Scott cranks the music and the boat’s speed when it’s Jenny in the tube. She belts out good-natured hollers with each big bump. She’s short and chunky, so I’m surprised that when Scott flips her out of the tube, she dismounts with the elegance of a gymnast. Once she’s back on the boat, she grabs a beer before she dries off.
Toby, completely encased in a thick towel, squirms on my lap. Eric sits across from us, not saying a word. His smile looks forced as he turns down both a beer and an offer to drive the boat. I accept the beer so we don’t come across like a buzzkill couple and try not to look as relieved as I am when Jenny puts hers down before she takes the wheel.
Relax, I tell myself. I look over at Eric. Something’s not right.
During Scott’s turn, Eric moves to sit by my side and admits he’s been the recipient of a king-sized lake enema and is not feeling a hundred percent.
I don’t dare laugh.
We’ve been on the water less than an hour, and I can already tell Eric is finished. It’s going to be a long day on the water for him. I get another beer from the cooler and accidently-on-purpose spill half of it into the lake, then hand it to Eric to use as his cover.
“Go up front with Scott,” I whisper to him. “I’ll be the designated tuber.”
Jenny is not shy when it comes to driving the boat, and she keeps Scott out there a long time, laughing and accelerating every time he says he wants to come in.
“Who’s next?” she calls out when she finally allows Scott back on the boat.
“Ready, Toby?” I ask, in a shiny happy voice, and off we go. I make a point of not pressing myself too low in the tube, so we fall off early and often. Toby likes it.
By lunchtime, I’ve taken so many turns in the tube, I’m sure my butt cheeks look like raisins. I don’t mind. Eric still doesn’t look well, but at least he’s getting his chance to talk to Scott. I smile between bites of my chicken-salad sandwich as Jenny teaches Toby how to tie a square knot.
After lunch, we head back to the marina. When we get the boat secure in the dock, Scott and Jenny walk over to talk to another couple they know, which gives Eric a chance to rush away to find the restrooms.
I take my time gathering our belongings from the boat. Toby walks barefoot on the blue seat cushions toward the back of the boat. Along the dock, there are several families around in various stages of coming and going, loading and unloading their respective boats.
The marina smells like dead fish and gasoline. As I search for my sunglasses case, I glance at the mossy water and wonder how many hundreds of thousands of parasites are in it. I’m in the front of the boat, busy straightening the orange life jackets we’d taken off and shoved under the seat cushions, when I hear a dull thump that sounds like someone dropped an ice chest. Then a splash.
“Ooh, that’s gonna be gross. I hope that wasn’t someone’s lunch,” I say, turning around to smile at Toby.
He isn’t there.
“Toby?”
“Toby!” ’
I don’t think twice about the green muck as I charge in after him, but I’m surprised at the depth of the water. I dive too steeply, and the time it takes me to surface is excruciating. My ears are ringing like an alarm. Eyes open, I realize I made a splash that pushed Toby farther out. I’ve made it worse. I can see his face in the water, eyes closed and arms floating away from his body. I have a surge of superhuman strength and lunge toward him under the water. I miss and have to come up for air. On the second try, I touch him and he feels rubbery. I feel around for a place to anchor my feet but find none. I’ve never been a good swimmer, and I have no idea how to rescue someone, but my panic has given me tunnel vision.
When I reach him, Toby is limp. I surface and immediately turn his face up to the air. I’m about ten feet away from the dock, directly behind the exposed propeller of the boat engine.
Suddenly, Eric is there in the lake with us. He wrestles Toby out of my arms, and I go under. He leaves me in the water to crawl out on my own. Scott extends a hand and pulls me up onto the dock. When I get my bearings, Eric has Toby laid out flat on the dock, and by this time, several other people are crowding over them, yelling instructions. The sound of my own shallow breath is replaced by a cacophony of voices, filtered through the crackling anxiety in my ears.
Jenny’s voice: “Stand back! Stand back!”
“Is there a doctor here?”
“Give him room.”
“Is he breathing?”
“CPR! Who knows CPR?”
Eric checks Toby’s breathing, tries to rouse him. When he doesn’t respond, Eric uses his finger to clear Toby’s mouth and bends over him. He begins chest compressions, firm but not too firm. His face is calm as he counts to himself. He leans over and breathes into Toby’s mouth. Somehow, he knows exactly what he’s doing, and I love this man so much.
I step aside and let him do the right thing. “Back off! Will you all just back off?” I stand next to Jenny and Scott, my arms outstretched, the three of us creating a frantic circle around Eric and Toby, me never taking my eyes off my baby.
The crowd steps back. They start explaining it to each other, in lower tones.
“What happened?”
“The kid fell in. This guy came sprinting outta nowhere. He must be a paramedic.”
“Is he bleeding?”
He’s not. Eric lays Toby on the dock, checks his pulse again, and assures me he feels a heartbeat. I needed to hear that, but Toby still isn’t conscious. His brown curls, plastered down on his forehead, make him look unnatural. I push them up, out of his eyes. His little face is slippery under my hand.
Eric’s ear is on Toby’s little chest, so the top of his daddy’s head is probably the first thing Toby sees when he opens his eyes. He coughs and sputters, and Eric flips him over in case he throws up. Toby twists to clutch his dad and says, “Kay.”
My heart stops.
Eric laughs, crazy with relief, and says, “Okay, buddy. You’re okay.”
“See? He’s okay!” announces Jenny.
Toby crawls over to my lap. The three of us sit on the dock, dripping wet, while Scott makes sure the crowd disperses and Jenny tells me I should get Toby checked out by a doctor.
I’m checking him for bruises, looking at the pupils of his eyes. I can’t keep my hands from shaking.
I know what I heard.
Eric keeps saying, “Okay. It’s okay, buddy,” until Toby motions for me to come closer. He cups his hands around his mouth, pushes his self-made megaphone to my ear, and whispers, “Momma. Kay.”
I hold his head between my hands and look into his eyes. He returns my gaze without blinking. I tell him with my eyes that I understand. I know exactly what he means.
I nod and put my finger to my mouth, shushing the pounding of my heart in my ears, made worse by the noise of an airplane engine overhead.
I look up. Dottie’s dream comes rushing back to me. I’m paying attention, all right.
Jenny has our bags hoisted on her shoulder like a sturdy mule. “Come on,” she says. “Everybody up. We’re heading out. Let’s get this little man to the ER. Scott, you’re driving. I’ll follow in our car.”
Just like that, we all stand up and do what she says. I envy her superpower.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
*
SOMETHING IN BETWEEN
At the emergency room, under the bright, nervous lights, the nurse tells us first, and then the doctor says the same thing, repeating it until we’re sure: Toby is all right, it’s nothing more than a bump on the head for him and a scare for us. We did the right thing and acted quickly, so the doctor won’t even call it a near drowning. Even when I say it, he smiles tolerantly and says, no, no, nothing like that. Jenny and Scott leave only after the doctor confirms one more time that there’s no concussion, no reason for our son not to get a good night’s sleep.
I don’t object when Toby falls asleep in the car, and I let Eric carry him to his room. We stand at the foot of his bed, ne
ither of us saying a word. I allow myself the tears I’ve held back all day.
When I turn to leave, Eric follows me to the bedroom, breaking the silence. I know he’s trying to make me feel better when he assures me that it was an accident, that it’s not my fault.
I don’t correct him. I can’t find a way to explain how clearly I know that it was no accident. Nothing random about it.
I can’t tell him that as I held Toby’s hand on the way to the hospital, I whispered a promise to our son: We will go see Kay. I can’t describe to Eric the validation I felt when Toby immediately calmed down and sat like a little Buddha in his car seat.
I’ve always believed that the slippery, porous boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness, between the physical and spiritual worlds, is most prevalent at times when we transition between states. That not-quite-awake, not-still-asleep feeling. The meditative hum of stillness like a lucid daydream. A here-but-not-here condition that only happens once we surrender the daily chatter in our heads.
How can I make Eric understand that when Toby regained consciousness, it was like returning from that in-between state, and Kay’s presence must have been palatable to him? I can’t tell him this nonaccident—this, too—is about John Robberson. I can’t tell him that John Robberson must have finally figured out that Toby needed to be unconscious to gain full access to him.
Don’t you see? I want to tell him, John Robberson got to Toby. I was right there, and John Robberson got to him anyway.
I can’t say any of that. It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I can’t even tell Eric that at some level, I’m relieved. That I was wrong. That maybe the best thing was for John Robberson to finally be able to convince Toby that it’s okay to talk to Kay.
There’s no way to communicate how important it is that Toby has finally agreed to do what John Robberson wants. This is a game-changer.
I go into our bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror, look myself in the eye, bore past the green and yellow flecks in my pupils, and tell myself the truth.
What I really want to say to Eric—to the old Eric, the soul mate who used to listen to me—is that I’m trying not to let it hurt my feelings that the first person Toby asked for wasn’t his own mom.
If I could tell him that, maybe he would understand. I have to get him to see that we have to make room for the possibility that there might be something bigger than us going on here. Something I don’t completely understand. Something in between.
“Shel? Did you hear me?”
“Sorry. What?”
“I said, do you need anything?”
“I’m exhausted. Are you coming to bed?”
He takes a step backward and my heart sinks. “In a few. Thanks for … you know. Today. And Toby’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.” He looks down at his feet, his hand on the doorknob. “Try to get some sleep,” he says as he pulls the bedroom door shut behind him.
Around three o’clock, I jolt awake from a murky green dream and make my way to Toby’s room, relieved to find his hair dry. He’s breathing air instead of water and doesn’t have a fever, and when I pull back the covers, his belly button is still an outie. When I check on him again a few hours later, I see he’s rotated himself to the foot of the bed as usual, and I smile.
I know what I need to do now.
I settle the jitters in my stomach and make myself smile before I knock on the door of the guest room, as lightly as if the door were made of the eggshells I’m walking on.
Eric cracks open the door. “How’s he doing?”
“He seems fine. Still sleeping.” I nod and try not to show my discouragement that we’re talking through a crack in the door. “Want to join me for breakfast? Before he wakes up?”
“I was going to get a smoothie on the way in. I told Scott I’d meet him early today.”
“Oh.” Recovering, I say, “That’s a good sign, right? That he wants to meet on Sunday?”
“Hope so.” He opens the door, and I see he’s already dressed. Neither of us moves.
“Tell Scott I thought yesterday was fun. Minus the drowning and all.” I smile. “I liked Jenny a lot. Didn’t you?”
“Sorry, but can we talk about this later?”
I don’t move out of his way. “Real quick. I was thinking maybe it would be good for us to do things like that more often. Get away together, you know, take our mind off things. So I thought today, if you’re okay with it, I’d look into finding us a family vacation spot, maybe over the Fourth of July weekend?”
He pauses. I can see the wheels turning in his head. Finally, he makes eye contact.
“I’m trying, Eric. You have to try, too. You said you would. It’s only fair.”
“You’re right. Okay.”
“Good luck with Scott,” I say, stepping out of his way. “Be sure to tell him how much we appreciated the invite.”
But Eric doesn’t even know how much I appreciate it, because without knowing it, Scott bought me the modicum of goodwill I needed with Eric to do what I need to do for Toby.
That night, I present Eric with a few vacation options, careful to steer him where I need to go. First, the too-expensive beach resort in the Caribbean. Then the Disney cruise I know he won’t choose. So when I mention the Ozark Mountains, he’s amenable. It doesn’t take long to agree on a two-bedroom condo with fishing access on Table Rock Lake. I don’t point out the lake’s proximity to Branson, Missouri. For the first time, I’m relieved that Eric showed so little interest in John Robberson that I never got the chance to mention his hometown.
Fourth of July weekend.
We’re going to drive and stop and buy fireworks along the way. We’ll go fishing and hiking and make s’mores in a campfire near the lake. I can tell Eric I have to run an errand. Toby won’t pay attention to the roads. I won’t even have to say anything—I’ll just take Toby and let him say to Kay whatever her husband needs for him to say. I’m not leaving until she makes John Robberson go away, once and for all.
Eric doesn’t have to know why we’re there. Once John Robberson is gone, it won’t matter. I promised him I’d control it, and I will. Truth be told, he doesn’t want to know the details; he just wants the result.
So we’re on the same page, really. If you think about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
*
INDEPENDENCE DAY
I like car trips. I play Slug Bug with Toby, which he likes a lot, mostly because it breaks my usual “no hitting” rule. I go out of my way to sing along to the radio and count the cows we pass. Eric is in a better mood. He tells me he’s optimistic that Scott will approve his budget and he will be able to hire two new guys. We seem to have forged a tentative peace, an unspoken agreement that we’re going to try. We fill any conversational lags by taking turns entertaining Toby. When it’s not my turn, I work out my plan to find Kay.
I’d love it if I could not only find her but also hang out long enough to figure out where she goes on a regular basis. Maybe she eats breakfast every day in a diner. Maybe she leaves work at the same time every day. Maybe Toby and I could “run into” her in a public place. That would be best. But it means a lot of legwork on my part, and I’m not sure I can do it without Eric being suspicious.
All I have right now is a highway and a box number. The address doesn’t register on our GPS. I can’t find it on Google maps. The closest I get is a satellite map that shows a two-lane highway with mailboxes along the sides. I’ll have to figure it out when we get there.
Southern Missouri is unexpectedly beautiful, with verdant hills and crystal-clear streams. Almost simultaneously, Eric and I roll down our windows, a shared unspoken instinct to stick our arms out and make waves in the wind current. When we finally arrive in Branson, the hills are obscured by the town’s attempts to be an entertainment mecca. I can’t help chuckling at the log-cabin font used to advertise everything from souvenir Tshirts to big gospel churches. The cars are packed on the road as tight as a tourist’s bulging belly
in a golf shirt.
I pick up a listing of the shows that made Branson famous. Eric wryly observes that he’d have to reach a certain level of intoxication before he’d really appreciate the Baldknobbers Jamboree. Not a viable option with Toby, so we ditch that idea. In the front seat, I point to an ad for Silver Dollar City, the amusement park, and Eric looks at me as if I offered him a chocolate-covered cricket.
Our condo is tucked into the woods, and our unit has a clear view of the lake. My shirt sticks to my back, and my hair frizzes in the humidity. In the back of the building, we discover a rock path that leads all the way down to the water, with a marina right there on the property. We agree on this point: we are not renting a boat.
Eric suggests we buy groceries at the marina store, but when we see it, we both know that’s not happening. There’s no fresh fruit or produce of any kind. I feign disappointment, but I’m relieved. This gives me an excuse to run an errand on my own.
“Toby, do you want to come with me to the store?”
He shakes his head from side to side, twisting his entire body.
“Come on, Shel, don’t make him get in the car again.” Eric grabs Toby and turns him upside down in the air. “We’re going exploring!”
“You guys go ahead. I’ll feel better once I get the food issue settled. Then I’ll join you.”
I pick up a map of the lake and surrounding areas and locate what appears to be the largest grocery store, thinking it will be my best bet. I head in that direction and stop at the first gas station I see. The cashier—a rail-skinny grandma with yellowed fingertips—is happy to show me how to get to Route 76 but adds, “It’s a big-ass road, sugar; I hope you got more than that.”
I tell her the address and she assures me she’s terrible with directions. “I’d lose my fool head if it wasn’t screwed on.”
“Do you have a phone book?”
I find six Robbersons. Carl … Fred … James … No John. No Kay … Two Williams … Steven. There’s nobody on Route 76.
Damn.
I thought I’d be able to find Kay in the phone book and set an appointment. I had even rehearsed how that conversation would go. I guess I should be glad there are only six entries. I’m too close to the cashier to rip the page out of the phone book, so I take a picture of the page with my phone, making sure I can read the phone numbers for every Robberson listed. It’s a long shot, I know, but before I traipse all over the Ozarks, I need to rule out that the number I have is a PO Box. So I ask where I can find the post office.
Eight Minutes Page 15
