Macy Delasco Deep By all accounts, he was a normal guy. He was painfully quiet these days, but given what had happened, it was understandable. Every day, he went to work and came home, went grocery shopping every Saturday, visited with friends once in a while, and that was about it. He had one quirk to him that was rather unusual but by no means punishable. He would sit at the edge of the dock on the lake behind his home every evening. When the sun would be setting gold and the breeze was pulling the leaves of the trees ever so gently, he was there. When the days were short and the rain was beating down with the wrath of an angry god, he was there. His feet were in the water, and his head was tilted downward. At the same time of every day, he would see them. They were two small, pale faces coming up from the murky water, never coming close enough to the surface to be touched, but just far enough to be visible. Far beneath the water, they appear as though they glow. He sees one is a woman, with fine, red hair that dances around her in the water, every so often gliding across her staring face. The other, a child. A look of longing rests on his chubby face as he clings to her. They say nothing, and he says nothing, and after a few moments, they sink back down out of his view. This is the worst part. He sighs, stays a moment more, then reluctantly pulls his feet from the water and makes the lonely short walk back to his home. “Someday,” he’d say to himself. “But not yet.” Every day for seven years he would do this, the same ritual, unchanging. On days he would miss the visit, he would be unable to sleep the night, racked with guilt. He would think of the last time he spoke to them, his wife and child, years ago, over and over and over. “Be safe, a storm is supposed to be rolling in in the evening. Take life jackets.” They had only just moved here. They didn’t understand just yet the power a raging storm can have on a wide lake and a tiny wooden canoe. They were just so excited to live on the water and enjoy their new life. His wife smiled and jokingly rolled her eyes. “All right, all right, we’ll take some.” For whatever reason, she didn’t, and the storm arrived earlier than it was forecasted. Their boat was tipped and the mother and son did not make it. It was a couple of days before they were found. At least, people would whisper, they died together. This wasn’t much condolence to the man who was now left behind. His days that followed were full of solitude and replaying old, cold memories as though they were on tape. Each night he watched his own wedding through his mind’s eye, the birth of his son, the way she broke her heel on their
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