Suddenly the scrum breaks into a long, continuous line, and someone shouts a countdown to three before they all start running—heading for the water with exuberant howls, an unwavering band of orange light darting toward the ocean, a phalanx of blue uniforms chasing after them but hesitant to break the shoreline, unsure if their marching orders include getting wet.
The line splits as the protesters hit the shore and plunge into the water, Jill among them, Maddie at her side, people shouting and laughing, legs kicking wildly in the spray, the collective mind no doubt believing that they’ve won—no way will these uniformed bastards with their helmets and guns ever follow them into the ocean.
And maybe they’re right—the cops halt at the edge of the water and start ordering the protestors back in amplified bullhorn war shouts—Failure to comply will result in arrest—but no one listens, no one gives a damn; they’ve found sanctuary in the water, which belongs to all of us, doesn’t it? They keep swimming further out, the waves building; orange glow-lights bobbing in and out of the sea.
Suddenly I remember Amy’s words: I never taught Jill to swim.
I run closer toward the water, toward the night-black of the ocean, and see Jill moving away from the shoreline, clutching onto Maddie as a wave breaks over them. Who in her right mind would rush into the ocean if she couldn’t swim—unless she was sixteen and caught up in the moment, moving with the crowd, believing she was immortal like every sixteen-year-old does in her young crazy heart?
And if your simple, naïve faith has been dead for twenty years, do you stand helplessly on the beach while another girl drowns, or do you rush into the ocean to save her?
The hell with my shoes—I dive into the water, my body descending into the harsh Atlantic soup.
Damn it’s cold, the shock of the water slapping me further awake, and the truth is I’ve never been a good swimmer myself, Uncle Dan too busy making pizza to teach me properly. I see Jill with her arm around Maddie at the end of the orange line, the glow sticks shining even when wet, and I swim toward her, calling her name but of course she can’t hear me, salt water splashing into my mouth, my lungs wheezing as my head strains to stay above surface.
The band of orange light, no longer unbroken but still cohesive, moves further out, and I keep swimming after them even as a wave pushes me away, dunking me under. The tide drags me back toward the shore, but I push further, Amy’s daughter is somewhere in that fucking ocean and I won’t let her drown. My arms flail, I’ve hated the ocean since the day Sarah drowned, my head dunking under a wave, my legs weary and dense, the adrenaline draining, my arms pushing against the heavy water, Jill no longer in sight.
The undertow nips at my feet, and I keep thinking, I need to save her, I need to save her, as another wave dunks me, turning me around—is that a horse galloping across the shore? Sarah would have loved that, a horse trotting across Holman Beach, and another wave, and another.
I should have told Clyde that I was a bad swimmer, but who wants to admit that in a beach town, and I see the orange lights coming nearer; I see Jill and she’s holding Sarah Carpenter’s hand as they descend into darkness and Kelly is an excellent California swimmer and here comes another wave and damn, I’m going under.
My lungs choke with salt water and god knows what else, this is Jersey, syringes and tire dirt and the follicles of dead wise guys; I can’t help but gag and swallow more water, my head surfacing one last time and shit, I’m going to drown, which is maybe the first thing that’s made sense to me since that morning twenty years ago.
Another wave, the undertow at my waist.
Hello, water, I think. Hello, death.
-21-
My death by drowning lasted twelve seconds before Jeremy spotted me floundering and pulled me back up, my lungs burning but my brain cells intact.
Perhaps it was climate change that saved my life. As Jeremy dragged me back to the shoreline, he said that soon people would be drowning on Wall Street and on the Mall in D.C., massive floods as common as the full moon; you’ll go to bed in a dry room and wake up in ten feet of water, your mattress repurposed as a raft.
“Underwater rescue, that’s the future,” he said. “I’m ready for it. Are you?”
Considering that I was wrapped in his arms, shivering and coughing out sea scum, the answer seemed obvious: I had work to do.
When we hit the beach, the cops acknowledged his heroics and offered to let him go, but he insisted they arrest him, refusing to move until the plastic cuffs snapped around his wrists.
“It’s only my third arrest,” he smiled. “My cousin’s been busted fourteen times. I need to catch her by the end of the year.”
“Again, thank you,” I told him. “If there’s anything I can do …”
“Organize,” he said. “And hey, the polar caps are melting fast. Take some swim lessons, dude!”
. . . . .
Jill and Maddie made it out safely, swimming back to shore and avoiding the cops by sneaking into the dunes. Though Amy had never taught Jill to swim, Clyde had—a secret kept from Amy, who would have freaked at the thought of her daughter practicing her strokes in the murderous Atlantic. Amy, too, escaped arrest, the charge of flipping off a cop apparently not worth the requisite paperwork, the troopers letting her go with that old standby, the stern warning. Maddie’s mother had texted her that the girls were safe, so when the trooper told Amy to get lost, for once she didn’t argue. The next morning the local paper reported twenty-seven arrests, including Father Toby, who,
