Thirty-Five #2
Cursing, I fumbled with the winch controller.
After so much cosmic effort to bring the two of us together how could it end like this.
I heard the memory of Craig’s voice say, “Go slow,” and fought down the anxiety that shook my hands.
A quick jerk would snap his back like a twig and this time it might not be fixable.
With one gloved hand guiding the line back onto the winch spool, I gently squeezed the ‘line-in’ toggle.
The electric motor groaned, a grating tone that cut through the chugging noise of the pickup’s motor.
The line tightened and then stretched as the winch began hauling in the weight of Craig’s body.
The red float emerged first. The woman, still clinging to Craig, rose next, lifting her head out of the water to suck in a gasping breath.
Limbs thrashing to stay on top of the water churned the river white.
I couldn’t see Craig’s face, and the pair of them writhed at the end of the line, like a fish.
Despite Craig’s instructions I couldn’t help but steadily increase the winch speed.
A group of men climbed over the parking rail, scrambling down to grab Craig and the woman as they approached the bank. Wet to their knees, the men dragged them out. I couldn’t hold my sob of relief inside, Craig was back on dry ground.
“She’s pregnant,” one of the men shouted.
Hands on her knees, the drowned rat of a woman leaned over with a wail, “It hurts.”
“Mia?” I heard myself say.
Clawing hair out of her face Mia peered up toward the parking lot, “Rilee?” Mia croaked. An achy sickness flashed through me a moment before the panic squeezed me.
“Get them up here,” I snapped.
“He’s not breathing,” someone said.
“GET THEM UP!” my voice roared. Then quickly I added, “He has a bad back, don’t twist him.”
The observant woman helped Mia over the railing while four men, each with a limb, carried Craig’s limp body up to the parking lot. The woman wrapped Mia in Craig’s coat which hung to her knees. Pointing at her I said, “Call 911.”
The men laid Craig on the ground. He was blue and still. I winced as his ear scraped across the asphalt. Grabbing the towels from the front seat of his truck I slid one under his head.
Everything felt far away. The cries of the crowd, my own body. Craig’s skin was clammy.
Wiping water away from his face, pushing the hair out of his eyes, everyone’s words began to filter into me.
“Ambulance is on its way.”
“CPR, he needs CPR.”
“Ohhrrr.” That last was Mia, now collapsed against the side of Craig’s truck.
CPR. What were the steps?
“Hey buddy,” one of the men shouted, “Can you hear us?”
Step one, are you alright? Like the dream memories the steps snapped into focus. Passing the second towel to someone I said, “Try and get him warm,” then I turned toward his ear. “Craig. Craig, can you hear me?” A flicker passed under his eyelids but they didn’t open.
Leaning over, I put my mouth to his. It wasn’t a kiss.
It meant more. It was my life and his, together.
One breath. Two breaths. Then find the spot on his chest, two fingers up from the sternum.
That hollow space where my fingers had rested, where they had touched his heart right through his skin.
Now instead of a gentle touch I heaved as if my life depended on it. Because it did.
Press. Press. Press. Oh, oh, oh, staying alive, staying alive.
“God damn it Craig, stay with me,” I sobbed, “stay with me.”
Craig
Rocks and metal churning in the water crashed into me.
A hard punch in the gut blasted the air from my lungs.
Struggling to climb out I couldn’t drive back the crushing wet.
The woman was above me, held aloft by Rilee’s life preserver.
Why did she have a life preserver in her trunk?
No matter how hard I kicked or fought, my feet couldn’t find the river bottom to stand on.
The sharp taste of river water filled my mouth and I tried to get rid of it but I had nothing inside to push it away with.
I was empty. Everything was green and black.
My eyes were useless. Fiery pain jabbed through my left knee as it struck a rock.
Scooping my arms I tried to pull myself up into the air, but there was only heavy liquid everywhere.
Cold that had been merely painful now slithered inside. It caressed my feet and fingers and burrowed down through my bones. Icy bands squeezed my chest and not even the liquid fire that lived along the metal in my back could warm me.
I couldn’t feel the pregnant woman anymore, the firm press of her belly was missing, but she had the float, maybe she’d stayed on top.
Now that we were free of the car the float would keep her up and the baby would live and she would be there for him.
That thought left a warm glow. The child would live.
If that was all I was good for, it was enough.
Curling around that tiny ember of thought I let it fill the numbing void at the center of my soul.
If this was all there was, if I’d just been born for this one moment, if the wrecking of my body, meeting and driving Rilee away, if it was all to allow this one mother to feel her child’s hand around her finger, it was worth it.
Prickles of warmth spread out, like roots, crawling out from the seed behind my ribs and through my extremities.
A relaxing slackness replaced the frigid fear.
I’d fought the river. I’d fought the world.
I’d fought my family. I’d fought my own body.
Now I was done fighting. I hurt. Every part of me hurt.
My hands were sore, my knee throbbed, and my back tingled with an electric bulging fire.
Letting it all slip away, sinking into the slackness felt so restful.
A morning without waking and nowhere to be.
My chest ached, right where Rilee had lain her hand.
It hurt so much. She’d touched the sore part of my soul, opened it up.
Having someone else’s fingers handling those wounds was excruciating, and restful.
I didn’t have to continue holding up my own heart because someone else’s hands were there.
That heavy stone had been cupped in Rilee’s accepting hands.
And I’d left her. I’d run, even when she was crying for me, asking me to stay.
It hurt to be touched. Everything hurt all the time, every way I moved. If it all melted away so would the hurt.
But so would Rilee.
Stay or go. Stay. Or. Go.
Stay.