Chapter 26
The chill in the air arrived first. I thought my skin was telling me an untruth, but then the icy draft widened, and I knew without looking up the sky was darkening.
A smattering of mini rain droplets, like mist in a fog, touched my face and shoulders.
Austin swiped at his cheek with the back of his hand.
Ahead, there was still an azure sky behind the figures on a red blanket on the sand.
Channing and Minjae were wrapped around each other, and Edison was reading his book.
Later I couldn’t remember if I’d counted all three when I first sensed a storm on the horizon.
Austin protested but I didn’t give in. When my feet again left the ground, I flailed in a panic, but it was only a dip in the terrain and soon my toes found the sandy bottom.
I focused on getting out of the water with Austin as fast as I could.
He didn’t protest as much once it was shallow enough for him to stand on his own, and I was able to let go and called to him to hurry.
I waited and ushered him ahead of me, to block him from the dark clouds barreling toward us, and he did, thrashing with his legs, pumping his arms, seaweed fleeing as if it had a life of its own and wanted to stay in the sea.
The rain struck our heads, sheets of tiny glass shards, in the exact same moment we reached Channing and Minjae.
They got to their feet and shouted at us as if we were responsible for the change in weather.
When you’re busy grabbing towels and bags and running for the car, you can only see that there were small legs and arms. I thought they belonged to both children.
Someone else picked up the book Edison was reading—later I’d learn it was Channing—but at the time, seeing the book in the corner of my eye dropped into a bag, I assumed it was Edison packing it away.
We ran to the car. The sudden quiet, along with the warmth and the softness of the cushions of the car seat, enveloped us. We were safe. I could fall asleep, I was so relieved. We escaped the worst that could happen to us, I thought.
With the car doors shut and the sound of our breaths being drawn in and released, we realized there were only four of us. Which should have been fine except not when one of them was Minjae.
“Where’s Edison?” Austin said.
Even then I expected the bigger boy to pop up at any moment. Edison was quick in his criticism of adults, but he followed the rules.
“Where is he?” his brother said in a voice I wished I could unhear.
It was impossible that Edison wouldn’t be with us.
As if he had vanished. Channing and I looked at each other, her hair and face still dripping wet from the rain.
Her eyes were wide with fear, and I knew she could see I was stunned.
She reached out a hand to me in the back seat.
Outside the storm raged. I flung open the car door and ran out into it, calling Edison’s name.
This time the rain was colder because of the brief respite in the car. I went directly toward the ocean. Out here on the beach was where a child would be in the most trouble. He could be stuck in a hole filling up with storm water, the way I was once by a lake.
The beach was huge. Many football fields long.
Bigger than I remembered thinking it was when we’d first arrived.
The line between ocean and land blurred.
A vastness I could feel more than see since the rain was like a thousand darts landing on my skin.
The wind lashed the rain, and I could hardly see past it.
I sprinted toward the white surf. All the scenarios hurled into me as I ran.
He could be out in the water, dragged in by the undertow.
He could be running away from us like I had done once when I was a child, unaware that I was running toward danger instead of away from it.
Someone could find him before I did. Would they help him find us?
I searched for any sign of a little boy.
“Edison! Edison!”
I called and called his name and then hushed so I could hear if he was calling for me.
All I heard was the surf crashing into land, enraged.
I knew it was angry, but the boy… Save the boy, I pleaded with the rain.
The rain had multiplied now exponentially, pummeling me.
The hurricane air was worse than the wind over a lake.
I crouched down to protect my face. Stay here in case he’s searching for you, I told myself.
When I was Edison’s age, impatience got the better of me.
I decided to strike out on my own. I didn’t wait for my parents and Harabeoji to finish lunch.
Instead, I went outside by myself in the afternoon to collect specimens for a science project: a leaf and moss and dirt.
I remember thinking I could do this by myself. I was capable enough.
I had small plastic resealable sandwich bags for each item that I would label.
We lived down the road from a lake, and I knew my way.
The assignment was easy. I had dreams of becoming a botanist, so I had to go for extra credit.
After a half hour, the only specimen I was missing was water star grass.
It should have been easy to find, but I had to get closer to the lake to collect its yellow buds.
I was afraid I’d get my feet stuck in the sucking mud.
When you stepped in the mud it made a squelch that made it sound as if it were a creature that would eat you.
I kept picking green long-stemmed grass instead of what I wanted.
How long did I search? It felt like hours, but it was only a few minutes.
And then out of the corner of my eye I saw one yellow long strand on the shore of the lake in the mud, so I walked sideways toward it, lifting my sneakers up and out, the mud squished into the space between my sneaker and my socks on the side, the grossest feeling.
In seconds, I was close to victory. I bent down and it was right there, easy.
But then my plastic bag blew away, and I tried to catch it before it was out of reach.
I had three other bags in my other hand.
I stumbled but I held on. And then I was on my knees, and the one I needed landed on the surface of the lake, flipped over and then flipped again by the wind, only to float away. My hair blew in front of my eyes.
The rain came down hard at once, but I thought I could stand it. I had three sandwich bags with my specimens and the water star grass without its bag in my other hand. If I could just get myself back to the house, I could put it into the supply of resealable bags I had there.
I regretted losing that first bag. Birds might get caught in it, or it could blow out to the lake and fish would suffocate because of it.
Tears of frustration came to my eyes, tears of guilt.
I ran uphill, but there was water around my ankles and then the water was up to the middle of my calves.
The small bags, every single one of them, and the water star grass blew out of my hands though I held on tightly.
In their place was heavy mud. I dipped my hands in the lake water that was now to my knees and wiped my hands on my pants because I knew when the water rose, I couldn’t let them weigh me down.
I’d have to use my hands like paddles and swim.
But why was I in the lake? I was supposed to be on the road back to my house.
Mud was sucking my feet down. I kept lifting and taking steps but I was sinking, and then I felt a branch whisk by my cheek, and I knew that meant I was near a tree.
It was raining really hard now, and I couldn’t lift my chin.
I crouched and covered my head with my arms. Rain cut my skin.
I cowered in place, kept myself as small as possible.
And that’s when I heard a voice say, Run home.
I rose and pushed myself forward. And then the ground disappeared beneath my feet.
It felt like I stepped into the middle of the earth because I fell so far, because when I reached out to slow my fall, I felt dirt and dry branches.
I clawed at them to stop my fall. My hands scraped rocks and mud and twigs for what felt like hours, just reaching to grip anything that would slow my rapid descent.
My palms ached. They prickled, they burned, and then something smashed into the side of my head and I lost consciousness.
What I remembered next was hearing my grandfather’s voice from way up high. As if he was in the sky. Was he a bird? I blinked and looked up to feel rain fall on my face, and I had to cover my eyes and look up once more. There it was again: Harabeoji’s voice.
“Dahee! Answer if you hear us.”
So I did. I shouted with my mouth getting hit with rain, with my forehead and eyes drenched. I shouted back, “Here, here, here I am!”
Now out on the beach in that same kind of rain, I knew Harabeoji would know how to find Edison. With shaking fingers, I struggled to hit Harabeoji’s number on my phone. When I heard his voice, I began to shout for help until I realized it was his voicemail. I hung up.
I took my phone and flashed it around me. Lighthouse, I’d be the lighthouse for Edison.
I was about to stand up and try to make my way down the shore when an arm came around my shoulders and a hand shielded rain from my face. It was Minjae.
He said, “Stay behind me, I’ll block some of the wind.
” He was right. We searched each side. How much distance did we cover?
I couldn’t tell, but we walked for several interminable minutes before he stopped and took something out of his pocket and then turned and pointed into the distance where the car was parked.
“Channing says to check the concession stand! She sounds really sure; we should go there,” he shouted into the wind.
“You go,” I shouted back. “I’ll keep looking here.”
He pointed again toward the low row of buildings. “Channing said he’s there,” he insisted.
“No, you go ahead!” I said, and ran back toward the water. Arguing with Minjae was a waste of precious time.
A thought crossed my mind as I ran: If Edison dies, then that’s the end of me, too.
I could not live. I could not be the cause of a child’s death.
I could see the Ahns’ faces, the ones in the photographs in the house.
The parents would be destroyed. I would be the one who destroyed them.
Austin with his seaweed jewelry would blame me, he’d blame himself, he’d blame the world.
He’d grow up with this loss stamped on his memory forever.
I wandered the shore. I had to keep Edison from falling into a hole. When I’d been found by my grandfather, the hole had been filling with rainwater. I could have drowned. The sand could be collapsing around Edison at this very minute.
Where are you, Edison? I felt that same fury and fear from my own past. I crouched again to rest for a second.
I covered my body as much as I could, made myself small to ward off the pain of the relentless sharp rain, piercing my skin.
What made me think I could save anyone, let alone a child?
Every inch of me hurt. I couldn’t rise to a standing position.
In the distance I heard my name. It became louder and louder, repeatedly, as it neared.
It didn’t sound like Edison, so I didn’t want to know who it was.
“Dahee, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Channing said with rain dripping down her face. She had the red blanket, and she held it up like a large umbrella over our heads, and instantly the rain ceased to feel like blades. The wind continued to batter us, but at least we had a shield.
She was smiling at me, and I thought she was being ridiculous, but we could use this blanket now to search. “If you’re here, who’s with Austin?” I shouted.
She was nodding. “Listen, Dahee, we found Edison.” She said she had a feeling she knew where he’d be.
It had flashed in her mind, and she’d phoned Minjae and me but only Minjae had answered.
He had searched and found Edison crouched against a row of wooden buildings.
He’d taken him to the car and Channing had come out to tell me.
I didn’t believe her until I saw the child with my own eyes.
The rain had eased now to a gentle patter.
Just like that, one second a whipping torrent and now a drizzle.
He was standing by the SUV with Austin hugging him tight.
Edison looked embarrassed, with his sloppy wet hair.
“I was looking for the bathroom when it started to rain,” he said.
Channing told him, “It’s okay, you did the right thing to stay there.”
Austin must have squeezed harder at that moment because Edison pushed him off and glared at him, which the younger child took in stride. I gave them both a hug. We were all sopping wet.
It didn’t surprise me that three police cars were parked askew in the lot around us, but I thought an ambulance would have been with them as well. We were lucky that Edison was unharmed. I’d broken my wrist that day I’d been lost at the lake.
I assumed Minjae or Channing had called for help.
On a beach like this during a storm, that made logical sense.
What didn’t add up was how the officers insisted that Channing get into the back seat of the patrol car.
She had just enough time to tell me that the key fob for the SUV was in the door pocket. “Get them home,” she said.
It was absurd. All of this. It might have been the cold and shock. I laughed at her and said, “You’re always telling me about that stupid key fob.”
She looked confused. “Sorry, Dahee,” she said.
“You should drive—” I began, and then I saw a cop put handcuffs on her. He was familiar—he was the one who had come to the house that second night I was in East End. Another police officer was pushing Minjae, also handcuffed, into a second patrol car.
“What’s going on? Edison is fine. It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” I said to the man leading Channing away.
“We’ll be taking her to the station for questioning,” he replied.
I was confused, but I had two wet, cold children by my side.