Here So Far Away(41)

“George, try to fix your face so he can’t tell what I’m about to say to you. Can you do that? Can you stay calm?”

“Course.” I got up and wandered as far from Rupert as the cord would let me go.

“I just got off the phone with June. McAdams responded to a nine-one-one call that came in from the Scotch Shore as he was passing through. Someone saw a man stranded on a boulder out in the bay. Caught by the tide, probably.”

It was getting dark. The water was freezing.

“He wouldn’t go in after him.”

“She thinks he did. You want me to tell the old man what’s going on?”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“Better wait to until there’s something to report. Can you spend the night, if need be?”

“I will. Thanks, Dad.”

“Try not to assume the worst, kiddo.”

I hung up. Took a breath. Found a lower gear inside me.

Steady.

“What’d your old man want?” Rupert asked.

“Oh, he was talking to June—you know Constable Basque? She mentioned that Francis has to work late. He thought he’d send that on in case you didn’t know.”

“That’s what passes for exciting gossip in these parts. Well, you don’t have to stick around. There must be a nice fella who wants your company tonight.”

“Actually, you’d be doing me a favor if I could stay here.” I made a mental note to call Bill in the morning. “Dad said my mum is having people over for oysters and sauerkraut tonight.”

Rupert coughed. “There. I have a bad cold and need a nurse.”

We gave Shaggy a bath in the tub and fed him oatmeal and Rupert beat me three more times at Yahtzee before he went to bed with Shaggy in tow.

I was just about to call my dad again when I saw the lights turn up the drive.

Francis came in wearing what looked like a borrowed sweat suit, much too big. His hair was wet, face gray and blotchy, eyes haunted. He held a duffel bag in one hand, a paper bag in the shape of a bottle in the other.

He looked startled to see me. “George.”

“How are you doing? You didn’t drive yourself.”

“June brought me home.”

Should I ask? “And the man?”

“We got him.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“But his wife . . .”

Francis leaned against the wall in the entryway as though he couldn’t keep himself upright.

“His wife was there too? In the water?”

He nodded, then shook his head.

“She didn’t make it.”

I don’t know what I intended when I went over to him—to hug him, help him make his way all the way inside—but he put up his hand.

“You can go,” he said. “It’s so late.”

“I already told my parents I was staying over. I’ll curl up on the couch. You can sleep in and not worry about what Rupert is getting up to.”

“Okay. Okay, thanks, George.”

When I heard the shower upstairs, I called Dad, who’d gotten word that Francis was heading home. He said the couple were tourists and the emergency responders didn’t know about the woman until Francis dragged the husband to shore. They didn’t expect to find her—or most likely, her body—until it was light out.

“He saved one of them,” Dad said. “Going into rough water like that, this time of year . . .” I could practically hear him shaking his head. “It’s what the staff sergeant would call ‘stupid courage.’”

I couldn’t tell if that was a compliment.

“Keep an eye on him tonight, George. Call me if you need to.”

After throwing another log on the fire, I lay on the old red chesterfield under an afghan. I was just starting to doze off when I heard the creak of the floorboards. Francis was in the doorway, holding a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “There’s a pig on my bed.”

I patted the arm of the green bong sofa that was kitty-cornered to the red chesterfield. He placed the bottle on the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table, sat on the sofa, and pulled a throw over himself. We didn’t speak for a long while. I could hear every breath he was taking, and was conscious of my breathing too, which suddenly seemed mannered and excessive.

“A life-and-death experience makes you think about hard truths,” he said, pouring whiskey into the glasses. He handed one to me.

“I can imagine.”

“Like how outdoor swimming pool water is always slightly too cold, except in the rare instance when it is unsettlingly pee warm.”

“That is a hard truth,” I said after a moment.

So this is what shock looks like, I thought. Maybe he shouldn’t be drinking.

“You go,” he said.

My mind was blank and I said so.

“What were you saying to Rupert the other day about corn?”

“Just that baby corn shouldn’t be considered a vegetable.”

“Because . . .”

“Because, scientifically speaking, it’s Satan’s tiny, floppy penis.”

He sort of half laughed, took a swig. “My turn. George, you are crippled by your horror of earnestness.”

Under different circumstances, I might have gotten a little yelly. He made me sound like the Elevens. But this conversation was taking turns that I couldn’t follow, and I didn’t dare try to lead.