The Twilight Swimmer (20 page)

“I’m helping him,” Brandi answered, concentrating on a difficult thread. “He can breathe up here when they’re sealed, but not once he’s back in the water.”

Spider tried to answer, but her words caught up with him and struck him dumb for a beat. “I misheard you,” he said. “You’re saying… What are you saying? Because there’s no way you’re saying what I think you’re saying. Because that would mean… Okay! I get it. This is a prank. You’re getting back at me for the tee shirts, for embarrassing you. I get it. Really funny, actually. Where’s the video camera? You can edit out the part where I figure it out. I’ll play dumb. Years of practice.”

“Speed up, please,” said Brandi, calmly. She pulled the last thread from the Swimmer’s neck and began the long process of unwrapping his bandages. The smell from the ointment between layers was overwhelming in the confines of the station wagon. Spider reflexively rolled down his windows, contorting himself to reach into the back seat with his long arms and spin the crank. Brandi shot him a glance. “I said speed up, not roll down the windows.”

“I’m not speeding up. I don’t want to get pulled over by… Oh my god, by your Dad, of all people. With you and a naked burn victim in my back seat. If they don’t put me in jail for the kidnapping, they’ll lock me up in the loony bin along with the both of you. What is he, anyway, an exhibitionist? Circus performer? Where’d you meet him? Some creepy Internet dating site where cute girls can pair up with the maimed?”

“Please save your questions until we get him back in the water.”

“There you go again, talking about him like he’s a…” Spider adjusted his rearview mirror to get a better look at the Swimmer, his torso now bare as Brandi continued to unwrap him. “The guy’s in shape, I’ll give him that. I can see why you dig him. What is he, a ballplayer?”

“A swimmer,” said Brandi with a wry smile. “If you’ll just be quiet until we get to the beach, I promise I’ll answer every one of your questions. Deal?”

“And you have to go to prom with me.”

“What?”

“That’s the deal. I’m helping you do…whatever it is we’re doing. And I’ll be quiet until the beach. And I like you a lot. So yeah, you have to go to prom with me. That’s fair.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” said Brandi

“’Tough but fair’ is my middle name.”

“That’s a terrible middle name.”

“Do we have a deal, Ms. Vine? I haven’t got all night. I mean, I do, obviously. It’s a figure of speech.”

Spider turned around in his seat enough to extend his hand. Brandi took it and gave it a shake.

They reached the water ten minutes later, a secluded stretch of rocky beach north of town. They chose the spot expecting it to be deserted, but there was a pickup truck parked on the shoulder of the access road. Brandi didn’t recognize it, but that made no difference. No matter who it belonged to, they couldn’t afford to let themselves be seen with the Swimmer. Not after their daring escape from the clinic, and especially not when they planned to help him escape the land all together.

Spider drove his wagon farther north, through a wooded area and past short cliffs too steep and treacherous to descend, with or without an invalid. He finally pulled over when the road dove down the back side of a hill and reached sea level. There was no proper beach access, but the ground was relatively flat and they could hear the water lapping against the shore.

Brandi had stripped the Swimmer of all his bandages except the fabric required for decency. She was certain he wouldn’t mind if she unwrapped the rest of him, that he might even prefer it, but with Spider watching her every move in his rearview mirror she made the conservative choice. Now she threw open the back hatch of the wagon and deftly hopped over the Swimmer’s legs to scoot out. The Swimmer followed her with his eyes, which were regaining some of their gray clarity. The drugs were wearing off, thought Brandi. It was good to see recognition in his eyes, to see him regain his focus. But without the drugs, the searing pain was coming back as well. The Swimmer gritted his teeth against the pain, but it was obvious to Brandi that he was suffering.

“We’re almost there. You can hear it, can’t you? I know you can hear it,” she whispered.

Spider ran around to the back of the wagon and stood behind Brandi. His eyes landed first on the Swimmer’s feet, and went wide when he noticed the webbing between his toes. He uttered an unintelligible noise, not quite able to form words. Brandi ignored him. He took in the full length of the Swimmer’s long, lean legs, passed over his still-bandaged middle, and checked his hands for the same webbing. When he found it, he also found his power of speech.

“This guy’s not normal,” said Spider, his voice cracking. “Aside from the gross skin and the perfect abs.  I mean, you see that stuff between his fingers?”

“I see it.”

“Well?” Spider asked, impatient with her blasé attitude.

“We have to get him into the water as quickly as possible. He needs the water. You understand?” Brandi took the Swimmer’s hand and helped him slide toward the back edge of the wagon, where he lowered his feet to the ground. Even their soles were burned from exposure to sunlight, and he winced in obvious discomfort.

“Brandi, listen to me. Whatever’s going on here, you can trust me. I’m not going to say word one to person one.”

“Thank you. Help me lift him.”

Spider slid under the Swimmer’s arm and, for the second time, helped Brandi hoist him into a standing position. “Just tell me, real simple, yes or no… Is this guy a mer—”

“Yes,” Brandi answered, cutting him off before he could finish speaking the word. “Quickly now.”

Spider didn’t realize it, but his mouth was hanging open. Fortunately, it didn’t prevent him from moving his feet. And before long, they’d managed to walk the Swimmer through bramble, over rocky slabs, and onto the gravelly beach itself. The tide was high at this hour, water sloshing over their shoes as they lowered him to the ground. The Swimmer was kneeling now, his hands on his thighs and his head hanging low. He struggled to draw breath through his mouth and nose, but his gills were fluttering eagerly, ready to accept the flow of salty water.

“Does he speak English?” asked Spider.

Brandi didn’t answer, but the Swimmer turned his head slowly to look up at Spider. His gray eyes locked on Spider’s, and he mustered enough breath to vocalize a single sentence. “Yes I do.”

Spider slowly shook his head back and forth, still trying to come to grips with his introduction to the strange, half-naked creature kneeling before him. Unable to fully process what he was seeing, he channeled his nervous energy to the task at hand. He slipped his hands under the Swimmer’s arms and lifted him again, on his own this time. While Brandi walked alongside, Spider guided the Swimmer into the surf. White, foamy water splashed against them, soaking Spider’s jeans up to his knees. He was huffing and puffing with the effort, but single-minded and determined.

“Will you be all right in the water, as weak as you are?” he asked the Swimmer.

The Swimmer nodded his reply then turned to look at Brandi. To her surprise, her eyes were glistening with fast-forming tears. She sniffled as she brought the back of her hand to her face to wipe her eyes dry. The Swimmer sighed deeply, a sigh so full of meaning that Brandi could not hope to discern everything it communicated. Then the Swimmer turned back to the ocean, took a step forward, and once again lowered himself. A wave was surging toward them, and the Swimmer lunged forward to meet its face.

A moment later, he was gone.

Spider was silent when he climbed behind the wheel for the drive back. He stared straight ahead, his hands gripping the wheel like a drowning man gripping a life preserver. From the passenger seat, Brandi watched him out of the corner of her eye. She could just barely detect that his lips were moving. He was muttering to himself without making a sound.

He started to drive her to the police station, but Brandi looked at the time and was shocked to see how late it was. She realized there was no chance of persuading her father that the walk from the clinic had taken this long. Better just to go home and face the music. It didn’t matter how he
 punished her, not now. All that mattered was the Swimmer, back in the water, safe at last. He had risked his life to come when she called for him, and she owed him whatever price she had to pay to protect him. She asked Spider to turn the wagon around, and take her home.

He rolled to a stop down the street from her house, the exact spot where he had picked her up on the night of the warehouse fire. The mood in his car was so different tonight. The air so full of tension.

“It’s just now hitting me,” said Spider. “What I just saw, I mean. I’m starting to really think about it, and I’m freaking out. Feel like there’s a boulder sitting on my chest. Like my throat is closing up. Can’t really breathe. My heart won’t slow down.” He turned to face her, his eyes moist. “But you look perfectly calm. Like you just went grocery shopping. Explain that to me. I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m not trying to annoy you. But I need to know. I mean, I
need
to know. To understand. What the hell is going on?”

Brandi took a deep breath and considered her words carefully. “The night of the fire. Kelly was in trouble, passed out. All that smoke. She would have died in there. But then
he
showed up.”

“You’re telling me that guy, that
thing
, rescued Kelly from the fire?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“And that’s how you two met? You and that guy. It’s like a sci-fi rom-com.”

“What’s a rom-com?”

“Romantic comedy. Don’t you ever… Nevermind.”

“There’s nothing funny about it, Spider. He saved her life.”

“And now he’s your boyfriend?”

Brandi wanted to scream at Spider for finding a way to be jealous at a time like this. “I’ve hardly spoken to him. You know him as well as I do now.”

“I doubt that,” said Spider with a guffaw. “Why did you help him? Why did
I
help him?”

“Because he’s… good,” said Brandi with a shrug.

“’Because he’s good’,” Spider repeated, the weight of the sentence heavy on his tongue. “You don’t know that, Brandi. He might be an absolute prince down there, where he comes from. But up here? What do you really know? He ran into a fire and saved a girl. Could have been trying to snatch her so he could drag her underwater and eat her, for all you know. He would have done exactly that if you hadn’t been there to witness the event.”

“No,” said Brandi adamantly, shaking her head. “She wasn’t breathing. He made her breathe again.”

“What, mouth to mouth?”

“Not exactly. Listen, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you think. Or what I know. If he would have stayed at the clinic they would have ruined him. They’d have made him into some kind of freak. And they never would have let him go back. You know I’m right.”

Spider didn’t answer, but his silence was answer enough.

Brandi reached out and laid a hand on Spider’s elbow. “Thank you for your help. I will never forget it.”

“No you won’t. I won’t let you.”

And then Brandi did something that even she didn’t see coming. She leaned over and gave Spider a gentle kiss on the cheek. He was so surprised, he pulled away just a bit. But then he relaxed at the feeling of her lips against his skin, and she heard him sigh. When she leaned way again, she saw that he had closed his eyes.

“If you don’t see me for a while, it means I’m locked in the basement living on bread and water.” Brandi reached for the door handle.

“If that happens, I’ll just bust you out. I’m good at that, now,” said Spider with a melancholy smile.

Brandi stepped out of the wagon, and shut the door behind her. Spider sat behind the wheel for several minutes, just staring. When he finally put the wagon back in gear, he was muttering under his breath again.

Brandi was surprised to find the front door locked. In such a small town, they never bothered. And so she never carried a house key. She was already expecting a hiding from her parents, but this felt like an especially ominous sign. She gave serious thought to sneaking around back, climbing the big oak and using the roof to slip into her bedroom undetected. It might buy her a reprieve until morning, at least. But no, her parents would be that much angrier if she forced them to wait up all night, wondering where she was.

With the image of her father dismantling her kayak fresh in her mind, Brandi knocked. Her mother answered, her face flushed as though she had been crying. “Why are you knocking?” she asked.

“I don’t have a key,” answered Brandi cautiously. “Listen, I’m really sorry I’m late—”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Your father told me.” Sherri stepped aside to let Brandi enter the house, then shut and locked the door behind them. “Are you hungry? You must be hungry.”

“No, I’m all right,” said Brandi, not sure how she was being received so pleasantly, particularly when her mother was so obviously distressed.

“Well there’s chicken and peas in the oven, if you change your mind.” Sherri gave Brandi a quick hug, another unusual gesture, then flitted off toward the kitchen, her heels tapping on the linoleum.

All this pleasantness made Brandi nervous. Almost on tiptoes, she crept past the kitchen and snuck a look at her mother. She had tied an apron around her waist and was bent over the counter, her arms working furiously. Brandi caught sight of a tin pan and bag of flour. Her mother was baking. At this time of night, baking. This was getting weirder by the second. She crept on, headed for the stairs, but caught sight of her father sitting in the living room. He was sitting in his armchair, facing the television, but the set wasn’t on. His posture was relaxed, his chin almost resting on his chest. He was still wearing his uniform, but the top several buttons were unfastened and his sleeves were rolled up, exposing his thick forearms.

In his left hand, a short glass. Dark liquid.

She hadn’t seen him drink alcohol for a year. Not since the day of Jenny’s funeral.

It was cold that day, cold for August. Fitting for a funeral. A bright, beautiful day would have seemed cruel. The sky was overcast, the sun hiding behind clouds so widespread they turned the whole world gray. Most of the town had shown up for the service as the church on Baker Street, but at the last minute her distraught mother had insisted on a small procession to the burial. She didn’t want to make such a production of her eldest daughter’s final laying to rest, and Conrad had taken it upon himself to see that her wishes were met. He calmly circulated through the parking lot, shaking hands, accepting sincere condolences, and informing guests that the burial would be a private ceremony for family members only.

They followed the hearse in Conrad’s police cruiser, Brandi’s parents in the front and Brandi sitting in back
with Cody, fidgeting silently in his child’s suit. They hadn’t planned this method of transportation in advance, and so Brandi found herself shielded from her parents by the metallic grid used to separate policemen from any criminal deposited in her seat, sitting uncomfortably with his hands cuffed behind his back. The grid did nothing to muffle the sound of her mother’s sobs in the passenger seat, but if Brandi relaxed her eyes and allowed the vertical and horizontal lines to blur, it caused her view of her parents to gray out. Another layer of clouds, she had thought. A gray world.

The cemetery was ten miles outside of the town’s borders, off a stretch of country road where no business or homesteads had yet taken route. The area would likely be developed someday, but for now it was a peaceful location for families to visit lost loved ones. Her mother had chosen it for Jenny, firm in her belief that her daughter would be offended if her grave was in the shadow of a fast food restaurant or an apartment complex. Suburban offenses, and unforgivable to the dead. Conrad steered off the country road, the hearse in front of them kicking up gravel that landed, with the soft patter of raindrops, on the hood of the cruiser.

Only now did they realize that banishing the rest of the funeral attendees had been a mistake. Only Conrad and the hearse driver could ably serve as pallbearers. They were short several strong men for the task of carrying the casket from the hearse to the grave. While Sherri and Brandi waited, shivering, inside the cruiser, Conrad wandered the cemetery in search of anyone who could help them. He found a middle-aged man depositing flowers at the grave of his wife, their adult son smoking a cigarette disinterestedly, humoring his father. Whether through sympathy for Conrad’s embarrassing situation or respect for his station as a man of the law, these two Samaritans agreed to help the cause. The weight of Jenny’s coffin was still a challenge for the four men, but they managed the task with no greater inconvenience than sweat-dampened shirts and sore wrists. The driver of the hearse was also the minister presiding over the burial. He patted his brow dry, removed a pocket New Testament from his glove box, and proceeded to lead the Vine family through the rigors of organized grief. An opening prayer, a series of verses, an invitation to speak about the departed (which no one had strength enough to do) and a closing prayer. All told, the graveside service took less than twenty minutes.

And on the drive back, Brandi did allow her eyes to
 lose focus until the metal grid separating her from her parents turned her whole world gray.

Mercifully gray.

That evening, Cody played videogames. Her mother ran a bath and sat in the water for hours, long past the water turning tepid, the sound of her weeping just audible through the bathroom door. Conrad sat for hours in a lawn chair at the edge of their back yard, the dark canal sliding by. A bottle in his hand. And Brandi watched from an upstairs window as he lifted the bottle to his lips again and again
.
She watched until the sun dipped below the horizon, the moon rose in insistent fullness, and her own eyes were too heavy with exhaustion to spy a moment longer.

And now, here he was again. Sitting quietly. Lifting a drink to his lips. No daughter to grieve.

Unless he was grieving Brandi. The thought turned her stomach.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, surprised by how softly the words left her throat. “On the walk back—”

“I told your mother I asked you to stay late at the station, to help Sally with some filing. Not a bad story, on the fly. She bought it. Like daughter like father, huh?” Conrad looked up at Brandi, his eyes red and tired. “Sit down.”

She deliberated for a few moments, then sat on the ottoman in front of the couch, across the room from Conrad. He wrinkled his brow at her choice of seats, but shrugged. And took another sip from his glass.

“Did Dallas find his car?” asked Brandi meekly.

“The poor kid ran all over the neighborhood looking for it, ‘til his uniform was soaked through with sweat and his whole head turned red as a beet. By the time he got back to the clinic, he was huffing and puffing, knees turned to jelly. Begging me not to fire him for being so stupid, so damn stupid, that he actually left his keys in the ignition. Can you believe that? Asking for some teenage daredevil to boost the car and take it for a spin. Imagine what a big man you’d be on campus when the other punks found out about your escapades.” Conrad laughed, but there was no humor, no joy, in the sound. “Not ten minutes later Esther McClain walked right up to us and asked why we parked the car behind the dumpsters. Sure enough, there it was. In plain sight, if you were looking from the right angle. Dallas all but hugged the hood, the poor kid. He’s a good kid, really. No dumber than anyone is at that age. Trying to be a good man.”

“I’m glad he won’t get in trouble,” said Brandi.

“Me too. I’d have had to suspend him at least, for appearances sake. Or lashed his rear end with a willow switch at the corner of Main and Park, for all the town to see me dole out my particular brand of justice. That sounded nice, huh? I’m feeling poetic, I guess. Sit down, Brandi.”

“I am sitting, Dad.”

Conrad took a sideways look at his daughter, as if appraising her. “So you are.”

They sat for a few minutes, neither of them speaking. Brandi finally couldn’t take the awkwardness anymore and started to get up from the ottoman, but Conrad held up a hand and she plopped back down.

“What would possess a man with such horrible injuries to flee the clinic?” Conrad asked. “That’s the question pounding away at my skull from the inside. Feels like a hundred little battering rams slamming against my ears. From the inside. Like I said. You heard me.”

“Yes, I heard you.”

“Near as we can tell, the bastard climbed right out the window in his room. Then what? Just started running? Doctors say he was so dazed with pain and medication he couldn’t have put on a hat without help. What then, he hitched a ride? Maybe. But who would give a ride to a man all wrapped up like King Tut, reeking like death warmed over? Any soul kind enough to help him out would be kind enough to steer him back inside the building where there were doctors to tend to his injuries.” Conrad swirled the last of his drink, then dumped it in his mouth. He winced as it burned his throat going down.

“How bad were his injuries?” asked Brandi, her voice barely audible at all to her ears.

“What I can’t get my head around,” Conrad went on, ignoring Brandi’s question. “What I can’t make any sense of at all, is where this boy came from in the first place. No vehicles abandoned anywhere up or down the shoreline. Not within ten miles of town. No boats put out a distress signal in local water. I checked with the Coast Guard. And no one called in a missing person, a man overboard. Nothing like that. Yet there he was this morning, buried up to his eyeballs in sand and grit too rough to dig up by hand. There he was, naked as the day he was born. There he was, cut up and burned to all hell like that skin of his never saw the sun before. And not one of us, me or the combers who found him or the docs who treated him, could get a single word out of his mouth. Except one.”

Conrad turned to face Brandi, his lips quivering. With sadness or anger, she couldn’t tell.

“All this boy said was a name. Your name.
Brandi
.”

Brandi gulped violently, she was so shocked to hear her father’s statement. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes you do. Now I know why you sneak off at night. Now I know where you go.”

“No, Dad.”

“I don’t know how you got him off the clinic grounds, but I know it was you. Just like I know it was you who moved Dallas’s car out of sight. A clever diversion. I’d be proud of you if I wasn’t so damn furious.”

“Dad—“
             

“Do
not
lie to me.”

The voice Brandi knew as her father’s was gone. This was the voice of a different man. She could hear the alcohol coating his throat, making every word a rough warning. She tried to meet his eyes, knowing that to look away would be an admission of guilt. She tried not to let her lips quiver, or her hands shake. But the gravel in his voice and the glass balanced precariously in his palm were too much to bear.

“When you sneak out at night, it’s to go see him?” asked Conrad, his staring eyes unblinking. “Answer me.”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” he muttered. “What is his name? Where does he live?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Stop calling me sir!” Conrad bellowed. Brandi recoiled, nearly falling off the ottoman. “What is his name?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“Where does he live?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I don’t.” Brandi was crying now, the tears coming hot and fast. She made no attempt to wipe them away. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a distorted glimpse of her mother standing at the edge of the kitchen, peeking into the living room as the interrogation continued. She looked confused and unsettled, but unwilling to intervene.

“You’re a smart girl, Brandiwine, but you’re also a fool. It’s a byproduct of youth, foolishness. Can’t be avoided, not even in my own daughter. You’re fool enough to lie to your father when he’s looking you right in the eye. Look at me. So I can look at you. That’s better. You’re fool enough to lie to me. And you’re too foolish to realize why I’m angry. Because I’m scared, Brandi. Way beyond scared.”

Conrad set his glass on the floor and leaned forward in the chair, kneading his brow.

“Your sister used to sneak off at night, too. To go swimming. We always thought she was alone out there, and that’s how she drowned. That’s how she died. Alone.”

Conrad shook his head slowly, now covering his eyes with his broad palm.

“She was a strong swimmer. Jenny was a strong swimmer. And she knew the currents. It was hard for me to believe she’d gone out too far and couldn’t make it back through the rip. Back then, when it happened. When I first got the call. It was hard for me to believe. And now, knowing what I know, it’s impossible for me to believe it. If you’re sneaking out of this house to go visit this man, this mysterious young man with no name and no home. If you’ll go to the lengths you went to today to conceal his identity from me, your father, and to help him escape from the clinic…” Conrad trailed off, but uncovered his eyes and looked up again to meet Brandi’s. “I think she would have done the same. I think she knew him too. And when she drowned, when she died… she wasn’t alone.
He
was there.”