“Not really, but he could swim better than me. Dennis always joked that I looked like a chicken when I swam.”
Ruth laughed, put down her notepad, and settled in her chair. “Sounds like you were both enjoying the day.”
Franklin continued, “I looked down and noticed the reflection of a few small clouds in the water. I tried to sense their movement across the lake, but I couldn’t tell because of the ripples generated by the rise and fall of the boat. Minutes later, when I looked up, they had increased in number. I asked Dennis if it was supposed to rain. I hadn’t even checked the weather report that morning. He said he hoped it would. That fish loved to bite during a rain.
“Soon the clouds filled the sky, and only shafts of sunlight streamed through between them. I remember holding my palm out, waiting for the rain to start.
“‘You think we should head in?’ I asked. Dennis laughed. He said, ‘Don’t be such a wuss. Haven’t you ever been caught in the rain before? It’ll probably pass in a few minutes.’”
Ruth folded her hands in her lap and laughed at Dennis’s remark. This was the most relaxed Franklin had been since she’d met him. Then he leaned forward and picked up the pace of his story.
“The attack of the storm was subtle,” he said. “First those small lone clouds gathered and combined into bigger clouds in what just minutes before had been a clear afternoon sky.”
Franklin closed his eyes and again saw the dark-gray clouds begin to arrive from the north, pushing their way into the gathering, their count increasing, until the dark clouds outnumbered the white. He remembered the tenor of the moment changing. The new gray clouds bumped and merged with the original white puffs agitating them, provoking them. Then he recalled the battle. The dark clouds ebbed and flowed. They began to look like hills and valleys and then massive mountain peaks, towering up for what seemed like miles into the sky.
“It was frightening,” he said as he opened his eyes. “The surface of the clouds began to boil and churn until they transformed into a raging sea.”
Ruth wrote on her notepad: Franklin does have a way with words.
“Then the rain began. A huge bolt of lightning leaped from one dark peak to another. It made a loud hissing and crackling noise. We ducked down in the boat, shielding our eyes and cringing at the explosive sound of the thunder. The trees on the shoreline seemed to be dancing to a flickering strobe light show, like in a disco club. They had those back then.”
“Yes, unfortunately I’m old enough to remember them,” Ruth said, nodding.
“A sharp crack of thunder shook the far bank; the echo seemed to roll on and on and on. The storm had arrived,” Franklin said.
“I would imagine that was enough to get Dennis to pack up and leave,” Ruth offered.
“Yeah, I think he was as scared as I was, although he would never let on. He struggled to the engine, fighting his way through gusts of wind. The boat kept turning. We were being pushed farther out into the choppy water. The shoreline had receded into a faint, misty band at the limit of our vision. The rain was now coming down in sheets, making a pool out of the bottom of the boat. I grabbed a bait can and started to bail water over the side. The water was up to our ankles and still rising. Dennis pulled on the starter cord, yanking again and again. The engine only coughed and popped. He adjusted the choke, and he advanced the throttle. He tried everything. Then he pulled again with all his might. I could see tension in the muscles of his arms. The engine sputtered and coughed, but started running. Dennis worked at the throttle and choke, desperate to keep the wheezing motor alive. Soon the rasping sound became smooth, and the engine roared.
“‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘Help me bail some of this water before we’re swamped.’ Dennis left the engine idling, grabbed another bait can, and moved to the bow. Both of us bailed as fast as we could, splashing as much water on each other as back into the lake. There was still about six inches of water in the boat, but we were going to make it.”
Ruth blew a breath of relief. “You must have felt ecstatic when the engine started.”
“At that moment we did, but an instant later the whole world turned white. A loud buzzing clogged my ears, and the smell of ozone filled my nostrils. I didn’t even know what ozone was back then, but I learned later. Anyway, my muscles started to twitch uncontrollably, and I fell facedown in the bow of the boat.”
“You were struck by lightning?”
“Practically cut the outboard motor in two. I pieced together what happened later. At the time, I must have been unconscious. The next thing I remember was Dennis lifting me by the collar and flipping me onto my back. I think there was smoke and steam rising from my clothes. I remember Dennis breathing life back into me and pressing on my chest until I choked the water from my lungs. He smoothed the wet hair from my forehead, pressed his cheek to my face, and told me that I was going to be all right.”
Franklin placed a finger under his glasses to catch a tear before it fell, and so did Ruth.
He sniffed and went on, “The outboard motor and part of the stern had been demolished by a nearby lightning strike. Maybe it was the high rubber boots that Dennis was wearing that insulated him from the charge. Maybe it was an act of God, but Dennis was unscathed—dazed but unharmed. He propped me up against the bulkhead. I remember he looked right in my eyes. He held my face with both hands and shouted over the storm. He told me that the boat would stay afloat. That he was going to swim ashore and get help. Just stay put, he said, and he would be back in a few minutes.
“I shook my head. I didn’t want him to go, but I couldn’t speak. Then he slipped off his boots, dived over the side, and was gone.
“It seemed like I lay there for hours. The boat was rocking, and I was so sick I vomited onto my own shoulder. I didn’t even have the strength or the coordination to roll onto my side.
“All I kept thinking was—he left me. I’ve been a terrible friend, and he left me. Why did he leave me? I wouldn’t have left him, I told myself, but the truth of the matter was I had left him long ago.
“I thought about how close we had been for so many years. Dennis had always been my strongest ally and my most loyal supporter. I always thought of him as my avenging angel, quick to rebuke anyone who disrespected me. I should have been a better friend. I shouldn’t have let Myra separate us. I let Dennis down, and now I was going to pay for it with my life. He was not coming back.
“I wiped my hand across my eyes to clear my vision. Some of it was rain, but most of it was tears. I felt weak and nauseated. It was time to sleep. I was so tired. Then something bumped against the crippled boat. A hand grasped my collar and lifted me to a sitting position. My eyes began to clear, and the face of the man holding me came into focus. I never felt so relieved or joyful to see anyone. Dennis had come back with a fisherman who lived near the lakeshore. He pressed his forehead against mine and said, ‘Franklin, are you all right?’” He paused.
“Franklin, are you all right?” Ruth Klein asked.
“Fine, I’m fine,” Franklin said, blinking and shaking his head to focus his attention back to the present day.
Ruth poured a glass of water and handed it to him. “It was a marvelous story. You must have been traumatized. Was there any permanent damage from the lightning strike?”
Franklin looked at his cane leaning against the couch as he wiped the sweat from his forehead and dried his eyes with a tissue.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said, chastising herself for the thoughtless comment. “I think I understand a little about the bond that you and Dennis shared. If he’s here, why hasn’t he spoken to you?”
“Well, when we finally parted company, we were not on the best terms. I wasn’t a good friend.”
“But it sounds like he loved you.”
“Maybe once, but if you’re rejected enough, love can turn to hate.”
“Do you think he hates you now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if the man I saw was really Dennis.” Franklin
got up and walked back to the window. “It’s been more than twenty-five years. It was probably somebody else. I think that’s enough for today. I need to go.”
Ruth stood and watched Franklin as he walked directly to the door and left without another word.
***
Ruth sat reflecting on the session for quite a while before beginning to edit her notes. She had been so enraptured by the story that her note-taking was sparse at best. However, her recollection of the story Franklin had told was clear and vivid. She shuddered as she relived the lightning strike, and her eyes again became moist as she noted the tearful reunion of two friends.
Ruth had never had a really close friend. There were girls in college that she’d hung out with, but never anyone close enough to share her problems or help her with difficult decisions. Her father was always there for her and willing to listen, but there were things a young woman just couldn’t share with a father. Maybe when Emma grows a little older we could…
“Session notes, session notes, you’re writing session notes,” she scolded and directed her focus back to her notebook. She wrote:
Franklin is exhibiting feelings of guilt relative to the demise of his friendship with Dennis. Whether or not the person he observed outside the office window was really his old friend is moot. It is possible that these feelings of guilt are the cause of the insomnia he is experiencing and the nightmares that plague what little sleep he achieves. He may even have found some other, as yet unknown, way of punishing himself.
Ruth began to plan her approach to resolve Franklin’s guilt. If Dennis had returned, the best course of action would be for Franklin to make amends and mitigate his guilt. At least it would be a start.
Satisfied, Ruth closed Franklin’s file and stuffed it into her file drawer.
8
Franklin kicked off his covers and staggered barefoot to the bathroom. He rubbed his hand across his face and scratched the three-day growth of stubble on his chin. Squinting into the mirror over the sink, he opened his mouth and looked at the fuzzy tan coating on his tongue. He massaged the dark circles under his eyes and tried to smooth down the hair on the left side of his head. It was the side on which he had been lying, off and on, as he tossed and turned for the last four hours, trying to fall asleep.
Franklin didn’t want his nightmares to get the better of him, but he kept finding it harder and harder to sleep for fear of having another frightening dream. He opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed the three bottles of pills from the bottom shelf, and placed them in a row on the sink. One by one he held them up to the light to read the label. It would have been easier had he taken his glasses from the nightstand, but Franklin wasn’t thinking at his best. He yawned deeply and opened the bottle he assumed was Ambien and took out two pills. They were pink and oblong. He felt sure that Ambien was the only pill in his medicine cabinet shaped like that; besides, if he was wrong and it was something that would kill him, he would welcome it. At least he wouldn’t be awake. He tossed the pills into his mouth and bent over the sink to drink directly from the faucet.
He sat on the side of the tub, closed the drain lever, and adjusted the water to run a hot bath. While the tub was filling, Franklin shuffled in his bare feet to the kitchen and warmed a cup of milk. By the time he returned to his big soaking tub with its rows of bubble jets, the tub was three-quarters full. It was time to pull out all the stops. He opened a box of bubble bath and shook in half the box. The mounds of suds nourished by the churning hot water formed peaks rising high above the rim of the tub.
A nice soft bath towel was next on the list. Franklin chose a large blue bath sheet and pulled it from the stack in the linen closet. Threads were hanging from its frayed edges. He wound them around his fingers and tore them off with his teeth. It looked like time to buy some new towels. Being a bachelor again had its benefits, but it had its drawbacks too. Franklin had always depended on Myra for domestic chores like buying linens and household items. Things were starting to wear out. She could have stocked the house before she divorced me, he thought. That would have been the right thing to do.
Franklin hung his bathrobe on a hook next to the tub, stepped out of his pajamas, and tossed them into the hamper. He shook his head to chase away the thoughts of Myra. He had taken the divorce hard. It wasn’t that he thought he still loved her. It was more because he never understood why she left him. He glanced in the mirror and noticed how the last two years of sitting around and eating lots of any kind of food he wanted had changed him from a hard-bodied young man to the softer, overnourished fellow in his reflection. He raised his arms and flexed his biceps at the mirror. “You look ridiculous,” he said. “Knock off the muffins and ice cream before you give yourself a heart attack, you jerk.”
One more big yawn and he stepped into the tub. Steam was rising through the patches of bubbles, and he had to lower himself very slowly into the water. He grunted and groaned several times, and after a final long sigh, he was settled in. He leaned back, rested his head against the rim of the tub, and stretched out to his full length. Within minutes the tension in his body that had accumulated over days of limited sleep began to dissolve away into the warm water. With a long exhale, he closed his eyes and began to relax.
Just as his mind cleared and he began to slip into a light sleep, he heard a noise. Damn it, he thought, I can’t catch a break.
He opened his eyes. “What the…?”
A woman wearing a nightgown had run into his bathroom. She ran barefoot across the tile floor, slightly out of breath, her breasts heaving under her sheer lingerie. Although he couldn’t see her face, he could sense panic in her rapid movements. She looked over her shoulder back at the bathroom doorway and hurriedly began to open the vanity drawers, throwing things out onto the floor as she searched. The long black hair that flew behind her as she ran into the room now covered most of her face as she bent over the drawers. Franklin stared, mesmerized. Her figure was stunning. The muscles of her naked torso tensed under the sheer fabric of the nightgown as she moved from drawer to drawer until her hand closed around the object of her search.
Franklin grasped the sides of the tub to lift himself out of the water, and then he quickly dropped back in as a second person ran into the room. He pulled the towel in over his body. The towel would afford no protection from the intruder, but he covered himself almost as a reflex, a reaction to his vulnerability, like a drowning man grabbing at twigs that couldn’t possibly keep him afloat.
The woman wheeled around to face her attacker, a long pair of stainless steel scissors held like a dagger in her hand. The man had a nylon stocking pulled over his head. He stood in a crouch with his arms spread wide at his sides, his hands flexing, anticipating the feel of his prey. They slowly circled the room in a standoff between a powerful aggressor and a would-be victim who was now armed.
Long black streaks of eye makeup mixed with tears ran down her face. Drops of blood from her nose covered her upper lip. She sniffed and wiped the droplets of blood with the back of her free hand, forming a smear that covered her right cheek. Through the fog of steam rising from the tub, Franklin could see the determination in her eyes, a determination that was only slightly betrayed by a soft whimper as she wielded the scissors.
They continued to move in a slow circle around the bathroom. Each breathed heavily, trying to anticipate the other’s next move. A quick feint to the left by the man caused the woman to strike out with the scissors, but the man dodged the blow and grabbed her shoulder with his right hand and her throat with his left. She raised the scissors again, and this time she thrust them squarely at his chest.
Her worries would have been over had he not turned quickly to the left, causing the blades to miss their mark and to catch in his shirt pocket. With a grunt he ripped his shirt free, released her shoulder, and grabbed the scissors out of her hand. She twisted left, breaking his grip on her neck, and began to run from the room. As his fingers slipped from her neck, they closed around the top of her nig
htgown, ripping it to her waist. The woman ran screaming with her arms folded in front of her, protecting her breasts.
The man stood in the center of the bathroom with the scissors in one hand and the torn top of her nightgown in the other. Franklin looked up from the tub into the man’s face. The nose was bent to one side and the lips were pressed into a wide sneer by the stocking mask, but the face was not so obscured that Franklin couldn’t recognize the evil in its stare. Franklin lay motionless, trembling. He took little note of the sudden warmth spreading across his legs as his bladder emptied.
The man took one step toward the tub. Franklin flailed his feet, thrashing wildly, trying to get up, his hands and feet losing what little grip they had on the tub’s bottom and his body sliding down until his head slipped under the water. He could hear his heart beating wildly, trying to break free of his chest. It pounded among the bubbles and echoed off the sides of the tub into his water-filled ears.
Through the soap film he could see the man looking down at him. Franklin was alone, naked, and more vulnerable than he had ever been, but he was determined not to be drowned in his own tub. Not without at least putting up a good fight. His eyes burned in the soapy water and his lungs ached for a breath of air, but he wasn’t beaten yet. He forced both hands to the bottom of the tub and pushed down as hard as he could to raise his head out of the water. He broke the surface, coughing and gasping for air. He grabbed the side of the tub for support, waiting to feel the force of being pushed back down under the water. A moment passed. Nothing happened. Franklin opened his eyes, but his vision was still blurred from the soapy water. He waved his arms furiously in the direction of his assailant, and then slowly, as his eyes cleared, he realized that he was alone in the room.
Slipping and sliding on the wet tile floor, Franklin reached for his robe and pulled it from its hook with a rip. He grabbed at the bathroom hamper and leaned on it for support until he regained his balance. His hands fumbled through the pockets of his robe to retrieve his glasses until he remembered that he had left them on the nightstand. He stood, one hand on each side of the doorway, breathing heavily and squinting as he scanned the bedroom. The room seemed different somehow.
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