Girl Underwater (6 page)

I tell the boys to stay put, but they're too invested in their new toys to acknowledge me. Three small children under control. I should savor this.

The makeshift door squeaks shut. Colin leads me toward the tree line, such that the fort is still within view but obscured by the low-hanging branches of nearby pines. His pace is strangely rushed.

Then I see her: the pregnant woman propped against a tree with her legs splayed out in the dirt. Her sweatpants are soaked from the waist down.

Colin stares at his mud-caked golf shoes as he says, “I think she's in labor.”

Labor.
The word lands in the air with a hollow thud.

“Are you sure? Has she come around at all?”

“No.” He skims his head with his hand. “I was moving her into the sun, and she . . . I dunno. I think her water broke.”

I kneel down next to her, this sad, tragic woman without a name. As her body contracts, her face registers no response.

“Can you get the penlight?”

“Penlight.” He pats his pockets, comes up empty. “Yeah, sure. Hold on.”

He returns a moment later with the penlight, its beam already waning. I shine it in both her eyes, searching for a response—an
equal
response. Her left pupil is fixed and dilated, which means the right doesn't matter. She won't survive this kind of injury.

I shake my head. Colin, in his quiet, stoic way, accepts it.

“How long does she have?” he asks.

“A few hours at most.”

He kneels in the dirt, averting my gaze as he takes the woman's hand. I know he doesn't blame me, but blame is the only real currency we have out here. Blame the airline; blame the weather. Blame bad luck and circumstances.

I know this woman's situation is hopeless, but so was ours eight hours ago. We survived. We're still here, still fighting.

I place my hand on Colin's wrist, his body quivering with the unexpected touch. He looks up. “Can you get me some wet towels?”

“Why?”

“Because she's in labor, and that's what we need.”

If he's surprised, he doesn't show it. He returns ten minutes later with two T-shirts, each freshly saturated with lake water. We have two water bottles on standby and a dry towel for when the baby is born.

“Now what?” he asks.

“Now we wait.”

“How long?”

“Contractions are a couple minutes apart, so . . . I don't know. Soon?”

“Have you, uh . . .”

“Ever done this before?”

He waits for my answer.

“No,” I admit.

“But you've seen it done?”

“A couple times.”

He glances toward the lean-to, with its door hinged closed as a kind of curious-boys alarm system. The boys can get out, but the scraping metal will wake the whole forest.

“They can't see this,” I say.

“I'll make sure they don't.”

“Colin?”

He waits for me to draw in a breath, to say what must be said.

“If this doesn't . . . If I can't . . .”

He puts his hands on my shoulders—his massive, warm, life-saving hands. The gesture isn't meant to inspire confidence; it's intended to comfort. As if to say,
I know. I understand. We grieve together.

Ten minutes later, the contractions stop.

•

I witnessed my first delivery in the backseat of a Dodge Ram; it wasn't my kid, thank God, but the girl was fifteen and so was I, and even now, I remember it as if the labor, and the pain, and the triumph of giving birth had happened to me. I remember the girl's gap-toothed smile at the end, her wails of agony in the beginning. I remember my father telling me to “catch” this brand-new human being as if a football were about to drop from her vagina.

More than any of that, though, I remember the moment when the whole process stalled, and the girl panicked, and Dad told her to breathe, just
breathe,
because her body knew what to do.

In her case, it did. The contractions went right along. The baby dropped into my waiting hands. A girl. A healthy, pink wailing baby girl.

Colin doesn't ask what's wrong, but he doesn't have to. The labor has stopped. The mother is brain-dead. The sheer insanity of this situation rolls through me.

“Colin—”

“Is she close?”

“Yes, but . . .”
I can't do a Cesarean in the woods!
I can't do anything because I'm not a doctor. I'm a doctor's
daughter,
with a high school degree and barely three semesters of college.

I rock back on my heels. For the first time since we crashed, my throat tightens and the urge to cry sweeps through me. Two more dead.
Two more who didn't have to die.

Colin rubs my wrists with his thumbs, a rhythmic motion that slows my heart and settles my nerves. I try to think.

Think.

But there is no thinking in childbirth. There is just
doing
. I scramble back onto my knees and reach between her legs, and with wet, shaking hands, I try to
pull
the baby out. I don't know how this is supposed to work. Although my father has talked about using tools and hands and vacuums to facilitate the process, everything I'm doing right now feels grotesque and dangerous and hysterically stupid. My fingers slip.

Colin nudges me aside and attempts the same, although his efforts are somehow graceful, unhurried. I tell him to try repositioning her, which might give him a better angle. I don't tell him to try breaking the baby's collarbone. I couldn't stand it.

But Colin doesn't need my instructions—suddenly, wondrously, the baby slips into his hands and eases into the world.

A boy.

Our fourth little boy.

He doesn't cry as Colin places him gently in my arms, but I rock him anyway because he deserves that much.
I
need that much.

Colin doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to.

We grieve together.

•

Tim is the first to emerge from the lean-to. He finds me sitting at the water's edge, my palms splayed out over the surface. I dip them in the lake, and the water turns a rich, vibrant red. In spite of everything, my heart still beats; my blood still flows.

As only a six-year-old could, Tim wraps his arms around my neck and hugs me, hard, the kind of comfort that lingers for days.

“Tim?” I ask, after a while.

“Yeah?”

“Don't give up on me, okay?”

He digs his tiny hand into one of my red, wet ones.

“I won't,” he says.

We watch a hawk skim over the lake, its wings spread wide as it slices through the sky.

“Avery?”

“Yeah, Tim?”

I wait for his reaction, but all he does is gaze at the sky. The sun swims in his eyes, makes them gleam. “Are we going to die?” he asks.

He probes my face with those piercing green eyes, squashing my first instinct to lie. I don't know what six-year-olds know about death. Do they understand it? Do
I
understand it?

All I know is what my own parents did: They told the truth. Especially my father. As soon as I was old enough to comprehend English, he told me what happened to people when they got really sick or badly injured: Their hearts stopped and they died.

“No.” I say it fiercely, which surprises even me. “We're not going to die.”

“Okay.”

I don't have to wonder if he believes this.

He
knows
it.

•

Colin wanted to bury the bodies alone, so it falls to me to put on a good face for the boys. The little ones crawl out of the fort, both desperate for attention.

“I'm hungry,” Liam says.

Aayu repeats: “Hungry.”

I look past the lake, toward the trees on the eastern ridge of whatever valley we're sitting in. The sun has begun its slow descent toward the horizon. The fire flickers in the tease of wind.

“Try these.” I dig into my pockets for the trio of candy canes Liam found in one of the suitcases. They're broken in a dozen places, which makes the choking danger a little less real. Even so, I do my best to crush the candy cane intended for Aayu. Tim helps me unwrap them.

With the younger boys sucking on the candy canes, I offer a bag of chips to Tim. He doesn't look thrilled, but he pries it open and munches on a soggy chip.

“What kind is it?” I ask.

He turns the bag over and reads the label, pronouncing each word with careful precision. “Sour cream”—he pauses—“and onion.”

“Do you like it?”

He thinks about this for a second. “Sort of. Do you want some?”

I'm starving, especially since I missed dinner. “No, I'm good,” I lie.

“We could look for berries,” Tim says. “That's what we do when my dad takes me camping.”

“Not all berries are safe to eat.”

“I know.” He swallows a big gob of chip. “But my dad has a guidebook.”

“I wish we had one now.”

“It's in my suitcase.” He points in the direction of the lake. “Out there somewhere.” The wind has picked up, sending a plume of ripples across the lake. Most of the debris is floating in the opposite direction from where we're sitting. Strangely, the orange bag hasn't moved—but it's still a long, long way off.

It won't come to that.

“Maybe it'll wash up later.” I pat his arm, which feels awkward to me but has the desired effect. He sighs and resumes eating.

While the boys finish their snacks, I picture our lean-to on a map of the Colorado Rockies—a speck in the wilderness, as insignificant as a cottonwood tree. We're probably at least ten thousand feet up, which would explain the constant shortness of breath and the relentless ache in my hips and shoulders. It could take days for my body to adjust—maybe more, if we're thirteen or fourteen thousand feet above sea level. The boys seem okay now, but altitude sickness can take days to set in. It's a constant worry, with no easy fix. We don't have the resources to hike out of here on our own.

Then there's the climate: storms, snow, wind. Sunburn. Windburn. Dehydration. Exposure. Hypothermia. The sun looms over us like a giant eye in the sky, daring us to survive undetected. It feels like mockery. No matter how many coats and blankets and toothbrushes we find, we won't survive a blizzard in the Rockies. There are no ski lifts, no resorts bathing the landscape in a warm, welcoming light. This is the kind of wilderness no one comes to visit, the kind of lake no one ever swims in. We're the intruders, and we have nowhere to hide.

For now, the skies are a sunlit blue touched by wispy clouds overlaying the highest peaks. Completely benign, almost comforting.

“Don't worry,” Tim says. He hands me a chip.

But I do.

T
he queasiness lasts for hours, making sleep impossible. Meaningless tasks like cleaning the bathroom and organizing my closet just make it worse. I doze off sometime after dawn. It's late afternoon when I wake up again.

“Avery!”

Mom again. She sounds peeved.

“What?” My voice barely carries, but that's intentional.

“It's Christmas Eve and I need eggnog for the dinner!”

Christmas Eve.
For the first time in my nineteen years, I have completely forgotten a major holiday. I pull on a sweatshirt and hobble downstairs.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, I'm serious.” She looks me over with obvious disapproval. “You're not wearing that to dinner, are you?”

“Maybe . . .”

“I hope that's a joke. Anyway, I need eggnog,
stat
.”

It never ceases to amaze me that my lawyer mother says things like
stat
and
critical
and
tachycardic
, while my doctor father avoids medical jargon at all costs. It helps, though. I know she's in crisis mode when she calls one of her codes.

“Mom, you know I'm not dying to go outside—”

“I need this, Avery. It's critical.”

“How critical? Because reporters work three hundred sixty-five days a year. There could be one in the driveway right now.”

“The only person in the driveway right now is your uncle Ted, who arrives two hours early to everything. Go tell him to take a walk and then get me my eggnog.” She smoothes her apron and forces a smile. “Please, sweetie?”

I look her dead in the eyes. “Is this a Code Blue?”

“Yes,” she says, with much gravitas.

“All right.”

“Take my car. It's faster.”

“I can just walk—”

“No. I need it stat. No time for dawdling.”

“Whatever,” I mumble. She doesn't understand how much I despise city driving. My high school friends used to call it a disorder.

But
stat
is
stat,
so I grab the keys and fire up her months-old Audi. It still has that new-car smell, the leather so stiff it hurts my butt. Even though the skies are overcast, I put on the sunglasses she left on the dashboard.

The closest grocery store is about a mile away. Turns out my mother isn't the only one who forgot something critical. The parking lot is jammed with anxious shoppers. Horns blaring. Carts scattered haphazardly across the concrete like the spoils of war. I want to go somewhere else, somewhere deserted, but there is no time for that. Our extended family knows to be at the house promptly at six. The clock on the dash reads 4:35.

I park two blocks away and walk with my head down, hood up. This is my first real venture into the public realm, and it feels monumental. Terrifying. Essentially the opposite of what I had hoped it would be.

I remind myself it's Christmas Eve. Family time. No one thinks about plane crashes or survivors or the news on such a happy holiday. Even reporters have boundaries.

The sunglasses are a little much, but my hood stays on as I enter the store. No one glances my way. People are too preoccupied by their tasks at hand. They just want to get their bonbons and cinnamon sticks and go.

There are a dozen other people swarming the milk aisle. This could be trouble. Eggnog is a hot commodity on Christmas Eve, unlike every other day of the year. I wade through the crowd and reach, painfully, for the last carton.

“Oh, that's mine,” someone barks.

I glance over my shoulder.
Is she talking to me?

The woman points to the quart of eggnog in my hand. “That's mine,” she says again.

“Uh, it was on the shelf—”

She's starting to say something when her eyes go wide, her hands go to her mouth, and she squeals, “Oh dear God. You're that poor girl from the plane.”

Her voice carries, echoing down the aisles as I weave through the crowd toward the exit. My mother will not be pleased if I come home empty-handed, but I can't stop at the checkout line. I just want to escape. Leave. Run.

For how long, though? Forever? Colin would tell me to make a stand.

Colin, who may never have another Christmas with his own family.

With this thought, I hurtle to a stop in the express checkout line. Hood up, head down. Eggnog on the conveyor belt, wallet in my hand. This will be easy. Fast.

Five minutes. Ten. Like airport security, now that I think about it. Someone's credit card gets declined. Someone else has to run back to the frozen foods section because he doesn't want asparagus; he wants artichokes. The mother in front of me tries to soothe her screaming baby, and I think about the baby whose mother died before she could hold him.

When it's my turn, I hand the cashier a five-dollar bill and hurry out. A raw wind hits me as the doors slide open, makes my eyes water. I put the sunglasses back on, no longer caring how ridiculous they look.
If someone else recognizes me . . .

“Avery Delacorte?”

I stop walking. “Yes?”

A woman in a pinstripe suit thrusts a recorder in my face. My first thought is,
How did she get here so quickly?
A text? A phone call? Some anonymous tip line? I suppose it doesn't matter. She found me, and now she wants her story.

“I really need to get home.” I start walking—fast, jagged, almost drunken strides. She gives chase in her four-inch heels.

“Avery, I had some questions for you regarding your account of what happened during your five days on that mountain. As you may be aware, Tim, the eldest boy, said you rescued him—”

“He's wrong.”

“Wrong? He tells the story in great detail.”

“He's six.”

“Yes, but it just seems that he had a connection with you—”

“I don't want to talk about this.”

“You don't
want
to talk about this, or you
can't
talk about this?”

She waits for me to answer, or at least turn around. Neither happens. I fumble with my keys as my mother's Audi finally comes into view. The eggnog slips from my grasp and splatters on the curb. Its thick, pungent liquid dribbles onto the street.

I pick up the remains of the carton. Any other year, I would have gone to some other store, if for no other reason than to refuse failure. Not this year. Maybe never again.

“Well?” she prods.

I shove the recorder aside, a meager act of rebellion that feels weak, and sad, and futile. She must hear the visceral ache in my voice. She must see the spilled eggnog and know, as everyone does, that I'm not the hero they want me to be.

“Two hundred and four people died that night,” I say, seeing their faces, hearing their screams. “Shouldn't you be telling
their
stories?”