Chapter 67
iris
The churning fear in her gut had become an all-out roar of terror.
It was almost four in the morning; the night sky was beginning to soften to grey. It’d be dawn, soon. Iris had been looking for her son for more than five hours.
And Finn was still missing.
They’d walked for miles along the beach in both directions, and found nothing but other desperate parents. She and Amy finally returned to the marina, frantic for news, only to discover there was none.
‘If they were rescued by the New York State Police, they could’ve been taken to the other side of the lake,’ Amy said, shivering despite the thick flannel jacket she’d been given.
‘They might be in a hospital, being treated for shock. They might be unconscious. They won’t have any IDs on them.
It’s always the same after disasters like this; people can’t find each other, but they’re not really missing. They’re not . . .’
She trailed off.
‘They’re bringing everyone back here,’ Iris said harshly. ‘They know their families are waiting here. They’re not taking them to New York.’
‘But what if they’ve been rescued by ordinary people, not the police? They might not know to come to this side of the lake—’
Iris ignored her sister and walked down to the edge of the pier, taking a deep breath as she stared out across the water, trying not to scream. Nicky was safe, even if Amy didn’t yet know it.
It was Finn who was missing, Finn who was still out there.
Iris had thought it would help if Amy shared her suffering, but her sister’s clutching anxiety was driving her insane.
‘We can’t give up hope,’ Amy said, yet again. ‘If they’ve come ashore further down the lake, the search parties won’t have found them yet. Finn’s a strong swimmer. He’s one of the best in Vermont. If anyone has—’
‘Stop!’ Iris shouted. ‘Just stop! I can’t bear to listen to you anymore!’
‘I only meant—’
‘It doesn’t matter how strong a swimmer he is!’ Iris cried. ‘What if he didn’t make it out of the boat after all? What if he did, but forgot to exhale properly on the way up? His lungs could burst; that’s what you said! He could be—’
‘You can’t think like that,’ Amy said.
‘I can’t think of anything but that!’
‘Miracles happen all the time! Ashley made it out of that corridor, didn’t she? Maybe others have, too. I’m not letting you give up on Finn now.’
But Iris had stopped listening. Susan Pierce was approaching them, her face grave.
‘I don’t have any news,’ Susan said, before they could ask. ‘But I think you need to be really strong now, both of you. The divers have found a section on the Lady where a number of students were trapped in a hallway. They’re bringing them up now.’
Iris knew Finn couldn’t be among the students they’d found.
He’d left the Lady; he’d swum out through the galley kitchen.
Her sister had said so. Amy had seen him go.
So Finn couldn’t be with the students who’d been trapped: Raylan, Bella, Conrad, Cassie, the terrible roll call of bright young lives, gone forever.
He couldn’t be among the children they were bringing in now.
But the fear in her stomach was spreading through her blood and bones, and she couldn’t quite feel her legs.
‘Mac and Jesse are waiting for you with Rose,’ Susan said. ‘Someone from the Sheriff’s Department will show you where to go.’
There was almost no one left at the marina now other than police and rescue services. Those parents still waiting for news, the worst news, had already gone around the headland to receive their children.
Susan led them over to the officer. Rose looked at Iris with eyes so hollowed out with shock, she almost didn’t recognise her own daughter.
‘Take her home,’ she told Jesse. ‘I don’t want her to see this.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Rose said.
She was still wrapped in the crocheted blanket someone had given her hours ago. It made her look like an old woman.
‘Rose, please, just do as I ask,’ Iris said, thickly. ‘I can’t bear for you to—’
‘These are my friends,’ Rose said. ‘My brother could be there. You can’t protect me from that. You couldn’t protect me before, not from any of it. I need to be here, Mom.’
Iris and Jesse took their daughter’s hands, one on either side of her.
Together with Mac and Amy, they followed the officer along the uneven path through the brush alongside the lake, down to the concealed headland where the emergency rescue services had set up a makeshift morgue.
Local journalists were already clustered by the police cordon.
The nationals would be here within hours, feeding on their grief and misery.
Iris felt sick when she saw the plastic tent erected on the sand.
Rose staggered beside her, and she steadied her daughter. ‘Are you sure about this?’ she said.
Rose nodded numbly.
They stumbled onto the rough sandy shore.
Knots of their friends and neighbours stood along the water, waiting.
Iris recognised them: Bella’s parents, Vicki and William; Cassie’s widowed mother, Sarah, and grandmother, Sharon; a man she’d never met but who must be Raylan’s father or uncle, so strong was the resemblance.
The first rescue boat drew near. Two divers got out of it, turning to lift a body bag from the craft.
People sobbed quietly as the two men brought it ashore.
Billy Stephens, Stowebury’s chief of police, knelt and unzipped it a few inches.
He’d lived and worked in Stowebury all his life; he knew every one of the school’s graduating class by name.
His own daughter had graduated herself just a year earlier.
He closed his eyes briefly. Then he stood up, and turned to walk heavily up the beach. Iris felt herself backing away from him, willing him to walk past her, to go to Conrad’s parents, or Emma’s, to anyone else but her. All around her, she saw other parents doing the same thing.
Billy passed Cassie’s mother and grandmother, passed Bella’s parents, passed Amy and Mac. He was heading directly for Fay and Ed Stanley now. Their daughter, Taylor, had been one of Ashley’s best friends.
‘No,’ Fay said, covering her mouth with her hand, backing away from the chief of police so frantically she stumbled and would have fallen, had her husband not caught her. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘No!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Billy said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Even as Fay Stanley crumpled to the sand, the two divers were lifting another of the town’s children from the rescue craft.
Not my baby, Iris prayed, as each body was brought ashore. Not my Finn. Please let it be their child. Or theirs.
Any child but mine.
The sobbing around them grew louder and more anguished. The number of parents waiting in dwindling hope and mounting fear grew ever smaller.
Finally, it was just her and Amy, standing with their husbands and Rose side by side on the sand.
‘This is the last,’ Iris heard one of the rescue divers say, as he waded back out to the boat.
It was almost light now. Iris looked up at the sky. The moon was still visible, slowly setting on her life before. The sun had yet to fully rise, and for a moment, she was suspended in a strange limbo of time and place where nothing was real.
And then she heard them say Finn’s name.