Chapter 5
Chapter Five
1982
C larence and Chuck left Travis alone at the top of the lighthouse and pounded down the circular staircase to the wet stones and sand below. The sounds of the helicopters and sirens were horrifically loud. It was like the end of the world. Chuck’s blood pressure—which his doctors had warned him about—skyrocketed. He thought of his little girls, asleep in their beds at home. He thought of Mia.
Hovering at the edge of the black water, Chuck whispered to Clarence, “What kind of boat do you think it is? Who could be on it?”
“I have no idea,” Clarence muttered.
It was true that it was too dark to see much at all. In just the few minutes it had taken them to exit the lighthouse, even more of the boat had sunk underwater, giving itself over to the rolling black waves. It took every ounce of Chuck’s strength to keep himself from hurrying home, grabbing his sailboat, and heading out to try to help. But what could he do? He knew that a vessel like that was more apt to sink his sailboat and drown him before he could help at all.
He felt foolish. He couldn’t believe that just a few hours ago, he’d been reading Moby Dick and imagining himself as this great and powerful boat captain. But the ocean had a mind of its own.
“Come on,” Clarence barked, turning in the sand and heading through the dark.
Chuck followed him and got into the passenger side of a big red truck. Clarence cranked the ancient engine and sped them off to the harbor. They could already see from the road that some of the Coast Guard boats were headed to shore, presumably with rescued passengers aboard. Chuck understood Clarence’s will to know what had happened. He craved it, too.
He wasn’t sure he would ever sleep again.
Once at the harbor, Clarence and Chuck got out of the truck and hurried to the end of the dock to ask the Coast Guard, milling around in red-and-black jackets, if they could help. Ambulances awaited the arrival of the boats.
“Hang around, fellas,” one of the coast guardsman ordered. “We might need you to go out there and help. Grab a jacket.” He pointed at the Coast Guard truck, which was not far away.
With big red-and-black jackets on, Clarence and Chuck watched as the first of the rescue boats arrived with people they’d saved from the wrecked ship. To Chuck, the people who’d been saved looked ordinary, just like him or Mia or anyone else from Nantucket or the Vineyard, save for the fact that they were frigid and blue. They were wrapped in blankets and shivering. The post-storm temperature had dropped below freezing. A few of them had fallen into the water. Chuck’s heart pounded. It was as though his body was fighting to keep him warm.
But just then, a woman in her late thirties bucked out of the ship violently, screaming so passionately that it was initially difficult to make out what she was saying.
Finally, it came to Chuck’s ears. “My daughter! My daughter! Vivian! She’s still out there!” Her accent was French, which made it all the more difficult to make sense of her words.
Chuck panicked. All at once, he imagined his own daughters out in that inky-black water, drowning and frozen. The woman continued to scream and cry, and Chuck hurried over to her to throw his Coast Guard jacket over her shoulders and take her in his arms. She wailed and snapped her fist against his shoulder. “My baby!” she cried. “My daughter!”
“We have to get back out there!” Chuck called to a guard.
“They probably picked her up already,” he muttered. “Another boat is coming back now.”
Chuck assured the woman that her daughter would be on that boat and that she would be fine. But the woman wouldn’t let go of him, and she couldn’t stop screaming, either. Together, they watched as the second boat came with survivors, dropping them off on the gorgeous dock of Oak Bluffs harbor. Chuck had never seen anything so tragic before. He’d never been at the sight of an accident.
The woman’s cries grew more and more staggering and horrible. Her daughter wasn’t on the second boat.
“I’m going to go find her!” Chuck announced to the woman.
“I’m coming with you!” she cried.
“No!” Another member of the Coast Guard hurried forward to retain her. “You’re not going back out there.”
Already, Chuck and Clarence boarded the boat. Its engines roared as they shot back into the night across rocky waves that seemed apt to toss them over. It was no surprise a boat had nearly sunk tonight. The water was murderous. Chuck’s stomach shifted, and he thought he might throw up. “Keep it together, Chuck Coleman,” he said to himself over and over.
Before long, the boat stalled near the sight of the accident. The boat was nearly completely submerged, but a number of life jackets floated around what remained of the vessel. Most didn’t have anyone in them, and Chuck was terrified that the people who’d worn them hadn’t put them on properly and sank instead. That was a fear he’d had with his children over the years.
He thought of that poor woman at the harbor, crying and crying out for her daughter.
Had she used her name? He searched his memory for it until he remembered. “Vivian! Are you here? Vivian?” He called her name several more times, feeling useless and stupid in the black night surrounded by actual Coast Guard personnel. He was nothing but a fake.
“We must have gotten everyone there was to get,” one of the coast guardsmen suggested to another. “We can return in the morning and clean everything else up.”
It was implied that he meant the other bodies they were too late for.
“Vivian!” Chuck cried out again. He felt frantic. He gripped the edge of the Coast Guard boat, his knuckles turning white.
Beside him, Clarence muttered, “It’s like they say. I think it’s too late.”
But Chuck wanted to call out once more. He couldn’t stop himself. “Vivian!”
Out of the darkness came the slightest sound—barely a whimper.
“What was that?” Chuck whispered. He flailed a hand vaguely to the left, where the sound had come from. “Go over there! Slowly, now!”
Following Chuck's guidance, the coast guardsman inched the vessel to the left. They were careful to keep a wide berth of the bigger ship, the one sinking, because it could always take them down with it.
Chuck’s heart pounded in his throat.
But suddenly, he saw a flashing hand over the waves. Someone splashed wildly, at a distance from the sunken ship, as though they’d known to swim away, away, away, so as not to be taken under.
“There!” Chuck cried.
There was no telling if it was Vivian or not. But it was someone, and that was all that mattered.
The coast guardsman crept closer as the person flailed and fought the waves. It seemed they were too exhausted to make another noise. Chuck had to restrain himself from jumping into the water to save them. When they got close enough, the coast guardsman was able to throw a rope, which the survivor took and clung onto hard. As they pulled them to a ladder up the side of the boat, Chuck could make out more of the survivor’s features. Clearly, she was a young woman, maybe a teenager, with black hair and a soft face that reminded him of his Oriana and Meghan. Tears filled his eyes. He was too frightened to call Vivian’s name again. If it wasn’t her, it was someone else, someone necessary, someone who deserved to remain alive.
But when the woman climbed the ladder and into the arms of the coast guardsman, they hauled her out, and she spoke with a French accent, using the only words she seemed to know. “Merci, thank, oh, merci!” They draped her on a cushioned chair and threw blankets over her as she wept and shivered. The boat rocked this way and that, and Chuck nearly fell over.
Clarence was the one who eventually approached her, bowed his head kindly, and asked, “What’s your name, honey?”
It took a moment for the young woman to understand. But finally, she said, “I’m Vivian.”
Chuck’s heart rocketed with joy.
Chuck, Clarence, and the rest of the coast guardsmen were overjoyed that they’d found another survivor in the wreckage and decided to do several more rounds to see if they’d missed anyone. But despite their tireless search, they found no one else.
Another of the coast guardsmen had helped Vivian as much as he could. He’d gotten her warm clothes from below deck, made her hot tea, and given her a snack. She was going to survive, but she couldn’t stop crying. Chuck wondered if she was worried about her mother.
As they returned to the harbor, sunlight peeked over waves that seemed eerily calm after the storm and the wreckage. Chuck crept over to her and bent down to say, “Your mother is waiting for you.”
Vivian’s eyes were slits. It was clear she didn’t understand.
That was when another member of the Coast Guard came up with a first-aid kit. “She hit her head,” he explained, pointing at a gash just above her ear. Chuck hadn’t seen it because her hair and the night had camouflaged it. But it was true that she was losing a lot of blood.
“I don’t think she felt it at first,” the guardsman said, searching through the first-aid kit for something to stop the bleeding. “I think she’s a little woozy. Look at her eyes.”
It bothered Chuck that he spoke about Vivian like she wasn’t here. But Vivian’s pupils were enormous, and she didn’t speak very good English. She clutched her blanket tightly and continued to shake.
“She must have hit her head when the boat sank. We’ll take her to the hospital immediately,” the coast guardsman explained.
The boat purred up to the dock. Vivian’s mother was sobbing at the far end, near the truck where Clarence and Chuck had gotten their jackets. Chuck wished he could speak better French. He knew a little from high school, but that was it.
The guardsmen helped Vivian onto a stretcher. Chuck pulled a blanket over her and said a few words he thought were kind and comforting in French. He then followed the stretcher down the steps to the dock.
Vivian’s mother bolted forward. She looked as frantic and angry as a lion. In French, she called Vivian’s name and said a million other things that Chuck couldn’t understand. By then, Vivian had lost consciousness, and her mother was sobbing louder than ever.
Chuck hurried toward the woman. He wanted to explain that she would be all right.
But before he could, another member of the Coast Guard—one who’d been on the boat with them—hurried up to talk to the mother. He poked a finger into Chuck’s chest and said to her, “He found your daughter. He was the one.” He poked three more times and wagged his eyebrows as though this could translate anything.
But Vivian’s mother seemed to get the hint—that Chuck had called Vivian’s name, that Chuck had searched harder than everyone because he’d known who he was looking for.
Immediately, Vivian’s mother threw her arms around him and sobbed and sobbed. “Thank you,” she said in English. “Oh, thank God for you.”