Wish (15 page)

“Hold on,” Little Brew yelled to me, to Tommy, to anyone who could hear him.

He shot us forward, buzzing through the wash, the water shooting out the back like a rooster tail. I looked around Little Brew and saw immediately that Tommy’s color was horrible. When he saw me, his eyes half closed, Tommy made the choke motion.

“He can’t breathe! He can’t breathe!” I shouted. “Get him to shore!”

Little Brew glanced back at me, not quite understanding.

“Now, now, he can’t breathe!” I screamed. “He needs medicine.”

Little Brew nodded. He grabbed Tommy tighter and shot forward, running the waves and the wash expertly while Ollie followed behind us, the waves trying to rock us back off shore.

I saw a shark as we brought Tommy in.

I saw it five feet underwater, maybe more. It passed like a blue-black piece of sealskin, its dorsal fin grazing the surface. Ollie didn’t see it. Neither did Little Brew nor Tommy. But I did. Somehow it felt as though I had been waiting to see it my entire life.

It cruised near the surface, its body longer than the Jet Ski, three times as long, and it passed in a hurried way. The shark was going somewhere. It rolled slightly on its starboard side, its eye lifting to meet mine. I was not food at that moment. I witnessed the shark’s panic, its fright at something—maybe the Jet Ski—and saw it pass quickly into the deeper elements. It glided down, all efficiency, and the thresher cut of its tail flicked twice and sent it straight under the waves. Except for the buggy hum of the Jet Skis, the sea had gone quiet—the gulls and the wind. The shark seemed to carry all sound with it.

Little Brew ran his Jet Ski as close to the shore as possible, but he couldn’t jam it up onto the beach because Tommy’s legs still trailed in the water. He stopped ten feet
out and Ollie jumped off right behind him and together they hoisted Tommy onto the sand. I ran past them, heading for my backpack, and I dug around until I found the inhaler. I ran back and squeezed between them and slipped my hand under Tommy’s head. His eyes didn’t open; his chest didn’t move. I pried the mouthpiece between his lips and depressed the plunger.

“Call nine-one-one,” I said, my voice surprisingly calm. “Do it now.”

“I don’t have a phone,” Little Brew said.

“Run up the beach. Find someone. Call nine-one-one.”

Little Brew ran off. I turned to Ollie.

“I saw a shark on the way in,” I said. “Go tell those guys.”

He looked at me, confused.

“A shark,” I said. “A great white.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Go tell them. Get them in.”

I bent down and whispered into Tommy’s ear.

“I saw a shark,” I said.

He didn’t breathe. I put my ear to his lips. No air passed in or out of his lungs. I listened to Ollie start his Jet Ski. I heard it whine out into the surf. After a short while, its whine gave way to the wail of approaching sirens. I pressed Tommy’s chest lightly and pushed down, thinking I could get his lungs working. His left eyelid flickered, but that was
all. A reef of sand ringed his chin and I saw where the life jacket had abraded his neck and jawline, rubbing itself in a shrug while it carried him through the surf.

“They’re on the way,” Little Brew said, falling to the sand beside us. “A lady had already called when she saw us.”

I nodded. I turned Tommy’s head. A drizzle of water spilled out of his mouth. It came slowly, almost reluctantly, like a bottle leaking. I brought his face back up and bent down and put my mouth over Tommy’s and breathed. I wasn’t sure how to do it. “Tilt his chin back,” Little Brew said. I did.

I blew hard into Tommy’s lungs, my mouth sealed around his, and I counted and did it over and over. The count changed each time. Sometimes I could do it with a proper cadence, and sometimes I breathed too quickly. Little Brew carefully straightened Tommy’s legs. It made no difference, but he did it anyway.

Then, suddenly, black trousers appeared—I did not look up, I kept my eyes on Tommy—and a pair of hands moved me away. I told them the details:
cystic fibrosis, surfing, no Pulmozyme, no air, Tommy, his name is Tommy, my brother, I’m responsible, Tommy, New Hampshire, yes, I don’t know, eleven years old, not this bad, not before, yes, probably, his mother is in San Francisco, our mother, I saw a shark, yes, just beyond the surf line, Tommy, my name is Bee
.

The paramedics took him, a breathing nipple already inserted in Tommy’s lips, the squawk and static of radio communications building and sizzling, feverish. I stayed beside the stretcher until they climbed up the sandy hill and put him into the back of the ambulance. Tommy looked like a small newborn on the big white cot. His face looked calm and flat and tired. I tried to climb in beside him, but I wasn’t allowed. Someone kicked the siren into high and it whooped. A paramedic with white rubber gloves handed me a card and said to follow.

Ty appeared at my shoulder.

“I’ll take you, Bee. Come on.”

Ollie had my backpack. He handed it to me. Little Brew and Ty ran on either side of me. The van had turned into a furnace sitting in the sun. It felt strange to get into such heat after the cold water. When Little Brew began to roll down the windows, I asked him to keep them up. Even in the wet suit I was shivering. The heat helped against the shivering.

Ty broke down.

He broke down at the first light we hit and he began to sob. He bent his head over the steering wheel and covered his face with his hands. I wanted to say something comforting, but I couldn’t speak. I reached a hand over and
put it on his shoulder. He didn’t acknowledge it. When the light changed, Little Brew tapped him on the other shoulder and said to get going. Ty shook himself and drove. The traffic didn’t move very well. The afternoon had slipped toward evening and people were headed home, running errands or fooling around on a day off. The quiet from the middle of the day was over.

“I saw a shark,” I said at the next light.

Ty nodded. Little Brew let air out of his lungs in a long sigh.

“It was big and dark,” I said. “And it was running from something. Or it was swimming fast. It was a white.”

No one said anything. Then the light changed and Ty started driving again. We drove and let the heat cook us until finally we opened the windows and let the day inside. A pair of flies buzzed at the top of the van, swimming in heat, their bodies like sparks clicking against the roof.

“There’s been an accident,” I whispered into the phone.

“Where are you, Bee?” my mother asked.

“Tommy …,” I said.

“Where are you? Tell me immediately.”

“Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City.”

“And Half Moon is south of here?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And what’s happened?”

“Tommy went under the water,” I said. “He couldn’t get out of the waves.”

“Bee,” she said, her voice going tight and hard, “what are you telling me?”

“We’re at the hospital.”

“But he’ll be okay,” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“Bee?”

“Hurry,” I said.

“You have so much to answer for,” she said, but I heard her pulling things together into a bag. “I’ve been beside myself.”

“He’s hurt, Mom.”

“Is there a doctor there? I need to speak to whoever is in charge.”

“We’re in the waiting room. No one’s here right now. No one to talk to, I mean.”

“I will be there as fast as humanly possible. Can I reach you at this number?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You answer the darn phone if I call, do you hear me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Bee, didn’t I tell you he isn’t strong enough for this kind of thing?”

“You don’t even know what kind of thing it was,” I said. “Mom, just get here.”

She didn’t say anything. I heard her doing something that made her bracelets clink. Her breathing went away from the speaker, then returned a second later.

“I’m packed. I’m checking out and coming down there. Do not move. Stay right where you are.”

“We will,” I said.

“Tell him I love him.”

“I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Are you saying he’s dead, Bee?”

Her voice went up and teetered somewhere.

“I don’t know. He wasn’t breathing.”

“Oh, Lord. Not Tommy,” she said.

“Hurry.”

“You call me instantly if you hear anything,” she said.

“I will.”

I heard a door close. Then she started walking. I heard her heels.

“This is really irresponsible behavior on your part. Inexcusable.”

“I agree,” I said. “I hate myself right now.”

“You should not encourage him.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“He looks up to you.”

“Hurry.”

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just hold on.”

She didn’t hang up, though. She didn’t talk, either. I listened
to her go to the front desk, throw her key card into someone’s hand, explain in a single statement she was checking out, then continue on, her heels like hammer blows across the tile floor. I heard the bag on wheels she pulled behind her, then heard it change pitch as she made it onto the cement walkway outside. Maybe then the phone did something to draw her attention, because she clicked off.

“Did you really see a shark?” Little Brew whispered to me.

We were sitting in the waiting room. I wore a towel around my waist and a T-shirt on top, and Little Brew wore his baggy shorts and nothing else. None of us had changed because we expected to hear something about Tommy any second. The air-conditioning felt cold. Ty had gone out to park the van in a different place. He thought he would get a ticket if he left it where he had first parked it. A coffee machine sat on top of a small refrigerator, which hummed and bumped now and then. It felt as though the day had gone to stay somewhere else and we were left to wait for it.

I nodded about the shark.

“What a freaky day,” Little Brew said, shaking his head. “A crazy day.”

“It was dark, not white. People say they’re white sharks, but they aren’t. They’re dark on top. Tommy said they suntan.”

“I never knew that,” Little Brew said.

“Tommy knows everything about sharks,” I said.

Little Brew nodded. Something inside told me I should keep talking about sharks. If I did, somehow their power would pass along to Tommy.

Ty came back a few minutes later. He had moved the van, which he told us about in more detail than we needed, simply to keep the silence from closing in on us. Little Brew said I was serious about seeing a shark, and Ty nodded. He sat down and tapped his feet a little. A line of sand had collected in the hairs along his calves. More crystals of sand or salt ran under his right eye.

“Ollie reported your sighting,” Little Brew said, his skin raised in gooseflesh. “Some of the other guys ignored the warning, but that was just a macho thing. Ollie told people on the beach, too.”

“Good,” I said.

“They’ll probably clear people out and send a chopper over,” Little Brew went on. “Some folks on the beach thought the whole thing with Tommy was a shark attack. They got it mixed up.”

“Okay,” Ty said, which was his way of telling Little Brew to be quiet.

We sat for a while. No one spoke. A boy with a round belly and a cast on his leg limped past and pushed through a double door. A nurse came by carrying a tray with a
handkerchief over it. No one was supposed to see what was under the handkerchief. Somewhere deeper in the building a drill ran for a minute or so, the sound going high like a dentist finding a cavity. When the sound cut off, a dog began barking out in the parking lot. The drill sound kept jumping around and ricocheting in my skull even after it had shut off.

I stood. I walked to the double doors. It had been too long. I pushed through the doors and walked straight ahead. I wasn’t sure where to go. I passed a nurses’ station and kept going. Someone moaned in one of the rooms. A spine of fluorescent lights hung overhead.

“Miss?” a female voice said, but I kept going.

I had to keep walking. If I didn’t keep walking I would crumple. Tommy was somewhere in the hospital wing and I had to find him. An orderly pushing a large machine came at me from the other direction. We nodded at each other. And the woman who had called
Miss
called it again. This time I heard quick footsteps follow the word. But I had found Tommy’s room. I knew Tommy was inside because the orange life jacket lay on a wheeled tray outside the door. The straps had been cut. The jacket was opened like a trout filleted and spread on an iron skillet.

The sight of the life vest stopped me. I didn’t dare move forward or look away. Suddenly the woman who had said
Miss
grabbed my elbow. When I turned, I saw a large
woman with too much makeup and hair the color of rusted oil barrels.

“You can’t be in this area, sweetie,” she said.

“My brother’s in there,” I said. “In that room.”

“We’re doing everything we can,” she said, squeezing my elbow a little to get me going.

But I snapped away and took the few steps I needed to look into Tommy’s room. I spotted him almost at once, his face framed by the shoulders of three or four doctors squaring around the bed. They had strapped something into his mouth and the sheets had been pulled up to his chin. Before I could do anything, I heard my mother call to me.

“Bee?” she said.

She came down the hall quickly, her heels whacking the tile. I turned and fell into her, sobs coming from deeper than anyplace I knew about. She put her arms around me and held me. The boy with the cast limped by but didn’t look. He kept his eyes forward and concentrated on walking.

The changing light in the waiting room, shadows tracking the hours across the floor. Venetian blinds, dusty gray-green, moving slightly in the breeze from the air conditioner. Two slats crooked. The television off and silent. Mom and the boys, her annoyance palpable. Her greeting and awareness of them short and curt, her deep, final sigh, whispering
What were you all thinking?
Time passing. The
swinging doors popping open, drawing our looks, then swinging closed with someone new on the other side. A nurse, a patient, not Tommy. A buzz from a fluorescent lamp. The scent of coffee and sugar. The short, tight click of an electric clock against the wall and a fly, leisurely ticking along the windowpane.