by Watt Key
“Well,” she said, “this is certainly a change for the better.”
Before she even shut off the Range Rover I saw Dad coming out the front door wiping his hands on a dishrag. It was like he’d stepped out of the picture I’d had of him in my mind. Same old plaid shirt, cutoff khaki shorts, and flip-flops. His hair was still a wild, unmanageable mop of gray, but his smile made me feel warm all over.
I got out of the car and ran to hug him. He squeezed me like a big bear, and I breathed in the smell of him, salt and sweat and a trace of Old Spice. After a moment I pulled away and grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the Range Rover. Mom already had the back open and was reaching in for my bags. I felt Dad’s hand trembling. Since their split he was always awkward and nervous around her.
“Hey, Barbara,” he said.
Mom held one of my bags out to him and he took it from her. “How are you, Gib?”
“Good,” he replied, and reached in for my other suitcase. “I’ve got this,” he said.
Dad backed away with the bags while Mom shut the door.
“You want to come inside?” he asked.
Mom hesitated. “I suppose I’ll stay for a minute,” she said. “To help Julie get situated.”
We followed Dad through the front door and into the living room. The house had not looked so clean since Mom and I had moved out two years before.
“Well, Gib, this is certainly an improvement,” Mom commented.
I saw a smile appear at the edge of Dad’s mouth. It was obvious he was trying to impress her, but I was a little confused about the timing of it all.
We followed him into my room. I always found it strange seeing my old pictures and toys and even the bedspread and pillows still exactly as I’d left them the year before. Dad set my bags on my bed. Then he backed away as Mom came past him.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said.
Mom helped me get unpacked. Then after a while she walked out and said some things to Dad that I couldn’t hear. When I came out of my room I saw them standing side by side and imagined for a moment that they were still together. That we were all still here in the house like we used to be. But then Mom turned and looked at me, and I knew it was time for her to go.
“Okay, Julie,” she said.
I walked with her out to the car.
“Be safe,” was all she said.
“I will,” I said.
I gave her a hug and watched her back out and drive away. I remember wanting her gone. Now I felt guilty about that and wished I’d said more to her before she left.
9
There’s a thing I heard all the time from Dad about Mother Nature. She doesn’t mind you admiring her, but she lets you know if you’ve gotten too close and overstayed your welcome. And if she feels disrespected and finds you vulnerable, stripped of all your comforts and safety, she’ll throw challenges at you. She’ll make sure you don’t forget for a second who’s really in control. If you get too close, you’ll find she’s really a very mean lady.
The waves were growing taller, and I guessed we were bobbing and drifting in three- to four-foot swells. Not only was it hard holding on to the Jordans, but it was going to be difficult for Dad to see us. I took Shane’s speargun from him, removed my mask, and tied it to the tip of the spear. My mask frame was neon yellow and the best thing I had to make a sort of flag. I gave the speargun back to Shane and told him to jam the butt of it between my back and the inside of my BCD. He did so, and it was uncomfortable, but I felt better having some form of a signal above us.
I regained my grip on Shane and Mr. Jordan and the three of us floated quietly. Mr. Jordan occasionally groaned and coughed. It seemed the fabric I’d shoved into his nose was working, but the blood trickling out of his mouth was getting washed away. And I knew even those small traces of scent were trailing us, settling into the water and hanging there for cruising sharks to pull into their gills and savor and follow in their dead-eyed mechanical way.
I’ve read a lot about all types of sea creatures and learned even more about them from Dad. The main problem with sharks is that they’re unpredictable. They don’t think in a way we can comprehend. Most people like to relate all big fish to porpoises and whales, but those are mammals and there’s a big difference. Even the most predatory marine mammals, like killer whales, seem to have some trace of compassion. You see it in the wet depths of their eyes, as if the eyes connect directly to their brain and give you a window into their feelings. A person can look into eyes like that and think they have some chance to connect and communicate. Sharks are fish, an entirely different thing. Like with snakes and other reptiles, fish eyes never show pain or stress or longing. They’re like marbles connected not to the brain, but to the mouth—they simply guide the mouth to food and nothing more.
Sharks’ eyes are even more sinister. They are narrow and black, huge night-vision pupils that orient in a vertical slit and reflect in the dark like a cat’s. On many of our overnight trips on the Barbie Doll we’ve watched these reflections moving in large patrolling circles below us.
“They don’t think,” Dad told me once. “They just kill and eat.”
Dad’s also the one who told me they don’t feel pain. He said he watched a feeding frenzy once when he was a deckhand on a billfishing charter. A swarm of sharks was feeding on a whale carcass. They were buried into the whale and snapping and tearing at it like a pack of crazed dogs. They were so bunched up and mad with the smell of blood that they often tore into each other by mistake. He saw one of the sharks with its stomach completely ripped out, still feeding for another few minutes until the life suddenly left it. Then he watched the body go limp and slowly sink away. A moment later several other sharks noticed, darted down to it, and ripped it up even more and ate it.
Compared to getting in a car wreck or even getting struck by lightning, shark attacks are rare. But not many people find themselves floating for hours in open water. If a shark finds you and you hang before its face long enough, I can’t imagine it not wanting to take a bite. They’re not scared of anything. How can you be scared when you don’t feel pain? And once that bite draws blood, they’ve found what they were looking for and they can’t stop themselves from tearing you to pieces.
By all my reasoning it was only a matter of time before sharks found us. And then they would certainly kill us.
* * *
“What’s taking your dad so long?” Shane said.
I turned to him and said, “I don’t know.”
He looked at his dad. Mr. Jordan stared back and blinked helplessly. I thought of how I would feel if I were in the same situation with my own dad. I’d certainly be frantic with worry. I could never stand to see him like that. But I didn’t detect any sympathy on Shane’s part. And it didn’t seem like Mr. Jordan expected any.
I looked at my watch. Nearly an hour and a half had passed since I’d surfaced. We’d been floating together for close to an hour.
Mr. Jordan sputtered and coughed again. I studied him and saw that he was having a hard time holding his head up and his empty tank was floating high in the water.
“Let’s ditch the tanks and regulators,” I said.
“Why?” Shane asked.
“It’ll be easier to float.”
“We just got these things.”
I grew frustrated with him again but outwardly kept my cool.
“Do what you want,” I said. “Mine and your dad’s are coming off.”
I got around behind Mr. Jordan and unclipped and disconnected his pony tank first. As I pulled it away I noticed that it wanted to sink. Despite what most people think, air weighs something. A full tank will sink while an empty tank will float. I grabbed the valve and turned it. Gas hissed from the nozzle. Apparently Mr. Jordan had air the entire time. He wasn’t hurt because he ran out of air; he was hurt because he panicked and became so confused that he turned the tank off instead of on. And none of it would have happened had he not stayed down too long and been greedy
about spearing fish.
Shane hadn’t noticed my discovery. I was about to let the pony tank go when I had another idea. I reconnected it to Mr. Jordan’s BCD. Then I disconnected his main tank and shoved it aside to drift away. Finally I put the regulator from the pony tank into his mouth.
“Breath on that,” I said. “It’ll keep the waves from splashing into your mouth.”
I heard the regulator click and hiss as Mr. Jordan began taking breaths.
“I thought it was empty,” Shane said.
“It’s not,” I said, unclipping my own hoses and turning my back to him. “Take mine off.”
After he had it free I grabbed my gauge console before the floating tank dragged it away. I popped out the compass module and shoved it into the pocket of my BCD.
“What about my pony tank?” Shane said. “I’ve still got a little air in it.”
“Lose it,” I said. “It’s making you more tired.”
He hesitated, but after a moment he began unfastening everything and turned his back to me so that I could get the tank off.
Then we were all floating easier and things became quiet again except for the rolling of the waves and the steady click and hiss of Mr. Jordan’s regulator.
“How much is in there?” Shane finally asked.
“It’s full,” I said.
10
I stared at the blue sky, squinting against the sun, feeling it beat down on my face. My eyes caught flashes of a tiny reflective dot high overhead. It was a small plane so far away that I couldn’t even hear it. This made me consider how improbable it was, with all of our technology, that I could have found myself so completely out of touch, and how quickly it had happened. All because we broke our number-one rule about dive trips: If it doesn’t feel right for any reason, don’t go down.
There were so many reasons it hadn’t felt right, but so many reasons it had to be done. Most of all, Dad was broke and needed the money. I should have known that his efforts to clean up around the house were only an attempt to cover much bigger issues he didn’t want Mom to know about.
It was hard to imagine that his dive business had gotten so bad in the nine months I’d been gone. The parking lot was tall with weeds, and there was barely any scuba equipment for sale on the shelves. Then yesterday I found the unpaid mortgage statements buried under a pile of bills on his desk. I’d already spent last summer helping him run the place. I knew what those statements were and what they meant.
“Business has been slow, Julie,” he said defensively. “It happens.”
“Dad,” I said in disbelief, “there are fourteen unanswered messages on the answering machine.”
“You see,” he said cheerfully, “it’s not so bad.”
His carefree attitude didn’t make me feel better at all. It only made me angry. We both knew this had nothing to do with slow business. It was all about him finding the Malzon tanks. I knew Dad had been distracted, but I never imagined he’d let his obsession almost ruin his business.
“What if the tanks don’t have any fish on them yet?”
“They’ve got fish,” he said confidently.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was out there three days ago.”
“And you went down? And saw for yourself?”
“I only got to twenty feet, but I could see them. Swarming it like bees.”
I took a deep breath, feeling my anxiety over it all slowly ease.
“Then start calling those people back,” I said. “We need to book some trips.”
“I thought we’d dive it together first. Tomorrow. Sort of a celebration.”
I felt frustration grip me again. “I’ll be here all summer, Dad. And I’m not going to enjoy myself until we get some trips booked, clean this place up, and pay the bills.”
“Well, if that’s how you feel, sweetheart. Hand me the phone and let’s make some calls.”
I thrust the handset out to him. “I can’t believe I’m even having to tell you this,” I said.
“Who’s the first person on the machine?” he asked.
“Forget the older ones for now,” I said. “You can call them back and apologize later. Mr. Jordan’s last message was yesterday. He might be your only chance at someone who hasn’t already made other plans.”
“God,” he said. “Hank’s such a pain.”
“So is his son, Shane,” I said. “But at this point we’ll take what we can get.”
“Fine.” Dad sighed. “Give me his number.”
I sat at the desk and replayed the last of Mr. Jordan’s three increasingly angry messages. Then I wrote the number on a Post-it note and gave it to Dad.
“My business partner’s back in town,” he joked.
11
The sun beat down on us. My head was cooking and my eyes stung with salt. The speargun felt like a stick stabbing me in the back, and no matter how I shifted there was little relief. Worst of all, my mouth was dry and I was overcome with a terrible thirst. I couldn’t stop thinking about pouring ice-cold fresh water down my throat.
“We’ve been drifting for almost two hours,” Shane said.
“He’ll find us unless something went wrong,” I said.
“How can he have any idea where we are?”
I looked at Shane. I could see he was on the verge of panic again.
“Because all he has to do is follow the current.”
“Then where is he? We’re gonna die out here!”
I decided it was time to start lying. Being honest wasn’t going to work anymore. “This kind of thing happens all the time,” I said. “He probably had engine trouble. He’ll fix it and get here as fast as he can.”
Shane spit salt water from his mouth. “This doesn’t happen all the time! It never happens!”
Actually, it did. Divers get separated from their boats more than people think. But I was tired of arguing.
Shane continued on his rant. “First the stupid anchor pulls and then the boat breaks. I told Dad this was the biggest joke of a dive shop around. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t sue you.”
“Your dad’s an idiot for staying down so long. He ought to be more concerned with his life than with suing people!”
“We paid your dad a ton of money for that dive. More money than he deserves for some crappy boat that breaks down.”
“You’re a jerk, Shane.”
“Just do something, will you! God, I’m so thirsty.”
I locked eyes with him and shook his shoulder strap. “Don’t you drink this seawater.”
“I know. Everybody knows that.”
His mouth was trembling. I realized that we were both just scared, but it was coming out like anger. I looked away. “Good,” I said. “Then shut up and calm down. There’s nothing I can do.”
Shane spit again.
“I’m thirsty, too, you know,” I said.
He didn’t answer me.
“You think I want to be out here? Stop whining to me.”
“Or what? You going to punch me in the face again?”
“Just shut up, will you, Shane?”
Mr. Jordan coughed and I looked at him. His pony tank had run out and his regulator was trailing behind.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” Shane asked.
“I can feel my arms,” he said.
“You’re probably getting better,” Shane said. “What about your legs?”
Mr. Jordan shook his head.
From what I knew about the bends, I could tell he wasn’t getting better. Maybe he was experiencing some temporary relief, but the bends doesn’t fix itself. In fact, I suspected he had more than the bends. Dad had told me about people’s lungs collapsing. And he’d said they’ll usually bleed out of their mouth and nose when this happens.
I reached behind myself and jerked the speargun from my back. I shoved Shane sideways and got behind him.
“What are you doing?”
I jammed the butt of the gun down the back of his BCD.
“
Owww!” he yelped.
“Your turn,” I said.
12
About two-thirty that afternoon clouds began to gather overhead. I was never so happy to see the glare of the sun disappear. We hadn’t spoken a word in almost an hour. I didn’t even want to look at Shane, but the few times I did I saw his face pink and swollen from sunburn.
Shane eventually broke the silence. “Maybe the boat sank.”
“The boat didn’t sink,” I said.
“The anchor pulled. Your dad should have drifted the same speed as us even if he was broken down. He would have been down-current. Right?” he asked.
“Right,” I mumbled.
“So what could be the problem?”
“If the boat sank, there’d still be stuff floating all around us. Don’t be stupid.”
“If it didn’t sink, there’d be a boat here getting us.”
I didn’t answer him. He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t thought about. And I didn’t like not having answers.
“I want a Coke,” he said. “With crushed ice.”
“Shut up.”
“I want to lie in a bucket of ice water.”
“Your dad might want you to help him to the hospital first.”
Shane looked at his father. “He knows what I mean.”
I grabbed Shane’s wrist and brought his hand to the shoulder strap of my BCD.
“Hold on to me,” I said.
I was surprised he didn’t complain. I felt his fingers slip under the strap and grip it. I let go of him and pulled the compass module from my pocket and studied it. We were still moving southeast, but it was hard to tell how fast. Then I remembered the small bottom marker in my pocket. It was nothing more than a red cork with a hundred and fifty feet of thin monofilament line wrapped around it. If you tied the line to something on the seafloor and let it go it would unravel and rise to the top, discreetly marking a place you wanted to revisit later.
I pulled Mr. Jordan to me and swung him toward Shane.
“Hold on to your dad with your other arm,” I said.