Stork (16 page)

“What happened?” I managed to say, though my voice was weak.

Jack stopped suddenly and dropped to his knees, still cradling me in his arms. “Oh, my God, I thought I killed you.”

It took a few moments for it all to register. I remembered the bear, and the freezing jolt of pain.

“I must have fainted.”

“You weren’t breathing,” he said.

I felt awkward in his arms, my face pressed against his still jacket-less chest, with his head bent to rest just inches from my own. But I was definitely weak, and somehow it felt warm and safe in this position.

“Can you give me a moment?” I asked in a faltering voice.

He continued to hold me. Many minutes passed. I couldn’t believe how still he remained. And as I was suspended in this cocoon, I felt strength returning to my body. Finally, I wiggled to release myself, though it seemed he let go reluctantly.

I sat on the ground next to him, my arms around my knees. “I think I’m going to live.” I tried to laugh, for his sake. I could see how pained he was. “What happened back there?”

“For starters, we had a bear encounter.”

“I remember,” I said, rubbing my head. “Are we safe here? Would she still come after us?”

“We’re safe,” Jack said. “She wouldn’t abandon her cub to chase us, and those birds . . .”

“What was up with those birds?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. They acted like . . .”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. It was just very strange.”

“I’m not going to argue,” I said. “It bought us time.”

“Yes. It did,” Jack said. “And then you fell. And I tried to lift you up, and you had a . . . reaction.”

“If I remember correctly, you did, too.”

“Not like you.” He shook his head regretfully.

“But what did you feel?” I asked.

He seemed to fight some internal debate, but then began in a shallow voice. “I couldn’t breathe. When I touched you, I couldn’t breathe. It’s as if a weight pressed down on my chest and I couldn’t fill my lungs with air.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Your turn,” Jack said. “What happened to you?”

“I froze, and then I sank, and then I died.”

“Froze?”

“Yes. And I hate the cold. Have for as long as I can remember.”

“You died?”

“That’s what it felt like.”

“Tell me,” he said. “Did it seem like a dream, or a hallucination, or a vision, or . . .” He paused as if measuring his choice of words. “Or a memory?”

“Oh.” This came out in a gasp. “How could it be a memory?”

He stood up and started pacing in front of me. It seemed he wasn’t going to reply, or at least, not until he’d carefully planned the words. “Remember when I first saw you in your grandfather’s store?” There was uncertainty in his eyes and voice. “Do you remember what I said?”

“You said, ‘You know me, right?’ You were pretty insistent.” I realized then that I had replayed our first encounter over and over in my head. And I was pretty certain I had it verbatim.

“I’m not sure if I’m really the one who should be telling you this.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe you should talk to your mom.”

“About what?”

“I’m not sure I’m allowed.”

“Allowed what?”

“To tell you.”

“Tell me what? Seriously, Jack, you’re freaking me out.”

“Get up,” he said, helping me to stand. “Just in case, let’s put some more ground between us and that bear, and then let’s talk.”

We scrabbled over the path at a very brisk pace. I wasn’t sure if it was distancing myself from the angry mama bear or propelling myself toward Jack’s “talk” that fueled me. No longer did my boots hurt or my muscles cramp; I simply put one dogged foot in front of the other. Finally we returned to the section of the stream with the slippery rock crossing.

“We’re back where we started,” I said with surprise.

“Not much choice.”

“But what about the water?”

“I’m not going to fall,” he said. His fists were balled at his sides and his shoulders rod straight.

He insisted I cross first, and though I was exhausted and my legs were shaky, I made it across with only the slightest of balance checks. He started as soon as he saw me safely on the other side. I knew he would have no problem. We’d been through enough already. There was a determination that corded through the muscles of his thighs and the set of his jaw. I thought of what Penny had said, that he was good at everything he tried. There was, I had to admit, a confidence and capability about him that was reassuring. Once we were both high and dry on the other side of the stream, Jack pulled me to a fallen log and sat me before him, though he remained standing.

“I don’t want to scare you,” he began.

“Jack,” I said, “I’m way past scared. Just tell me.”

He kicked at a clump of grass, as if hesitant to begin.

“When you were eleven — the last time you were here — we were involved in an accident out on Elkhorn Lake.” He spoke fast, as if afraid the words wouldn’t come if he took the time to think them through. “It was right after Christmas. Your family had been visiting. A bunch of us kids were skating on the lake. You fell through the ice. I was the only one who saw you. I went to help, and I fell through, too. We were under for a long time. Too long. Some say as long as forty minutes; others say twenty. It doesn’t matter though — either way, we should have died.”

My heart was trying to escape my chest; it pounded to get out. This information was, somehow, more frightening than our bear encounter. “There’s no way,” I said. “I think I’d remember something like that.”

“But that’s the thing. You didn’t. We were both in the hospital for a long time. You were in a coma. It was a huge story. Considered a miracle. Especially since we both survived not just the frigid temperatures but without breathing. When you woke up days later, you didn’t know where you were and you remembered nothing. Your parents took you back to California as soon as you could travel. And you never came back. And all I ever heard was that you had some sort of trauma-induced amnesia.”

“But my parents would have told me.”

He shrugged. “I’m sure they did what they thought was best.”

“How could I not know this?” It seemed like we were discussing a character from a book or a scene from a movie. All I could do was imagine. I kept trying to remember something, anything, but came up empty. “That’s why you don’t do water,” I said slowly, glad to know I could process recent events. “And that’s why Hulda called me the girl of the lake.”

“You know Hulda?”

I realized I’d let that one slip. I never knew how much I was allowed to say. “We’ve met.” Jack looked at me a little funny, but then again, he’d just told me we’d shared a near-death experience, essentially that he’d saved my life. I supposed the guy was entitled to look at me any way he pleased.

“I think you should hear the rest from your mom,” Jack said. “I’m probably already in trouble for saying too much.”

A storm of thoughts battered me. One was the realization that what I had felt when Jack held me — the fall, the darkness, the hopelessness — were memories, an unsettling reality. How had I survived? How had
we
survived?

“Are you OK? Do you think you can walk?” he asked. “The others will be getting worried.”

“They don’t know anything?”

“I couldn’t find your cell phone, though I swear I heard it buzzing.”

I patted the zippered inside pocket of my jacket. “It’s in here.”

“I gave up looking and just started running.”

I stood and took a few steps and was surprised at how wobbly I was. Without the fuel of adrenaline, my limbs had turned slack. Jack cupped his hand under my elbow.

“Easy does it.”

I leaned on his arm. “At least one good thing has come out of this whole we-touch-and-then-we-die experience.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Your theory — about getting it out of our system — it seems to be true. No more icy zaps.” After the first few haltering steps, I got stronger.

He shook his head. “Talk about a silver lining.”

We got a good rhythm going, if a bit slow. “What are we going to tell the others?”

“It’s your call.”

“I suppose the bear encounter is enough. I’ll say I felt faint. I want to talk to my mom about the lake story.”

“Bear story it is,” he said.

I could see the shock on the others’ faces as Jack and I came limping toward them. They had tumbled out of the car at the first sight of us coming along the path and were upon us in moments.

“What happened?” Pedro asked.

“Kat, are you hurt?” Penny’s voice registered alarm.

“We had a little incident with a black bear and her cub.” I was relieved that Jack took it upon himself to offer explanations. My mind was reeling in anticipation of the conversation with my mother. I didn’t think I had it in me to placate this group in the meantime. “She probably suffered a mild case of shock. She just needs somewhere safe and somewhere warm.” This from a guy who still was without a coat.

Jack helped me into the third row of Pedro’s car, and it felt right when he pulled me close to him. I remember feeling very sleepy and my head starting to bob. Jack’s hand firmly tilted my chin onto his shoulder, and his arm settled comfortably around my shoulders. I remembered nothing more of the car ride home, except that I did feel safe, and I did feel warm.

“Oh, my God. What happened to her?” There was panic in my mom’s voice.

“I’m OK, Mom. Just let me get to the couch.”

Jack, my new guard dog, helped me over to the sofa, which Stanley had quickly vacated. I leaned back and sighed with exhaustion, not even bothering to unzip my parka. Jack sat gingerly beside me. Stanley pulled a fleece throw from off a chair and placed it on my lap. I hadn’t even known I was shivering.

“Is someone going to explain?” My mom’s voice was demanding.

I exhaled loudly. “I met a bear today. Two bears actually: one adult and one cub.”

My mom gasped. “What happened?”

It took Jack and me twenty minutes, speaking in bursts and interrupting each other, to explain the bear encounter. A range of emotions played across my mom’s face in reaction to the story: fear, shock, disbelief. It was like watching a silent movie. I was relieved and thankful that Jack had forgotten to mention the birds’ role in the story, just as he had with the others. His recounting of the story had us backing away slowly and fortunate to have been upwind of the protective mother. It was just as well. I really didn’t know, myself, what to make of the birds’ involvement. And if the eagle had shown a kind of birds-of-a-feather solidarity, what was up with the black bird muscling in? But that was crazy thinking, right? Even if I was some kind of human Stork, it couldn’t possibly mean that I had winged watchers, make that bird watchers — the real deal.

When my mom finally seemed convinced of our eventual survival, I said, “That wasn’t the only adventure of the day.”

“There’s more?” she asked.

“I had a flashback. Of the skating incident.” I leaned forward, unzipped my jacket, and pulled my arms slowly from the sleeves. I turned to look at my mom, who had settled herself into the chair opposite me. “How could you keep something like that from me?”

My mom went white. She pursed her lips and pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan. “What do you mean you had a flashback? Specifically?”

“I remember dying. Is that specific enough?”

My mom looked at Jack, but when she spoke, it was more to herself. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea. You two spending time together.”

“It’s not his fault,” I said. “And you didn’t answer my question. How could you keep something like that from me?”

She shook her head defensively. “It was the therapist’s idea. You’d been through such an ordeal. He was adamant that we let you work it out for yourself. Or let it stay buried if that was how your mind best protected itself.”

“I have a shrink?” Ugh. How very LA of me.

“You haven’t seen him in years. You’ve been doing so well. It really didn’t seem necessary to continue.”

I suddenly remembered a special doctor. “You mean Dr. Sherman?” I also recalled that I had always been confused about the visits; they had seemed so pointless. It had been explained to me that he dealt with “insides only.” God, had I been gullible. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this just seems like something I had a right to know.”

“Honey, I’m sorry. Your father and I did what we thought was best for you.” Stanley leaned down and rubbed her shoulders.

My mom then turned to Jack. “Thank you,” she said, clearly trying to hold back tears, though not entirely succeeding. “Thank you again for taking care of her.”

“You’re welcome,” Jack mumbled, embarrassed.

My mom must have seen us drive up in my car. “Do you need a ride somewhere?” she asked.

“Back to my truck, I guess,” Jack said.

Stanley and his wiry red hair sprang to attention. “I’ll take him. Let you two talk.”

Jack seemed hesitant to leave. “See you at school,” he said with a backward glance. I was surprised by how much it pained me to see him go; something fisted in my chest as I watched the door close behind him. I was, however, exhausted. And my bed seemed the perfect place to rest my spinning and aching head.