by Tom Sullivan
“That’s right, Darla,” Brenden said. “So we’ve been talking for a while, and we’ve learned a lot, and I think together we’ve grown a lot. On the card I gave you, if you check out the back, I’ve recommended a couple of doctors in San Diego, if you need to talk to someone. They’re really good guys. I went to school with one of them, and I’ve called to let them both know you may be calling.
“The key to all of this, Antwone, is to remember what we said before. Everything comes in small steps, and you have to work at things one step at a time. We agreed that it’s never easy, but I think now you finally believe Darla and me when we tell you that love is the most powerful medicine in the world. It’s worth a lot more than anything that happens in therapy or with the medication that you take.
“And by the way, about that: because you’re still on meds, you really do have to talk to one of my friends in San Diego. Most patients who struggle with PTSD are on the medication for a long time, and studies haven’t yet concluded whether combat vets can do well without the help of the drugs. Frankly, we just don’t know enough right now. So pick out one of those guys when you get home, talk to him, and don’t be afraid of your meds.”
“I’m already feeling better,” Carver said. “It’s amazing, but I really am feeling better.”
“Well,” Brenden said, smiling, “Darla probably has something to do with that, too, but I hope you’ll keep me informed about how you’re doing.”
This time it was Carver who reached across the space between them and took the blind man’s hand.
“I owe you a lot,” he said. “Doc, I mean it. You saved my life, and I’ll never forget it.”
Now Darla was crying. “We won’t forget it,” she said. “Dr. McCarthy, you gave me back my husband, and that means you gave me back my life.”
Brenden found himself beginning to choke up. “You know what?” he told them. “When you do what I do, it doesn’t get any better than this. Thank you for all you’ve given me, Antwone. We both got a lot.”
They all stood, and so did Nelson.
“You were right about something else,” Antwone said. “Growing up the way I did, I was always afraid of big dogs. But, Nelson,” he said, turning to the big animal, “you’re really cool, and your master is right. You’re all about love.”
The big dog moved in close to Antwone’s chair and accepted a hug.
“Good luck,” Brenden said as the couple moved out the door, “although I don’t really feel you’re going to need it. You have each other, and that is more than enough.”
Carver looked at the tall blind man standing in the doorway, and out of either habit or respect, he snapped off a salute to the civilian and moved away down the hall.
chapter twenty
Manny Hernandez was tired, and not just because of the six days he and his crew had been working the nets in search of the halibut that should be far more plentiful at this time of year.
It was all different, he thought. So different than when he had been a boy and fished with his father, filling the freezers with a catch that was achieved in only half the time and half the distance.
His fuel cost had become absurd. It’s those foreign oil companies. They’ve got us right by the throat, he thought, and pollution is ruining the ocean. No fish. On this trip, though he had gone all the way to the far banks, his hold was barely half full.
I’m nearly sixty years old, and I have nothing to show for it, he griped to himself. My house is mortgaged all the way out. I’ve got loans on the boat, and nobody wants to buy her, even though she’s the best troller in the harbor.
She was called the Mother Maria, named after Manny’s mother. He was Portuguese, from generations of fishermen dating all the way back to the founding of the New World. Manny was proud of his heritage, but right now he was bone tired, and all he wanted to do was go home to his Antonia, put his feet up, drink too much grappa, and forget about his troubles.
The fog was pea-soup thick. It had been a long time since he had come home in a fog like this. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, but Manny had navigated these waters and this bay for over forty years, and he figured he could bring her in blind.
“Forget the five-knot speed limit. Take the shortcuts.
Fifteen knots will save at least an hour.”
BRENDEN WAS LEAVING WORK an hour early. Everything had gone so well with the Carvers that he decided he deserved to go home early, so he arrived at the dock for the four o’clock ferry, rather than the five.
He heard people commenting about the fog as they waited in line to board. He couldn’t help but find it amusing listening to them. Fog meant nothing to him, and he knew from his nightly walks with Nelson that the big dog wasn’t concerned about it either. Actually, Brenden had come to love the fog. He had learned that on nights like this, all of the sounds of life became compressed, heightened as they were held in by the thick atmosphere. For Brenden, the fog actually created more clarity, so it was a friend to the blind man and his dog.
Brenden loved the smell of the ocean when the weather was like this. The tangy richness somehow made him think about life renewed, and tonight that was what he was feeling. Antwone and Darla Carver were beginning a life of renewal, and nothing else in Brenden’s professional experience had ever given him so much personal satisfaction.
So tonight he and Nelson would sit up top, out in the elements, for the short crossing to Bainbridge. From where he sat on the upper deck, the throb of the engines did not cover the sound of the foghorns that offered direction to incoming traffic. Brenden wondered if the crew of the ferryboat could see the lights of other ships through the fog, or whether they counted on radar and instruments to navigate the crossing. He had grown up in Colorado, so he actually knew very little about the ocean. That was probably why he was so enamored by the sea.
Sometimes he tried to picture the geography of his environment and how it related to the size and scope of the ocean. He realized that as the years went by, his ability to draw these dimensional pictures had diminished, even though his sensory acuity had increased.
It was like that with color, he thought. There are a lot of shades I can’t remember anymore, but it doesn’t matter. The richness of all the things I’ve learned since I lost my sight far outweighs the subtleties I’ve lost.
Getting up from the bench he was sitting on, he put his hands on the ship’s rail and drew in a full breath of the briny salt air.
“Terrific,” he told Nelson. “Absolutely terrific.”
He would be home in twenty minutes. Soon he would be hugging Kat and playing with his children and listening to all of them talk about their day, while he told them about the great one he had just had. He thought about what it was like to be an innocent child, with your mind so open to every experience life could offer and your brain not cluttered with wasted data built up over the years.
The other night his children had been asking about where things come from, with Brian saying, “When you turn on the light, Daddy, where does it come from?” and Mora adding, “When I want water, I just turn it on; where does it come from, Daddy?” Good questions, Brenden thought. And he smiled, remembering that he didn’t really know the answers himself. What he knew for sure was that his children were innocent and beautiful, and he loved them.
He was thinking about his family when he heard the rumbling in the fog and realized that the noise was coming closer. Over maybe the next twenty seconds, he speculated about what it might be. It had to be another boat, but where was she going, and why was he hearing her engines coming so close? He started to tell himself that the ferryboat crew must know there was another craft out there in the fog, close on the port side. But before he could finish the thought, there was a crunching impact of collision, and the ferryboat’s alarm bell sounded in the fog.
Months later, the investigation would find both the ferry boat captain and Manuel Hernandez grossly at fault. Hernandez had not obeyed either the speed limits or buoy markers in hi
s haste to make port, and the ferryboat captain was found to have been on the outside, rather than the inside, of the marker that framed the appropriate lane of passage.
But that was months later. Right now there was a sickening grinding of metal on metal as the propellers of both boats continued to churn in the water, with the fishing boat’s bow impaling the side of the ferry. Like a gigantic drill, the troller’s engines were opening a gap right at the ferry’s waterline, and the cold, hungry water of the bay surged in, swallowing up everything in its path.
Someone had the presence of mind to pick up the ferry’s microphone and try to create order, instructing people to reach under their seats and put on their life preservers. But the impact had been so devastating and the damage to the ferryboat so complete that there wasn’t time to take more appropriate action. She was listing hard with her bow down and was already beginning to sink.
Brenden heard the order to put on life preservers and was able to find his, though he found it difficult to get it on over his head. Nelson was bumping his master and whining, knowing that this was not normal; this was danger. People were screaming, especially those who had been sitting inside below deck.
Brenden could hear the sounds of scrambling feet and cursing as passengers realized they were trapped. It was a struggle for survival, and people were throwing each other out of the way as they fought to gain access to the staircases at each end of the ship.
Because the ferry’s crew was made up of only five, there did not seem to be any semblance of command or control, and Brenden prayed that the people would somehow find their way out of the deathtrap below. He wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed. It couldn’t have been more than three minutes from the time of the collision, but already he was finding it difficult to stand. The boat was listing over at a dangerous angle, and he knew it wouldn’t be long until he and Nelson had to go into the water.
He remembered how he had recently told the dog that it was too cold to swim. He figured that the water temperature must be around fifty degrees. People couldn’t live in this water, he knew. Hypothermia and the weight of their clothing would take them down. Considering that, he began to strip off his clothes—his shoes and socks along with his pants and shirt—leaving him standing in the life preserver and his underwear. But at least he knew he would be buoyant. He wished—oh God, he wished—he could help some of the other passengers. If he were able to see, maybe he could do something, but he was a blind man with a dog on a doomed ferryboat, and all he could do was pray for his own and others’ survival. And he believed God was listening, even though he continued to hear the screams of the people as some of them reached the upper deck. For some odd reason he thought of Antwone Carver, understanding what it must have been like for the Marine to listen to his friends’ cries as they burned in the Humvee.
Now there were new sounds, as people began to leap into the sea. He knew that it was important to get away from a sinking vessel so that you wouldn’t be sucked down in the vortex. He decided it was time for him and Nelson to join some of the others and try to save themselves.
“Okay, Nelson,” he said to the big dog, “you and I are going to get that swim after all. Come on, boy. Come on.”
Brenden leaned out over the railing, trying to feel whether it actually marked the edge of the boat or whether the decks below might protrude farther out. He wondered how far he would have to jump to clear any obstacles. He wasn’t sure. And how would he make the dog understand what he wanted?
“I’m sorry, Nelson,” he said, bending down. “We’re going to have to do it this way, boy.”
Brenden picked up the surprised animal and balanced him on top of the rail.
“Go, Nelson,” he said. “Go on, boy. Jump.” The dog turned his head back to his master, not understanding what he wanted.
“Go on, Nelson. I said jump.”
Still the dog didn’t get it, so, holding the animal on the railing, Brenden climbed up next to him, breathing hard. Taking the dog’s collar in his left hand and reaching back with his right, he braced himself for a second on the edge and then pushed off into space, dragging the animal with him. The fall reminded him of going off the high board in a pool; maybe twenty feet to the water. But holding on to Nelson’s collar and pushing off with his right hand, Brenden certainly was not aerodynamic; as they catapulted down, his trailing arm caught the side of the ship, and he heard the sickening sound of snapping bone as he and Nelson hit the water.
For a moment the shock of the cold numbed the pain in his arm and shoulder, but when it came, Brenden was overwhelmed by nausea. Nearly blacking out, he somehow found Nelson next to him—right where he should be—and locked the fingers of his left hand around the dog’s harness handle. With his right arm useless, all he could do was keep his head above water and kick his legs. He fought back his own panic and reminded himself that the intelligent animal was still strong and capable. And would do anything for him.
“Nelson,” he said, “take me home, boy. Take us home.”
Swallowing salt water, he coughed and then spoke again to the animal.
“Let’s go, boy. Let’s go, Nelson. We’ve got to go home. Come on, Nelson.”
Through the harness Brenden felt Nelson raise his head, then he heard him sniff the air, turning his neck from side to side as he worked to gain his bearings. The instincts of survival and home, developed over the years by dogs of all breeds, provided the black Lab with no doubt about what his master wanted and what he had to do to get there. After a few more seconds, he began to swim, dragging his injured master through the ocean’s murky darkness.
The mayday call had gone out from the ferry within forty-five seconds of the collision, and five minutes later two fireboats, along with a Coast Guard patrol cutter, were moving. Though the fog was even thicker now, air-sea rescue also dispatched a helicopter equipped with a powerful Zeon light to aid in the visual search for passengers.
BRIAN WAS BUILDING WITH blocks, and Mora was playing with her dolls upstairs in her room.
Kat was preparing a salad for dinner while she watched the local news on a small television mounted in the kitchen. Though she was only half listening to the anchors, she nearly cut her hand with the knife she had been holding when she heard the female anchor say, “We have just been told that the Bainbridge Ferry has collided with an unknown craft. Coast Guard and fire rescue have been dispatched, and we’re doing our best to stay on top of this developing story. At this moment we only know that it was the four o’clock crossing. The ticket manifest indicated a hundred and thirty-five passengers on board. Please stay with Eyewitness News for further details.”
Kat stood frozen, her mind spinning. When will Brenden be coming home? He normally takes the five o’clock boat. Will that be the case tonight? She prayed he was only now leaving work, and she picked up the phone and dialed his cell. After three rings, the voice she loved came on the line.
“You’ve reached Dr. Brenden McCarthy,” it said. “Please leave your name, phone number, and a message, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can. And have a great day.”
Kat’s heart raced as she hung up the phone. A great day? She began to panic. Where was Brenden? Where was her husband?
She heard Mora talking to her dolls upstairs, and Brian called her, asking for help with his homework. Life stops—life goes on, she thought. What to do? She called a friend who lived two doors down.
“Annie,” she said, “have you seen the news?”
“Yes,” her friend said. “You’re worried about Brenden. What can I do to help?”
“Could you come up and stay with the children for a while? I have to go to the docks.”
“I know,” her friend said. “I’ll be right there.”
BRENDEN WAS WILLING HIS legs to move, to keep kicking, to help Nelson keep him alive.
His brain was idly speculating whether the cold water was controlling the pain in his shoulder or just killing him. All he knew was that it was cold, incredibly cold. He
knew about the swims that triathletes sometimes made—Alcatraz, for example, when the water temperature was in the high forties to low fifties—but the athletes were in wet suits. How long could you live in water like this before your body just gave up and you drowned? Maybe an hour, he thought.
But that wasn’t true for Nelson, and Nelson was his hope. With Nelson, the question was his strength. How far would they have to go? Brenden didn’t even know whether they were headed back toward the mainland or home to Bainbridge. He tried to remember how long they had been moving when the collision happened, and he decided they were about three quarters of the way to the island. Maybe that was the decision Nelson had made. He just didn’t know.
He wondered whether he should have just gotten clear of the sinking boat and then stayed where he was, but the dog would not have understood; the only way for Brenden to move away from the sinking ship was to tell Nelson to take him home, and that’s what the great animal was doing—pulling, pulling, pulling his master home.
Brenden could hear the dog’s labored breathing as the animal struggled against the current. For a moment, Brenden considered releasing his friend from his burden by dropping the harness and allowing Nelson to survive on his own. He flashed back to the time, eight years ago, when he had been so overwhelmed by his sudden blindness that he decided to end his life by sitting down in the middle of a busy street. But Nelson had refused to let him die. The big Lab risked his own life to save his master’s then, and he was doing it again now.
Then he heard it—a seagull’s cry. He must be moving closer to the shore.
Had God placed these flying creatures in his life to act as angels? Moving him on a chosen path? He considered and shook his head in the dark. As the cold gripped him in its icy fingers, he willed himself to keep his legs moving, to survive, to live for Kat and their children.
In the distance, he began to hear a sound that at first he couldn’t identify. What was it? He knew it, but he couldn’t quite pull it into his tiring brain—and then he got it. It was the sound of waves breaking on the shore! They were getting closer to land; he could hear it.