Girl Underwater (20 page)

I
distribute another round of melted snow, which fails to rouse any enthusiasm from the boys. Aayu barely has the energy to sit up, and Liam has a cough now, too. Tim's toes and fingers have gone a disconcerting purple. No one feels like drinking anything.

Colin rubs Tim's hands and feet while I change the other boys' clothes. Everything is damp—clothes, blankets, hats, gloves. I don't know if it's because they all have fevers or because we failed to dry things out this morning. What seemed practical two days ago now feels like an exercise in futility.

People die because they panic.
My father's words—repeated on every ski trip, every white-water rafting excursion, every adrenaline-infused expedition he ever took us on—rattle around in my brain.
Take it easy,
he'd say
. Relax.
He never panicked, even when his own kids were in danger. But he's not here, and I'm not my father.

“I'll go out.” Colin pulls on his hat, the one with the enlarged hole for his face. “The boys need to eat.”

“Colin, you can't.”

He sinks to his knees beside me. He's laboring to breathe—shallow, raspy breaths that sound like a rusted engine. His mind wants to keep going, but his body can't oblige. It's excruciating to watch.

“Maybe you're right,” he finally says.

Hearing him admit this is worse than the damning thump we heard right before impact, worse than the angry roar of the bear. He's giving up.
He knows.

“Listen to me.” His hands cup my face, warming me everywhere. “You aren't going to die.”

“
We
aren't going to die.” I grasp his wrists so his hands stay on my face. Everything around us falls away. There is only him, just like we were on the plane. Arms wrapped around our knees, heads turned toward each other.
Only you.

“Avery—”

“Don't say it. Not now.” I whisper against his lips, “Not ever.”

“I won't,” he says, his voice breaking as he removes my gloves. He fumbles with them—the left, then the right, and then his own, until it's just us, skin touching skin, my hands in his. He's warm, so warm. He rests his forehead against mine, and for a rare, stolen moment, it feels like we're breathing for each other.

•

Some time later, the gray walls in my dream turn black, then red, and suddenly there is nothing in front of me but a wild, consuming flame licking the plastic curves of the cabin. All the passengers are eerily silent, their ankles and wrists and necks strapped into seats. I go to them, one after the other, yanking on seat belts that have no buckle. The fire moves in from everywhere, consuming them as I struggle to set them free. Water rushes in, mingling with the flames. Their skin peels off in thin strips, revealing charred bone underneath. They don't say anything to me, but their chests rise and fall with the exertion of staying alive. Their breaths are hot on my face. They're dying, and I can't save them. . . .

I can't save them.

I snap awake to the sound of new horrors banging on the walls: hail, snow, wind. The assault whips the trees into a frenzy and transforms the lake into a frothing sea. Waves thrash the shore, and it feels almost personal—the lake's rapid metamorphosis from docile companion into a vengeful monster. The bear that caused us so much grief is probably asleep in a warm den, sheltered from the elements it knows so well, while we freeze in a hulk of metal.

While the wind pounds the walls, I gather up every scrap of clothing and wrap the boys up like mummies. This includes ties, shawls, pashminas, stockings . . . everything. I make little slits for their eyes, noses, and mouths, careful to cover every inch of skin. The boys are too dazed to protest—even Aayu, who always cries when the sun goes down. Tim is no longer conscious, but his chest rises and falls with each breath, and that is all I can hope for.

“I'm cold,” Liam says, and I hug him and tell him everything's fine, we beat the other storms and we'll beat this one, too. Colin sings to Aayu, rasping the words because it's all he can manage. The lyrics don't make sense: oceans and kings and butterscotch candies, not that it matters. He never stops singing, even though he must feel those boys dying in his arms, succumbing to the circumstances that betrayed them.

His voice is husky with fever, his face windburned, but he's still Colin—strong, kind, and fiercely loyal. He finds my gaze and smiles that soft, lovely smile, and even though it summons every shred of hope left in my body, I can see the truth there, too: This is the end.

I squeeze his hand and see our fingers intertwined, the way they were on the plane, the way they should have been months ago. Did he know what would happen when we met? Did he think, in some strange, tragic way, that the world would bring us together again?

He stops singing to catch his breath, to kiss the tiny sliver of skin between the boys' eyelids. My acceptance turns once more to sorrow, then to rage: I hate that these boys will never be men. I hate that Colin will never be a father.

“Colin.”

He looks up, no longer hiding the longing in his eyes, now tinged with regret. I see Colin Shea standing outside that locker room on my first day of practice, rescuing me from paralyzing insecurity. I see his kind smile, his inquisitive blue eyes; I see someone who understood me.

“Do you remember the day we met?” I ask him.

He smiles—a soft, lovely smile that reminds me of that first afternoon. “Of course,” he says. “Best day of my life.”

I discard my gloves, using my bare hands to trace the steep curves of his features, the thick stubble on his chin. It's the first time I've ever touched him this way. Intimate, exploring. His breath catches, his left hand finding mine as he holds my gaze in a moment of pure, aching recognition. The thrum of his heart fills the silence, fills me everywhere.

“I'm glad it was you,” I whisper.

I kiss him softly at first, a whisper of gratitude, of loss. But it doesn't feel like good-bye. It feels like a first kiss, electric and wanting and tragically overdue. Every ounce of me roars to life again—lips, fingers, toes. The numbness in my veins turns to fire, more intense than anything I've ever felt, anything I ever thought I was capable of feeling. I breathe him in. He tastes like peppermint—
How does he do that?—
but his lips are warm and wet, and he responds with a hunger that matches my own. There is no shyness, no holding back. He draws me into him, and I no longer feel hopeless anymore, or angry. I feel loved.

When he pulls away, the storm continues to rage all around us, but the world is different now.

I fall asleep on his shoulder, dreaming of clear waters and blue skies, Brookline streets and chocolate-covered doughnuts, baseball games and gondolas. Bug. People I've known my whole life; strangers who pass me by.

Tim, Liam, Aayu.

Colin.

L
ee takes me by the hand, leaving us suspended in some hazy in-between. It reminds me of the
before
and
after
that has followed me since the crash, relentless as a shadow and just as intangible. The rest of the world—the occasional late-night straggler, the dorm, the California sky—dissolves around us.

I wait for him to unfurl a barrage of questions, but he never does. Those memories aren't his. They aren't ours. And yet they're still relevant.

They're everything.

“I didn't want to do it this way,” I say.

“Do what, Avery?” The way he says my unabbreviated name makes my stomach clench. “You said something happened. Are you hurt? Was it something Dr. Shin said—”

“I lied about what happened after the plane crashed.”

There.

The silence gives my confession the weight it deserves.

“Avery?”

“I lied about so many things.”

“What kinds of things?”

So many things.
But the words won't come because they aren't for him.

“Aves, you need to talk to me.”

“I don't know what to say.”

“You
do
know. Tell me.”

“I left them behind,” I whisper.

“Left who behind?”

“The boys.” I breathe his name. “Colin.”

“After the crash? I thought you weren't even together—”

“We
were
together. For five days, we were together.”

“But you said . . .” He trails off.

“I lied about what happened because I wasn't strong enough to tell the truth.” I release his hands, and he folds them over his chest. “I loved them, Lee. I loved them, and I left them behind. And now I have to face that.”

“How?”

“I'm going back to Boston.”

His cheeks are glistening and wet. He doesn't reach for me; he doesn't even look up. The red swimsuit he'd planned on giving me dangles from his fingers.

“Do you still love him?” he asks.

“I don't know,” I say, because to say no would be a lie.

“Then I'll wait for you,” he says. “And I'll be here when you get home.”

Home.

The truth is, I don't know where that is anymore.

D
r. Shin doesn't act surprised to see me when I show up on the last day of the semester, but I know that's just her infallible stoicism. After two months of total silence, she was probably wondering what happened to me.

“Good to see you again,” she says, and seems to mean it.

“I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For asking the tough questions.”

She allows a smile. “That's my job.”

“I'm going back to Boston for the summer.”

“I see,” she says, betraying no emotion whatsoever.

I look out the window, at the scores of people walking by. The last day of the semester. An ending, but also a beginning. I've decided it depends on how you look at it.

“I need to talk to Colin about what happened because you're right, he was there,” I say. “He was there the whole time.”

There is no telltale lift of the eyebrows, no
mmm-hmm
that sounds in any way like an
I told you so.
She simply waits for me to go on, her gaze attentive but nonjudgmental, her hands folded primly in her lap.

“Well,” she says, “let me know when you start swimming again.”

“I can't swim.” Even now, after all these months, it wounds me to admit this. “The conditioning therapy hasn't worked.”

“Of course it hasn't.” She hands me my New Patient questionnaire, the pages so blank they shine. For maybe the first time ever, she smiles openly.
Knowingly.

“Good luck in Boston,” she says.

•

An hour later, Edward picks me up outside my dorm, his Jeep packed to capacity for the cross-country move. He could've shipped everything like most millionaires do, but that's not Edward's style. He likes to do things old-school. Be resourceful.

So it's no surprise to see boxes of all shapes and sizes cluttering the backseat, fighting their way to the front. The passenger seat has about fourteen inches of free space, barely enough to accommodate my butt. His yellow Lab glares at me from the floor—
Sorry, buddy, we're gonna have to share.
It's a good thing I'm somewhat small and narrow.

“Hope your suitcase is a reasonable size,” he says, “or we may have to tie it to the exhaust pipe and drag it along.”

“Very funny.”

Edward follows me into my dorm, finds my suitcase packed to the gills, and carries it down the stairs. I don't even offer to find a place for it in the Jeep. He's got the whole thing planned out, a testament to the organizational zeal he inherited from our mother. My suitcase fits snugly into the left side of the trunk like a missing puzzle piece.

His skills in car maintenance, however, leave something to be desired. He knows how to repair a transmission, replace an exhaust pipe, even hot-wire the engine—but car washes are beyond him. In this way, he's like our dad.

He rubs the windshield with his bare hand, pinching the dust between his fingers. “Probably should've taken care of this a little earlier,” he says.

“Nah. Perfect way to see the country.”

He flicks the dust at me and revs the engine. It's slow going at first, with Bay Area traffic and summer travelers clogging the freeways. The sun sets behind us, casting its furious orange sheen on the Pacific. Ahead of us, green hills and sloping valleys stretch toward an infinite horizon. It's a magnificent landscape, a place that rightly deserves all the poetry, songs, and literature espousing its beauty.

“Missing it already?” Edward asks.

“I'm easily seduced by sunsets.”

“Ah.” He fiddles with the radio. “Nothing quite like a Boston sunrise, though.”

“You're awake for those?”

He laughs, but a serious note finds its way into his voice. “I try to be.” He settles on a song from the nineties, one of his favorites growing up. “They're worth it.”

•

Three thousand miles and a week later, we hit the Mass Turnpike. For a Friday evening, the traffic flowing into Boston isn't as terrible as I remembered. It's all stop-and-go, narrow ramps and careening corners, unlike the monotonous drag of a California freeway. Windows down, city air flooding my lungs, I watch it all pass by: the skyscrapers in the distance, the river on my left. When Fenway comes into view, its fairy-tale lights glittering on the horizon, I finally feel like I'm home.

My parents are there to greet us when we pull into the driveway. Dad grunts a hello, mutters something about us not calling often enough, and pulls me into a very awkward hug—the first I can remember since childhood. He takes my suitcase and rolls it up to the house.

“Oh, honey” is all my mom can manage.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, which brings actual tears to her eyes. I give her a hug, inhaling the familiar scent of her favorite lotion, a citrusy smell that reminds me of spring.

Every time I come home, the house looks the same but somehow different. Family portraits from years gone by line the mantel in reverence of the past. Newer photos sit in the kitchen, where my mother likes to “test-drive” things for the house. Growing up, we always used to congregate here, which drove her crazy. For one thing, it's hot in the kitchen, in spite of the multiple A/Cs installed in the windows. She goes over to the biggest one and puts it on high.

“So darn hot,” she says. “Sorry, sweetie. You're probably not used to it.” She gives the struggling appliance a shove. “Dinner's in thirty minutes.”

“Don't be late,” Edward teases as he reaches for a stack of plates and silverware. Setting the table was his designated chore growing up. Because I'm not ready for a full-on family discussion about my life, I head upstairs to regroup.

My suitcase sits outside my bedroom door, right where my dad left it. The bulging compartments remind me just how much I took to California, and how little I left behind. Or maybe it's just the accumulation of
things,
the dutiful progression of time marked by the dutiful collection of meaningless possessions. I roll it over the threshold and close the door.

In those first few seconds of being here, being
home,
the burden of what I've done weighs on my shoulders. I haven't thought about the logistics of being here, especially since Edward exaggerated the time commitment. On the trip home, he admitted he's barely got a sign-up sheet, much less a whole program going. He's a skilled negotiator, especially when it comes to his little sister.

I lie on the creaky mattress and stare at those familiar yellow stars. Still there, still peeling. I find myself blinking away tears.
How am I supposed to do this?
I don't even know where to begin. Colin? The boys? What if they refuse to see me?

Some time later, my dad knocks on my door.

“Busy tomorrow?” he asks.

I wish the answer were
yes,
but it's not.

“Not really.”

“Good.”

Somewhere down the hall, Edward snickers.

•

Saturday mornings in an emergency room are usually quiet, representing that rare reprieve between the two wildest nights of the week. Today, though, the waiting room extends to the parking lot, triage is overwhelmed, and occupied gurneys line the walls. My dad instructs me to start with these unfortunate folks: take a history, get an updated list of meds, try to tame the crazy. I'm rounding the corner in pursuit of a shrieking heroin addict when a tentative voice calls my name, a flash of clarity in the chaos.

I slow to a stop. The little voice repeats itself, each syllable pronounced with quiet authority: “Avery.” I know who it is long before I turn around, but even so, the sight of Tim in my father's ER takes my breath away.

He's sitting on a plastic chair intended for adults, his legs dangling as he clutches his arm to his chest. Grass stains and blood defile the pristine white sleeve of his baseball jersey. In spite of this, he doesn't seem at all frightened, and why would he be? He's seen much worse.

He leaps off the chair, oblivious to the dangers of running wildly through an emergency room. The smile on his face is luminous. He slams into me, forgetting the bloody arm as he wraps them both around my waist.

“I knew it was you!” He trips over the words, so excited he can barely speak. In that regard, he's better off than me—I can't manage a sound. Tim was so sick for all that time, it's a shock he even remembers me.

“Do you work here?” he asks.

He's so strong now—taller, too, with a sunburn that isn't raw or worrisome. It's a boyhood baseball burn, and it makes his skin glow.

“No, not really . . .” I steal a glance at my borrowed scrubs. “I mean, yes, sort of.”

“Oh,” he says, still beaming. “Well I hope so because then you can fix my arm!”

His confidence floods through me, wrenching me into a memory that isn't altogether bad—just raw. Even now, after all this time, those details tend to surface with the softest prompting.

An older man approaches us, his trimmed hair flecked with gray. His collared shirt is buttoned almost to the top, and his smile is warm and proper, echoing his wardrobe. He holds out a hand. “Joe Caldwell,” he says. “It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Mr. Caldwell,” I mumble, recalling all those letters signed in his sturdy hand, his countless invitations to come visit. All were either deferred or denied, though I had an endless number of excuses. “I . . .”

“You don't have to explain,” he says, then takes my hand in both of his own. He holds it there for a while, diffusing all those feelings of guilt and inadequacy through one simple gesture.

I smile at Tim, and this time, it comes easily. “So, how's baseball season going?”

“It's good.” He drops his gaze to his grass-stained pants. “I bat eleventh.”

“That's not bad. Everyone has an equal chance for a hit, no matter where they are in the lineup.”

He nods, acknowledging the logic.

“Playing any infield yet?”

“He's played shortstop a few times,” Mr. Caldwell says, mostly to comfort Tim. “He's improved quite a bit since the spring.”

Tim gives a sheepish shrug. “Thanks, Granddad.”

The way he thanks him fills me with my own sense of gratitude, though it's difficult to express such a thing to a seven-year-old. I hope these last six months have been good to him; I hope he's found his own way of moving on without completely letting go. I think his parents would have wanted it that way.

“You and Colin should come to a game!” he says.

“Oh.” I adjust the clipboard in my lap, as if that will distract him somehow. It doesn't. “Well, maybe sometime. I haven't really talked to him—”

Tim nods. “I know.”

“You do?”

“You've been at school.”

“Oh.” Relief sweeps through me. “Well, that's true.”

“He comes to games all the time.”

The lump in my throat is monstrous. “He does?”

“He's helped me a lot. You should come. Sometimes I feel kind of sorry for him sitting in the bleachers all by himself.”

“Tim, Avery's a very busy lady.” Mr. Caldwell puts his arm around Tim's shoulders. “Let's not put even more pressure on her time.”

“Oh.” Tim frowns. “Sorry, Avery.”

“I'm not that busy.” I shift my gaze to Mr. Caldwell, whose smile is so imperceptible it may just be my imagination. He has Tim's eyes, a pale, dreamlike green, deep with meaning.

“Where's Tim Caldwell?” A resident in blood-specked scrubs barges into the conversation, his pockets loaded with pens and other shiny apparatuses.

Tim nods like he's going to the gallows. “That's me, I guess.”

The young doctor pulls up a stool and plops himself in front of Tim. Most of the residents treat me with some semblance of respect because of my father, but this guy isn't one of them. His name is Kyle, and he ignores me with the same condescending air he ignores all the alcoholics camped out front.

“So,” Kyle says, addressing Mr. Caldwell. It's as if Tim, the patient, isn't even there. “What happened here?”

“I fell on a rock,” Tim says before his grandfather can answer.

“Playing baseball?”

“It was in the outfield. There was a broken bottle in the grass.”

Mr. Caldwell produces the piece of glass, which looks like the remnant of a beer bottle. The mere act of handling it seems to pain him, as if Tim's injury were his fault—which of course it wasn't. Some stupid kid probably left it there after stumbling home drunk from a party.

Kyle gives it a casual glance. “Yeah, happens all the time.”

“Shouldn't we do a tetanus test or something—”

“Nah.” Kyle peels back the sleeve of Tim's shirt to inspect the wound. Tim grits his teeth but makes no sound as Kyle pokes and prods with angry-looking instruments.

“You okay, Tim?” I ask him.

Tim nods. Kyle finally acknowledges me with an angry glare.

Mr. Caldwell keeps opening his mouth to say something, only to close it again like he's afraid of interrupting the doctor's work. I give him a reassuring smile, which seems to calm his nerves a bit. Meanwhile, Kyle ignores the distress on Tim's face as he reaches for a syringe.

“Wait!” Tim screams.

Kyle sighs. “It won't hurt that much. I'll spray with anesthetic—”

“I thought Avery was gonna do it.”

“Avery?” He looks me up and down, eyebrows raised. An arrogant grin plays on his face. He spins back around to face Tim. “She's a volunteer,” he says. “Doesn't know how to fix things like this.”

“She fixed it with floss last time.”

“Uh-huh.” Kyle smirks as he pulls his gloves on. “She tell you that?”

“No.” Tim stiffens and pulls his arm back. “I was there.”

“Uh-huh,” Kyle says again as he threads the needle.

By then, my father is standing over us, his arms folded as he watches this sad display of arrogance, followed swiftly by mortification. “Take the gastroenteritis in 2,” he says, pointing Kyle in that direction.