The man hesitated, frowning. He looked back ruefully at the flickering TV in his living room. Then he snorted, but he put on a battered fishing hat and stepped out onto the porch. Hampered by a slight limp, he climbed down the steps and trudged over to the tarp-covered frame that was stacked with canoes. He lifted the tarp and began to ease one of the boats off of its berth.

"Yeah!" Erny cried, leaping around the clearing.

"Do you need help with that?" Tess asked.

"Nope," said the man. "Wait down there."

"Good work, Ma," Erny whispered as they walked down to the water's edge.

"Thanks," said Tess. She looked across the lake at the sheltered beach of the campground and the mountain looming behind it. It didn't look too far away and the surface of the lake was indeed calm. But Tess was filled with apprehension.

The old man set the canoe down and went back for paddles and life jackets, at Tess's request.

"Is it all right to row over to that little beach?" Tess asked when he returned.

"Yeah," said the man. "It's safe enough. Just avoid the rocks on this side."

Tess gazed anxiously at the boulders along the water's edge, from which once, long ago, she had seen her brother swing out on a vine, like Tarzan, yodeling his invincibility for the sake of the female onlookers.

"You two know how to paddle this thing, right?"

"Yeah, we know," Erny a.s.sured the old man.

Tess was not so sanguine. "You use the J stroke, right?" She remembered the term from their trip with Jake.

"Or you can take a stroke and just pry your paddle against the hull."

"Come on, let's go," Erny cried impatiently, picking up their plastic bag of lunch and jumping into the back of the boat.

"You go on up in the bow. Let your mother sit in the stern, sonny."

Erny did as he was told.

"All right then," the old man said to Tess. "Get in. I'll hand you the paddles."

Erny settled himself on the bow seat. The man tried to hand him a small paddle, but Erny insisted he could manage the big one. The man shrugged and handed him the larger paddle. Tess did not want to discourage him, even though the paddle looked like a bit much for him to handle. Tess took the other paddle and sat in the stern. Despite Erny's protestations, Tess insisted that they both put on their life jackets. The old man handed them each a stained, frayed orange vest, which looked as if it would sink immediately on contact with water.

"What's in the bag?" the old man asked.

"Our lunch," said Erny proudly.

"It's gonna get all wet."

Too late, Tess realized he was right. Dawn had tried to talk her into taking a cooler, but she had been in a hurry and wanted to travel light.

"We don't care," Erny a.s.sured the man. "Let's go, Mom."

Tess gripped her paddle firmly as the man gave the canoe a push and the boat glided out onto the surface of the lake. The perimeter of the lake was lined with evergreens and gray-barked trees with branches almost completely denuded of leaves. The mountains loomed up on the other side of the lake, outlined against the sky by ragged pines. The lake was silvery gray and quiet but for the sound of bird calls and the occasional splash of a fish leaping and then falling back into the water. Erny looked all around him with an expression of innocent delight on his face and for one moment Tess was very happy that she had not been deterred from this by her fears. She let them glide for a little bit, until they were away from the sh.o.r.e and then she dipped her paddle into the placid water.

Even though she stroked and lifted her paddle as best she could in the prescribed J motion, the canoe began to veer a little bit. "Erny," she said. "You'd better help me paddle."

"Oh yeah," the boy said, turning around and rocking the canoe beneath them. He reached for his paddle, which was under the seat behind him. He pulled it loose, stuck it in the water, and promptly lost his grip. The paddle sailed out into the lake. "Ma, oh no. Look." He started to lean over the side to try to reach it.

"Erny, sit down," Tess cried. "You're going to capsize the boat."

"My paddle!" he yelled.

"Just sit still. I'll try to catch up with it." Tess's heart was pounding. This was exactly the sort of mishap she had feared would occur. Every time she lifted the paddle from the water and moved it across her body, their lunch was splashed with water. The boat responded to her frantic paddling with jerky, uneven movements. Erny gazed anxiously at his escaping paddle, which seemed to be setting out on its own journey. "Come on, Ma," he insisted. "We have to catch it."

"I know," she said, her forearms already aching. "I'm trying to."

"Come on, you've almost got it," he cried.

Tess managed, with one final push, to get them close to the paddle. Using her own paddle as a hook, she extended it out and managed to snag the wide end and guide it toward the canoe. As the paddle came near, Erny leaned out again.

"Erny, don't..."

But before she could tell him to stop, he managed to grab the handle and jerk it toward him, over the side of the canoe. The dripping paddle teetered and then fell into the boat.

"All right," Ernie crowed.

Tess lifted her paddle back into the boat and exhaled. She let them slowly drift for a moment. The beach, which had seemed so close, now looked to be a daunting distance away. And there were the rocks to think of. What if they were hiding below the surface and she accidentally rammed the boat into them?

"I don't know, Erny," she said. "I'm not sure we should go all the way over to the beach."

"It's not far," Erny said.

"It is when you don't know what you're doing," said Tess.

"But you promised we could..."

Tess felt as if all her shaky confidence had slipped away with the paddle. "Stop, Erny, please. I know what I said, but-"

"Ma, look," Erny cried, wide-eyed and pointing to the sh.o.r.e. Tess peered at the trees and was about to ask him what she was supposed to be looking for, when suddenly she saw and understood. Standing still at the edge of the water, gazing out at them, was a large, s.h.a.ggy moose with mild eyes and rounded antlers.

"Do you see it, Ma?" he cried.

"I do," said Tess. "It's amazing."

"Hey, Mr. Moose," Erny called out.

"Quiet, you'll scare him," said Tess. But she was smiling, both at the unexpected sight of the moose and her son's joy at having picked him out from the camouflaging surroundings.

"Man. Wait till I tell Jonah," said Erny and Tess realized that, even at this exciting moment, he was thinking of home. He was not the only one.

"Can we get closer?" Erny asked.

"I don't want all the splashing to scare him away," said Tess.

Erny heeded her caution and sat like a statue in the prow, gazing on the magnificent animal with delight. The moose returned their gazes impa.s.sively for a few moments and then lowered his head and turned away, ducking back into the trees and shambling off in the opposite direction from the beach.

"He left," Erny lamented.

"Well, he's a wild animal," said Tess. "He doesn't want us getting too close to him." But something about the sighting of the moose seemed to have sh.o.r.ed up her shaky confidence. It was as if his appearance in their view had been a sign. This was a good idea for an excursion today. It would be an adventure her son would remember. And she would banish, once and for all, the anxieties that had paralyzed her for so long. After all, Nelson Abbott must be under arrest by now and it had been her determination that had made it happen. There was nothing to be afraid of now.

"All right, you," Tess instructed her son gently. "Pick up that paddle. Next stop, the beach."

CHAPTER 21.

"Look, its got a picnic table," Erny cried out as their canoe neared the sh.o.r.e.

Tess gazed at the hill thick with evergreens that ran down to the narrow strand of sand. The lake water lapped docilely, gently over the pebbly bed. "I know," she said.

Erny twisted around to look at her wide-eyed. "Did you ever go swimming here?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "Long ago."

He leaned eagerly forward in the prow and scanned the fast-approaching sh.o.r.eline.

"Mind your paddle there, Erny. Stick the wide part down into that pebble bed. It'll act as a kind of brake."

Erny jammed the paddle down and the canoe lurched to a halt and then the stern began turning crazily toward the sh.o.r.e.

"Easy, honey. Lift it up and extend the paddle out," said Tess. "That's it. Just like that. We're going to pull ourselves up onto the sand. Watch me. Do what I'm doing."

Erny obediently watched and then imitated her motions. The boat came about and surged forward, crunching across the b.u.mpy lake bed and up into the sand.

"All right," Erny crowed. "We did it. We're here."

"We're here," Tess agreed as her son clambered out of the canoe and onto the sand. Tess followed him out of the front of the narrow boat and together they dragged it up onto the brown gra.s.s, far enough so that Tess was certain the boat would not be picked up on a swell caused by a pa.s.sing motorboat and sucked back into the lake and away from them. It was not as if they would be completely stranded. There were roads that led to the park campgrounds and the trails through these woods led back to Stone Hill. One of them even came out at the rear of the inn. But Tess did not feature either a swim through the icy water to try to catch a runaway canoe or a walk back to town. Not through these woods.

Erny ran up and down the beach, crouching to examine some glinting treasure magnified by the water or tossing a stick onto the lake's shimmering surface, as Tess retreived their bag of lunch from the boat.

"I wish I brought my fishing pole," Erny said. "I made a pole. Did I tell you that?"

"You told me," said Tess.

"I hope Uncle Jake remembered to get it for me."

"Don't count on your uncle," Tess muttered.

"What?" Erny asked.

Tess stifled a sigh. "Here. I thought we could use that picnic table to eat our lunch."

"Do you think we should make a fire?" Erny asked.

"I didn't bring anything to cook," said Tess.

"We could just make one to keep warm," he suggested.

"Well, maybe a little one," said Tess, wondering if there was some park regulation against fires on this beach. "Maybe after we eat."

"Oh cool," Erny cried and he spun in a circle, his arms outstretched.

Tess, who had been feeling vaguely guilty about the missed fishing opportunity, brightened. Erny liked it here. It had not been a mistake to come. On the contrary, she felt as if she were releasing her anxieties into the pure air like so many balloons. The time had come, she thought, to seize this beautiful place and own it, for her son's sake. Time to leave behind the terrible memories.

"Maybe we'll bring your pole next time we come," she said. "Or we could come swimming here in the summer."

He had seated himself on the bench across the table from her and was already chewing on his sandwich.

"Have a drink," she said, tossing him a juice box across the table.

Erny ate and drank in silence for a few minutes, contentedly surveying his surroundings. "I like it here," he said. "It's like a secret hiding place."

Tess nodded and looked around as she ate her sandwich. "It is, isn't it?"

"Wait," said Erny dramatically, holding up a finger.

"What?" she said.

"I hear something. Listen..." he whispered.

Tess listened. She could hear the sound of a car's engine in the woods. "Someone else is here," she said.

"Aliens," Erny whispered, wide-eyed.

Tess smiled at his imagination. "Campers, more likely. There are campsites back there. Or maybe fishermen. It's a national park, honey. We aren't the only people who can come here."

Erny shook his head. "Aliens," he said gravely.

Tess shrugged. "You never know. Want an orange?"

Erny shook his head. "Cookies."

Tess rummaged in the bag. "You're in luck." She pulled out a plastic bag of thumbprint cookies and fished a few out for Erny. Erny ate them in a flash.

"Can I go exploring?' he said, looking curiously at the forest that edged the hill and the narrow beach.

"I guess we could take a little walk. We need to collect some twigs and branches for our fire."