Snippets

“Daddy turned and looked back at the house, just for a moment, and I put my hand up to wave, but he didn’t see. He swiveled back toward the jon boat, stepped in, and then he was gone, never to return.”

“I pull out into the flat, open lake. My hands tremble, but the paddle slips cleanly through the water. The canoe moves beneath me.
‘Don’t get lost!’ the canoe man calls, but his voice is thin, far away now.”

 

“This water taught me more than I ever wanted to know. You can’t see through it, and the bank offers no foothold. It’s filled with creatures who never have and never will appreciate a human. It’s this brown water that swallowed up my father.”