Wreckage (11 page)

“I’m TRYING!” I shout, sounding so much like Josh it surprises me. Tears of frustration fill my eyes.

“No, no, no . . . don’t start crying. Good GOD.” He throws up his hands and slaps them down on his legs. “Dave, get over here and be useful for once. Sit in front of her and hold her in place.”

Dave rushes over and slips in front of me so we’re sitting face-to-face. “You can do this, I know you can.” That little worry crease is back. The pain makes me want to yell
You don’t even KNOW me!
But instead, I nod.

“Are we ready yet?” Kent growls.

“What’s the rush, Kent? You have an appointment to get to? No? Then give us a moment,” Dave says with confidence before taking my head and tucking it expertly into the crook of his neck. He rests his head on mine casually, like we’ve been doing this for years. His day-old stubble scratches my ear.

Tracing down my arms, he takes my hands determinedly, rubbing his thumb up and down the side of my palm. Like he’s pushed a button, my whole body falls against him, as if his fingers distributed a dose of morphine.

“Lillian, are you ready?” His voice is as smooth as wave-worn driftwood.

“Uh-huh.”

“Go ahead,” he tells Kent.

The first stitch flames through my skin like a hot poker, but when I tense up Dave pulls me in closer. “It’s okay, you’re doing great.” Somehow I believe him.

The next stitch is tight but fast, like Kent’s getting the hang of sewing through human flesh. I’d be lying if I said that the rest of those evenly placed ties go in easily or that I can’t feel the stab of metal gliding through my tender skin, but I can say that in Dave’s embrace I learn to endure the pain. It takes eight more stitches: poke through, pull tight, tie, snip, and repeat.

“Done.” Kent moves away.

The wound still throbs, and any sudden movement makes me want to scream, but it’s better. Definitely better. “Thank you, Kent. I appreciate it.”

He waves me off, digging through the bag till he comes up with a prescription bottle.

“Here, take these.” He tosses the bottle across the raft and it lands in my lap. The name Margaret Linden and the number 2006 flash up at me. Old antibiotics are probably better than a bacterial infection.

“Let me help you with those.” Dave unscrews the top and hands me the open water bottle. I take a tiny sip and toss in the oblong off-white tablets.

“Thanks. You’ve been amazing today.” I hope that the smile I give to Dave says the words I can’t find.

“You need to rest.” He puts the repacked JanSport above Margaret’s head. “Here, try to sleep.”

I curl up on the bench, barely aware of my legs being pulled onto his lap, the warmth of his touch making my lids so heavy I can’t even try to open them to investigate. Instead I give in, retreating into sleep, pretending I’m home.

CHAPTER 11

DAVE

Present

“How long were you in the boat, Dave?”

“It felt like forever but, from the time we crashed until we found land, it was almost three days,” Dave answered succinctly, recrossing his legs so his left foot now rested on his right knee. “To tell the truth, we had some dark moments when I was sure we’d never get off of that boat.”

“How did you make it through those days?” Genevieve asked, rubbing her fingertips together like they were covered with a greasy residue. She didn’t even sound curious anymore, but Dave was careful to leave his walls up. She wouldn’t get in that easily.

“It was mostly luck. When we left the plane, Lillian brought her backpack. In it was a bottle of water and a few other supplies that came in handy. I can’t forget the first aid kit that Kent brought with him. Without those two items we wouldn’t have made it twenty-four hours.”

“And land?” she rushed, skipping whole chunks of questions Dave had prepped for. “When did you see land?”

Dave’s answer hitched in his throat briefly, a moment of silence for those torturous, endless hours on the raft that Genevieve Randall brushed away in one sentence. He had to remind himself that less was more. If the reporter wanted to skip all the way to the rescue, Dave shouldn’t complain.

“Around noon on the third day,” Dave answered finally. “The sun was high in the sky and burning my forehead. We had only a few sips of water left in the bottle and Margaret had fallen into a coma. It seemed completely hopeless at that moment.” A long trail of sweat trickled down the back of his neck, as if his body remembered the interminable heat on that boat. “At first I thought it was an illusion. I was weak. We were all at a breaking point. Yet, no one gave in to the temptation to drink the seawater, because Kent said it’d make you go mad. But for a while I was already questioning my sanity. I sat there watching the tiny emerald speck grow slowly in front of me for at least an hour before I said anything to everyone else.”

“What were your feelings in that moment?” she probed.

“First was denial, then excitement and hope. We had no way of knowing how big the island was or if it was inhabited, so of course at first we all felt like we’d been rescued and the whole thing was finally over.”

Dave remembered the flutter of expectation that batted around in his empty stomach as the waves gently pushed their raft closer and closer to the ever-growing speck. He was the one who was sure they’d floated into salvation. He expected to bob up to land on their little raft and startle sunbathers lying out on the beach. His sun-beaten brain imagined they’d run up to the cabana hut and order everyone a tall, gorgeous glass of lemonade.

“How did you get onto the island without any oars or motors?” Genevieve asked, but not in that skeptical way she asked about Theresa, more robotic and rehearsed.

“Once we realized that it really was land, our joy was soon replaced with frustration. We were lodged in a current pushing us close to but not onto the island. We were moving so slowly, we had plenty of time to plan and organize. First, we tried using our hands as oars in the water but that didn’t move us very far off our course. Remember, we were all dehydrated, half-starved, and severely sunburned, so not at our peak performance levels. Then Kent had the idea to get in the water and push the raft by kicking our legs.”

“You went in the water?” she interrupted, tilting her head to one side. “Weren’t you afraid of sharks and such?” Her honey-colored eyebrows wagged, one a fraction higher than the other, making Dave unsure if nature or plastic surgery was responsible for the incongruity.

“Knowing what I do now, we should’ve been. But we were so desperate to be off that boat and we thought there might be food and people and communication on that island. I think if we
had
thought of it, we still would’ve found the risk an acceptable one.”

“Please tell me about what it was like when you landed. What was the state of the island and your fellow passengers?”

“The first night was the worst.” A chill went through him like the wind whipping his soaked polo. “It was night by the time we reached the shore. We had no fire, no fresh water still, and no food. I mostly remember how dark it was. Lillian cared for Margaret, Kent wandered off immediately, and I slept most of the night in the raft.”

The reporter’s ears seemed to perk up at the mention of Lillian’s mother-in-law. “And Margaret, how long did she last?” How was the end of a woman’s life reduced to a single flippant question? He intended to give Margaret the respect she deserved.

“Margaret lost her life within twenty-four hours of landing on the island. There was nothing we could do to help her further. She needed a doctor and a hospital with a fully equipped operating room. I think Lillian let herself hope when we saw the island, but after we landed and realized we were alone, it was clear Margaret wasn’t going to live.”

“They did an extensive coroner’s report on her before her reburial next to her husband in Iowa. Have you had the chance to read it?” He wasn’t aware of an autopsy.

“Uh, um . . . No, I hadn’t heard.” He swallowed with difficulty, hoping to unstick the dry lump in his throat. Why did they even lie about Margaret? To lessen Lillian’s guilt? Would people really blame her for leaving that laptop on her seat? Would Jerry? He doubted it. If Dave had been thinking clearer when they made up their story, he would’ve realized this was a greedy lie, an unnecessary lie, and perhaps a fatal lie. If Genevieve Randall proved they were lying about one thing, she’d know they had something to hide.

She pulled out a manila folder from the pouch beside her chair. “I have it right here.” She tugged a few crisp white pages from the envelope, flipping the stapled pages purposefully. “Here it is. It says she died of a massive injury to her forehead, consistent with blunt force trauma.” She flipped the papers closed and leaned over them for her next question. “How did that happen?”

“Uh, I don’t know. A plane crash maybe?”

The little smile turning up the edge of her mouth worried Dave.

“Of course. Did you treat her for the injury?”

“We tried. It was cleaned and bandaged to the best of our abilities but we couldn’t do much without professional help.”

“Hmmm, yes I see.” She ran her tongue over her thin, barely there lips. “I understand she was hurt in the crash, but the reason I’m curious is: I’ve watched and read almost every interview the survivors gave, and not one time was Margaret’s cause of death mentioned. I was wondering why?”

Listening to the accusations in her tone, Dave put his trembling hands under his thighs to keep her from noticing the spike in his nerves. He had five seconds to decide if he was in real trouble or if he could play it cool, when an idea sprung in his mind fully formed.

“No one took the time to ask us, I guess.” He gave the reporter a warm smile, pulling his hands out from behind his legs and running one through his hair. Lillian always said girls liked that, that
she
liked that. “I’m extremely impressed with your thorough investigation, Ms. Randall.”

At his compliment she sucked on her smooth teeth, cocked her head so minutely to one side that perhaps no one but Dave detected it, and flipped the report closed. She didn’t look down, she didn’t take any notes with her uncapped Sharpie, she didn’t break eye contact, and Dave felt an icy chill in her frozen eyes cooling the sweat on his neck and raising goose bumps on his bare forearms.

“At least you buried her, unlike poor Theresa,” Genevieve mumbled. A statement meant for the editing-room floor, meant to shake Dave off his game because she could do anything she wanted to with this interview. Whatever he said, they’d cut up into small, manageable snips so anything could be insinuated or inferred from his response. He wanted to slam his fist down on the plush cushion next to him. He’d given them that power, handed it right over. It reminded him of how powerless he felt on that raft, drifting along in random currents and weather patterns over which he had no control. Now he was floating along in Genevieve Randall’s ocean.

CHAPTER 12

DAVID-DAY 4

An island in the South Pacific

Twenty hours. Twenty. Less than a day. When I was a kindergartener I had the hardest time counting to twenty. My dad would go over the numbers with me every day while I brushed my teeth. One through ten was easy—eleven, twelve, and even up to nineteen—but after that I could never remember twenty. At five years old, twenty was too large to conceptualize. Twenty dollars was a fortune, twenty toys a treasure chest, twenty minutes a lifetime, twenty years eternity.

Today I feel like I’m five years old again—still can’t get to twenty. My waterproof watch stops—frozen at exactly 3:45 p.m. Nineteen hours and fifty-five minutes from when we landed on this island. Banged up and cracked down one side of the analog face, it stops keeping time at the exact moment I sit down beside our first fire to eat real food.

It’s a simple meal made up of some small coral fish Kent caught, roasted coconut flesh, and a few roots I found foraging. Kent placed large rocks in the middle of the fire that we started using Margaret’s reading glasses. After gutting the puny fish with a knife from the raft, he tossed them, butterflied, onto the heated surface. Soon, the air filled with a rich, mouthwatering aroma. I hope Lillian makes it back soon or else I don’t know if Kent and I will have enough self-control to share.

Kent paces in front of the fire, poking at the uncooked portions of the fish. I stare at the food like I’m chilling on my couch at home watching the Rose Bowl on my flat-screen TV. Kent grunts something completely lost in the sizzle of fish on rock.

“What?” I snap, looking away from the fire reluctantly, annoyed that Kent would interrupt such an enthralling show.

“Go get the girl. The food’s almost ready.”

I take in every inch of the pink translucent flesh firming up and turning opaque. Could this be Kent’s way to get rid of me long enough to down the meal on his own? No, I’d rather get her than let Kent do it. His tact could fill a teaspoon, and that might be pushing it.

Pushing off the sandy log that abuts the fire’s circle, I stomp down to the water where our boat hit land the day before. Squinting down the beach to the point where it curves around to the other side of the island, I see no Lillian. I scan to the trees, to the raft, and back to the water before I realize where she is.

Fueled by hunger and a fear that we’ll return to Kent sucking on the empty bones of our sacrificial fish, I sprint down the small beach to the left of our camp. Passing an outcropping of coconut trees, I see her. She’s facing the water on a sandy peninsula jutting out into the unfriendly ocean. A breeze laps at the long, wild strands of her hair. She’s wearing her cutoffs and bathing suit top, so I can see the angry red gash that crawls up her left shoulder. Kent’s stitches are even but sloppy, and even if she avoids infection, the scar will be a nasty one.

She’s so alone out there, feet set apart, hands shoved in her pockets, like it’s Lillian facing the world. I don’t know what she’s thinking, I’m afraid to know. I’ve tried to stay away from her today. I would’ve stayed away from Kent too, but he’s a little harder to evade. It’s too hard to be around them, to tally what we’ve left behind, lost perhaps forever, and understand that whether I like it or not they are all I have left.