The Highest Tide

by Jim Lynch

  I sprinted until I had to jog, then sprinted again once I saw that standing water had almost encircled Florence’s cabin. I splashed to her door and burst through it without knocking.

  It took me longer than usual to adjust to the gloom. I heard water sloshing against floorboards and smelled the sea as clearly as if we were rafting. Yet the floor, amazingly, looked dry.

  When I finally made out Florence, it was comforting to see her safe in her chair, not waiting for me to pull her off the toilet, or worse.

  I apologized for not checking in earlier as I crossed the room, panting, moving from one pool of dust-twirled light to another, until I saw her new forehead gash and noticed her nose was larger than ever.

  “Ahhhh Florence.” Guilt flooded me. “I’ll get some ice.” Her closed eyes didn’t worry me. She often rested them. And I’d seen a crusty film on the corner of her lips many times. It was the set of her mouth that shook me. Had she fallen so hard that she broke her jaw?

  “Florence? You okay?”

  The instant I realized she was dead my stomach burned and my throat clogged, then everything slowed way down.

  I don’t know exactly what I did for the next few minutes other than that I eventually stopped looking at her and began lifting books off the floor and onto tables and counters.

  I think I was waiting for my mind to catch up with my eyes and tell me what to do. Slowly, it occurred to me that I should’ve already called 911 to see if someone could revive her. Maybe she isn’t dead! Yet I was too scared to touch her, and I’d seen enough dead fish and seals and birds to know what death looked like.

  So I continued stacking books and listening to the tide splash beneath me until it hissed through the boards near the fridge, and I finally noticed the blue pills next to her chair.

  I stuffed them into my raincoat. I don’t know if Florence wanted me to do that, but I did it. Then I dialed 911 and told a busy lady that Florence Dalessandro had died.

  When she asked for an address, I gave her mine and told her that Florence was two driveways over. Then I splashed back out into the rejuvenated storm to feed the rest of the sleeping pills to the blackberries.

  I ran back inside, planted the empty pill vial in the middle of the kitchen garbage and flung the bag outside beyond the growing puddle. When I shut the door behind me again, I realized I was panting. I drank straight from the faucet. It felt like a selfish act. Where were the sirens? Should I call again?

  The floor was noisier than ever, wheezing and gurgling like some slurping monster. Yet it was still mostly dry,except for the kitchen, where it had seeped all the way from the fridge to the tiny dinner table. Then I noticed the floor was actually damp all the way back to the bathroom, and beyond that to the bedroom door.

  Florence had always kept it shut, as if hiding or preserving something. I’d never more than glanced in there, and when I stepped inside now what I saw didn’t fit. The rest of the cabin felt like Florence, but her bedroom could have been anybody’s—simple green curtains, matching bedside tables, a green and gold bedspread fitted at the corners and three identically framed photos perfectly spaced on the far wall.

  I assumed the old man with the familiar lips was her father. The other two black-and-whites were of a younger Florence alongside two similar-looking women who had to be her older sisters. Florence still looked like herself back then, but her eyes fit comfortably in her face. They still looked oversized, but in a pretty and unintimidating way. It hit me looking at her sisters that shuffling old Florence was the last in a line, the baby of her family just like me.

  A louder splash struck beneath me and snorted through planks in the living room. I burst out to see the oval rug darkening in front of Florence’s chair, water beading and draining along its edges. I glanced guiltily at Florence, as if she might wake long enough to scold me for snooping in her bedroom while her house sank.

  I felt as if I’d been given a test I couldn’t possibly pass. I knew that I should wash her face and set her jaw straight, but I was afraid I’d make her look worse, and what if her dentures popped out? I considered trying to carry her outside, but didn’t know if I could lift her without her help, and feared I’d end up dragging her across the wet floor. And what would I do once I got her outside?

  The next wave shook the cabin just as I hoisted the last of her books off the floor and watched two countertop stacks collapse. I restacked at hyperspeed, knowing it was futile, but at least it kept me in motion. When I looked around again, I saw the entire floor was soaked and pooling, a couple inches deep near the fridge.

  I slid the footrest toward Florence, without looking at her face, and lifted her wet heels off the floor, holding my breath, afraid of what I might smell. Her legs were heavy, as if they’d gained weight in death. I scooted the stool beneath them and heard more water spitting through floor cracks as I lowered her feet.

  After another wave hissed beneath me and squirted a loud foot-high fountain in the kitchen, I burst outside for air and stumble-waded into the gravel where I waited like a mindless guard dog until I finally heard a siren.

  The nodding ambulance man and his blank-faced sidekick listened to me breathlessly explain how often Florence fell, and how she’d apparently had another big tumble earlier that day. The last thing the man said to me was, “Are you okay?”

  He probably saw guilt, not pain.

  After the ambulance rolled away, I went into the world to tell someone that my best friend was dead.

  Of course, there was nobody to tell.

  The Stegner house was empty and my father was still at work. The only other people I saw were trespassing strangers loping up and down driveways to get closer looks at the still-rising tide.

  I ran home and called my father’s work number, but hung up once his recorder kicked on. I did the same with Aunt Janet’s after I discovered my mother had checked out of Chicago. It surprised me to want her the most, but I’d never been miserable without her.

  Being alone in our house spooked me, especially with water hissing beneath me again, so I ran toward the bridge and the music, trying not to think, kicking any images of Florence from my head before they had a chance to root, proving to my mother, even if she wasn’t around to witness it, that I could handle even this without crying.

  It was easy to pick Phelps out alongside his brother and a dozen others like him in identically faded jeans, rocking in unison, the water and the music rising together. As dueling guitars took off, Phelps stepped in front of the older boys, slung his imaginary strap behind his head and began to play air guitar with such convincing intensity a cheering section egged him on. Phelps couldn’t have noticed. His head was bouncing, his bangs swinging, his whole body committed to the electric crescendo blasting from his fingertips.

  I intended to wait the song out before pulling him aside, but it refused to end, and there was way too much blood racing through me to just stand there. So I dashed back across our land in time to watch the tide clear the frontage of the Stegner property. It wasn’t a wave or two splashing over. The entire bay curled over the top, the way a bathtub will if you leave the water running, drowning dandelions and huckleberries and flat golden fields already drenched with rainwater just below where the cattle liked to graze. Two cows grunted and thudded toward higher ground. The others soon followed, except for the two fattest ones who kept eating as if grass were worth dying for.

  I could tell the tide had cleared the bay’s eastern banks by the way the firs and cedars dragged in the water, and I ran south along the changing shoreline, splashing past the Ericksons’ horse fields where the tide was clearing that lip too, and on to the LeMays’ vacant pastureland where I ran high enough on the knoll to get a fill view of Sunset Estates. Five men were stacking sandbags, but it was obvious they were losing. Enough water had already pooled in the largest foundation to reflect the moody sky. I ran higher and looked wildly about, panting, doing my best to not let Florence flicker in my head.

  Luckily there was so mu
ch to see. The bay looked half again as big as it ever did, with large branches and trees swirling toward its southern end along with two skiffs, three canoes and a floating dock ghosting toward the swamped estates. Why was the tide still coming?

  I sprinted back to the Stegner house and tried their door and shouted Angie’s name even though I knew she wasn’t there. Then I saw their sun-bleached Coleman canoe wind-coasting in the flooded yard. I waded to it, found two paddles inside, dragged it toward deeper water and climbed carefully aboard without flipping it.

  The wind slackened and the low gray sky began to rise and give way to blue. Even the rain turned to mist. I kneeled near the stern, with the bow aloft, paddling toward the bridge and the noise as the fatso moon cleared the eastern tree line, playing it cool, as if it were just another innocent cloud. I closed my eyes and tried to feel its pull. When that didn’t work, I howled at it. It wasn’t something I thought about. I just started howling.

  I’d read that it was a myth that wolves howl at the moon. They howl before a hunt as a sign of togetherness and they howl out of loneliness, but the howling itself supposedly has nothing to do with the moon. I’d also read that some Indians think the howls of wolves are the lost souls of the dead trying to return to earth. Who knows? All I know is I howled at that moon, and I let it have it. It turned into more of a scream than a howl, and when I ran out of air I reloaded and did it again. Then again, and again, until my throat stopped me.

  It was easy to see that the tide had risen well past the timbers bracing our floor beams, making the O’Malley home look like a sinking houseboat. But I paddled past it without caring about it or anything inside it and continued toward the bridge and the ruckus, battling the current with short quick strokes until I felt it surrender.

  The tide, simply and finally, quit climbing.

  CHAPTER 30

  T HE BARTENDERS LET everyone stroll outside the partially swamped tavern to gawk at the high water and loiter, cocktails in hand, near the bridge where the head-bobbing rockers blasted the same song yet again. Or maybe it had never ended, but Kenny Phelps was definitely still the bandleader, air-guitaring his way toward another neck sprain.

  Up the shoreline, dozens, maybe hundreds, waded beyond the swamped cabins. I didn’t give any of it more than glances because I was pretty sure I’d seen Angie Stegner strutting across the Heron bridge with phony Frankie and my favorite dog.

  I dragged the canoe into the high grass next to the nearly submerged bridge, then ran in the direction I’d seen her strut. I slammed into some lady reading a tide table and toppled a baby stroller that luckily was empty. I didn’t stop to say sorry. I felt the way you feel when you’re suddenly lost at a county fair and you realize the lousy odds of ever finding your parents again. I don’t know how many people I would’ve normally recognized, but everyone either looked strange or like Angie. I was so convinced I saw her twice that I actually felt relief in my chest both times, before giving up, bending over and gasping, unsure what to do next other than find something to drink. I was returning to the bridge to try to grab Phelps when I heard a bark from the far side of the tavern and found Frankie hurling an orange tennis ball into swirling suds.

  Angie was looking the other way, staring intently at the overwhelmed bay. She looked remarkably ordinary from that distance, in her baseball cap and cutoffs. When I came up on her and she slowly recognized me, her hands flew off her hips and encircled me.

  “Miles,” she said. “My sweet Miles.” She hugged me so hard tears popped out of me. Once that started I couldn’t stop. It was like the worst case of hiccups, or a laugh that you can’t stop even if someone crams a BB gun up your nose. I cried so hard I sounded like a sea lion with a sore throat. Angie rocked me like she used to until I could tell her about Florence, which got me going again until I was empty.

  The next thing I remember was hearing Frankie tell someone to beat it.

  When I looked up, I saw a blurry couple about twenty feet from us. “Have some decency,” Frankie yelled. “Back ofl”

  “Miles?” said the lady next to what I slowly realized was a cameraman pointing a lens at me. She sounded familiar, but looked out of focus. “Will you please talk to me about this amazing flood you predicted?”

  Frankie ordered them to beat it again, and the cameraman started yelling back, warning Frankie to stop telling them what the fuck to do. It wasn’t until splashed ashore with the ball and shook the bay onto everyone that I placed the lady’s voice and wide-set eyes. But by then Angie was pulling me, then running me around the wet side of the tavern toward the bridge where the highest tide in fifty-three years still hovered.

  After I pointed out her canoe, Angie said we’d ride it out. I didn’t understand what she meant until we were hauling it across the bridge, then paddling north, with me in the stern, even though balance wise it made sense for her to be back there.

  Once we glided around Penrose Point everything quieted, and Angie kept my mind off Florence, pointing out the clusters of moon jellyfish pulsing through brown plankton blooms and the eight cormorants breaking formation, as if disoriented by the way the high water swallowed their roosts. “Look at that larch,” she said, aiming her paddle at the lone yellow tree in the green hillside. “It’s so bright it looks like it’s on fire.”

  Angie left most of the paddling to me and yakked nonstop about how she’d been jamming that afternoon with a friend who played tenor sax, and how they were conspiring to pull together an all-girl band. She also mentioned that she’d decided to bag Carolina and go to Evergreen instead, for at least a semester. “My father needs me,” she said, then raved about some new antidepressant called Pixie or Pixil, or something like that, which let her feel like herself even if it did make her sleepy. “For better or worse,” she said, tapping her forehead, “it’s all Angie in here again.”

  She saluted the bowling-ball head of the harbor seal that popped up to study us, then congratulated an early-returning chum salmon and giggled at the five mallards skid-landing nearby like off-balance seaplanes as the tide turned and began to pull us out.

  Half-submerged logs, blackberry bushes and random shrubs followed us, as did two empty canoes ghosting along the far shoreline and a green kayak that the tide was stealing too. I saw a long narrow flash near the surface that reminded me of my oarfish obsession. It turned out to be an innocent reflection, another trickery of light, but believe me when I tell you that a real oarfish did show up two weeks later in the newspaper. It measured out at thirteen feet three inches, and took three oystermen to hold it for the photo, above which loomed an unflattering picture of Judge Stegner and an article about an investigation into some favor he gave an old roommate.

  Angie stopped paddling and asked if my mother had told me when she was coming back home.

  “‘In a while,’ is all she said. Dad keeps saying she’ll be back any day, but I doubt it.”

  Angie didn’t try to talk me out of that, probably because she knew I was right, but maybe because she could tell that in the space of a summer I’d learned that everything was changing, including me. I grew six inches during the next ten months, then my voice dropped and tiny Miles O’Malley slipped away.

  Angie turned halfway around in the bow so that she could look at me when she asked how the hell I knew the tide would come up so high. “Florence,” I said.

  “How’d she know?”

  Over the next few weeks, we all learned a lot about what caused our crazy flood. Oceanographers admitted the original tidal prediction could have been off by a foot or two. Maybe the moon swung closer than 216,000 miles from the earth. Who knows? Plus, the tide tables couldn’t take weather into consideration, and in our case, low pressure raised the sea, as did six inches of rain. Seismologists also pointed out that the same earthquake Phelps felt through his toilet seat likely squeezed even more rainwater from the soil that spilled into streams and rivers that lifted our bays too. Then, of course, the guilty wind played its part. And climatologists were quick
to warn that the Sound was rising an inch a year anyway, and that Olympia would eventually struggle to fend off the sea without pumps and dikes. But even if you bought all that, it still didn’t add up to water as high as we experienced, or make it any less remarkable.

  What also followed was a complicated scientific explanation for all the strange sea life and debris that showed up that summer. El Nino had warmed the Pacific more than people realized, which pushed black dolphins, oarfish, Mola molas and other sea life farther north. We also learned that the huge north Pacific whirlpool, which often traps trash for decades, got ripped wide open by some timely westerlies that blew garbage and sea life into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. And the timing was perfect yet again for brisk northerlies and the strongest currents of the year to blow and suck glass floats, a Japanese street sign, a lost cargo load of hockey gloves and perhaps an ailing ragfish and an enormous squid down the Sound’s narrow plumbing into our shallow harbors.

  Humans were likely responsible for the rest of it. The killer algae probably got its foothold when a careless aquarium owner dumped it into the bay. And the Australian jelly and the Chinese crabs most likely hitched rides as babies in ballast water that Korean freighters sucked up in foreign ports and spat out in South Sound.

  People lost interest once the explanations rolled in. Some even got angry, as if scientists were determined to squeeze the magic out of everything. But I saw gaps between what the scientists said and what actually happened, and I heard the astonishment behind their words. But by then, most of the people seeking miracles had stopped coming around anyway, especially after that bald crowd-pleaser who’d claimed to have spontaneously regained his hearing was written up as a serial hoaxer with a fake doctor and perfectly fine ears.

  Yet none of that answers Angie’s question.

  How had Florence known the tidal predications would fall so short on this one freaky day? My guess is the old lady who was ultimately called the flood’s lone casualty didn’t know. It would take quite a while to recount all the predictions Florence told me that turned out dead wrong. My answer to Angie was that I had no idea how Florence knew.