I ran toward the water and waded into the lake with my runners on, thrashing around with my hands. It was so cold. My baby in this cold, dark water. “Evie!” I called, then listened.
If Evie had crawled into the lake, she could be dead already. But surely someone would have seen her? There were families everywhere; surely no one would let a baby crawl into the lake alone. She had to be along this small section of shore. Didn’t she? If she’d made it to the water on her own, she would be right here, in front of the playground. And the waves lapping the shore would keep her body here. Her body.
Nathan and Ashley splashed into the water beside me, feeling about in the shallows a few feet away.
“If she is here in the water, she doesn’t have long,” Nathan said. He sloshed back onto shore. “We need more help.”
While I flailed around in the water, nearly incoherent, Nathan gathered a few locals to help us search the beachfront. A barrage of fireworks flashed in quick succession, lighting up the bay in staccato bursts.
“Evie!” My voice rang over the water. Something brushed past my leg. I reached down, but whatever it was—likely a fingerling—was gone.
Nathan and the locals he had enlisted waded in with me, the fireworks exploding over our heads, casting shimmering light across the waves. One of the searchers approached a nearby group of teens huddled around a fire they had built with driftwood, even though there were signs everywhere forbidding campfires. The kids shook their heads in response. Beyond them, a row of sandcastles from the Canada Day competition were already crumbling away.
“Anything?” Nathan called out to the searchers in between the bursts of fireworks. And they echoed back:
“Nothing here.”
“Nothing here.”
“Could she have gone deeper?” I asked Nathan. “Farther into the water?” The bay was shallow. A swimmer could walk far out and still be only waist-deep. “Could she have floated out?” Nathan had lived all his life by this shore. Surely he would know these things. About currents and drownings.
“It’s only been a few minutes since Madison left her in the playground, right? It’s unlikely. If she’s in the water, she would be here.”
I splashed and splashed, feeling with my hands in the dark. Someone brought a flashlight and shone it on the waves. That only made it more difficult to see, the light reflecting off the surface.
“Evie!” I cried, and the searchers echoed me down the shoreline. Evie, Evie, Evie, Evie . . . Lightning flashed and flashed again over the bay. In the relative quiet between fireworks, I heard the rumble of thunder.
Then there was a holler from just down the shore. “Hey! There’s something here!”
Something in the water. Something in that vast expanse of black. Evie. My tiny Evie, lost in all that. I felt like I was trapped in a dream of running but going nowhere, the stretch of dark beach expanding as I struggled to get there. I stumbled once and fell, panting, on all fours.
Ashley helped me up, her thin, cold fingers holding my bare arm. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I shook her off and pushed on without answering, staggering into the group of locals who had gathered on shore to watch a man haul something from the water. Something small and heavy, the size of a child.