Justine
The water was a perfect mirror for the sky. Matthew turned off the motor, and the metal boat coasted to a stop, suspended between two heavens. The air on that early spring day was warm and cool at the same time. The last of the ice had melted just the week before, but the brown grasses at the water’s edge already were streaked with green.
Justine opened the cardboard box. She expected a fine dust, noncorporeal, that would blow away on the wind or float on the water, but it was heavy, like sand. It would sink quickly.
Melanie sat beside her, and Angela and Maurie faced them. Matthew and Abe sat in the stern. Everyone was watching her. She’d thought she would recite Psalm 51, so she had a Bible – the King James version, with its words like music. Now she decided not to. The lake,
