Molly looked down on the water from a great height. The surface was perfectly blue and so still it looked like a cloudless sky. Lake Tahoe? she wondered. Tahoe was like that. Blue. Still. Cold. Freezing cold. So cold when she swam in it sometimes she hurt all over as if she were being squeezed by a great blue hand.
Like now, she thought suddenly. And she realized she was not above the water, but in it.
She shivered in the grip of that perfectly still water, in the terrible grip of the blue water cold as ice.
The sun burned her eyes. She should look away, she knew. If she looked at the sun too long, she would turn into a sunflower. She’d heard that when she was small from a lady at her father’s cabin. The lady was fat and laughed a lot and gave her Baby Ruth and Oh Henry candy bars and smelled like flowers. Gardenias.
The fat lady pointed a plump finger at her and warned her laughing, you’ll turn into a sunflower. Her father told her different, told her she’d go blind. Her father was probably right. Maybe that’s why her head hurt so much. She was going blind from staring at the sun. He’d told her the truth. About that and many things. Told her she came from bad blood. Told her her mother was a tramp. Told her she would end up one, too. Told her men would be after her like devils, and if she let them have her, she would burn. Was that it? Was that the burning in her head? Was she burning like he said she would? Then why was the rest of her so cold?
She tried to lift her hand, to shield her eyes and block the fire that burned them. But she could not feel her hand, could not tell where it was, if it moved at all.
Am I dying? she wondered. Then why am I not afraid?
Cork’s hands were full of flowers. Brilliant yellow petals around a black center. Sunflowers. He held them gently, held them out as if offering them. He stood on the still blue water with fire at his back, all alone with the sunflowers in his hands. She tried to call to him, but she had no voice. He let the flowers drop one by one onto the water. They landed without a ripple and floated toward her, formed a circle, and the circle was warm. That made her happy. To be warm again. She lay in the warm circle of sunflowers thinking how tired she was and how good it would feel to sleep. To sleep and sleep while she waited for Cork to lie down, too.
She was afraid.
… Did I tell him?…
The fire burned in the blue water around her, in the blue that was all that was left of her vision. The blue and the fire. And then the cloud, black as smoke, moved above her. In the shadow of the black cloud she could see no more.
… Did I tell him…
Yes.
The voice came from the cloud.
Yes, you told me.
… No… not you… did I tell Cork…
Tell him what?
But her eyes were too heavy, and she was too tired to talk. Molly fell back, fell into the dark, into the vast warm dark with one last question trailing her like a broken rope.
… Did I tell Cork… Did I tell him… did I tell him I love him…