Chapter Eighteen

Dave walked toward the TV like a zombie, his heart freezing in his chest.

“. . . struck his head on a diving board, according to witnesses. By the time EMT personnel arrived at the scene, Sawyer, age eleven, hadn’t been breathing for several minutes, despite resuscitation efforts attempted by others poolside. The boy was pronounced dead upon arrival at St. Joseph’s trauma center just after eight o’clock this evening. Funeral arrangements are pending.”

The TV stayed on, but Dave didn’t hear anything else; the newscast droned on and the sound was as meaningless to him as the buzzing of insects. He felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his chest, as if he had just been shot with some kind of paralyzing radiation. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears, but that was the only way he knew he was still breathing.

Bryson—dead? How was that possible? How could a kid drown when he could swim fifty meters in thirty seconds? There had to be some mistake, a wrong identity, something. There was no way Julie’s son could have been jostling the boys around Brock’s car at the game last week and be lying dead on some steel table right now. The world could not turn upside down this quickly without his noticing. Could it?

“Oh, David. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.”

He looked at Clarice. She was still sitting on the couch, looking back at him, her hand over her mouth. He could feel the confusion on his face, saw it reflected in the way she looked back at him. So she’d heard it too? It wasn’t some cruel hoax meant for his ears only?

“Bryson?”

“Yes, honey. That’s what they just said.”

“I can’t . . . it’s not possible, Clarice. That boy can’t drown. He swims like a fish.”

“Baby, I don’t know, but that’s what they said. He hit his head or something.” She looked like she wanted to come to him, but didn’t know how. Dave wished he could tell her, give her some opening, but right now he was trying to figure out how to keep his feet in a landscape tilting madly out of control.

A thought began to coalesce slowly from the swirling fog in his brain: Julie. He had to go to Julie. She needed him, and he had to go to her.

“She’s . . . I’ve got to go,” he said, when he was finally able to make his voice respond.

“David, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

He looked at Clarice as if she’d just sprouted another head. “What?”

“I said, are you sure you should go? Go to her?”

“Clarice, the woman has just lost her son! Yes, I’m sure.”

She got up and came to him, reaching for him with both her hands. “Then let me go too, David. I’ll go with you. We’ll do this together.”

He pulled his hand out of her grasp. “You don’t trust me, do you? You think I’m going to hit on her, right there in the emergency room. Good Lord, Clarice. How sick do you think I am?”

“David, I don’t think you should go to her by yourself. If you won’t let me go, then take Brock. He cared about that boy, too.”

“That boy? Is that all you can come up with? You didn’t even know this kid, Clarice; he was special. He needed me. I was good for him and—”

“And his mother?”

“Don’t even say that, damn it! Do not say that to me, do you hear?”

“David, listen to me—”

“No, Clarice! Forget that mess you thinking! I been listening to you for the last fifteen years. All I been doing all day, every day, is listening to you. And you know what, Clarice? It’s all one way. You talk, and I listen. I’m tired of listening, can you hear what I’m saying? Tired! And I’m not standing around here arguing with you about it anymore. I’m going to the hospital and I’ll be back whenever, and you can just deal.”

He whirled away from her, striding toward the kitchen counter and his keys. He’d just swiped them up when he heard her speak.

“David.”

Clenching his jaw, he turned to face her.

“You need to know something, David.” Her voice was low and calm—almost scary. She was holding her elbows, as if trying to keep herself in control. “If you go see Julie and refuse to take anybody with you, I won’t be here when you come back.”

He stared hard at her for several seconds. Was she actually threatening him at a time like this?

“You do what you got to do, Clarice,” he said. “And I’ll do the same.” And then he was out the door.

Dave drove through three red lights on the way to the hospital. He screeched to a stop in the parking lot and ran toward the doorway into the trauma center; the automatic doors barely swished back in time.

Inside, he went quickly toward the first desk he saw. “Julie Sawyer, Bryson Sawyer—the boy that came in from the YMCA pool. Where are they?”

“Sir, she’s in Meeting Room A, down the—”

The attendant pointed and Dave dashed off before he could finish his sentence. He found the room and pulled the door open.

Julie was inside, sitting on a couch. An older man with a chaplain’s badge was with her. When she looked up and saw Dave, she gave a low, keening moan and stood, holding out her arms. Dave grabbed her and held her close, feeling her sobs against his neck.

“Oh, Dave, he’s gone, he’s gone. Oh, God, my baby’s gone.”

“Shh now, easy, baby. Easy now, just take it easy.”

In the face of her overwhelming grief, Dave felt his own throat closing with the urge to weep. The fog was back in his brain, obscuring his vision, tangling his thoughts around each other. All he could do was hold her and pat her gently on the back and keep saying the words that already sounded all but meaningless: “Easy, baby. It’s all right. I’m here. Easy, now . . .”

The chaplain stepped close. “I’ll leave for a bit. I’ll be right outside if you need me, though.”

Dave nodded and the chaplain went out.

“He was at a practice with the relay team,” she said. “They were finished, just goofing around before going to change. The older boys started doing stupid dives off the one-meter board, seeing who could do the worst belly flop, make the biggest splash. They said Bryson was trying to run backwards off the end of the board. He slipped . . .” Her words drowned in another surge of deep sobs.

Dave held her in his arms and felt her body shuddering against his. At that moment, he would have stepped in front of an oncoming train if he thought it would ease her pain. He would have picked her up and carried her until she felt strong enough to walk again—if that was what she wanted. He tried to add up the sum of what she was feeling, tried to measure the depth of the pit that had swallowed her up, but his mind reeled back, completely overthrown by the magnitude of her suffering. He was defenseless against it, helpless as he contemplated it. There was absolutely nothing else he could do right now except hold Julie, stay with her, and promise to help her any way he could. He hoped that would be enough.

“They had him on a respirator when they first brought him in,” she said a few minutes later. “They kept him on it until I got here. But I could tell he was already gone.” She looked up at Dave, her eyes silently screaming for understanding, for a hint of why. “His chest was moving up and down with the respirator, but Bryson wasn’t there. He just . . . he wasn’t there.”

By now, her voice was a ragged, breathy rasp. She sounded drained. Maybe she’d wept herself dry for a while.

“You want to sit down, or maybe walk somewhere?” Dave said.

“They came and asked me about donating his organs,” Julie said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “It’s funny—I never even gave it a second thought. My son’s dead. If somebody else’s son can live, why not help?” For the first time since he’d walked in the door, she looked up at him with something like recognition in her eyes. “You think I did right, Dave?”

“No doubt about it. Bryson would’ve wanted it that way. That’s the kind of person he was.”

“I wonder when his dad’ll get here,” Julie said.

“Has anybody called him?”

She nodded. “The hospital called his cell and his home phone. No answer either place. I don’t think I want to see him. I don’t think I even care if he shows up or not.”

“Don’t try to take that on right now, okay? You got enough on your plate. Think you could drink some coffee or something?”

She thought about it a few seconds, then nodded. Dave put an arm around her shoulders to guide her, then pushed open the door.

The chaplain was there and he was holding some papers on a clipboard.

“Mrs. Sawyer, the medical examiner’s office needs you to sign these. For the autopsy.”

Julie took the pen and clipboard and scratched her signature wherever the chaplain pointed. She handed him back the forms.

“Anything I can get for you?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“We’ll be down in the cafeteria if they need her for anything,” Dave said. The chaplain nodded. He gripped Julie’s shoulder for a couple of seconds, then walked away to deliver the forms.

Dave kept his arm around her as they walked; the way she was moving blindly forward, he thought maybe she’d faint any second. But they made it to the cafeteria and into a booth. She waited there while he got two paper cups full of coffee from the self-serve bar and paid the cashier.

“You want anything in yours?” he said when he got back to the booth.

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Doubt I can taste anything, anyway.”

He slid into the booth across from her and cupped his hands around his paper cup. He looked at her; she was staring at the tabletop and her eyes were as dull as burned-out bulbs. Dave guessed you couldn’t come any closer to seeing the face of death and still be looking at somebody who had a pulse.

“What do you need?” he said, after maybe two minutes of silence.

After a few seconds, she shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, after another few seconds passed. She looked up at him. “I really don’t know. How do I keep on from here? Bryson was everything I lived for. What’s left?”

He covered one of her hands with his. “Listen, Julie. I’m not going to try to tell you I understand, because I don’t. Nobody does. My grandmother used to say that pain can’t be shared, it can only have company. I’ll be company for you, Julie. I’ll stay with you, or I’ll get somebody else to stay. Whatever. I’ll make sure you don’t have to be alone unless you want to be. But I’m telling you, even if it’s too early for you to hear it, that the world needs Julie Sawyer. You hear me? The world needs you. Bryson doesn’t, not anymore. You still need him, but he’s taken care of now. I believe that, Julie, and I think you do, too. He’s taken care of, so now we got to figure out how to take care of you. And I’m going to help. You don’t have to get through this alone, you hear what I’m saying? Not alone. You gon’ have help. That’s a straight-up promise.”

She looked at him and when she tried to smile, Dave thought it was maybe the most heroic thing he’d ever seen anybody do.

“Thanks, Dave. I believe you.”

They sat some more. Nobody spoke for a long time. Dave figured there wasn’t a whole lot that needed saying. But he kept his hand on hers, and she didn’t pull away.

Julie? Oh my God, our son, Julie, what’s happened?”

They looked up, and a man was coming toward them, followed by one of the trauma center nurses. The man was holding onto a woman who looked maybe ten years younger than he. He was of medium height and had a narrow, rangy build. Dave took one look at him and recognized where Bryson had gotten many of his features. It had to be Ted.

He was weeping uncontrollably; the young woman with him seemed to be almost carrying him at times. Julie watched him coming with an unchanged expression. As he neared the table, Dave got up and scooted a chair over from a nearby table. Ted collapsed into it, holding his face in his hands.

“His cell phone was turned off,” the young woman said. “We came here as soon as he got the message.”

“Ted, get ahold of yourself,” Julie said. As Dave watched, she seemed to stiffen, almost to grow. “He’s gone, Ted. I’m sorry. But we’ve got to deal with it.” She was becoming more collected as her ex-husband continued falling to pieces.

“I just can’t believe it,” Ted sobbed, shaking his head. “I just can’t. Bryson . . . Bryson . . .”

Julie looked up at the young woman. “Have they taken you to see him, Kate?”

She shook her head. “When we got here, Ted asked for you. He said he had to see you.”

Julie closed her eyes with an expression that suggested she was trying to find some previously overlooked stash of patience. She turned to the trauma nurse. “Can you take him down to the morgue? I think that’s where the body is. He should see Bryson at least once more.”

The nurse nodded. She and Kate gathered Ted up by the arms and led him off, still sobbing and moaning.

Julie watched them go for a few seconds, then turned back to Dave. “He hasn’t seen Bryson or talked to him on the phone for over a week.”

Dave shook his head. “I’m sorry, Julie.”

“I think I’m ready to get out of here,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve signed everything there is to sign. I want to go home.”

“You want me to call somebody to come over?”

She looked at him, and her eyes were as steady as if she were taking an oath. “Not really. But I guess you should, for your sake.”

They called one of the women in Julie’s Sunday school class and by the time Dave had driven her home, the other woman’s car was parked alongside the curb near Julie’s driveway. She got out and met them by the car, enfolding Julie in a hug that lasted quite a while. Dave could hear soft sobs and sniffs as the two women held each other and patted each other on the back. The other woman had a daughter Bryson’s age and a couple of older kids, Julie had told him.

Dave promised Julie he’d bring her car back from the hospital parking lot. He saw the two women inside and was turning to leave when Julie called his name. He turned around and she came to him, gathering him close. He could feel her tears moistening his neck.

“Thank you so much,” she said in a near-whisper. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come.”

“Ain’t no thing, sister,” he said, trying to smile. “Anytime, day or night.”

She nodded and released him.

Driving home, Dave felt the loss crashing in on him again. He kept replaying scenes of Bryson in his head: swimming, sending wild pitches in from right field, taking his cuts at the plate and connecting with the ball, sitting across from Dave at Gino’s, the day of the meet. It made no sense; it was so random it made Dave angry at God. He tried to pray away the bad feelings, but they wouldn’t go. About the best he could do was a half-hearted apology to the Almighty for his ambivalence, followed by a weak promise to get back in touch later.

He got to his street and pressed the garage remote. The door ratcheted up and Dave realized the garage was empty. Clarice’s Accord was gone.

Clarice. Dave hadn’t given her a thought since pulling into the hospital parking lot. Was she really gone, or was she just out somewhere, driving around until she cooled off? Right now, he was too emotionally drained to care. He drove the pickup in on his side of the garage, switched off the engine, and pushed the button to close the garage door.

He walked into the house, half expecting to see a handwritten note on the counter explaining Clarice’s absence, but there was nothing. The TV was off and the house was dark.

He walked through the living room and entered the bedroom, which was also dark. Dave reached for the wall switch and when the light came on, it revealed signs of recent frantic activity on Clarice’s side of the room: some of her dresser drawers were open, while others, though closed, had clothing hanging out of them; her closet door was open and Dave could see the empty spaces where dresses, skirts, and blouses had once hung. He went into the bathroom and saw that her vanity area was almost devoid of cosmetics.

So she really was gone.

Dave searched around inside himself for feelings of remorse. He came up mostly dry. He replayed their confrontation just before his leaving and remembered his unbelieving anger; how could she be so callous toward Julie’s grief as to put her own anxieties at the front of the line?

He looked at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning; he’d been gone nearly three hours. Plenty of time for her to pack her suitcases and go . . . where? Dave didn’t know, and right at that moment, he didn’t care.

He thought about Brock. Should he call and inform him about Bryson? Dave decided to let Brock sleep. And besides, Julie could tell him, in her own way and her own time. Dave just didn’t have the strength right now to talk about it with anyone.

He undressed and fell into bed. Dave closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind. He hoped he could get at least a little sleep. Maybe then, in the morning, he’d start figuring out what to do about . . . everything.