After the Fall Read Online Free PDF

different, more compact way, half a head shorter than my wife, her hair and skin dark.
    The days fell into a pattern: regular, comfortable. Mornings were for fishing while the girls slept in, then lunch on the deck before afternoons spent reading or sunbathing on the small crescent of beach near the house. Around four, with the sun still high but the evening calm descending, Cary and I would launch the boat while Cress and Kate tied back their hair and eased into wet suits, squealing as warm skin met rubber still wet from the day before. Kate would usually ski first, too impatient to wait once she was ready. Cary would throw her the rope; then we’d idle as she adjusted herself, the small, sleek head bobbing in the water like a seal’s, eyes narrowed in concentration. Behind her floated the bush and the beach, our bright towels on the sand the only man-made items.
    Kate, I remember, was learning to slalom. She got out of the water all right on one ski, but then invariably lost control and skidded off over the wake to either side, her slight body jerked straight out of the binding on more than one occasion. This made for some spectacular falls and, hours later, even more impressive bruises, spreading like sunsets on the flesh caught by the rope or the ski as she toppled. “Lean back! Back!” Cary would yell over the din of the engine as she emerged from the water, only to groan as once again the ski began to wobble, and Kate received another dunking. But she refused to go back to two skis, despite her frustration. “Just stubborn,” Cary said, shaking his head in resignation as Kate nosedived off our stern for at least the twentieth time that weekend. Finally he’d order her into the boat and I’d drive while Cress skied—elegantly, gracefully, the way she did most things, not even getting her hair wet—and Kate sat shivering beside me in the observer’s seat while Cary rubbed feeling back into her battered limbs.
    We’d return from skiing as dusk was falling, then sit with beers on the sagging deck until the mosquitoes drove us inside. Spread out at our feet the lake glowed like a mirror, brighter each night as Easter’s full moon bloomed. Kate drank straight from the bottle, occasionally pressing the cold glass against her skin to ease sunburn or muscle strain, Cary toying with the damp hair still slicked to her neck. Eventually, someone would start dinner while the others showered and cleaned up.
    On the second night Cary excused himself sheepishly after Kate had left for the bathroom, and a few minutes later we heard giggles and shrieks over the thrum of the water. Cress and I exchanged knowing glances and laughed, slicing tomatoes for a salad as the noise continued. But then it went quiet, the water stopped, and moments later I heard a soft, stifled moan.
    “That was Kate!” I said, intrigued. I’m always interested in other people’s sex lives.
    “Mmmm,” replied Cress, slicing faster, biting her lip.
    There was another low moan, and I reached to turn down the volume of the CD we were listening to.
    “Don’t,” said Cress, blocking my hand, then increasing the sound instead. When I looked at her she was blushing, eyes riveted to the chopping board. “It’s none of our business,” she added, sounding tense.
    “Let’s do some business of our own then,” I suggested, lifting a strand of pale yellow hair away from her face.
    “In here?” Cress asked, shocked.
    “Why not? It’s not as if they’re going to notice.”
    The noise from the bathroom had risen in pitch, and the water had been turned back on.
    “I don’t know,” said Cress, crossing to the refrigerator for more tomatoes. “There’s something a bit sick about their being so overt and your being so turned on by it.”
    I walked over and pinned her against the fridge, cutting the sentence off with my lips. Caught by static, her hair fanned out across the surface of the door, sparking and crackling as I pressed myself against her.