— And this guy, your uncle?
— He’s alive. Like, he shouldn’t be. But he is. It missed his spleen. The bullet. Missed his liver.
As he spoke, he held his hand up, flat, palm down. He moved the hand slowly in front of them. He had no idea what he was trying to communicate by the gesture. Something ballistic. He let the hand back down to grip the girder.
— He was in the hospital for a long time.
— And, what, did you see him?
— No, said Pete. I never did. Now he’s back in jail. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure him out. I can’t. I don’t know if I ever will. He’s a killer … But if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive. I wouldn’t be sitting up here talking to you. Those men would have broken a hole through the ice and sunk my body to the bottom, or God knows what they would have done. But that didn’t happen because of what my uncle did. Try telling me what that means.
She didn’t say anything. She just sat there for a little while, squinting her eyes and flexing her toes. He’d speculated there might be release in the telling, but there wasn’t. Maybe it would take some time to feel it but for now there was just the day and the heat and somewhere the knowledge of every day that had gone before.
— So, said Pete.
— You’re alright.
— What?
Veda put her hand on his face, on his nose. Traced with her fingers the crookedness of the bone.
— You’re an alright kind of guy.
— This is something you just thought of?
— Mm, maybe. Anyways, come on.
— You want to go?
— The jump is always the best part.
— Right.
She stood up.
— There’s things we’ve got to get to, Pete. Things waiting for us. And today the getting is good.
She jumped off the edge of the beam. She fell soundlessly and crashed through the surface of the river. There was a brief time that she was out of sight, Pete watching for her, and then she surfaced. She kicked out a ways and turned on her back in the water and waved to him. She called his name.
After a short time, he climbed slowly and deliberately to his feet. He was giddy with the height. The view was vast and lonesome. He drew breath from the hot air and he saw in the southwest where rain clouds were gathering slowly, towers of cumulus piled to the sun, old as anything.
Pete bent forward. There was a last moment of contact with the hot steel and then there was nothing but gravity. He looked down, and just before he hit the surface of the river, he saw himself, a fast-moving shadow, rushing up feet-first to meet him.