Sara J Henry - Learning to Swim  

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2011 by Sara J. Henry

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henry, Sara J.
Learning to swim : a novel / Sara J. Henry.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Women journalistsFiction. 2. BoysCrimes againstFiction. I. Title.
PS3608.E5796L43 2010
813.6dc22 2010004686

eISBN: 978-0-307-71840-2

Jacket design by Nupoor Gordon
Jacket photography copyright Barnaby Hall/Getty Images

v3.1

To my dad, who taught me how to read, and
made sure I always had plenty of books .

Contents

I F ID BLINKED, I WOULD HAVE MISSED IT .

But I didnt, and I saw something fall from the rear deck of the opposite ferry. It could have been a bundle of trash; it could have been a child-sized doll. Either was more likely than what I thought I saw: a small wide-eyed human face, in one tiny frozen moment as it plummeted toward the water.

I was on the late afternoon ferry on Lake Champlain, the big one that takes an hour to reach Vermont. It was overcast and misty, one of those in-between Adirondack days just before summer commits itself, and Id pulled on a windbreaker because of the occasional chilly gust of wind. I was the only one out on deck, but the closed-in lounge with its narrow benches and tiny snack bar makes me edgy. And I love watching the water as the ferry carves through it. Today the water was calm, with no other boats out except this ones twin, chugging stolidly in the opposite direction.

What I did next was a visceral reaction to those small eyes I thought I saw. Without conscious thought I vaulted onto the railing I was leaning against, took a deep breath, and dived.

Its amazing what you can do if you dont stop to think. The coldness of the water seemed to suck the air out of my lungs, but instinctively I curved upward, fluttering my feet.

In the weekly mini-triathlons in Lake Placid where I live, Im always one of the last out of the water. The closest Id ever come to underwater swimming was picking up my hair clasp at the bottom of a friends pool, and that had taken two tries. And whenever I see a movie with scenes where the hero has to swim through a long, narrow passageway, I always try to hold my breath. I never make it.

But I was in the lake, committed, and surging strongly underwater. By the time I broke the surface, Id traveled more than a third of the way to where Id seen the thing go in. Both ferries had gone onward, in their opposite directions. There was no one in sight. No shouts of alarm, no ferry slowing and turning about.

I kept my eyes fixed on the water ahead, and saw something bob up, too far away. My stomach gave a nasty twist. Then I swam, harder and faster than I ever had in a mini-triathlon with middle-aged tourists coming up behind me.

When I reached what I thought was the right spot, I took a deep breath and dived. The water wasnt clear but not exactly murky, sort of a blurred translucence with a greenish cast. I didnt get very far under, and had to try again. This time I saw only a few flat, colorless fish skittering by before I had to come up for air.

Gasping for breath, treading water while I sucked air, reason began to creep in. I wasnt just cold; I was close to numb. I was alone in a very deep lake twelve miles wide, diving after what could be a bag of garbage somebody didnt want to pay to haul to the dump. I was none too sure I had enough strength to get to shore. But I dived once more, and this time something led me straight to it.

It wasnt a bundle of trash. It wasnt a doll. It was a small boy, arms entangled in what looked like a dark sweatshirt, straight dark hair floating eerily above his head. For one awful moment I thought I was looking at a corpse, but then I saw a small sneakered foot kick weakly. By the time I got close enough to grab a handful of sweatshirt, Id been without air far longer than Id ever managed to hold my breath watching underwater scenes in movies. My throat was convulsing in an effort not to suck in water instead of the air that wasnt there.

The boy turned toward me, looking at me with those wide dark eyes I hadnt imagined after all. Then they slowly closed. I started upward, dragging him with one hand, swimming with the other, kicking as hard as I could.

It was endless. My ears were ringing, my body a marionette I was directing with an inner voice: Keep swimming, keep swimming, keep swimming . I no longer felt cold, and my throat had stopped jerking. I began to wonder if I had drowned. But I felt a dull pain in the arm clutching the boy, and I wouldnt, I thought, feel pain if I were dead.

I kicked on, and sensed rather than saw light above: either Heaven or the surface. In a burst of motion we emerged, the boy bobbing up beside me. I gulped in so much air it hurt, and shook water off my face.

The boy was limp, entangled in the sodden sweatshirt, and I couldnt tell if he was breathing. I struggled to get the sweatshirt off over his head and tried to thump his thin back. Id taken CPR, but it was several years ago, and no one tells you how to do CPR when youre treading water in a deep, cold lake.

No response. I pulled the boy toward me, put my mouth over his and blew, turning to suck in aironce, twice, three times. Now I was feeling almost furious, at fate or irony or whatever had put me in this cold water with a thin dying child in my arms. Id found him, and damn it, he needed to start breathing.

The boy coughed, spewed forth a gush of water, then opened his eyes. Yes! I whispered, yes, yes, yes! and I think I shook him a little. I might have cried if I hadnt learned a long time ago you cant cry and swim at the same time.

Now we had to get to shore, which looked a lot farther away than Id ever swum in a mini-triathlon.

Ive read that drowning victims are likely to drag you under and youre supposed to tow them with one arm around their neck so they cant grab you. But I knew Id never make it swimming with one arm. I pushed his hands under my belt, and squeezed them into tiny fists.

Hold on, I told him, looking into the dark eyes, and he seemed to understand.

The swim to shore wasnt dramatic, just grim. Theres a formula that predicts how long you can survive in cold water before hypothermia renders your brain foggy and your arms and legs useless, and it was probably a good thing I couldnt remember it.

This is the part of Rescue 911 you never seethe long, slow, dreary stuff. I did the crawl; I did the sidestroke. In my head I sang a slow dirge from Girl Scout camp: Mandy had a little bay-bee. Had that baby just for me . Stroke, breathe. Mandy, oh, my Mandy oh, my Man-dee mine . Stroke, breathe. Baby made my Mandy cry. Cried so hard she soon did die . Stroke, breathe. Mandy, oh, my Mandy oh, my Man-dee mine .

At one point the boys hands slipped from my belt, and I spun and grabbed him as he was sliding under. He opened his eyes halfway and looked at me dully. I cradled him in my arms as the water sloshed around us. Just a little farther, just a little farther, I pleaded, and his eyes flickered. Now maybe I was crying, but I was so wet and cold I couldnt tell.

I could see details of the shoreline, rocks and a big tree that seemed to beckon to me, and damned if we were going to drown this close to land. I yanked the drawstring from my windbreaker hood, pulled one of his hands underwater, and lashed it to my belt. We swam on, in awkward tandem.