He holds her level, while she kicks out with bare feet. Brown water stirred up by her splashing, dead leaves floating on the surface. These are messages that the year is almost over, and her childhood, and this moment where he can feel her goose-pimpled arms still reaching for him.

Sometimes she cries at night. He hears her from the dark of the landing when he’s shutting out the lights. He stands outside her door, listens before opening it. She cries in her sleep and he wishes he could see what frightens her. Her dreams make her scrunch her nightdress tight in her fist.

Now she is kicking, almost swimming by herself. Her breath gasps as she struggles for air, spits out the lake. He imagines it tastes of silt, pond moss, rotting leaves: the taste of seven Octobers. He wants to let her go, see her swim her first strokes, but worries she might panic and stop kicking, her head slipping below the water.

The bank is only a stretch away, the path a few pine trees further, the house a race beyond that. He wants to swim the length of the lake so he can see her wave from the other side, hear her shout for him. He wants to take her in the rowing boat right to the middle and let the oars slip from his hands.

Today, the sun has a light greyer than the stones on the shoreline, than the stubble on his face. He closes his eyes, imagines that her dreams will hold them above water, even if he took his feet from the bottom, even if stones filled his pockets, even if she was a dead weight.

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