8. Margot
EIGHT
Margot
A week later, I was awake. I shouldn’t have heard the chop of a boat crossing the sound at 3 a.m. The hull bounced, thwacking against each wave it met. It was hard to describe the way it echoed across the water, yet I felt like I knew it intimately, as if it was trapped in my ears.
I wrestled with the sheets and the idea that I shouldn’t be awake. The boat shouldn’t be on the water either. I turned on my side, ignoring how the hum of the engine began to unfurl the pages of something I shut firmly weeks ago.
I thought it was like one of those diaries I had as a child with a tiny metal lock affixed to the front. I hid the key in a shoebox under my bed. As the boat slowed to approach the marina, I realized it was somehow the flimsy key and it didn’t take much to crack the lock open.
I sat forward and reached for the glass of water next to the bed. I wouldn’t sleep.
I walked downstairs, turning on a lamp before pressing the TV remote. It didn’t matter what was on the screen. I recognized the Full House reruns. I only needed enough noise, so I didn’t hear another boat, or to help me forget I heard the first one. Something had come unmoored. I realized it was desperate to rely on late-night TV. That’s who I was now. Desperate.
It was the fourth night in a row I’ve wandered downstairs too agitated and too exhausted to sleep in my bed. There was a pack of dissolvable tablets in the bathroom cabinet. But I wanted to feel this. Numbing myself seemed like the easy way out. As if I could erase what happened.
I pulled my knees tighter to my chest. Uncle Jesse has made everyone laugh, even Danny Tanner, but I missed the punchline. I stared at the television, waiting for morning.
T he next morning, I peeked over the back of the couch, wondering how late I had slept. I could see the clock. Noon.
I wiggled into a more upright position. I shoved off the couch and walked to the kitchen. The Mr. Coffee pot was stained, and I didn’t clean out the grounds or empty the stale coffee last night. I began to wash the carafe in the sink. It wasn’t different than anything else I had inherited in this place. Everything was falling apart if it hadn’t already.
I turned the water off and shoved the coffee pot into place, before trudging up the narrow staircase. The house was old, and the upstairs ceilings were low.
When I turned to enter the room, I claimed for the few weeks I was here, I nearly tripped over the boxes of books Colleen had sent. I kicked at them. Why did she even bother? Her email to gather my new address had felt like a slap in the face.
“Damn it.”
What was I going to do with them? The tour was canceled. A tour that included San Franciso, Seattle, and Chicago. Cities I wouldn’t see now. There was no reason to sign any of the copies. I bent over, ripping over the top of one of the boxes. The cardboard resisted and I tugged harder. It ripped in a jagged line. I pulled one of the books out and ran my fingers over the ridges of my name on the cover.
I huffed, opening the book to the first page. I resisted as much as the cardboard did and immediately slammed it shut. I threw it on the bed. I ran into another box, shin-first. The groan in my throat escalated to a scream.
I rushed to the window, opened it, and turned back toward my first victim. I grabbed the closest box, hauled it up to the ledge, and threw it over the windowsill, pushing it through the screen. The mesh was flimsy and tore with one shove. I watched in awe as the box bounced off the lower roof, taking a few shingles with it before it smacked the ground. The books landed in mangled piles. I felt something. A new kind of rush. I grabbed another box. One. Two. Three. I shoved with both palms. I wanted to watch another one smash into broken pieces.
I exhaled when I had discarded almost all the boxes from my room. There was one left.
I moved to the window. I didn’t care about how I had trashed the lawn. No one saw it from the waterside of the cottage anyway. I didn’t care about the screen. I didn’t give a shit about the shingles that ended up as casualties. I gripped the ledge to close the window, but I flinched. There was a streak of rainbow stripes on the water not more than fifty yards from the marina’s pier. I spotted the sail just long enough to see the Sunfish tipped over, the sail smacking the water with a splash.
I peered closer, waiting for the boater to right the sail. I’ve seen it a hundred times. The sail didn’t move. It only bobbed up and down with the waves. I paused. There was no movement. Holy shit.
I jogged downstairs and hurried out the backdoor, through the screened porch, and across the deck. I ran at a full sprint to the end of the pier. “Hey!” I screamed. “Are you okay?” I was out of breath, struggling to push my voice out over the waves.
It was only as I got closer that I saw a small head bobbing with the help of a life jacket. “Oh, no, no, no.” It was a child. I couldn’t tell how old or if it was a boy or a girl. What I knew was that it was not swimming, and it was not responding as I screamed from the pier.
I didn’t wait. I couldn’t.
I immediately made a shallow dive from the pier and swam. My body felt heavy and useless, yet there was a charge of adrenaline pushing me forward through the water. I was getting closer. Its eyes were closed, and brown hair was stuck to its forehead.
It was a boy.
I scooped him in my arms while I kicked below the surface. I didn’t bother with the Sunfish. It wasn’t going anywhere. I swam with him tucked under one arm, trying to use my breath to keep going. I realized it had been weeks since I’d done much more than climb my stairs. The burst of cardio was caught in my lungs. I slowed just enough to pace myself. The water was over my head, but the kid was wearing a life jacket. At least one of us would float.
“We’re almost there,” I informed him, even though he hadn’t moved or opened his eyes since I reached him. “Hold on. I’m going to get you up on the pier.” My breathing was ragged. “I’ll get you up there. Don’t worry.”
When I approached the ladder, I needed to figure out how to pull him up with me. The life jacket was bulky and made maneuvering him more difficult. The ladder was a steep climb upward with no incline. My arms were tired and beginning to ache. The first step I climbed, we both splashed back into the sound. I wasn’t prepared for how heavy he was. He looked so small.
The next time I was ready. I took a deep breath, dug my fingers into a tight grip around his waist, and pushed upward using the strength of my legs.
I made it to the top rung, and I was able to roll him onto the swim platform. The life jacket kept his head from hitting the wood.
I checked his pulse and closed my eyes when I discovered he was breathing. Maybe the mast knocked him out when the boat tipped. I searched the water for another Sunfish. A buddy or a parent he sailed with, but I only saw fishing boats and a group of guys wakeboarding. I wanted to scream at them to come help. I wanted to yell that they should be here helping me. Someone else should take over. Someone who handles emergencies. Someone who knows CPR. Someone who knows anything more than me at this moment. But I knew I didn’t have the kind of time to wave them down. I gathered his small body in my arms and staggered to my feet.
“Come on, come on, come on.” I had never felt so hopeless or so scared. “Please, please be okay.”
We made a trail of water across the kitchen’s linoleum when I carried him into the house.
I unbuckled the life jacket, shirking it off his arms, and tossed it to the floor before I picked up the phone on the wall and dialed 9-1-1.