Never Have I Ever(105)

I didn’t want to know.

I pulled the trigger.





20




The bullet was like Roux: It had come for me with all the worst intentions. An inch higher it would have hit my subclavian artery and killed me. As it was, it skated between my ribs and clavicle, barely brushing bone, then buried itself in the wall behind me. It hurt like hell, but then it was gone.

“Lucky,” the surgeon told me when he came to check on me just after I woke up.

I was too high to be gracious. I felt like I was floating in my hospital bed, thanks to a machine that pumped me full of morphine when I pressed a button. Instead of answering, I stared at the way the light caught in his gleaming yellow mustache.

“We’re all lucky,” Davis said. He wasn’t only being gracious for me. He meant it. His hand was wrapped strong and tight around mine. He’d already been holding it when I came to, and he hadn’t let go yet. He wouldn’t. Not ever. I was certain of it now.

I don’t think I spoke a word until the surgeon was about to leave. Then I found I had a question after all.

“How long until I can dive?”

Davis told me later that that was the moment he knew I was all right.

And I was. After three weeks I was cleared to go back into the water. My physical therapist warned me, though, if I tried to make my shoulder carry that heavy tank, I could permanently damage myself. I knew a work-around. I waited for a clear, calm day, then jumped off the boat wearing only my wet suit, mask, and fins. Maddy passed my BCD and the heavy air tank down to me, the BCD inflated enough to float the tank. I eased myself into my gear and did my checks while bobbing in the gentle waves, letting the ocean bear the weight for me. I dove like that for almost six weeks, until I could gear up without my shoulder so much as twinging. I did not suffer any lasting damage.

By then the weather had turned colder. Dive charters and classes had slowed to a trickle, so it was mostly me and Maddy, doing walkins or paying for the pleasure like a couple of tourists. We went out every weekend that the weather allowed.

Maddy was doing all right, I thought, considering. Her grades hadn’t dipped. Her old ebullience remained undimmed. She saw a counselor a couple of times a week for most of fall, but by winter she was tapering off.

We never dove at the English Freighter, though. Neither of us ever suggested it. When the question came up, we always seemed to have another spot in mind. Once a group on our charter asked to go to the English Freighter specifically, but I diverted them to a different wreck, the Tex Edwards, telling them that last time, I’d seen a scorpion fish there. I found him for them, too.

I didn’t mind winter’s lighter work hours. I was busy helping Charlotte navigate her divorce, and I was her partner at prenatal classes. I was with her, telling her to breathe, my hand crushed in her grip, when she pushed baby Esther out into the world. When I held Esther, small and red-faced and so very new, I almost felt sorry for Phillip. He didn’t understand or value all he’d lost.

He was going to lose a few things he did value. I was making sure of it. I hired a pit bull of an attorney for Char, though I told her I’d found him through a nonprofit that helped women in her exact situation. She was going to end up with the house for sure, though she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to afford it. I told her not to worry about that either. The exact same nonprofit also paid off the mortgages of single mothers. It had taken an interest in her case. I was handling all the paperwork with them, so she didn’t have to worry. She and Ruby and baby Esther would stay right where they were.

Char was working mornings at Ruby’s little preschool now and designing flyers and other ads for local businesses on the side. She had a talent for it. She was getting by. She was healing, too, getting stronger. She was determined to make a good life for herself and her girls.

She was even keeping up with her book club, which meant I was, too. I was amazed by how fast it became normal again. It helped that the Bonascos moved out of the neighborhood. Last I heard, they were divorcing, and Panda stopped coming when Tate moved away.

Lavonda was rendered cliqueless. She ended up befriending Lisa Fenton, which put her firmly in my circle. Away from Tate I found I liked her very much. She was funny and sharp and shared my taste in books and movies. Together we even talked Charlotte into picking Geek Love for November. Perhaps we should have tried something a little gentler. The next month, God help me, Char hit us all with Dickens. Bleak House. I read all 928 pages of it. It was the least that I could do for Charlotte.

Spring came, and diving began picking up again. I was teaching more, but I made sure to find time for pleasure dives, especially as Maddy weaned herself off therapy completely. In April I booked us both on Captain Jay’s boat, and as we got ready to head out, Winslow suggested the English Freighter.

“I haven’t been there since . . . in a while,” he said. So he’d been avoiding it, too.

I met his eyes, and I found myself saying, “Yeah. The English Freighter sounds good,” as Captain Jay pointed us out of the harbor.

Every other diver on board was part of an advanced open-water class that my friend Bev was teaching. Maddy and I were geared and off the boat while the others were still clustered around Bev, listening to her talk them through the dive.

Maddy and I descended, slow and easy, facing each other. When the bow came into view, just under us, I felt a twinge of something like anxiety. Not a feeling I usually experienced underwater. I remembered Luca—Ezra—on this descent. How excited he’d been, watching this very wreck become visible as we sank into the deep. I wondered what Maddy was thinking, but she was looking down. I couldn’t catch her eye.