the shore and waving at him. For a minute he thought he might be dreaming. He hadn’t seen them all together in years; Wendy and Win took turns coming to visit him with their mother, and although he’d seen Lise only yesterday, before that he hadn’t seen her or Delia since Delia had left for college.

Years ago, Kitty and Wiloma had sometimes dressed up all four children and brought them to St. Benedict’s for Christmas. They’d crowded into his room, squirming and squealing and restless, holding cards they’d made from red and green construction paper. All up and down his floor, his friends had strained for glimpses of them; all year long he’d held the vision of their last visit in his mind. And now here they were, as tall and straight as young poplars on the shore. It was wonderful, wonderful; Wiloma must have brought them with her as a surprise to him, and he was grateful to her and then embarrassed that he’d left her behind. Somehow she’d understood that he wanted his whole family here with him; she hadn’t been chasing him, she’d come to join him. He leaned over the side of the boat and waved to his family with both arms, and just then, just when Marcus, looking alarmed, pulled in his oars and said, “Be careful!” Bongo recognized Delia’s voice and leapt to his feet and barked.

He was a big dog, and his toenails hadn’t been clipped in a long time. His feet spun on the aluminum and he fell heavily, rocking the boat; Brendan, unbalanced and twisted toward the shore, slipped over the side and into the water so quickly that his greeting was still on his lips. His head rose above the water once, but his glasses fell off and he could see only colored shapes. The water wasn’t cold. His family was all around him, and Marcus had rowed him just to the spot overlying his abbey, and he sank easily, gratefully, down into the silky water, past a school of minnows that scattered, past a pair of trout who eyed him kindly, past the waving weeds and toward the glimmering stones. Surely that was the chapel below him? And the cloister, the garden, the great wall against which he’d leaned as a child, listening to the monks within? And there were the fields and the grazing cows and his family’s farm in the distance; and the sky was blue and his brothers were chanting and his family spoke softly to him.

He thought of Roxanne, the one person at St. Benedict’s he’d failed to say good-bye to; he felt her warm hands on his legs. Then he thought of all the kind people who’d leaned from their cars and spoken to him as he sat on his lonely corner. He heard Bongo barking above him, fish breathing water below him, and he thought of the tale his abbot had told him before he’d sailed for China, of a man who heard a voice in a dream that told him to set out on a journey. The man obeyed the voice; he traveled far and had many adventures. But when he reached his destination, he found only a stranger who told him the treasure he sought was hidden back in his own house. That’s the way it works, his abbot had said; he’d said that only a journey to distant lands could reveal what lay buried at home.