Over the Falls

by Rebecca Hodge

  Finally, he turned to face me, apparently recalling the inconvenient little detail that he had a son. “I didn’t want to leave you, Josh. It killed me to do it—it’s been killing me every day, all these years—but I had to run. I had to protect you all. I had no other choice.”

  “Nice try, Sawyer.” Bryn’s voice had a vicious edge that made her sound like someone I’d never met. “Act like you’ve been out here pining away for your son, lonely and deprived. Bullshit. You were the one who screwed up. You were the one who left. You were the one who ended up rich.”

  Dad looked at me like he wanted me to understand, but by then I didn’t know what to believe. He’d left with all that money? He’d tried to protect us? He was a thief? He was my dad? It all swirled around in my head, mushing together into a brown mess that didn’t make sense.

  He flinched, like whatever he saw in my face was a hard slap.

  Bryn shook her head. “So you crashed the plane. You let the world think you were dead.”

  Dad dropped his head into his hands. “I was screwed. I had to leave. And once I left, I couldn’t do anything that would let anyone know I was alive.”

  Bryn looked at him the way I’d look at something gross and slimy, and she didn’t say anything.

  But some of my garbled thinking straightened itself out, and all at once I had plenty to say. “So you took millions of dollars and left Mom working at a grocery? You took millions of dollars and left me juggling her credit card bills and begging for used computers and worrying about whether I could ever even go to college?”

  I heard the anger in my voice, and yes, I was angry about every one of those things. But I was angry about plenty more than the money. This whole I-was-protecting-you thing was bullshit. If he’d wanted to let us know he was alive, he could have done it. Instead, he just stayed gone. Not there for homework or video games. Not there to teach me how to kayak or camp. Not there while Mom drank and took pills and hung out with guys like Carl.

  If Carl was evil, how much worse was what my own father had done? He’d left in order to save his own skin. Hatred boiled up inside me, red and hot and scary.

  I was on my feet with my fists clenched. He just sat there, hunched and staring at the floor, not even giving me any sort of answer. “Where’s Mom? What have you done to her?”

  Bryn reached toward me like she was going to try to calm me down, but I sidestepped out of range. I didn’t want to calm down. Not then. Not ever.

  Sawyer—I couldn’t think of him as Dad anymore—gave me an anguished look. It might have been enough to make me regret how pissed off I was if I still gave a shit. “I haven’t hurt her. Honest. I’ve been trying to help.”

  “Yeah. Right.” It was hard for me to force the words out.

  “What’s happened to her? Tell us.” Bryn’s voice was so quiet I could hardly hear her.

  Dad looked at her and then down at his hands. “When I went to town and scouted around to find whoever it was who was looking for me, I figured maybe I could pay her off … make her promise not to say anything. Del had been hanging out in one of the bars, but I missed her—the bartender told me she’d just left.”

  He ran a hand over his forehead like he was trying to sop up the sweat that dribbled there. “When I stepped out of the bar, I heard a bunch of people yelling for help, and I ran over to see what was going on. Somehow, I knew. And sure enough, it was Del. Right there. On the ground. Unconscious. The others were freaking out, making noise but not doing anything, so I did what I could. She wasn’t breathing. No heartbeat. I did CPR until the ambulance came.”

  “And?”

  His face twitched with a flicker of guilt, and I waited for him to tell me something awful. Maybe he was lying about rehab and my mother was really dead. I braced myself for it. Told myself I could take it. I’d wondered for weeks if she was gone forever, and now that was what I expected to hear.

  He turned his empty bottle around and around in his hands, as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “She’s alive. But the combination of alcohol and whatever kind of pills she was taking stopped her breathing for a long time. There’s serious damage. They don’t know if she’ll ever get better.”

  I rocked onto my feet, the room spinning. All I could see was red. Pulsing red. Flowing red. Red that was alive. Red hatred for Sawyer and Bryn and Tellico and even for Mom.

  I staggered toward the door, retching as I went, desperate for space, desperate for air. Most of all, I was desperate to believe none of this was real.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Bryn

  I was glad Josh had left. Sawyer’s words about Del’s condition hung in the air, the sort of news that cuts through skin and muscle and bone to slice deep and leave a scar. “What do you mean? Serious damage? Where is she?”

  “Like I said, it’s a rehab facility just outside of town. They’re good, Bryn. Addiction patients. Long-term care. If anyone can help her, they can.”

  “And what? You paid them off to not let us know what had happened?”

  He jerked back like I’d punched him, and all I felt was deep satisfaction. I wanted to do more. I wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me. Like he’d hurt Josh.

  “No. I told them I was her husband. I used identification with my old name. I told them there wasn’t any other family. Just me.”

  “And Del’s too out of it to even try and call Josh?”

  He gave me a look of such pity, I dreaded whatever came next. “You don’t get it, Bryn. She barely speaks. She can’t dress or feed herself. She walks, sits, sleeps, but it’s a body with no person inside.”

  He paused, which was good because it took a moment for those words to burn their way in.

  Sawyer watched my face, and after a moment he went on. “I’ve taken photos of Josh in to show her, photos off his online accounts, and I’m not sure she even knows who he is.”

  “And you never even tried to let anyone know where she was?”

  He looked away. “I needed time. Needed to put some things in place. You would have been notified in the end.”

  His phrasing was odd, but I was too upset to try to figure out what he meant. “So, let me get this straight. You just go on your merry way—head out to a kayak competition, do some rodeo flips, have a good old time while Del is on her own? Talk about needing time is just bullshit. You’re still just trying to hide. You’re still just trying to protect yourself.”

  He was shaking his head, trying to deny it, but I wasn’t buying any protest.

  I walked to the windows that looked over the surrounding woods. Josh sat huddled on the front steps, out of hearing, his face buried in Tellico’s neck. I needed to go out, see how he was dealing with this, but I had to pull myself together first.

  I’d hated Del for so many years. Blamed her for so many of the things that hadn’t gone right in my own life. No husband. No child. Turning Landon down for fear of yet another betrayal. Josh’s arrival had stirred it all up again. His presence had tempered my anger as I worried on his behalf, but anger and resentment had been the anchors that kept me stable for more than a decade.

  Even with those years of anger behind me, I would never wish something like this on Del. My sister. My poor sister. Brain damaged. It was the only way to label Sawyer’s description. The words exploded in my head, destroying my carefully rehearsed speeches, all the words I had planned to throw at her. I had envisioned ways to humiliate her, ways to get under that obnoxious I-won-and-you-lost surface that she loved to face me with. But this horror Sawyer was describing was too much.

  Then I caught myself. Sawyer had lied before. Had been lying for years. Maybe this, too, was a lie. Another way to hurt and deceive.

  I turned back to him. “You need to take us there. I want to see her. Now.”

  “Of course.”

  He straightened, as though bracing himself for what came next. “I know it doesn’t seem like it—ducking you at the freestyle like I did—but I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I got t
o see Josh, even if just for a short while. He has every reason to hate me—I get that—but there are a few things I want to tell him.”

  “Why? To spin more lies? To try and get him on your side? You’ve had more than a decade to tell him things, but you’ve hidden out here instead.”

  “You’re right not to trust me. But these last few weeks since Del showed up, I’ve taken a step back to look at things. Everything I told you and Josh was true. I left with the money because I didn’t think I had a choice. But marriage to Del was hell, and I admit that was a factor. And I hoped getting away would make me miss you less. Hate myself less.” He gulped. “It didn’t work. None of it worked.”

  I said nothing. Sawyer had dug his own pit of hell. I wasn’t about to reach in and pull him out. And I wasn’t about to force Josh to listen to a lot of crap.

  But being here, talking to Sawyer, hearing him say he missed me, brought back so much. I took a deep breath and tried to set aside my fury. Maybe there were things I needed to say too. “Remember that painting? The one we bought together in West Virginia?”

  He nodded.

  “Del had it stashed in a storage shed. When I looked at it, all the good times we’d had came rushing back. The love. The travel. The plans we’d made for the future. We bought a painting that neither of us could afford, imagining ourselves together when we hung it. You destroyed all of that. You destroyed all of that long before you opened a deposit box.”

  “I’m sorry, Bryn. I can’t undo any of it.”

  He waited for me to say something more, but I just shook my head, suddenly bone tired.

  Sawyer turned away and leaned against the refrigerator, staring down at the floor. “I’m not looking for sympathy, but hiding like this, jumpy all the time, waiting to be found out … it’s no way to live. I’ve tried these last few weeks to set a few things right. I can’t keep on like this, not now.”

  He said he wasn’t looking for sympathy, but part of me hated to see him this tortured. When I thought about what he’d left behind, what he’d missed in Josh’s life, all that money didn’t seem a fair trade-off.

  I stiffened my backbone. If I was going to feel sorry for someone, it should be Del or Josh. And I couldn’t lose sight of Carl and his threats. “Enough. We need to go now. Take us to Del.”

  I opened the door to let Josh know, but he wasn’t there on the steps any longer. Went out onto the porch, but he still wasn’t in sight. Walked out to the truck to check the cab, curious but not yet worried. He wasn’t there either.

  “Josh!” Silence. “Josh! We’re going to go see your mom!” Nothing.

  Sawyer came out on the porch. He was weaving slightly, but I would have been unconscious after downing the amount of alcohol he’d just consumed. “Not here?” He looked around as if he expected Josh to pop out of hiding.

  I shook my head. “Tellico!” Odds were good they were together. “Tellico!” That second time was louder, and a faint bark came in response. “They must be down by the river.”

  Sawyer grunted some sort of acknowledgment, and we headed in that direction. Josh had been forced to absorb far too much in the past few days. We would no doubt find him sitting on the bank, staring out over the moving water, sorting through his turmoil with Tellico beside him. I would give Josh a hug. Let him know we’d figure it all out. See if I could be a proper aunt for a change.

  Despite such reassuring self-talk, I was anxious by the time I reached the top of the long flight of stairs that led down to the river.

  “Josh!” I still couldn’t see him, but Tellico stood below, looking downriver and whining. Looking downriver. Fear seized me by the throat, shaking me off balance, and I had to lean on the handrail for a second to keep from falling. I raced down the stairs, my heart jolting in my chest with every tread. Sawyer’s feet thudded hard behind me.

  The staging area by the river was small, a narrow clearing carved out of the woods, and it took only a single glance to confirm Josh wasn’t there. The door of the storage shed stood open, and I hurried to look inside, illogically hoping he might be hiding there.

  “Oh my god.” Sawyer’s voice was panicked, and I spun around. He stared at the boat rack, his face bleached white. “One of the kayaks is gone.”

  The rack had held three full-size kayaks. Now there were two.

  What had Josh done? My fear converted into a full-fledged adrenaline storm, my heart pounding high in my throat, my arms and legs trembling.

  I raced to the edge of the water and looked down the mountainside, Tellico anxiously nosing at my leg. The river was deceptively calm here, and Josh may not have realized that was temporary. Maybe he had run aground at once. Or realized his mistake and turned toward shore. But all I could see from that vantage point was churning white froth that disappeared around a sharp bend twenty yards away.

  “What’s downriver?”

  “This is the top of the Silver Run. Two chains of Class IIIs just down from here, then a tricky fifteen-foot waterfall. If he makes it through that, the river calms for a while, but lower down it’s completely impassable—a genuine deathtrap.” He snapped the words, moving fast, already flipping the second kayak over, grabbing paddle, rope bag, helmet, gloves, and vest from the shed.

  His own adrenaline must have been overriding the vast quantity of tequila he’d consumed, because he moved with the same efficiency I remembered from so many years before.

  “How much experience does Josh have?” He zipped into his flotation vest and crammed his helmet in place.

  “None. We went canoeing one afternoon. That’s it. Nothing on whitewater.” I’d told him he was a natural. Heaped praise on his beginner efforts. He probably thought he was ready for anything.

  “I’ve got to stop him before he hits the falls. Bring the other boat. I need your help.”

  In an instant, he was in his kayak, digging in hard with his paddle. He disappeared downriver in only seconds. Tellico danced along the bank, barking.

  I stood still for a moment, unable to force my legs forward through the fear that paralyzed me. For fourteen years, I’d stuck to calm placid lakes. Water that didn’t attack, didn’t fight back, didn’t try to kill me.

  But Josh needed me. I had to go.

  I ran toward the shed. Grabbed helmet, vest, and paddle. Searched for a second rope bag. Not there.

  I wasted precious seconds looking in a storage chest. Found nothing.

  No time.

  I slid into vest and helmet, flipped the remaining full-size kayak off the rack, pushed it into the water. Grabbed the paddle and waded in, heedless of my soaking wet tennis shoes. The water, recent snowmelt, was bitterly cold. Tellico whined from the shore.

  “Stay, boy. Stay with the truck. I’ll be back.”

  I straddled the boat, ready to get in and launch, and that’s when the full force of what I was about to do hit me. Whitewater. Class III rapids and a fifteen-foot waterfall. For an instant, I was back in the Chattooga, trapped and crushed by hundreds of pounds of river, unable to move. I was back in every nightmare I’d had since that day.

  The river tugged at the kayak, and I was shaking so hard, I almost lost hold.

  I couldn’t do this.

  My stomach clenched, my lungs seized, and my heart tried to climb out of my ribcage.

  I had to do this. I had no choice.

  Ten minutes earlier, I would have sworn I would never again battle a river. Now, I had to fight. I had to win.

  I took a deep breath, hoping for comfort, but it did nothing to steady me. Landon would help if he were here. I thrust the out-of-place thought aside, but the idea he’d be in my corner gave me enough strength to move.

  I swung my feet into the cockpit, slid my butt into the seat and my legs into the thigh hooks. The boat slipped into the frothy current. I took a few tentative strokes, the awkward strokes of a total amateur. Come on, woman, you know how to read a river. Get your shit together.

  My paddling settled into a more confident rhythm. In only a few mi
nutes, I reached the first set of real rapids, whitecaps and a loud rumble, but easy to read. I stayed to the left, did a hard-right pivot, then took a straight shot between a pair of huge boulders and rode a long washboard of whitewater downhill. One set down.

  My old paddling patterns started to return. My breathing slowed. My timing was still off, but I hadn’t screwed up yet. I was doing better than I had any right to expect.

  I scanned both riverbanks, looking for Josh, for Sawyer, for an overturned boat.

  Nothing.

  Josh must have made it through this first set, and now there was no easy way for him to change his mind. The river had narrowed, with high, steep banks. It would have been impossible to pull in to shore even if he knew he was in trouble and wanted to escape.

  I gained speed over a short stretch of flatwater, then hit the second set of rapids Sawyer had mentioned. Plan. Think ahead. Don’t screw up.

  This one was trickier. I mistimed one of my turns and scraped hard against a boulder, fiberglass scraping across stone, the screech broadcasting my incompetence. The small bit of confidence I’d scraped together vaporized instantly. I couldn’t do this. Everything around me tossed me back to the day of the accident—the roar of the water, the harsh pull of the paddle against the current, even the freshwater smell of the churning river. Panic blindsided me once again. I tried to force my terror to one side, but it refused to be confined.

  The river narrowed even more, entering a canyon with sheer walls on either side. A heavy rumble of falling water came from up ahead—the waterfall—and a suffocating new wave of fear swept in. I was going to die. I was going to lose everyone and everything I’d been trying to save—Landon, Josh, Del, my homestead. It wasn’t Carl who would destroy me. I was taking care of that on my own.