I'll Be There

by Holly Goldberg Sloan

  Debbie covered them both with quilts and then called Bobby’s parents and said that she’d like to just let them rest. Barb Ellis said she understood, but she really didn’t. The Bells were nice enough, but the whole family seemed sort of artsy to her.

  That was the only way that she could think to describe it. There was too much stuff in their house. Too many paintings on the walls, too many little ethnic knickknacks that, to her eye, should have been sold at a garage sale.

  And there were so many books everywhere. They needed to get more bookshelves or, better yet, start using the public library.

  Barb had wall-to-wall, ultra-plush taupe carpeting at her house, and it wasn’t just that she liked the look; she knew that things were clean. Which was part of the reason they didn’t have any pets.

  Bobby was allergic, but even if he weren’t, she wouldn’t want animals in her house. She liked them in zoos and in trees and from a distance, like when she could see the squirrels on her neighbour’s lawn fighting.

  But the Bells had that overly friendly, fat dog. And then the two paranoid-looking cats. And they had plants inside their house, which was another thing Barb didn’t like. It was dirt in pots on the inside. And bugs lived in dirt, and when you watered plants that were inside a house, you ran the risk of the water getting on the floor or the carpet. That was just a fact.

  Barb liked cut flowers. But she didn’t like mixed arrangements. She liked everything to be the same colour. Like all white, which appealed to her sense of order and hygiene.

  And she liked flowers with super-long stems, because that just said right away that they didn’t come from your own yard. It said that these flowers were purchased and someone cares enough to do that, because they care about things like having fresh flowers in her house.

  And that was important.

  After that night, Bobby was Emily’s shadow. They went everywhere together.

  They did their homework, usually in the Bells’ living room, and a lot of time with ESPN SportsCentre on the TV, because that’s how Bobby did it at home.

  After a week of this, Bobby asked her to go with him to the junior/senior prom and she just shrugged.

  That night, before he left, he kissed her on the lawn chair in the backyard. He got his hand under her shirt and he was in heaven. She barely noticed.

  The way to make the pain go away was to put your mind somewhere else. You let your mind leave and float above you, where it could watch you.

  So now there were two of you. Always.

  And then the two Emilys did what was expected, which is what you have to do because you need everyone to leave you alone.

  You don’t think about the future, because it doesn’t matter any more, and you never, ever think about the past, because it is gone. And thinking about what is gone is the pain.

  You try to smile, but it feels really fake, but you are a fake now so that isn’t a problem. What is a problem is how trivial everything is. The things that get people anxious or upset are not worth anyone’s time.

  But they can’t see that.

  So while the world around you obsesses over all the wrong things, you know the secret. You know that there are things that matter, and then there is everything else.

  And what matters to you, besides your mother and your father and your little brother and your dog and your two new cats and your nana and your pop-pop and your best friend, is him and his brother.

  But now Sam and Riddle are gone. Really gone. Get used to it.

  Or at least pretend to everyone that you are.

  Clarence’s right leg was amputated above the knee.

  And on the first day after the operation, he experienced what half of the people who have lost a limb feel for the rest of their lives: phantom pain. He had an excruciating ache coming from where his foot, which was no longer there, would have been.

  It felt like someone was hammering nails into his toes. The feeling started with the uncontrollable urge, in the middle of the night, to scratch his foot.

  And it got a lot worse from there.

  By morning, the nurses were doubling up his pain meds and calling the attending physician for help. Clarence, bleary-eyed but filled with rage, demanded that they cut off his foot. When they tried to explain that they already had, he did more than lash out with his mouth. He swung his fists, upending the table by his bed and sending his IV stand crashing to the floor.

  By the afternoon, after he’d bitten a nurse in the forearm, he had been put in a restraining device. By evening, the chief of staff had signed orders to have him moved to another facility.

  An ambulance came the following morning and transported Clarence to the Brimway Medical Clinic, which was run by the state. He was known on his paperwork as Clarence Border/Also Known As John Smith. The boys’ abduction from Montana a decade earlier was now public record and Detective Sanderson had matched the kids after painstakingly reviewing hundreds of missing person’s files in ten states.

  That afternoon, Howie P. McKinnon, wearing a dark green suit, paid his first visit to see Clarence. When Howie came into the room, Clarence took one look at him and said, ‘Whatever you’re selling, I ain’t buying. So piss off.’ Howie stood immobilised several feet from the bed, wrestling with how to shake hands with someone in a straitjacket.

  Howie was only four years out of law school, and only two years from having passed the bar exam, which he’d taken three times. And thus far into the game, his public-defender work had consisted of mostly Driving-Under-the-Influence cases, which he had roundly lost – his only defense for these cases being that the state’s breathalyser was defective.

  Howie could usually get one or two jurors somewhat interested in the antiestablishment-conspiracy defense, but the people he represented looked like habitual drunks, so his perfect record of never winning a case had stayed intact.

  Howie cleared his throat and took a half step deeper into the room.

  ‘Mr B-Border, my name is Howie P. McKinnon, and I’m g-g-going to be representing you.’

  Clarence squinted at him. ‘My name is John Smith.’

  Howie looked down at the paperwork and managed to mumble, ‘Yes, Mr S-Smith . . .’

  Clarence suddenly roared, ‘I want to sue. They cut off my damn leg.’

  Howie nodded as Clarence continued shouting. Spit was flying from his mouth.

  ‘And if it wasn’t bad enough, they butchered the job, because I can still feel my foot!’

  Howie was now edging back towards the doorway.

  Clarence had a thought and while still glaring lowered his voice. ‘I need a cigarette.’

  Howie stuttered, ‘S-Smoking’s n-not allowed in h-here.’

  Clarence shot Howie a look of complete disdain. ‘You think I don’t know that? What do you take me for, a moron?’

  Howie didn’t say anything.

  Clarence continued. ‘The next time you come see me, you bring a carton of cigarettes or don’t come at all. And ask for a wheelchair. You can push me outside.’

  Howie found himself nodding again. There was something about Clarence Border/John Smith that demanded you listen.

  Clarence held his gaze. ‘And another thing, whatever they said I did – well, I didn’t do it. Write that down, pickle-pants. I didn’t do it.’

  And Howie obediently took out a pen.

  The report filed by the sheriff ’s department listed drowning as the probable cause of death. A river alert was posted in two counties, and a story appeared on the television news in most of Utah explaining that two boys were presumed to have lost their lives after surviving alone in the woods for almost two weeks.

  Their bodies were still waiting to be recovered.

  Detective Sanderson took the sheriff’s call from Cedar City and then wrote an email but didn’t send it. He decided to go and see the Bell family on his way home and tell them himself. He liked Tim Bell, and he knew that this was hard on them. But his experience told him that having some kind of closure would mean the beg
inning of healing.

  The detective looked down into his file. It had been over a month now since the kids had disappeared. It was actually surprising that it was all wrapped up in that time. Often cases like this went completely unanswered. But he’d still feel better when the boys’ bodies were found.

  The detective didn’t go into the Bell house. He explained it all to Tim Bell on the front porch. The official search was now over. Divers had done a thorough exploration of the river as well as the entire surrounding area where the boys had camped, and they had found nothing.

  But the conclusion was undeniable. The boys had gone into the water. The temperature of the river would have led to hypothermia.

  You don’t survive that.

  31

  It was like nothing Sam and Riddle could have imagined.

  With only the branches to drag, they had no real control in the water. The vessel was at the mercy of the river; its currents and obstacles turned the red plastic kayak into a play toy.

  They were constantly spinning, so that one minute Riddle was in the front, trying to hold the big branches, and then moments later the kayak would be kicked forward and Sam would find himself heading down the rapids in the bow of the boat.

  It didn’t take long for both of the branches to be sucked into the swirling current and then they were completely at nature’s mercy.

  For Sam, with his throbbing shoulder, it was a double hell. Every move caused new stabs of pain, until after an hour of what could have been a ride on a bucking bronco with a chainsaw in his ribs, something seemed to give way inside his body.

  It was a kind of physical shock brought on by the cold water, the constant motion and the sounds of Riddle yelping. Once the river turned into a series of rapids, his little brother was like a chained-up dog being beaten. He couldn’t escape, and he couldn’t keep quiet.

  Now he was on a rollercoaster that was also a freezing waterwheel, and his answer was to growl and whimper and cry. So while Sam gritted his teeth, wincing with pain, certain that any moment he’d black out and fall overboard, hoping that he’d drown as quickly and painlessly as possible, Riddle was gasping for air, putting up an audible fight.

  And then, after three and a half hours of riding the river like a cork in a washing machine, the terrain changed, the waterway narrowed, and abruptly the current slowed.

  It was a miracle. They’d never tipped over.

  They’d travelled twelve miles. And they were at a much lower elevation. There were now smooth rock formations on either side of the waterway. Tall, rust-coloured walls of stone lined the river, which had turned lazy and slow. The sun was out and it reflected off the flat surfaces and began to dry their soaked clothing.

  Riddle stopped screaming. And Sam stopped thinking about dying.

  And they both were moved by the intensity of the world around them. Overhead an eagle soared, checking them out as it circled.

  Riddle finally said his first sentence that didn’t include the word help. ‘I peed my pants.’

  An hour later, the stone canyon had again given way to a new terrain, and the river had again changed character. The current was picking up, and the rush of the water echoed, making a new kind of roar. The horror show was returning.

  Riddle shouted to Sam, ‘I’m done.’

  Sam knew what he meant. He felt done, too. But he answered, ‘We’ll find someone . . .’

  It made sense when he said it. But hearing the words wasn’t very comforting. Riddle said again simply, ‘I’m done.’

  Sam turned his head slightly to get a better look at his brother, and then the flow changed and the kayak swung around for the thousandth time and Riddle was now in front and Sam was in back, except that they were on an angle, not moving straight down the river.

  But the roar was now getting louder. Sam wondered if the sound was in his head. But then Riddle said, ‘I hear cars.’

  Sam tried to listen. Is that what it was? A highway? Could they have come that far? It was too much to even hope for.

  Riddle was now completely still, intently listening.

  Sam, despite the pain in his shoulder and his neck and his back and his legs, twisted at the waist to get a better take on the situation. It certainly seemed as if they were in a very remote area.

  But the highway sound was even louder now. Riddle was getting agitated. ‘Sam – I hear the cars! I hear them!’ Riddle twisted his body in all directions, and the kayak swayed with him.

  Sam shouted. ‘Riddle, stop that. Stop moving!’

  Riddle tried to be still, but he was wide-eyed now. The highway was getting closer. Maybe they would go under an overpass. Maybe they could wave their arms. Wouldn’t people see them? Wouldn’t people understand that they were in trouble?

  Some of the sunscreen that they’d put on hours earlier was now melting off Riddle’s forehead and into his right eye. He wiped his eye and made it all worse. He suddenly felt intense stinging.

  Riddle leaned over into the water and cupped his hand and splashed his face. The kayak wobbled.

  Sam didn’t understand. ‘Riddle, I said stop that!’

  ‘My eye hurts. Maybe from the sunscreen.’

  Sam snapped at him. ‘Forget your damn eye!’

  He shouldn’t have said it that way. He didn’t mean to say it that way.

  They were caught up in the moment, in the kayak, both exhausted. Both hungry. Both not really able to pay attention to what was happening on the river, and both not able to do anything about it, even if they had been paying attention. Their drama now involved shouting at each other not to rock the boat.

  And only seven seconds later, the rush of the phantom highway revealed itself to be a waterfall, and the two boys and the kayak went straight over.

  It was a thirty-one-foot drop, which was like going off the roof of a three-story building. They were on an angle when they slid right over the lip of the river, the bottom of the kayak scraping suddenly on a large rock like a car not clearing a kerb.

  They both screamed. Like crazed animals, was Sam’s thought as the sounds came out of their mouths.

  But the river pulled, the rock held, and the kayak flipped. And then the two boys were suddenly airborne as they travelled with the red kayak and the icy water. They hit the river below right with the main flow. The now-empty kayak knifed into the white water and then shot up as if fired from a cannon.

  Both boys sank like stones, pounded from above by the black hammer of the wall of falling water. The weight on their bodies was enormous, when suddenly the twists and turns of the sucking snake that was the current shifted direction. A new thrust of motion pushed them upward, and moments later they were both spat back to the surface.

  The crimson kayak suffered a worse fate, slamming down on a sharp rock and splitting in two as if cleaved by a giant axe. The two pieces swirled in circles, and the front section promptly took on water and sank. The back piece rode downstream in a spinning fury and disappeared.

  The two boys, pushed to the surface as the aerated water churned against their bodies, found that it didn’t matter that they couldn’t swim. There was no swimming in this situation. There was only the icy hand of fate.

  And here it pulled them apart to follow their own destinies. The last thing Sam remembered Riddle saying was, ‘My eye hurts.’ And the last thing he remembered saying to Riddle was to ‘Forget your damn eye.’

  He heard himself saying it now again as the black water filled his nose and pushed the air out of his lungs.

  Forget your damn eye.

  For, where he was now, only the blind could really see.

  People die every day in rivers.

  They die wearing life vests, after years and years of water experience. They die surrounded by boats and onlookers and first aid at their fingertips. They die when they have done everything right in the big book of water safety.

  And people live who have done everything wrong.

  Sam and Riddle went in opposite directions, thrown to dif
ferent sides of the river.

  Riddle was on the right. His body, semi-conscious, bobbed along on the surface. Air pockets inflated his shirt at the shoulders and kept his torso from sinking. Smaller and more compact, he moved at twice the speed of his lanky brother.

  Sam was on the left, rolling like a piece of trash. The sticks and the tape that Riddle had put on to stabilise his shoulder were carried off his body like paper products.

  The roiling water took the two boys swiftly away from the waterfall and swiftly away from each other. As they tumbled, pulled by the current like rag dolls, their body temperatures rapidly began to fall. Their circulation responded by slowing and, within a matter of only seconds, simple movement was becoming no longer possible.

  Everything inside was closing down.

  Because it wasn’t that you didn’t want to swim. It wasn’t that you didn’t try to paddle. Your body no longer took any direction. It had been thrown in ice water, and all that was communicated to nerve endings was pull in, pull back, exhibit full retreat.

  And then Sam’s head hit something. Hard. An old tree along the shore had fallen during a flash flood when the water rose and the banks were swollen. The roots had given way and the tree had gone down. A sinker.

  The tree now lay partly on the shore and partly in the river. Sam’s hand opened, out of instinct, not with any sense of purpose, and it closed on one of the slimy branches. And suddenly, out of nowhere, Sam had a way to make it onto the shore.

  Minutes later, he lay on the rocks and mud of the riverbank, feeling a kind of relief that he’d never known. It had stopped, the agony of the motion, the spinning icy world that was pulling him down into the blackness of forever.

  And he made a vow to himself that if he survived, he’d never get in a boat again. For the rest of his life.

  Just the idea made him feel better. And then his mind, his ability to form conscious thought, turned off.

  Done.

  He shut his eyes and gave in to the now blinding light and the emptiness of all that was behind him.