Healing Waters (23 page)

She nodded in that way that practically commanded me to nod with her. And I wanted to. She wore a stark white sarong that no doubt hid a figure-hugging thing designed to show off her tan. Georgia had just exited in a red ensemble that could only be pulled off by someone with legs like the unfortunate Barbie doll. I would rather have peeled skin from my sister's face any day of the week than subject myself to that.

And then Bethany emerged from her room, wearing two pieces of pink fluff that left her white puffy belly exposed for all the world to point at. She looked like nothing but the Pillsbury Doughboy in a bikini.

“Honey, you're going to need a little top to put over that,” Francesca said. She concealed her horror with less success than she had the first time she saw Sonia in her mask.

“Right,” I said. “You don't want to get sunburned.”

“I'll get one,” Didi said.

“And I'll take her down with me,” I said.

“You don't have to.”

I looked at both her and Francesca and said, “Oh, yeah, I do.”

Bethany didn't speak as we waddled our way down to the river. A repast covered the table in the gazebo, complete with balloons, but it remained untouched so far. The boys were already in the water and on the covered dock that jutted out into it and on the large inner tube. They did enough splashing and shrieking and cannonballing for an entire Olympic swim team.

“Doesn't that look like fun, girl?” Georgia said to Bethany.

Clearly, it didn't. I saw Bethany swallow.

“You can just play by the edge if you want,” I said.

I felt Francesca and Georgia look at each other, sunglasses hiding their obvious disdain.

“It's not deep, honey, you know that,” Francesca said.

“Can I have lunch first?” Bethany said.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“You can't go in the water right after you eat.”

That came from the dripping future attorney who now stood next to us. His skinniness showed every rib.

“I know.” Bethany folded her arms. “You're not the boss of me.”

“Whatever,” Skinny Boy said.

“Judson Taylor Jansen, come here,” Georgia said to him.

“Aw, man.”

Georgia went to deal with that. I looked down at Bethany, who gazed longingly toward the gazebo.

“Why don't I bring you a plate down here?” I said.

“Okay,” she said.

I headed for the food, passing a whispered conversation between Georgia and young Judson Taylor Jansen. His side was actually in a sotto voce similar to his mother's and consisted mainly of “No way!”

The fare was, of course, abundant, but low cal. I put some carrot sticks, a little string cheese, and a handful of reduced-fat Wheat Thins on Bethany's plate and vowed absolutely to take that child out for a pizza the first chance I got. No wonder Georgia and Francesca's kids looked just short of malnourished. I was pawing through the Williams-Sonoma picnic basket for something a little more filling when I heard the scream.

I don't know what I did with the plate. I just hauled myself toward the water, heart up in my lymph glands. It was the same scream I'd heard from Bethany in the hospital and on the front porch the day before—a cry of sheer terror.

As well it should be. Bethany was in the water, out past the posse of boys, flailing and splashing and screeching in a voice that lost volume and gained water.

“Can't she swim?” I heard one of the women call out.

I didn't wait to find out. Not even bothering to kick off my sandals, I plunged in and past the boys. Far beyond me, Bethany went under and didn't come up. I pushed on until the bottom disappeared beneath me. I had to swim. Dear God.
Dear God
.

Slapping one arm and then the other ahead of me, I made my way out to her. The water was murky, and my heart threatened to come all the way up into my mouth as I called out.

Her head came up, three feet away, and was swallowed up again. She wasn't screaming anymore.

I tried to kick myself forward, still reaching with arms already turned to lead. One hand hit on something soft, and I grabbed. At once Bethany grabbed back, hands on my arms, my shoulders, the top of my head. I went down with her and took in a mouthful of water. Thoughts spun—
she'll drown us both we're going to die
Dear God
—until I snagged onto one that made sense.
Let her go.
Let her go.

I shoved Bethany away from me and surfaced, gasping. She thrashed again, but I got behind her. Wrapping both arms across her chest, I pressed her to me and shouted, “Stop! Stop fighting! I've got you!”

Out of exhaustion she ceased struggling and sagged against me. I churned my legs, trying to tread water, but we were both sinking fast. I didn't have enough energy left to keep us both afloat. With the last of it, I screamed, “Help!”

“Are you okay?” someone called.

“No! Help me!”

I scissored once more and got up high enough to see Georgia and Francesca at the end of the dock, peering at me, hands shading their sunglasses.

“Are they in trouble?” I heard a male voice shout.

Georgia's and Francesca's voices were lost in a splash. In approximately half a lifetime, Sullivan Crisp was on us.

“You want me to take her?” he said.

“Please. Go with Mr. Crisp, Bethany. It's all right.”

Bethany had gone limp by now, but her eyes were wild. She nodded and let Sullivan wrap an arm around her and sidestroke toward shore. Which left me gasping and heaving to keep my head above the water. My legs were like diving weights. There was no way I could make it back.

And no way I could ask anyone to pull me out.

With a final heave I got myself on top of the water and lay back in a float. I was certain that from the riverbank I resembled a whale separated from its pod, but for once I didn't care. Bethany was alive.

Above me, the sun sizzled from a sky so seamless it didn't look real. Beyond me, birds twittered and called and carried on like the boys in their droopy swimsuits. Around me the water was like a womb. I could just sink into it and escape back to nothingness. That sounded far too inviting.

I rolled over and surveyed the shore, where Sullivan Crisp handed Bethany over to Didi, and Georgia and Francesca gathered their boys and their picnic baskets and their beach wraps. The party was over. If I never made it to shore, nobody would notice. But I wanted Bethany to notice. God love her, I wanted her to know somebody gave a rip.

Somehow I got back to the low place at the shore and tried not to breathe like a freight train as I dragged my body out of the water. My gray pants and tunic hung heavily, reminiscent of elephant skin, clinging only in the places I always hid so carefully. I gave Sullivan Crisp that vision as he stepped down to hold a hand out to me.

“I'm fine,” I said. “But I could use a towel.”

He pulled one, miraculously, from around his neck. It was approximately big enough to cover my face. I pretended to dry my cheeks and let it hang in front of my chest, and to his credit, he looked discreetly past me into the water.

“You sure you're okay?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Good, because I'm not.”

I pulled the towel down to get a better look at him. His hair stuck up in frightened spikes, and his face was the color of porridge.

“Why?” I said. “Is Bethany—did she get hurt?”

“Just her pride, I think. That scared the heck out of me. You've got to be pretty shaken up.”

“I'll live,” I said. “I need to find her.”

I turned to go, only to see Francesca and Georgia hurrying toward me from the gazebo, where the four terrorists sat on benches with their legs swinging. If I could have run, I would have.

“You all right, honey?” Francesca reached out as if to touch my arm and then didn't.

If she had, I would have bitten her hand off.

“Girl, you just went right in after her.” Georgia bobbed her head at Sullivan. “I was impressed.”

“Me too,” he said, without warmth.

I squeezed the water out of a handful of my tunic.

“You sure you're all right?” Georgia said.

“I'm fine,” I said firmly, though I still gasped for air and felt my legs giving out. Those legs had to at least carry me away from the two of them, because despite the brilliant smiles and the nodding heads and the assurances that I was brave and selfless, the unspoken message was clear:
If you weren't such a fat pig, you could have saved her yourself.

Then something struck me.

“Why was Bethany out that far?”

The smiles suddenly looked starched.

“She went down to the end of the dock,” Francesca said. “And I guess she slipped and fell in.”

“But why did she go out there?” I said. “She acted like she didn't even want to go near the water.”

“Look.” Georgia sighed and adjusted her sunglasses and pressed her palms together and looked at Sullivan as if she wished he would just handle this for her, him being the strong male and all that.

“I told Judson to encourage her to come in the water with them,” Georgia said. “Just to be nice.”

Francesca pressed her hand to her chest. “I didn't know she couldn't swim. My kids have been in the water since they were six months old.”

“Whatever,” I said. Judson Taylor Jansen Esq. had done more than “encourage” her, and I couldn't go there. I had to get to Bethany before she did drown, in her own shame.

Again I started up the bank, and there was Sonia, standing above us, mask askew, minus her hat, chin nearly attached to her chest.

“What is going on?” she said. “I heard screaming.”

“It's all right, honey,” Francesca oozed. “Bethany just went for a little unplanned swim. She's okay.”

“No, I don't think she is okay,” I said. “She could have drowned.”

“She
what
?”

“Lucia, honey, I think you're exaggerating just a little bit.”

“Not from where I was standing,” Sullivan said.

Sonia looked at him. “What happened, Sully? You tell me.”

Whatever he would have said was lost beneath Francesca's gasp. I followed her gaze to the gazebo. All four boys were on their knees on the bench, gaping at us. It didn't take a therapist to determine from the terrified expressions on their faces that they had gotten their first look at the new Sonia.

“Mo-om,” said one of the small twins.

His brother burst into tears. The rest of the mini macho platoon backed away, bravado dissolving as they reached for the mothers who ran to them.

“Sonia, what's going on?” Sullivan said.

I looked at my sister. She took two staggering steps toward the house.

“It's the heat,” she said.

“Will you take her?” I said to Sullivan. “I have to see about Bethany.”

I had to get to the little girl who would never be able to go home and forget the hideous lady she'd seen on the riverbank. She had to live with her forever. And nobody was showing her how.

I found Bethany parked, predictably, in front of a video in the Gathering Room, dressed in a dry outfit and eating a peanut butter sandwich. She couldn't possibly be tasting it. She didn't look up when I came in.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

She took another bite and stared at the screen. I found the remote and clicked it off. Her fine, black eyebrows came together in a frown.

“We'll turn it back on in a minute,” I said. “I just want to say I'm sorry I made you play with those boys. It wasn't your fault you fell in the water. I know that.”

She looked at me with her round, blue eyes, and her lips drew up as if she were about to say something. She was so precious at that moment, and I wanted to hug her.

But she went back to the sandwich, downing it in bites far too big for a little-girl mouth. Cheeks stuffed, she gazed at the remote.

“Okay,” I said. “The Disney Channel.”

I clicked the TV on and rose to go. She looked up, swallowing hard.

“Are Judson and them coming back?” she said.

“Do you want them to come back?”

“Not ever,” she said.

“Then they never will, not ever,” I said.

She sighed from somewhere deep in her young soul and turned back to the screen.

Sonia wasn't the only one who needed help. I went in search of Sullivan Crisp.

CHAPTER TWENTY

S
ully stood in the shower for thirty minutes. It took that long to get the stench of the river out of his pores. But he could have stayed there the rest of the day and not gotten rid of the angst that throbbed under his skin. He still shook when he got out and put on fresh clothes.

Although the heat was at its midday worst, he stepped onto the balcony that opened out of his suite and stood in the sun. The water beyond taunted him.

Gotcha. Sucked you right in, right where you didn't want to go.

Sully sat on the edge of a wrought-iron table and stared it down. It had gotten him, because he couldn't stand there and let it swallow up another little girl into its insatiable gut. He'd saved this one. He should be thanking God for that.

But it only mocked him, only shoved a picture in his face of the tiny girl he didn't rescue.

Hannah had just learned to smile, just started to search his face with her new brown-eyes-like-his until a grin appeared, first one small side, then the other. She had only begun to sense that he could be trusted.

Had she been wrong?

Dear God, hold me fast. Hold me fast until I can know if I failed.

And then what?

“Marnie!”

The urgency in the voice made Sully twist to look toward the house. Marnie ran down the steps from the dock, and Lucia was hard after her, calling out her name.

“I can't do it!” Marnie cried over her shoulder. “I just can't.”