Lake Pontchartrain is the biggest lake in Louisiana. It's also the second biggest salt-water lake in the United States. But, that's not the point of recounting this. The point is, Lake Pontchartrain is a sanctuary; an expanse of unbroken sapphire blue with secrets in the deep.

Charlotte King was conceived at Lake Pontchartrain; there in the emerald reeds and dock leaves; there next to the slight brackish scent of gently-lapping water. She sometimes gets a scent of green and mud and blue lake; sometimes, even in the centre of her Santa Monica office, she'll catch the scent of that wide water vista, and it'll make her smile, for no reason at all.

You know how your fondest memory is often something not very big? Charlotte sometimes traces it over in her mind, when she's sitting at home and Scrubs is on and she's laughing sarcastically at the inaccuracies, she'll suddenly remember the silky feeling of wet sand through her hands, or the way her hair flows like a mermaid underwater. Lake Pontchartrain. It's more than a vacation spot; it's like your best memories of every awesome vacation submerged under a calm blanket, safe and cool in the reeds.

Sunday; dark water draining north,

The heat swells and bursts like plague.

Sunday; ever-so-faint slow tambourine glides

Onward toward the grave.

When she met him, he was gesticulating wildly at a resident, and she slipped by unnoticed. She learned later that he had been asking for her, and thankfully, she'd smiled at her escape. Charlotte is a tiger; it's true. But she really prefers to avoid confrontation, especially with those she doesn't know.

Sam Bennett; he's so preppy. Shirt's always tucked in. Head and face always carefully shaven. But he's got a closed-over piercing and a scar on his chest, and no one would know unless they traced it with their fingers after a session in his bed in the house by the sea. And she didn't know it until much, much later; that's jumping ahead of the story.

He's got gentle hands. He's got a smooth, deep voice. He's married, and none of it's Charlotte's fault, but it's the way of it. It's always the fucking way of it.

It was one night after Ben; she missed her period and peed on a stick, and realized that a pregnancy was something she hadn't thought to slot into her day calendar. It just was never the right time. She had no husband; she had no permanent place to live. She had money but student loans to pay off after her father refused to help with medical school (read: spent all the college fund money on gin). And it just wasn't going to work. She made the appointment for the clinic the next day.

Plus, some people just shouldn't be mothers. Charlotte hates children. Okay, no, she doesn't. But she does hate the idea of being tied to someone for the rest of your life. Her parents . . . her parents never thought. Never thought that four kids were too much. Never realized that four kids could be a type of hell that you don't realize you're creating for yourself. And she doesn't drink; she doesn't drink. But it's the fact that she'd be alone and no one would get the baby at three AM for her. It's the fact that the child would spend its formative years in the hospital daycare. Hormones notwithstanding, it just doesn't work.

She never gets the chance to contemplate life with a baby (or with an abortion), though, because she has a miscarriage a week later. No, it's nothing big; like a heavier period, really. A relief.

But he catches her crying in the hallway outside the nursery and his eyes are so meltingly brown. "Charlotte King?"

"What do you want?" It's blunter than she normally would be. It's not the way she imagines a first meeting.

"I'm Sam Bennett. And if this is a bad time . . ."

"It's never a bad time." She laughs a little, wipes the tears from her eyes. "Can I meet you in my office in about fifteen minutes?" She reaches into her memory. "The patient with the abdominal pain, right?"

"Yeah." He hands her a handkerchief and she smells spicy cologne as she raises it to her eyes.

He stares, almost unseeingly, into the nursery window. "Someone you lost?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Who drew the line?

Who drew the line between you and me?

Who drew the line that everyone sees?

She's got the numbness on her tongue; that slight nausea she's popped Dramamine to control. The Percocet makes the cramps ebb and she leans back in the comfortable office chair that they special-ordered, feeling the sleepiness overcome her.

It's like feeling the cool water close above her hair. It's that same feeling of release.

Darling, Lake Pontchartrain is haunted:

Bones without names, photographs framed in reeds.

Darling, what blood our veins are holding.

She meets Naomi Bennett later on; she watches her argue with a petite version of herself outside the hospital as they wait for Sam to finish with a patient, and Charlotte's jealous, she's hot and harsh like a glass of fire. And it just doesn't seem fair, that every man is either taken or gay, or can't relate (she still sees the sad brown eyes at night; Ben never really leaves). She envies Naomi and wonders why the woman always frowns when she has someone who probably massages her shoulders at night and plays jazz on the terrace stereo under the streaked California sky.

Anyway, it's easier to sink. If you never connect, you never miss out. Right?

The watery world is more beautiful, anyway.

The overpass frozen, fires ablaze at sea.

Who drew the line? Who drew the line

That cuts to the skin, buries me in?

Tell me who drew the line.

It takes awhile, but her staff starts to realize. Her voice is slurred in the mornings. Her hands shake until she goes into her office and pops more pills, and she knows that in a different way, she's become who she hates. So it's not the gin; it's the same numbness, and for the first time, she understands the need to break something – the need to make something feel, to hear someone scream. And she hates herself for it.

He comes into her office, eyes blazing, ready to scream about something that's not right administratively, and stops dead when he catches her dry-heaving into a garbage can next to her desk. "Oh, okay . . ."

"Jus' go." Her voice is slurred and her hand grips the edge of the desk too hard, and he realizes suddenly that going would be irresponsible at this point. Detaching her hand is tough; the grooves in her palm are red and painful and her eyes are rimmed with tears, and he can tell by the sluggish beat of her pulse that she's on something. She's lost five or ten pounds since the last time he saw her. All the beautiful designer clothes and crisp white lab coats don't hide the weight loss, or the pale blue veins under her skin.

"What are you doing?"

"Why?"

"Whatever it is, you can't afford this, Charlotte."

"I don't know why you care. You don't even know me."

He sighs and runs a hand over his scalp, eyes never leaving hers. "Destruction? Doesn't need to be on more than speaking terms with me."

She suddenly crumples. "I hate myself. And I hate you. And you know too much."

His hand is warm on her shoulder. "I'm not about to let on that I know."

Darling, don't close your eyes.

(Lie as darkness hardens.

Lie of our reunion.

Oh, lie if God is sleeping.

Oh, I believe you now.)

It grows from there. It'd be silly to say that Charlotte learned to trust Sam, but she trusted him more than any other man she knew. More than Ben, and she married the guy.

Coming off the Percocet is hard. She refuse rehab and he doesn't push her; they spend hours locked in his office, discussing options. She won't see the shrink. He pleads with her and she turns her face away. He tries to get her to describe the triggers; she tells him to fuck off. It's a slow process. She sees Naomi peering in out of the corner of her eye and agrees to go to AA as his eyes leave hers to meet his wife's. She only says it to get him to look back, and is rewarded when his gaze slides back to hers and she gets a smile, too.

The crisis comes when he finds her on the floor of Oceanside, just after opening, the one day. Dell is crouched over her and Sam pushes him aside to check her pulse and to feel her hands, which are freezing. He quickly realizes she's not eating and forces her to drink a root beer while yelling at her in the closed conference room.

She realizes that keeping his attention is worth the pain, and skips her AA meetings to drive by his house. Sometimes she brings a bottle of Corona; often, she keeps her head low and watches the silhouettes through the window, remembering the life she gave up and the life she wants so badly.

She chews her fingernails at night and stares through the window out at the shimmering water, off in the distance, and thinks about the lake. It's not even so much that it was a spot to get away; it was never away. The yelling and abuse followed her to Louisiana. But it was a different sort of pain; it was the ability to hide in the rushes and watch the boaters on the water; it was the way that the wind whistled lazily through the trees and ruffled her thin blonde hair. It was another place to hide, and Pontchartrain has its share of secrets.

Naomi never found out. When he started to withdraw, Charlotte hid behind the door. But she made sure she always came to the surface; she always stood before him when he turned around. She extended slowly; she reached her hand out and he grabbed it.

Darling, Lake Pontchartrain will cradle me

And all you left behind.

Funny, that seemed to almost be enough, at the time. She never thought of asking for more.

Listen: ever-so-faint slow tambourine

Is marching back through time.