Chapter 1 - The Hand on the Chair
The old man's wheelchair rolled off the dock, and his daughter didn't scream. She smiled.
"Daniel!" Evelyn Mercer shouted as the lake swallowed her husband's gray head. The chair hit the water first. A sound like a door slamming echoed through the trees. Then came the splash, wide and white, and the beige blanket flared on the surface before sinking.
Daniel had been looking at the willow branches. One moment he was beside her, his thin fingers resting on the wheels. The next, the front casters crossed the final plank and gravity did the rest.
Behind Evelyn stood her son, Grant, tall in a light gray overshirt. His hand was still extended, exactly where the handles of Daniel's chair had been. Beside him, his wife, Mara, stood in an olive coat, mouth tight, eyes dry.
"He slipped," Grant said.
"Chairs don't slip on flat boards." Evelyn heard her voice crack. "You pushed him."
Grant stared at the water. "Mom, don't make this worse."
Evelyn reached for the rims of her own black wheelchair. Her blue eyes searched the dark green surface for her husband. Bubbles rose beneath the dock, popped, and were gone. Daniel couldn't swim anymore. Since the stroke, one arm barely obeyed him.
"Call nine-one-one!" she screamed.
Mara pulled out her phone, but the screen stayed black. "No signal."
"Then run to the road!"
Neither of them moved.
Evelyn's silver necklace shook against her lavender blouse. She looked from Mara to Grant. In that instant she understood something much worse than a freak accident: they had come to the lake knowing how the afternoon would end.
Grant stepped behind her chair. "I'm sorry, Mom."
She locked both wheels. "Don't you touch me."
His fingers closed around the push handles. Metal snapped as he released the brakes.
"Grant," she whispered, "what have you done?"
May you like
He leaned close enough for her to smell the peppermint gum on his breath.
"What Dad should've done twenty years ago," he said, and sent her toward the edge.
