I didn’t have a good night’s rest. I awoke in the wee hours hot and clammy. I threw off the covers, but my past shrouded me in its skin. The knocking frog that had dug in right below my window was unrelenting. Knock, knock, knock. A microsecond pause. Then off it went again.
Sleep wouldn’t come. All I could do was lie on my back with my memories compressing me like overly tight bandages. My chest felt heavy and my heart thrummed.
By way of distraction, I recalled the fragments of Joy’s last moments. How easy it had been, Philip’s foot on her submerged head. But I couldn’t be sure. I was leaping to an ill-founded conclusion, quick to find my brother, my own flesh, guilty of murder. He may just as well have been trying to reach her, hook his foot in a sleeve to raise her up perhaps, and pu
