The Water Keeper(37)

As the water boiled, I noticed I had Clay’s undivided attention. He was watching my every move. I spooned some instant coffee into an insulated stainless mug and took it to him. He tried to stand to accept it, but I wouldn’t let him. He sipped and said, “Mr. Murphy?”

I smiled. “Yes.”

“My bones thank you.”

Moving from North Florida to South, the water slowly changes from dark to clear. From tannic tea to gin. We were not yet halfway through the Haulover Canal, still in the dark area, but I could see signs of clearing. With a beach next to us, I said, “Summer?”

She looked up at me.

“How ’bout you let me teach you how to swim?”

She stood and eyed the water with skepticism. Then shook her head.

“You do realize it’s rather a good idea to learn how to swim?”

She nodded but stepped no closer.

I waded down in the water, thigh deep. The water was warm and felt good. She approached but kept her distance.

I waved my hand over the water. “Did you have a bad experience somewhere?”

“You mean other than two nights ago?”

“Yes.”

“Not that I know of.”

“So you’re just old and set in your ways.”

She shoved her hands in her back pockets and weighed her head side to side. “Pretty much.”

“Okay, what if your daughter was passed out and they threw her off some boat and she was floating in the water and you had about ten seconds? Would you wish then that you could swim?”

She walked into the water up to her waist and stood with arms crossed, staring at the water around her. “Yes.”

I waded out deeper. When the water got to my neck, with my feet still on sandy bottom, I reached out my hand and said nothing. She inched closer. The water now up to the middle of her stomach. I swam across the canal. It was a short distance. Maybe forty feet. I knew from my depth finder that it ranged from ten to twelve feet to the bottom, so to get to me she’d have to leave her feet and pull with her hands. Which was what I wanted. A simple dog paddle.

I held out my hand. She shook her head.

“Summer?”

She stepped farther in. Water to her collarbone.

“Make a cup with your hand and push against the water. You don’t have to go anywhere. Just stand right there. I want you to feel that you can push against the water.”

She did but said nothing to me.

“Now I want you to push down, hard enough to lift your feet off the sand.”

She make a rather pitiful attempt, barely coming up an inch.

“You can do better.”

She tried again. This time she bobbed up and down, always quickly returning to the safety of the bottom. Summer’s problem was that despite her fearless courage in looking for her daughter, she was afraid of the water. Something had happened. I just didn’t know what it was. Maybe she didn’t either. Regardless, she was scared, and I didn’t have time for her to be scared.

I swam back across the canal, turned her so she was facing away from me, put my hands on her hips, and said, “Do you trust me?”

She placed her hands over the top of mine and shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

“Are you willing to be willing?”

She paused and eventually said, “Yes.”

“I’m going to lift you slightly, move you to water that’s deeper, and hold you while you kick and pull. Deal?”

She hesitated and then nodded quickly.

Hands on her hips, I lifted her and moved her just a few feet into deeper water. With a death grip on my hands, she stood arrow straight in the water. I thought we’d start with something easy, so I said, “Kick with your feet like you just did with your hands.”

She tried with little success.

“You mean to tell me with as much muscle as you have in this body and those dancing legs of yours that you can’t kick harder than that?”

Summer was trembling but the thought registered. Still holding my hands, she kicked harder and actually lifted herself up in the water. Had I not been holding her, she might have treaded water. By this time, we had Clay’s attention too. He’d inched himself up in his hammock and could see from where he sat.

Gunner, never one to waste an opportunity to get wet, launched himself in the water and paddled himself around us in circles. All the while, he’d lick Summer’s face and then mine and then hers again. Aside from the licking, he was actually helpful.

I nodded at Gunner. “You see what he’s doing?”

She quit kicking and returned to an arrow with a death grip on my hands. “Sort of.”

“I want you to do that. So start kicking.” She did. “Now let go of my hands and start pulling. Just like Gunner.”

One hand slowly let go, then quickly latched back on. She shook her head.

I pulled her to my chest where she quit kicking and wrapped her legs around my waist like a vise. “Trust me.”

She stared at me a long minute.

I know the fear of drowning is a primal thing. We’re all born with it, and it’s tough if not impossible to reason ourselves out of it. Takes serious strength of will to do so. I said it again: “Trust me.”

She loosened her grip, and I turned her facing away from me. She began kicking again while still holding my hands. Then slowly, one by one, she let go and began treading water. To comfort her, I pressed my hands against her hips. To let her know I was still there. But she was so strong that I had a difficult time holding her down. So as she found a rhythm and began holding herself at the surface of the water, I slowly eased off. After a minute, I was only making contact with her skin so her mind registered my fingers, but I was offering her no help whatsoever.