Off the Deep End (10)

I glance at the clock on the wall behind him: 3:10 p.m. This can’t go on much longer, can it? I adjust myself in my seat and try to look like a normal person—willing and compliant—which isn’t easy to do when every part of me is itching to get out of here and run screaming in the other direction. It’s hard to rein yourself back in after you’ve gotten so used to giving in to your impulses. “There’s not really much to tell. I pulled Isaac out first, so I had to go back in for Gabe.” My throat catches. This is the hard part. Every time. All I can hear whenever I retell it is Shane’s voice screaming at me during one of our nastiest fights. Where we did more damage with our words than any fist ever could.

“How could you grab Isaac before Gabe?” He hurled the question at me.

There it was. Finally. The judgment and blame had been there all along. Festering. Poisoning. Boiling underneath the skin, and he’d finally released it.

What kind of a mother saved another boy’s life over their own son’s?

The answer was simple—I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. If I’d realized that I was pulling Isaac to the surface and not Gabe, I would’ve let go of his hand. I’ve relived that moment thousands of times. I force the memories back. The sooner I get through this, the sooner I get out of here. I pull my head up and try to focus on Dr. Stephens.

“Isaac went in the water to rescue me after I didn’t come back up, and he had to pull me out. Apparently, I was blue and had stopped breathing, so he gave me CPR.”

The space from that part of the night still remains blank, no matter how hard I’ve tried to pull something about it from my memory. The last thing I remember is giving in to the fact that I was going to drown. As soon as I knew it was going to be impossible to find Gabe, and that even if I managed to find him, I’d never make it back up to the surface, I quickly decided there was no way I was going to let him die down there alone. None. And even though I couldn’t see him, I could feel him. So I just gave in to it. There wasn’t anything scary about it. It was actually quite nice—this weightless, peaceful feeling came over me, and the cold was gone, fiery heat left in its place.

The doctors say it doesn’t stay that way. That once the severe stages of hypothermia hit, the mind short-circuits and dives off the rails. Same with the body. Instead of feeling cold, your body feels like it’s being burned alive. I’m lucky. My brain protected me from all that trauma and blocked it out without me even having to try.

My next memory after my moment of surrender is waking up at Falcon Lake Hospital. The sounds of beeping machines and the hiss of the weird pump next to my bed broke into my consciousness, forcing me awake. My eyelids were so heavy, and my limbs ached. The sheet on top of my body was heavy, too heavy for me to move. Everything smelled like toilet-bowl cleaner.

I slowly turned my head to the side. The movement sent excruciating pain throughout my entire body and left me nauseous. My eyes slowly took in my surroundings while I tried not to move my head—the small stainless steel sink and the paper towels, the beeping machines monitoring my vitals, and all the wires attached to me. Something had gone horribly wrong, but I didn’t know what. There was still nothing.

I’d give anything to go back to that nothing now. That last moment when everything was the same. When Gabe still lived and walked and breathed on this planet. Where my perfect life was still my perfect life.

But the next shift of my head changed everything.

Shane sat curled up in a chair a few feet from my hospital bed. At first, I thought he was sleeping, but as I looked closer, it became clear he wasn’t. His eyes were glazed over, and he was just staring at the wall inches from his face like he was mesmerized by the design on it even though there was nothing there.

“Shane?” My voice came out as a raspy whisper.

He whipped around. He took me in but didn’t speak. Just gaped at me wide eyed. Was I still dreaming? My head throbbed, making me even more nauseous.

“Shane?” I called a second time, trying to snap him out of whatever weird trance he’d disappeared into. My throat was swollen and irritated.

He got up slowly like an old man twice his age, and the three steps to my bed seemed to take forever. His eyes swept the room, refusing to look at me.

And in that instant, it all came flooding back to me—driving the boys home after their basketball game, the deer that had jumped in my way. The lake. The freezing cold. So cold. And Gabe.

“Oh my God, where’s Gabe?” I sat straight up, jerking all the wires attached to me and sending the IV port crashing into the railing on my bed. Shane grabbed the port before it hit the floor. Everything clattered. “Did they find him? Is he okay?” If they’d gotten to me, maybe they’d gotten to him in time too. My heart sped up at the possibility of seeing my baby.

Shane moved the IV port back to keep it from getting any more tangled up with me and tried to get the other wires away from the rail without hurting me. “Don’t move like that. You’re going to pull your IV out, and it’s so hard for them to get it back in. Please, Jules, just settle down.”

But I wouldn’t settle down. Not until I knew if Gabe was okay. I moved to throw my legs over the edge of the bed. If he wouldn’t tell me where he was, I’d go find him on my own. The movement sent an intense stabbing sensation in my chest and took my breath away. I clutched my side and let out a low moan.