The Drowning

by Brian Seal

Thirsty. I woke up so thirsty, so incredibly thirsty. My throat is swollen and my tongue feels like a piece of brittle charcoal in my mouth; my lips are chapped like raw leather. How long has it been since I had something to drink? I can’t remember. But I can’t drink now; wouldn’t even if I could. I know that, even if I don’t know why.

I awoke in hot shade on hard sand, backed against a towering rock that momentarily blocked the rays of the sun, rising into a hazy blue sky. There are mountains in the distance through the shimmering heat. The heat itself has settled around me like a thick blanket, already oppressive at this early hour. I see footprints — my footprints —heading off into the distance behind me. My bare feet are scratched and dirty. There’s nothing else around me but a few small and twisted trees, rocks, and sand. Nothing above me but the sky, with a few wispy white clouds pushed along by a high breeze. Slowly, my memories start to re-form. I remember how I got here. I recall the hospital, the car, the drive into the desert. Then, the voices. I remember the voices.

The memory comes back to me in a rush; I panic for a moment and my head swivels, eyes looking for a sign of water, of liquid of any kind. But there’s none here. Thank God. But the voices are still echoing in my head.

No, not the voices. The memory of the voices, calling for me, crying for me. But the voices aren’t here. Not now. Not yet.

With the door to my memory cracking open, the past starts to seep back into my consciousness. I remember the trip the beach, the one that Susanna didn’t want to take. She wanted to go to the mountains instead. I should’ve listened. (Why didn’t I listen?) There’s water in the mountains, too, though. Maybe nothing would have happened, or maybe it all would have happened anyway. But I insisted on the beach. And the boat.

I remember the argument about the boat. So what if I hadn’t sailed in years? It’s like riding a bicycle; you never forget. (I wish I could forget, now.) Susanna didn’t want to go out. Didn’t want the kids to go, either. But I wanted to impress them and David and Janey wanted to go, so she relented. She shouldn’t have, she knew better, but she did. Because I wanted her to. And because the kids wanted her to. So she did.

The kids were impressed. I handled the sloop well, trimming the sails with ease. Showing off a little, just a little, with some sharp tacking and heeling. Even Susanna was impressed, a bit. She relaxed, anyway, and began to enjoy herself. We anchored briefly so we could swim, playing games of tag around the boat in the warm, clear water, swimming through schools of fish to see them scatter and re-form.

We were all enjoying ourselves, laughing and soaking up the spray and the sun. Then the sun disappeared. We didn’t notice, not right away. And we didn’t notice that the spray was picking up with the wind. Not until it was too late. Not until the storm was on top of us.

The waves rose and broke over the sides of the boat. Scared, Susanna and the kids huddled together in the middle, trying to get away from the water that surrounded us, pressing into each other like a dying star collapsing in on itself. They were oddly quiet, I remember thinking at the time. No screams of fear, no whimpering. Not even any remonstrations from Susanna (which pleased me). Just wide-eyed silent pleas for me to get them back to shore, back to safety.

We all had lifejackets on, of course. We weren’t stupid. (Not about that, anyway.) So when the sloop capsized and we all went into the water, we didn’t go under. But by then the sky had opened violently; the rain and wind were driving ice cold needles into our skin while the waves scattered us. Susanna and the kids broke their silence then. They were screaming for me, for each other, for anything or anyone to help.

Janey disappeared first. I watched her float over a wave, her arms slapping at the water. I could tell that she was crying for Susanna, but she was too far away for me to hear over the sound of the wind and the rain. The wave broke, and she was gone.

David went next. He was calm, trying to swim toward me against the force of the storm. But he was too small, too weak, to make it. He kept trying to swim as the waves pushed him away, raising his head every few seconds to keep me in view. Then, he just vanished, too far away for me to see in the ocean’s churn.

Susanna was the last to go. She was looking away from me, at something I couldn’t see. She was yelling: not panicked screaming, but a sustained, controlled yelling. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to communicate with one of the kids or just raging at the sea. And right before she was swept from my view, she turned and looked at me. We were so far apart, I couldn’t see her eyes. But I could feel them. I felt that mixture of anger, accusation, desperation, and pleading. I could feel her tears, as she stopped yelling and just kept facing me until we were pulled so far apart that we could no longer see each other. In a matter of minutes, my family was scattered to the sea.

I don’t remember how long I drifted, tossed by the storm. I remember swallowing sea water, then puking it back up, then swallowing more, until it felt like that was all I had ever done. Even now, I don’t remember being rescued, pulled out of the water by the Coast Guard. I don’t remember the helicopter or going to the hospital, though it was all told to me later.

I do remember waking up in the hospital, with intravenous lines and tubes running out of my body. I remember talking to the investigators about what happened. I remember being released and going home to an empty house.

They never found Susanna, David, or Janey. The Coast Guard searched for three days, but never caught a trace of them. It was as if, when they disappeared from my sight, they ceased to exist.