Even though it was August and even though the days were getting shorter, the sun didn�t fully set until after ten, here on the western shore, practically making love to the CDT that beelined down the middle�maybe not the exact middle, but who knows where exactly�of the huge lake. So around nine-thirty Russell and Armenta could still see perfectly well, though everything was fully duskful�what filmmakers would call the Magic Hour, Russell remarked more than once�as they made their way down the hill toward the dunes on a rather lackadaisical survey of the cottage�s condition after nine months of being vacated. Armenta�s mother had told her early in the summer that no one in the family had plans to use it this summer, but she�d been in some kind of denial about its actual dormancy, hoping until the last possible minute that maybe some interloper or a random relative had made himself at home without her knowledge.

But no. The boat was still up in the in the shed, the storm windows were in, and there was a fine film of dust over everything. In the two hours since they�d arrived�making a quick trip of what was really a very scenic drive up the coast on 31, stopping only once, just outside of Interlochen, for gas and junk food�they�d removed the most offending signs of disuse, like cobwebs and the aforementioned dust and mysterious fungal-looking forms in moist places, from most crannies and horizontal surfaces, and thrown screens in a few crucial windows, and then with their feet had sort of cleared of leaves and twigs the path to the shore. This was a half-assed homecoming to a half-assed home, Armenta knew, perfectly appropriate for the sort of half-assed vacation she�d taken on the spur of the moment, with a travel companion who�if anyone knew where he was and where she was and the startling proximity of themselves to each other, and they would know soon enough�well, they were in for quite a ride either way, she knew.

They were sitting on the dock now, and it was nearly ten, and they were allowing themselves the sort of intimate adjunctival angles of repose that were forbidden back at home for obvious reasons. Russell was talking about a story he�d read recently in a magazine about a man whose unfortunate gastrointestinal condition was both his eventual undoing and also the catalyst for all his creative endeavors, ever. Whether the story was fiction or non-fiction or occupied that goddamned apocryphal ghetto of urban legend, Armenta wasn�t clear on, whether Russell had actually specified what it was, or whether he even knew, or even what magazine the story was from�Armenta hadn�t caught that. She was half-listening while at the same time picking apart the events of the last few days, what she�d actually done versus what everyone had said, and trying to assess everything as analytically and objectively as possible, which is something she�d never been good at, even when she was a third-party observer, and it was a difficult thing to asess analytically in the first place.

What she knew, however, was that she had behaved reasonably. Of this she was sure. She was a good person, goddamn it. She had loved well and continued to love well, she had done good things for people and maintained and nurtured healthy relationships and friendships with only the minimal complaints that were par for the course, of course, and anything �crazy� or �evil� she�d done lately had only been perceived as such by others who were crazy or evil themselves. She knew the old dictum: the truly crazy, the truly evil, never think themselves crazy or evil. They are acting in the right. But Armenta wasn�t crazy or evil, even though she didn�t think herself crazy or evil.

She was nestled into the ancient nook created by men�s seated forms since the dawn of time, and Russell was doing the thing with the hair again, remarking on how amazingly long and straight and smooth her hair was. He was smart enough not to add that this was in part because of the critical distinction between her hair�s texture and that of Maggie�s, but they both�Russell and Armenta�added the unspoken but obvious thought in their heads, and with this ingenous but unconscious maneuver they both reaffirmed and supressed that which was taboo. The sun was now below the sharp edge of the great lake, but there was a still a silver cast to the water and the dunes were strangely incandescent. Behind them, Armenta could hear the keening of what she knew to be egrets in the thin birch woods above the dunes.

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