Kate—After
For as long as possible, I resist the urge to blink.
It’s like I believe if I manage to hold my eyes open without giving them a break—what? What do I think will happen? Do I really think the scene in front of me might change?
What is happening? What the hell just happened?
There’s a sharp pain in my arm. I look down. Chelsea is clutching my elbow. Hard.
“Ouch,” I say, pulling my arm away.
“Sorry,” she murmurs.
She meets my eyes. I forget for a moment I’m her supervisor—that I’m nearly old enough to be her mother. Maybe. If I’d started younger. Her hazel eyes are wide. She can’t believe what’s happening, either.
“We need to get Luke out of here,” I say.
She nods. Her face looks like a wooden spoon—curved and blank.
I look around. There are men and women everywhere—dozens of them. Kids too. Baby strollers. People with dogs on leashes. They’re all looking at each other, asking each other questions—the people, not the dogs. The dogs are wagging their tails, which I know means they’re engagedwith the situation, not necessarily that they’re happy. No one’s happy right now. Everyone is pointing at the water. They’re pointing at me.
What the hell just happened?
People are saying someone drowned. People are saying someone’s dead.
People are looking at me.
Down by the shoreline, two men in full-body wetsuits pull something big out of the water. That something big is a body. A man. Chelsea grabs my elbow again, but this time I don’t say “ouch.” This time, I welcome the pain. It’s proof I am alive.
There’s a siren. An ambulance arrives.
Someone must have called one. Thank God. Why didn’t I think to?
I watch the ambulance drive over the grass. The crowd parts. It’s like the Red Sea, and the ambulance is Moses. No, that’s not right. The ambulance is the group of people Moses led. They followed him. They trusted him. Why am I thinking about the Bible? Was Moses really trustworthy? I don’t know if I’m supposed to hope for a miracle. People around me are murmuring things like, Oh my God. Some people are crying. Some people are saying we should cancel the race. Other people are asking, how did this happen?
People are still looking at me. People are texting. If they aren’t, their hands are covering their mouths.
Chelsea isn’t at my side anymore. She’s rushing down to the paramedics at the water’s edge. Luke is still standing there. He shouldn’t be here. I’m old enough to be his mother. Sometimes at work, I feel like I am. He should listen to me.
I can’t think straight. I try not blinking again.
I wish I wasn’t hungover.
I wish I’d been firm with Paul last night when he poured the rest of the bottle into my glass. I should have been firmer. More firm? Firmer. I’d had three glasses already, maybe four. Generous pours. Okay, four. There had been a little Merlot left in the bottle. I wish I’d refused it. I wish I’d saved it instead of feeling the urge to empty the bottle. I can’t drink like I used to. I keep telling my husband. He keeps acting as though I can.
“What time are you waking up tomorrow?” he’d asked.
“Five,” I’d groaned.
“You’ll be fine. You’re a pro.”
Yet I’d woken up in a fog. My brain is somewhere else. More people are crying around me. Mothers with strollers are turning to leave.
I want to tell them to take Luke. He’s a baby, too—just seventeen. Same age as my twins, Krista and Keith. I’m thankful my kids aren’t here. I wish Paul were here. I want to hold him responsible for my hangover, even though I know it’s my fault. I want to hold his hand.
Finally, I take a deep breath and walk to Chelsea. I need to stand by her. I am the Interim Director. I am the Race Organizer. Paramedics are hunched over the man in a black wetsuit—the one they just pulled out of the water.
It’s Bryan Price. There’s no mistaking his face.
He used to be my husband—a long time ago. A really long time ago. Not Krista and Keith’s dad. That’s Paul. But Bryan Price and I were married, once upon a time, and now the EMT is pumping desperately at his torso, pushing in, pushing in, not taking his eyes off Bryan’s chest.
He’s my ex-husband, in other words.
Is he actually dead?
Around him, too, crouching at his left side, facing the water, I see a petite blonde woman. She’s trying to get to his head, his face. She’s reaching out with her hands. She’s crying. Another EMT pulls her back, gently, touching her shoulders, carefully avoiding her belly, trying to get her to stand. I hear him tell her to give Bryan and the EMT space.
I get closer to Bryan like I’m drawn to him. It feels like a scene from a movie, but I watch the woman take a few steps toward me, even though her face is almost out of focus. For the tenth time, I wish I wasn’t hungover. I’m too old to make such stupid mistakes. She’s screaming at me. She screams something else. Her voice is unclear; it’s like she’s underwater.
Then, I make out what she’s saying. “What did you do to him, Kate?!”
She’s yelling. She’s yelling at me.
That’s when she punches me in the stomach, and I topple right to the ground.
…..
This is an excerpt from the novella The Very Terrible Drowning of Bryan Price by Colleen Alles (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-very-terrible-drowning-of-bryan-price-by-colleen-alles/
Photo: Chloe Farber
Colleen Alles is a native Michigander and award-winning writer living in Grand Rapids. The author of three novels and two poetry collections, she’s also a fiction editor with Barren Magazine. You can find her online at www.colleenalles.com.
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