The night had been windy and cold, two months ago, not long after Deirdre’s diary had come back, and she sat in the kitchen, wrapped in a blanket, switching channels on the small television set that an electrician friend of Patrick’s had jerry-rigged.
She settled on this interview on NBC. Ann Curry talking to someone. She was about to move on—it was some official from Connecticut, that guy who was on vacation in South America or somewhere, and whose wife had been tragically killed in a fall, their kids right there.
His name was flashed on the screen. Landry, Frank Landry. He was a state senator up there.
Normally these stories did nothing but make her recall her own anguish, so she went to change channels, but her curiosity got the better of her and she put down the remote.
“Senator, you’ve remained fairly silent since the incident.” Ann Curry looked at him empathetically. “But rumors are that you’re considering a run for governor and that’s why you finally consented to this interview …”
“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” the senator said. He was nice-looking. Maybe a little coldness or remoteness in the small blue eyes. A narrow face and light sandy hair. “It was just important to respect our family’s privacy. For the sake of our kids.” She liked the way he still referred to them as that. Our kids, as if his wife was still alive.
“You can only imagine what they’ve been through. But so many people have pushed, and maybe it can help avoid something else like this happening down the line. So the kids finally said, ‘Go ahead, Dad. Do it.’ In fact, they asked to be here now.”
His two children came in and sat down next to him. A son and a daughter; both seemed in their early teens. He put his arms around them on the couch. They both looked a little awkward being there.
Then Ann leaned forward. “So, Senator, painful as it is, can you describe what happened down there, the day of the accident?”
Landry nodded, moistening his lips. He took his kids by their hands. “We hadn’t been away as a family for a couple of years. So we went on this cruise to Patagonia. Around the horn. It’s a place my wife, Kathi, always wanted to see. And it was beautiful. We were having the time of our lives, weren’t we, kids?” He squeezed his children’s hands and they both nodded, kind of numbly. “We were stopped at this port, Puerto Montt, in southern Chile. We took a shore excursion for the day, a boat ride on this beautiful lake in a national park. Emerald Lake. It was surrounded by stunning mountains. Here’s a picture we took …” Landry took out a blown-up photograph: the four of them, in bright-colored windbreakers and jackets; his wife pretty, in sunglasses, all smiles. “You can see how happy we were. We were having a great day. Then we went to visit this waterfall and rapids. It’s a well-known tourist site down there. The Petrohue Rapids. It had started to rain a bit, and I remember Kathi saying, ‘Maybe you guys should go ahead. I’ll wait by the souvenir counters.’ It seemed like the rocks could be pretty slick. But we convinced her.” He pressed his lips together and paused for a while.
“But you’re not alleging it was unsafe in any way?” Ann interjected.
“No. I’m not. Not in the least.” Landry shook his head. “There was this pathway leading to the overlook. There were people of all ages all around. Old people. Kids. Now and then you had to step from rock to rock, and some of them were a little tricky, right, kids? I mean, my wife, Kathi … she’s always had a bit of a fear of anything like that. We used to ski when the kids were young, but then she stopped. But this was easy.”
“And there were guardrails along the path. And even fences in a few spots, right?”
“Yes. There were.” Landry nodded. “All around. Except … Except we went out on one of the outlying pathways along the side of the river. The current was raging all around. The whitewater was pretty fierce, spraying up in our faces, even twenty or thirty feet above. And there were all these huge rocks and boulders, and the current slashing all around them, spray everywhere, and then they went over these falls.”
“The falls …,” Ann asked. “How high would you estimate they were?”
“Maybe forty, fifty feet. About the same width around. And the current fed down there and was incredible. Water slamming off the rocks. And if there’s one thing I do blame myself for, hold myself accountable for, it was ever going off on the trail, away from the rest of the crowd. The kids had gone up to this point where you can look over the fall with everybody else.”
“So you were alone at that point. On this isolated path …?”
“Not exactly isolated. There were people around. You could see them in and out of the trees. Of course, Kathi said we should head back and stay with the group, but I wanted to make it out to this spot. On the way we saw another couple coming back and they said it was beautiful. I was hoping we could get a picture of the kids out there on the point.”
“And there was a railing on the path? Something to prevent you from just falling in.”
“Yes. And most of the way it was away from the edge so the rocks alone and even some trees would hold you back from falling. But the rain began to pick up and the rocks became slick. Kathi was having trouble stepping from one to another. She slipped once and almost turned her ankle. I told her, ‘Grab on to me.’ I gave her my hand.” Landry shook his head self-judgingly. “Believe me, it all seemed so benign.”
“So what happened next?”
Landry took a breath and wet his lips one more time, and went through it slowly, methodically. With each sentence he seemed to struggle for the right words.
“What happened next was that she slipped. Off the side of this wet rock. The trail was kind of narrow there and there was a railing, but then she stumbled to the side and lunged for it to balance. But it was wet too and her hand slipped off and she went underneath it, on her side.”
“Where were you?”
“I was a step or two in front. When I heard her gasp I spun around and ran to grab her. But her feet gave way on the loosened stones. I heard her go, ‘Frank!’ with a gasp. And it was like there was this exposed, unprotected spot with nothing to hold her back.”
Landry paused. You could see a mix of emotions crossing in his pained blue eyes. The discomfort of having to relive this in front of his kids. To the world. The horror of what his wife would have gone through.
Guilt.
Sheila thought she saw a sense of something else as well.
The camera focused in on Ann. “What did you feel then, Senator?”
Landry’s eyes became opaque and he took a deep breath into his nose. “We were about thirty feet above the river. Kathi had managed to latch onto this branch of a small tree, but it was bending and about to give way. So I grabbed her. I screamed. For anybody. There were a hundred people not far from us, but the sound of the river was thundering and no one could hear. And where we were there was no one else around. I had her. It was wet. Suddenly her shoes started slipping on the rock. I could see the terror in her eyes. She said, ‘Frank, pull me up. I’m—’”
“She was falling?”
Landry nodded. “Yes. I said, ‘Okay, okay, get your feet over to that rock, I’ve got you!’ But it was wet and the spray was all over us and it was like she just panicked. Her feet began to slip on the rock as she tried to cycle herself back up. And it made it harder and harder for me to hold on. I could feel her slipping out of my grasp. I looked in her eyes.”
“You were staring at her?” Ann asked. “You were looking into the face of your wife and you knew she was in peril.”
He shook his head grimly. “I don’t ever want to recall that look again. She just said, ‘Oh, Frank, I think I’m going to fall. I can’t hold on.’ I said, ‘You have to, Kathi. You have to.’
“And then suddenly I felt her just slip. She just fell out of my grasp. And I saw in horror there was nothing holding her back. Not the rocks. Not a tree. Not me. It was the worst feeling of my life. I don’t even know if there was a scream; no one could possibly hear it over the roar of the rapids. I just watched her. I saw her bounce off another rock and hit the water, and her red jacket came up. And then she was carried away. She hit against the side of the rocks. I think she was headfirst at that point. I was praying she would grab on to something. I was going, ‘Kathi! Please grab on!’ To anything. But then she was just gone. Over the falls … Like that. It was just seconds. I couldn’t do a thing.” His daughter squeezed him and then Landry looked back at Ann. “I’ve been at war. Shot at …”
“You were awarded the Bronze Star,” Ann said.
“Yes. But nothing prepares you for this. Nothing. Suddenly she was just out of my grasp. I’ll never forget her look. Thank God these guys weren’t with us and didn’t have to see. That’s the only thing in this horror I’m grateful for.”
Ann actually leaned forward and put her hand against the senator’s wrist. Landry’s daughter rested her head against his shoulder.
Ann said, “You loved your wife deeply, didn’t you, Senator Landry?”
“Of course. We all did. Everyone who knew her did.”
“And you hold yourself accountable for what happened?”
“I do.” Landry inhaled a deep, penetrating breath and nodded.
“In your eulogy, you called her your rock. Your own personal salvation.”
“She was. I didn’t come from very much. I was kind of a rootless kid until I got in the service. The army, and my wife, turned me into whoever I am today.”
“And you’ve had to deal with tragedy before …”
“Yes. My brother was killed in a helicopter crash at Camp Lejeune. When I was fourteen. He’d enlisted in the marines. And my younger brother, Todd. He died of AIDS a little over ten years ago now.”
“You were raised by a single mother …”
“I was.” Landry forced a smile. “A great lady. I grew up in New Dorp on Staten Island. My father wasn’t around from the time I was six. Though we moved away to live with an uncle in Connecticut in my last year of high school, I still feel close to the place. It’s something you never lose. Believe me, I never thought I would end up doing what I do. In government. No one in my family had ever even gone to college before me. We were poor. My mother had to work multiple jobs. She’d say, ‘Frank, I’m doing this for you and Todd. One day you’ll see why.’” He smiled; his eyes seemed to glaze over. “Well, of course she didn’t exactly say ‘Frank … She always called me by a nickname back then. Everyone did.”
“A nickname …” Ann Curry smiled. “Do you mind sharing what it was?” A sympathetic twinkle in her eye that Sheila knew was designed to build rapport.
Landry shrugged. “Just something silly.” He looked at his kids. “I don’t even know if these guys ever heard it before. I ran fast back then, in the third grade. Somehow it just stuck. They called me Streak.”
At first there was simply silence, as if everyone in the world would have heard the very same thing, and Sheila O’Byrne felt like the electrical switch had turned to off in her body.
Her eyes bore in on him, almost climbing out of their sockets in shock and disbelief. Had she heard it right? The walls of her chest shuddering.
Streak.
She fixed on the senator’s face. Did he really say what she thought he’d said? Or was it her imagination playing tricks on her, her desperate longing that had been buried inside and had been dry so long?
Streak.
She wanted to shout. Anger bubbled up like lava. But no sound came out.
She wanted to reach in and pull him through the screen into her shaking hands. He had lived in New Dorp. He was around her age. Then he moved away. She’d waited for this moment for so long. Who else could it be?
“Streak?” Ann Curry asked him again.
“Yes.” Landry nodded. “I just ran fast, so from then on that’s what everyone called me.” It was almost as if he was looking directly at Sheila when he said the word one last time.
“Streak.”