Drowning Instinct

by Ilsa J. Bick

Page 44

 

  ?Jenna, stop!? he cried. ?Don‘t go any further, don’t—!?

  I was gasping, pulling in lungfuls of air. Spiky branches cut and whipped at my naked face. Wood snapped and broke beneath my boots. Then, all of a sudden, the ground fell away and I staggered, my arms shooting out for balance as I stumbled the last few feet down the dip at the shoreline and spilled onto the lake.

  ?Jenna!? Mitch called again. ? No!?

  The snow wasn‘t as deep, maybe only six inches, maybe less because of the wind that snatched fistfuls away during the day.

  The surface was crustier, too, because of sun melt that refroze every night. So I could go much faster and I did, picking up my speed, stamping down and then pushing off as I plowed across. My boots dragged furrows through the snow and then I was a third of the way across, almost at the middle and—

  POP.

  Oh, Bob.

  c

  I froze.

  I, literally, honestly, froze in mid-stride, one boot above the snow, the other still planted on the ice, my arms squeezed tight against my sides the way a good runner should.

  POP.

  CRACK!

  Then a long grinding groan, like Mitch, inside me, moaning in his ecstasy, a deep-throated sigh that went on and on and on: OOOooooohhh. . . .

  Something came out of my mouth, a high, inarticulate exhalation—and even now I think, yes, that‘s what I sounded like when Mitch and I were together, and for the briefest of moments, I was no longer there but defined only by the limit of Mitch‘s arms holding me together, tight tight tight.

  Crack. Crack crack.

  I was afraid to move. My muscles were quivering. I couldn‘t breathe.

  ?Jenna. ? Mitch sounded close. Was he on the ice, too? I was too scared to put my foot down much less turn around. ?Jenna, honey, listen to me, do exactly what I say. ?

  ?Mitch?? A film of cold sweat bathed my face. I closed my eyes and swallowed. I wondered if the icy water would burn. I wondered if I would die fast this time. My voice rose a notch: ? Miiitch??

  ?I‘m right here, Jenna. I‘m only fifty feet away. I won‘t leave—?

  ?Don‘t leave me, Mitch, don‘t leave me!?

  ?I won‘t leave you, sweetheart. I love you; I‘ll never leave you. But you have to listen. Are you listening??

  ?Yes. ? I was crying—from fear, from love, from relief. ?Yes, I‘m listening. ?

  ?The ice is too thin. You have to come back the way you came, okay? Come back to me, Jenna, and then we‘ll get off the ice together, all right??

  ?Yes. ? I swallowed, gasped again as the ice popped. ?Okay. ?

  ?Put your foot down, honey . . . slow, slow . . . that‘s it, good girl. Now, Jenna, I want you to lie down. ?

  My voice thinned to a wheeze. ?Lie down??

  ?Yes. Lie down on your stomach, spread as wide as you can, arms and legs as far as you can, and then you‘ll turn around. ?

  ?Mitch, I . . . ? I gulped. ?I don‘t think I can do that. ?

  ?You have to, honey. Please. It‘s the only way. You have to redistribute your weight so the ice can hold you. Then you‘ll turn around and shimmy back, okay? Come on, you can do it. ?

  My trembling knees creaked. The ice popped and groaned. My teeth were chattering. My whole body was shaking as if I would never be warm again, exactly the way Mitch had felt in the abyss at Rubicon Point. But I did what Mitch said: first my knees and then my legs and then I was facedown, spread-eagled in the snow. Now I could see the fissures in the snow, radiating out from my body in all directions. The ice under my belly moaned.

  ?Good girl,? Mitch said. ?Now turn yourself around very, very . . . slow, honey, slow . . . I‘m right here, I‘m not going anywhere, you don‘t have to hur—?

  CRACK.

  A moan dribbled from my mouth, but now I was facing back the way I‘d come.

  Maybe thirty feet away, Mitch was on his stomach, shucking his coat in slow-motion, rolling carefully from one hip to the other, but the ice beneath him was popping and snapping with every move. With dawning horror, I saw the same starburst of gashes in the snow and realized: the ice was breaking and ripping apart under him, too.

  And Mitch was heavier than me.

  ?Mi-Mi-Mitch,? I gasped. ?The i-ice. ?

  ?I know, honey. It‘ll be okay,? he said evenly. But I saw his face. I had seen Mitch happy, tender, rapturous, sad, and not five minutes ago, guilty and full of remorse. But I had never, ever seen him scared to death. ?When I throw out my coat, stretch as far as you can and grab hold. Is there any way you can get your boots off??

  ?My b-b-b-b . . . ??

  ?Yes. Your boots are heavy and so is your parka. If you break through, I don‘t know if I‘ll be able to hang on to you. ? He didn‘t say that I might also drag him under. He didn‘t have to.

  I did try to get those boots off, but every time I reached back, the ice complained and Mitch told me to stop. ?But if the ice breaks,? I began, ?you won‘t—?

  ?I won‘t let go of you, Jenna. I will never let go, I promise,? Mitch said. The sun had cleared the trees and was warm on my back, which meant it was also warming the snow and ice. Mitch skimmed his tongue over his upper lip. Sweat was dribbling down his cheeks. ?Okay, honey, we‘ve got to move now. Come on, start back toward me and I‘ll back up with you. We‘ll be—? Snap. Pop. ?We‘ll be on the shore in no time. ?

  I did what he said, with my fists knotted in the sleeve of his sheepskin coat, the coat that had kept me safe and warm and held his scent—and which he gave up now for me, without hesitation, just as he always had and always would.

  I’m right here. See me, Jenna. I’m right in front of you.

  All I see is you, Mitch. All I see is you.

  We crabbed on our bellies, shuffling back by inches, but we were going so slowly, too slow! Heavy sunlight pressed our backs and battered the lake and now the ice was talking, a constant rattle and snap and crackle like brittle glass being crushed beneath a hammer. Mitch kept up a steady stream of patter—I was doing fine, fine, we were going to be okay, okay—but his breath was coming faster, and I heard the hum of his fear. We made a torturous ten feet, then twenty, but the shore seemed to recede, and meanwhile, the snow kept fracturing.

  Then Mitch moved—and I saw the snow and ice buckle, actually break, and lift beneath his right hip.

  ?Mitch!? I choked. ?Mitch, stop!?

  ?Oh shit. ? He closed his eyes, let his head drop to the snow. I saw his back move as his breath came in deep, hitching gasps, and when he lifted his face again, I saw him pushing back the panic, grappling for control. He tried easing back on his other hip, but there was an even sharper crack and then something that sounded like dry branches splintering under a heavy boot. Mitch‘s body jerked and then his hips dipped as the ice began to give.

  And, suddenly, there was water: dark as blood, seeping across the snow, oozing from the wounds beneath Mitch‘s body, spreading fast.

  ?Oh God. ? He looked at me. ?Listen to me, Jenna. When I go through—?

  ?No, you‘re not—?

  ? When I go through,? he said, ?unless there‘s a shelf, something for me to grab onto so I can hold myself up, you have to let go. ?

  ?No. No, Mitch, no, I can‘t, I won’t!?

  ?You have to!? he shouted and now I realized that what I‘d thought was sweat on his cheeks were tears. ?Jenna, I won‘t be able to let go because I‘ll panic and I won‘t want to let go of the coat, but you have to, no matter what I say. Do you understand? I‘m too heavy and you won‘t be able to hold me, honey, not this time. I‘ll just end up killing you, too. ?

  ?No, Mitch,? and I was crying again. ?Mitch, don‘t ask me to do that, I can‘t let you die—?

  ?Jenna, please, honey, you have to do this, you have to let me g—?

  Suddenly, all around his body, the ice was crumbling to pieces, like a pane of brittle glass. There came a heavy sodden sploosh as the fissures widened and t
he ice tired.

  And then the lake screamed: a high, grinding squall of rusty hinges, of rotted metal.

  Beneath him, the ice broke in a staccato clatter, like the rattle of machine guns: CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK!

  Mitch‘s eyes found me and held on. ?Jenna,? he said, and he put everything into that one word. He put in a lifetime.

  Then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, the thin ice—that frail membrane that buoyed him up and kept him in my world—let go.

  A few moments later . . . so did I.

  53: a

  So.

  What else could you possibly want, Bobby-o? You know the rest. You‘re the one who found us. Me. What a picture that must‘ve been.

  Well, shall I tell you what it feels like to watch someone you love drown and not be able to do anything to stop it? Do you want to know how long it took, or if the water boiled? Do you want to know if he screamed?

  Would it interest you, at all, to know that he did try to scramble back onto the ice?

  That his hands grabbed and his fingers clawed, but the ice—that treacherous, greedy, teasing ice—kept breaking and breaking and breaking, sketching a path straight for me?

  And that when he saw what would happen to me, he stopped trying to save himself?

  Would you believe that someone could love anyone that much?

  Or do you want to know what I said? How I felt? That it might be better to die with him?

  Would it help you to hear, Bob, that all of a sudden, he went so still, so silent, that no one would ever have believed that this man was drowning?

  Do you want to know what it was like to understand that this was the end? And that there was nothing I could do?

  No.

  No, I don‘t think I‘ll tell you about that, Bob. I don‘t think I will.

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  But here‘s the truth, Bobby-o.

  I‘m no angel. But if I could have sprouted wings from those grafts on my back and plucked him out of the water, and if I‘d been strong enough to fly us somewhere far, far away, I would have.

  But I couldn‘t, and so I didn‘t.

  As for the rest?

  Brush up on your Shakespeare, Bob. Then we‘ll talk.

  c