Red Kayak

by Priscilla Cummings

  “Were you scared?” Craig asked me.

  “Of what?”

  “Of getting lost out there yourself? Or maybe not finding him in time?”

  I sort of snorted. “I wasn’t afraid of getting lost ’cause I know the river pretty well. But I was worried that if they were in the water, the cold would get to them before any of us could.”

  “They tell me you knew the kid. What’s his name? Ben?” I could hear him tapping on his computer. “You took care of Ben a couple times?”

  “I baby-sat for him once,” I said.

  “So you’re pretty relieved he survived.”

  “Very relieved,” I assured him.

  “Are you worried about what might happen to him yet?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Craig somebody paused. “You know, are you worried that Ben was in the cold water so long he’ll have some kind of permanent brain damage or something?”

  Man. I had not even thought of that!

  “Brady?…Brady, you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” I sort of mumbled into the phone. “Sure I’m worried.”

  We wrapped it up then. I told him I needed to go. Craig somebody said that the story would likely lead the state page in the morning, but I told him we didn’t get the Baltimore paper.

  When we were finished, I hung up and told my mother that I just wanted to study for tomorrow’s exam and get to bed early. I also had some Spanish homework. No way was Señora Mendez going to let me off the hook just because I rescued someone.

  But the truth was, I didn’t want to take any more calls. I was talked out. Plus, I couldn’t stand the thought that Ben might end up with some kind of brain damage.

  I took a grocery bag and went to my room, where I closed the door. First thing I did was pull the plastic box out from my closet and noisily paw through all the LEGOs, picking out the red and black Aquanauts with the little oxygen tanks on their backs. Then I scooped up two of the sharks. A white one and a gray one. Ben would like the sharks, I thought, the way they could open and close their jaws.

  I put the bag on my desk and sat on the edge of my bed, thinking.

  At the nursing home, where my mother worked, one of the patients had a grandson named Andy who had brain damage. Andy, in his wheelchair, came to visit a lot because he didn’t have much else to do. Sometimes, they left Andy there all day to sit in the common room, where the residents played bingo or cards. The residents didn’t mind. If I happened to walk in, to see Mom or something, I always went over to Andy and said, “Hi, how’s it going?” I know he can hear, because he moves his head, but he can’t quite focus, or work his hands the right way to wave.

  Man, I just couldn’t stand to see Ben like that. All twisted in a wheelchair. I reached over for a pillow, doubled it up, and hit it hard with my fist. I’d rather be dead, I thought, than brain damaged.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the morning, it was nonstop from the minute Dad came back from the 7-Eleven with three copies of the Baltimore paper. He spread out the Maryland page on the table so we could see the headline and the story:

  BOY RESCUES TODDLER FROM RIVER

  A thirteen-year-old Eastern Shore boy, alone in his 14-foot skiff, plucked a three-year-old from the frigid waters of the Corsica River yesterday afternoon and resuscitated the child while speeding through pelting rain to waiting rescuers.

  Braden “Brady” Parks was one of a dozen people, including fire and rescue, law enforcement officials, and watermen, who responded to an emergency call yesterday morning that Virginia DiAngelo, 30, and her young son, Benjamin, were missing on the river.

  Virginia DiAngelo is reported in good condition thismorning at Easton General Hospital, while Benjamin, who was flown to the pediatric intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital, remains in critical condition. Both suffered from prolonged exposure in waters estimated at 48 degrees yesterday when their kayak overturned.

  Thomas Parks, a waterman who aided the rescue effort, summoned his son, Brady, from school. “I figured Brady knew those waters as well as anybody,” Mr. Parks said.

  But the younger Parks insisted he could not have done it alone. “Part of the credit goes to my dog, Tilly,” saidBrady, an eighth grader at Alexander Holmes MiddleSchool. “She pointed me in the right direction.”

  So on and so forth. The whole story.

  On the bus, the driver saluted me. And at school, all kinds of people patted me on the shoulder, shook my hand, or gave me a thumbs-up.

  While I was at my locker, Mrs. Owens, the principal, came over and put her arm around my shoulders. “Good for you,” she said into my ear, embarrassing the heck out of me because I was surrounded by kids who overheard everything she said. “I received a call from Channel Thirteen in Baltimore. They want to come out this afternoon and do an interview.”

  “Is it okay with my parents?” I asked.

  “It’s fine with them. Do you want to do it?”

  I had never been on television before. Lauren Modley hugged her books and stared at me, her eyes doubling in size.

  “Sure,” I said, shrugging.

  Not too long afterward, eighth grade had an assembly in the gym to talk about the upcoming orientation day we were going to have over at the county high school. And at the end of it, Mrs. Owens announced: “If you haven’t already heard, we have a bona fide hero in our midst this morning. Brady Parks.” Everyone in my class stood up and clapped. I know I blushed from head to toe, but man, what I wouldn’t give to experience that moment again.

  It was terrific how everyone at school responded. Everyone except for J.T. and Digger, that is—my best friends. They didn’t come over to wait for the bus with me that morning. And although I spotted them at the assembly, they didn’t save me a seat or anything, so I didn’t get to talk to them. And I never knew what they were thinking. Were they sorry we hadn’t called out to Mrs. DiAngelo? Embarrassed because they had cheered on a near tragedy? What? What were they thinking?

  It started to hurt my feelings that they never sought me out. But I wasn’t going to let on that I was miffed. I even had an oxymoron ready for J.T. When I saw him, and he commented on the rescue, I was going to say, “Yeah, it was pretty ugly.”

  The other thing was this: Almost the whole time in school, I didn’t let myself think anything bad was going to happen to Ben. I was a little swept up in being a hero, I guess. I’d never been one before, and it felt pretty neat. Plus, I was sure that if something was wrong with Ben, the doctors at the hospital would have known it by then. Someone would have told me.

  Still, every once in a while I couldn’t help but think about that reporter’s question, and a sick feeling churned my stomach. I was eager to tell J.T. about it. I decided I’d say something to him when we were together in social studies class right after lunch. Before we took the exam. But by then, everything had flipped upside down and I was gone. Taken out of school, fast, by my mother.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Brady, I need to talk to you.” Mom’s voice, so close, startled me.

  I whirled around from my locker. “What in the world—”

  “Please Brady,” she said firmly, grabbing my forearm. “Outside. I need to talk to you.”

  I was a little stunned. It wasn’t like either of my parents to just show up in school the way they had the last two days.

  But I didn’t argue. Mom was harried; in fact, her hair wasn’t totally dry, and I realized that she was wearing the purple sweater she only wears to work, but with a pair of jeans, like she was half dressed.

  Pushing our way through all the kids and commotion, I followed her to the front entrance. I thought sure someone would make a wisecrack. But no one seemed to notice my mother. If they did, they didn’t care. “Way to go, Brady!” one boy down the hall yelled.

  When the heavy front doors closed behind us, we looked at each other. It was cold, and neither one of us had a jacket.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She hesi
tated and started rubbing her arms to get warm, but then she decided she wasn’t going to tell me there, on the front steps of the school, either.

  “Let’s get in the car for a minute,” she said, heading off toward our Jeep, which was parked at the curb.

  It was getting weird.

  We got into the front seats, and when my mother pulled her door closed and sighed, it hit me. She had bad news about Ben. Ben was in a coma or something. He did have brain damage. Somehow, they already knew that he would never be the same.

  Instead, Mom turned to me and said, “Ben died.”

  At first, I didn’t think I heard right.

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Ben is dead, Brady. He died this morning. It was on the news. I thought I’d better get to school before someone told you in the hallway, or those television people showed up.”

  “But he was alive,” I tried to argue. “Carl had a pulse!”

  “I know.” She looked down at the steering wheel and nodded.

  The news threw me off. Slowly, I fell back in the seat and stared straight out the windshield. As I did, the Cloverland Dairy milk truck pulled away from where it was backed up to the school for delivery. When it passed in front of us, the smiling, black-and-white cow painted on its side was unavoidable. And in that instant I thought to myself, Ben is never going to drink any more milk. Stupid. But that was my first thought: Ben would never drink another cup of milk from those little spout cups of his.

  I felt my mother’s hand touch mine. “I am so sorry, Brady,” she said. “I know this is going to be hard for you.”

  “Why?” I demanded, turning to her. “Why did he die?”

  Mom’s eyes shone. I could see she’d been crying and figured this hurt her, too, because it was a little like when we lost Amanda.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. When she blinked, a tear ran down her cheek. “I guess because he was in that cold water for so long.”

  I felt my own eyes fill up. “Shoot!” I exclaimed, kicking at a Kleenex box on the floor. “I should have gotten there faster!”

  “No, Brady!” Mom tried to grab my hand, but I pulled it away and put it up over my face.

  “It’s not your fault. Don’t you dare blame yourself. You tried, Brady. You did everything you could. If you hadn’t found him and done what you did, he wouldn’t have had any chance. You at least gave him that!”

  Did I? Did I do everything I could?

  An enormous hole opened in my chest. I took in a huge gulp of air and held it for a moment. Then I grew still.

  When I took my hand away from my eyes, I saw the dairy truck disappear down the highway and watched the noisy sixth graders run out onto the field for gym.

  If we talked anymore, I can’t remember. All I know is Mom said, “Let’s go home.” And we did.

  For a while I sat at the kitchen table, numb, while Mom called school and made sure the television interview had been canceled. Then I moved into my room and sat at the end of my bed, staring at the floor. I started thinking that the only thing I wanted to do was go find that red kayak and bring it in. It seemed like a small, insignificant thing. The DiAngelos probably would never want to see it again. But it’s all I could think of doing.

  So I changed into grubby jeans and reached for my hat, my Baltimore Orioles cap, but then I thought, no, this was the hat that Ben wore just before he died. Not that I’m superstitious, but I didn’t feel right about it. I set it down on my bureau and took another instead, then grabbed one of Dad’s winter coats because now both of mine were gone—one in the ambulance with Ben and the other one at school—and headed down to the dock.

  Tilly followed at my heels. She wanted to come in the worst way, but I wouldn’t let her in the boat. I don’t know why. “Go on!” I hollered at her when she barked and tried to hop in after I undid the lines.

  I motored straight to the spot in the cove where I had found Ben, cut off the engine, and let the boat drift.

  I was trying real hard not to think of how I messed up. How I could have called out a warning when we first saw them. But even if I had yelled, would Mrs. DiAngelo have heard me? And if she had, would she have listened? Who knows? I should have tried, though. At least then she would have been alerted to the danger—and maybe she would have come back before it was too late. Or maybe I could have found Ben earlier. Just think—if I hadn’t gone up that other creek first. If I’d gotten there five minutes sooner…

  The fact that I went from being a hero to a great big nothing in just a few hours didn’t bother me. The other stuff was too big.

  The water was calm, solid brown because of how the rain had stirred everything up the day before. You could still smell the storm, the wet logs, the damp grass, the muddy riverbank. I knew I’d never find the kayak. Most likely it had gone out with the tide and floated downriver. Either that or it was washed up somewhere along the bay’s shore, maybe even as far south as the bay bridge. A kayak was pretty hard to sink. It would turn up eventually. But what would it matter? What was I going to do with it anyway?

  Usually, being out on the water made me feel free. Whenever things at school bothered me, I went out on the water to shake it off. But that day all it did was make me sick to my stomach. I noticed how, nearby, the roots to a big sweet gum tree, exposed by erosion in the riverbank, suddenly looked like a swarm of snakes slithering into the water.

  Just then, the eagle flew over and split the air in half with his terrible screech. Made me jump it was so loud. You hardly ever saw the eagle—a pair of them lived nearby—let alone heard one. But I figured it was yelling at me. It saw everything that happened in the river yesterday and it was letting me know.

  Unfair, I thought. My teeth clenched and a tremendous surge of anger burst out of me. “You didn’t have to kill him!” I screamed at the river.

  My voice echoed in the hollow that surrounded the quiet cove. Kill him, kill him, kill him… “You didn’t have to be so cold,” I accused, but the anger was gone, turned into something else already. “You didn’t have to make Ben die,” I muttered before I began to cry.

  Some people, I guess, they’d be railing at God for letting a thing like that happen. But me, I cussed out the river. And you know what? Nothing happened. When I finished crying, there wasn’t a sound to be heard except for the gentlest lap of waves on the nearby sandbar. The river didn’t care.

  A strange, chilly feeling settled around me then, like an invisible fog. What was I going to do? And whatever compelled me to look down I’ll never know. But this is the truth: When I leaned over to peer into the river, the water was not brown and full of sediment, but perfectly clear. And at the bottom, a few feet down, I could see the red kayak.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It freaked me out seeing that kayak under the water. At home, I hid in my room and didn’t tell either of my parents about it. I halfway thought I was going nuts, and that kind of thinking scared me a little.

  Mom brought me some dinner, a grilled cheese and some soup, but it sat there growing cold until I gave the sandwich to Tilly. Dad came in later. He was worn out from crabbing all day.

  I was at my desk and pushed my chair back, glad that Dad had come in.

  “Good run,” he reported. “Hauled in fifteen bushels. Mostly females, though,” he said, disappointed. Females didn’t bring in half the value of a good-size jimmy.

  I hoped Dad would sit on the end of my bed and stay because I wanted to tell him how twisted up I felt inside.

  “Glad you ate the sandwich,” he said.

  I glanced at Tilly.

  “Your mother was gettin’ worried. You know how she is.”

  “I’m okay,” I said too quickly. “I think I am anyway. I’m not sure.”

  My father pushed his hands into his pockets. “Look, Brady,” he said. “Don’t be blamin’ yourself. You were a hero yesterday for all you done. Finding Ben and givin’ him CPR and gettin’ him on down to Rock Hall. We’re proud of what you done. The way it turned o
ut—” He shook his head. “It’s not your fault. I just don’t want you to be blamin’ yourself, son.”

  I nodded. I appreciated everything he said, but he didn’t know how bad I felt about not calling out a warning when I’d seen the kayak that morning, before school.

  “You can stay home tomorrow, if you want.”

  “Thanks,” I said. But a day off from school was not what I needed. I wanted to tell Dad about how scared I was, how I still felt responsible. The words stuck in my throat, though.

  Dad sighed. “Why don’t you turn in? Get you some sleep.”

  I knew Dad hated to talk about feelings and stuff like that. It’s one reason my mother left for such a long time after Amanda died. Leastways that’s what I heard her tell Grandma once on the telephone. You know Tom, I can’t tell him how I feel about anything…

  “Well, I’m gonna hit the tick,” Dad said, turning to go. “Got to get up early and make a run ’fore that nor’easter comes in. More rain, they’re sayin’.”

  I nodded. I knew I’d lost my chance to talk.

  Softly, Dad closed the door.

  After he left, I sat, staring at the Michael Jordan poster on the back of my bedroom door. J.T. and Digger had the same poster because we played basketball a lot. I gave them the poster when Jordan made his comeback with the Washington Wizards.

  I turned around then and powered up the computer to see if there was any e-mail for me and saw that I had two messages. One from Lauren Modley, saying she was really sorry for what had happened to the little boy, and what a brave thing I had done. The other from J.T. It wasn’t much. Just this: Brady: Sorry for what happened.

  At least he had acknowledged it, I thought.

  That night, I couldn’t sleep.

  For hours, I lay in my bed thinking about the DiAngelos and wondering what they were doing. I knew that Mrs. DiAngelo was in the hospital, but where was Mr. DiAngelo? Was he at the hospital, too? Or was he home alone, watching TV? Or sitting on his back steps crying? And what about Ben? Did they cover him up with a sheet the way you see in the movies? Was he in a room alone? Where? Was his spirit up in heaven already? And what was that like? Would he—or his parents—ever know how hard I tried?