‘I like helping people too. Just the other week I yelled at an impatient taxi driver for honking his horn at a mom with a pram, made him wait until she was safely across the road. But there’s a difference between being helpful, and helping people by scaling cliff faces or being winched out of a helicopter.’
‘I don’t get winched out of helicopters. That’s a whole different level of skill and training.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘What can I say? I wanted to give something back to the community that has been so welcoming to me. Gerry and another guy were talking about it at the bar one night, how they needed more volunteers, so I signed up.’
‘Just like that.’
‘Just like that,’ I confirmed. ‘Worship me if you must, but I’m no hero. I’m just an ordinary man, doing extraordinary things.’
She burst out laughing. Her teeth were bright in the silver light of the moon. ‘Oh my God, could you be any more full of yourself?’
I grinned at her. ‘I was clearly joking.’
‘If you say so.’
I laughed. Watched her kick off the side and float on her back, her face pale in the moonlight. Somewhere out on the water, a loon called mournfully, the sound haunting across the water.
‘You never answered my question, by the way,’ I said.
‘What question?’
‘About why you were at the cemetery.’
She was silent for so long I thought I’d upset her. So quiet that all I could hear was the soothing sigh of the waves and the quiet hum of crickets from up in the pine trees.
‘I was doing what everyone does at a cemetery,’ she said eventually.
‘Visiting a grave.’
‘Yes, Captain Obvious.’
I waited to see if she would be more forthcoming, but she stayed quiet.
‘Family?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m getting the strangest feeling that you don’t want to talk about it.’
‘You should trust that feeling.’
‘Fine.’ I pushed off the rocks and swam across to the other side of the pool, the side closest to the ocean. ‘Keep your secrets.’
‘It’s not a secret,’ she said. ‘I’d just rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.’
Something in her tone was fragile, warning me that I’d almost gone too far.
‘I don’t mind. Sorry for being pushy.’
She sighed. ‘You weren’t. Not really. It’s just… being back here again. It’s hard.’
‘It’s really that bad?’
‘It’s not bad, just hard. A lot of memories. Some good, some not so good.’
‘Tell me a good one.’
