Free The Color of Water in July by Nora Carroll Page A

was an almost autumnal feeling in the air. Outside the warped glass windows, the lake had gone silver, studded with scallops of whitecaps. The tree branches that hung down over the window were shaking, and the sky over the lake was gray streaked with purple: dark, menacing, and cold.
    It was Thursday, the day each week when Mamie went to Petoskey with May Lewis, and this Thursday was no exception. Mamie had put on her raincoat, snapped plastic galoshes over her pumps, and tied a pink kerchief around her head; then she had left as usual, gliding her town car down the back road toward The Rafters, where she would stop and pick up May.
    When Jess heard the screen door closing behind Mamie, she felt herself relax, just a little. It wasn’t until she felt her shoulders drop an inch that she realized how tightly she was holding herself. She was still stunned by what had happened at the beach picnic the night before.
    Jess was wondering whether she should have called her mother. Of course, it wasn’t easy to reach Margaret in Namibia. She was following rebel camps in the South, but the AP could always get in touch with her, and, as Jess knew, she frequently flew out to Johannesburg for R&R. She might be at the Sofitel right now, and Jess could just pick up the phone and dial.
    Then again, they weren’t much in the habit of speaking to each other during the summer. Jess rarely tried to get in touch with her on assignment. Just the idea of trying to reach Margaret in Namibia gave her a headache. Jess thought about Margaret and Mamie. No use to her, either one of them. She would, as she usually did, forge on alone.
    Just a few minutes after Mamie left, she saw Daniel’s white pickup pull into the spot next to the garage where Mamie’s Lincoln Town Car usually sat.
    Her first thought was to run upstairs in the cottage, to hide and pretend she wasn’t there. But it was too late. He had caught sight of her through the window, and his face, so serious-looking, had eased into a smile. She stood up from where she sat at the kitchen table folding clothes and walked to the back door, pushing it open.
    There was an awkward moment of silence, Jess staring down at the scuffed green-and-white linoleum, unable to meet his eyes. She thought he was going to offer sympathy, and felt that the slightest kind word would send her dissolving back into sobs. She stared resolutely at her feet.
    But Daniel did not offer sympathy. Instead, he grasped her arm gently and guided her out the door into the soft rain.
    “If it’s okay with you, I want to show you something.” Holding his green windbreaker over their heads as they walked, he headed them toward the path into the woods.
    “Where? Where are we going?” Jess was walking along beside him, close enough to bump elbows, ducking to stay under the impromptu canopy.
    “Just a minute, I’ll show you.” He slowed to a walk as the path into the woods got so narrow that they had to walk in single file. He still held the windbreaker over both of them. The air underneath it was close, with a vinyl odor. Fat raindrops were falling on it occasionally, making loud splats.
    Daniel stepped off the path and led Jess through the thick, wet, knee-high brambles that slapped against her pant legs as she stepped, trying to avoid the thorny vines. After a moment, he stopped, pushing the edge of the windbreaker off his head, and he knelt down on the wet forest floor, assuming a posture that looked almost like prayer. It wasn’t raining hard now, just the occasional splatter falling through the trees.
    “Look, Jess. Look here.”
    Gently, he held back the branches so that she could see, but she didn’t see anything special, just green leafy underbrush hugging the ground.
    “What, what is it?”
    “Come down and take a look.”
    Jess knelt down beside him, feeling the damp soak through the knees of her jeans. Tenderly, Daniel held up the low heart-shaped leaves. Underneath, she saw clusters of wild raspberries,