Chapter 4 #3
"No!" I screamed and crawled toward it, because in that moment, losing the proof that my child had existed before their lies frightened me even more than losing my life.
The deck tilted more steeply.
The test slid across the wet surface toward a drain.
I lunged and caught it with my fingertips, squeezing so hard the plastic cracked.
At that moment, the yacht heaved. A deep, violent, terrifying roll flung me toward the side.
My knee, elbow, and temple struck something, though I could not tell what.
White spots burst before my eyes. Somewhere close by, Nikki howled.
Or perhaps it was no longer her. Everything became a scream.
I tried to grab the rail, but my fingers were wet, torn, and weak.
The test was still in my hand. I pressed it to my chest, my stomach, myself, like the last truth I had left.
The lifeboat was already descending.
Adrian stood inside it, holding the line.
Our eyes met one last time before the water.
I waited for something. Not rescue anymore.
Not love. At least horror. At least realization.
Some flicker of Dear God, what am I doing?
But his face was closed like a door behind which someone had turned off the light.
Only his lips moved. I could not hear him through the wind, but I read the word.
“Forgive me.”
Later, whenever I remembered that second, I would often think it would have been better if he had said anything else.
“I hate you.” “You’re lying.” “It has to be this way.” “Die.” Any of it would have been more honest. But he said forgive me like a man who had already decided not to change what he was doing, yet still wanted the right to suffer beautifully.
I hated him for that forgive me more than for everything else.
The deck vanished beneath my feet.
Not straight into the water. First, into the air.
In the brief, monstrous instant between solid ground and the fall, I saw everything too clearly: Nikki in my life jacket, Vivian’s dry face, the bag at Adrian’s feet, the orange patches of other life jackets in the darkness, the white bulk of the yacht listing like a dying beast, the black water below, and the city lights in the distance, indifferent, beautiful, alive.
I had time to remember that those lights had looked festive that morning.
Time to press a hand to my stomach. Time to say without a voice: Hold on, little one. Mommy’s still here.
Then the water struck.
It did not embrace me. Did not welcome me.
Did not soften the fall. It struck with the full force of its icy black body, knocked the air from me, crushed my chest in iron fingers, invaded my ears, nose, mouth, dress, hair, skin, thoughts.
The cold was so terrible that pain vanished, leaving only one primitive command: up.
I thrashed but could not tell which way was up.
The dark water spun me around. My dress dragged me down as though all the wealth Adrian had once used to cover the shame of my foster-care childhood had now decided to become an anchor.
I swept one arm through the water, gripping the cracked test, and it slipped from my hand.
No.
I opened my fingers in the water, trying to catch it, but saw only a little white shape bob beside my face before floating into the darkness.
The two lines disappeared with the bubbles.
I lunged after it and swallowed water. My throat burned.
My chest seized. Baby. Stomach. Air. Up.
I could no longer think about the test. The truth was not in the plastic now.
The truth was inside me. And I had to carry it out of this water at any cost.
I kicked and clawed at the darkness as though it were a locked door.
Somewhere above me was a light, blurred, trembling, far away.
I reached toward it, but my dress pulled me down, my hair clung to my face, my lungs burned.
Adrian’s face flashed before my eyes. Not the one that had said forgive me.
Another face. His wedding-day face. Beautiful.
Young. Looking at me and promising, “You’re not alone anymore.
” Even underwater, I wanted to scream at him: You see, Adrian?
I’m alone again. Only now I have the child you refused to acknowledge with me.
A shadow passed overhead.
Large.
Heavy.
I had no time to understand what it was.
Debris, a lifeboat, part of the hull, someone’s body.
The water compressed around me, struck me with a wave, spun me, and the light vanished.
The last air escaped my lips in silver bubbles.
I tried to hold it the way one holds on to final words, but my body betrayed me and opened itself to the pain, the cold, the darkness.
And just before everything went black, I suddenly heard neither Adrian nor Nikki nor the screams from the yacht.
I heard a tiny, impossible, stubborn beat inside me.
Not a heartbeat.
A promise.
I will not die.
Not here.
Not for them.