Maggie greeted her kids as if she hadn’t seen them in weeks. If they noticed anything awry in her manner, neither indicated it. The teens joined them in line and babbled about things they’d done, people they visited. The kids loaded up plates with food. Cole trailed the others and made the same selections as Maggie. Although she’d said she lacked any appetite she took a little of everything so Cole did too. They carried their laden plates to some Adirondack style chairs facing the lake about midway up the hill and settled down.
The barbecued beef melted in Cole’s mouth, tender and succulent but the pork was stringier. He took one taste of the potato salad and made a face. It couldn’t compare to Babka’s old recipe but the baked beans were smoky and good. Cole ate his portion although he figured beans were about the last thing his belly needed at the moment, same for the pickle spears. He ate with nervous speed while Maggie picked at hers. By the time he put down his plastic fork Cole had eaten too much and regretted it.
Most of her brief improvement vanished as she stared out at the lake, face pale although Cole didn’t think she saw anything. Her eyes glazed as if she were in a trance. At the moment, Cole figured it was just as well or she’d notice Kiefer paddling out from the shore on a vivid yellow paddleboat, pumping his feet to keep it going. Although able to accommodate two, Maggie’s son rode solo on his craft. Farther out into the lake Cole caught a glimpse of Kaitlin, her flaming hair brilliant in the sunshine. She rode inside an inflatable boat he wouldn’t have taken out in water any deeper than his waist. Lots of other teens were out on some infaltables or other watercraft out, even a few jet skis. Since Maggie didn’t notice, Cole said nothing. The last thing he’d want would be to crank up her worry any higher Even from where he sat, he couldn’t miss the huge grin on Kiefer’s face and he wanted them both to have a blast.
A woman in bright Capri pants who headed in their direction turned out to be Maggie’s cousin, Stacy. Maggie roused out of her funk long enough to make intelligent conversation although she never loosened her grip on Cole’s hand. Others wandered by, said a few words and moved on. Cole did his best to keep Maggie grounded with conversation but as the clouds thickened in the west she retreated into her somber shell again. Over the next hour the sunlight faded as clouds overtook the sky but the heat didn’t abate. If anything, the air grew increasingly humid and unstable. No one else appeared to notice the weather shift, not the family gathered together or the boats large and small out on the lake. Everyone focused on having a good time and maybe Cole would’ve too if he hadn’t been so worried about Maggie or if his stomach didn’t hurt like a bitch.
Just when Cole figured the storm could roll in anytime he heard the distant growl of thunder. He tried to figure out how fast he could make it up the hill to where they’d parked the car when the time came to leaveMaggie turned her head.
“Cole?”
“What, honey?”
“Is your stomach bothering you?”
He couldn’t lie. “Yeah, I ate too much.”
“Do you want to go home?”
“Maybe,” he said and realized he did “A storm’s blowing in anyway so it’d be a good idea.”
Maggie glanced up with surprise as if she hadn’t noticed the absence of sun until now and probably hadn’t. She turned to him, brow furrowed with concern. “I think we should leave, then. Do you know where the kids are?”
He would rather not tell her so Cole pointed in the general direction of the lake. “Down there, somewhere.”
“I don’t see them.”
“I’ll walk down and get them. Stay here.”
Cole thought he could call them back to shore before Maggie realized they were out on the water. Then they could say their farewells and head back to Lake Dreams. He ambled down toward the lake and swore aloud when he realized how far out Kiefer was. The bright paddleboat bobbed out on the open water, far too close to the larger boats. The lake surface churned and was no longer still. Waves tossed the waters as the first winds from the storm front arrived. As Cole reached the shore, he waved his arms to get Kiefer’s attention but the kid never saw him.
Kaitlin did, as she paddled the inflated boat almost to shore and he watched her tell the others to wheel it about. “I’ll go get him,” she called through cupped hands. Smart girl, she figured out what Cole must want.
Cole nodded, distracted by another spasm in his gut. He wished they’d hurry up and he tried one more time to signal Kiefer. This time the teen spotted him and lifted a hand in greeting. Kiefer quit peddling and stood as the paddleboat rocked. At the same time a large Chris Craft boat approached and made a wide turn as it headed back to dock before the storm. Its wake stirred up bigger waves and Cole realized they would swamp Kiefer’s ride. He shouted a warning at the boy but his voice didn’t carry far enough. Cole watched with dismay as the first surge rocked the yellow paddleboat hard.
Kiefer’s grin slipped and he lost his balance. He fell into the lake with a hoarse cry and his bright head vanished beneath the surface. Cole gasped and started forward as somewhere behind him Maggie screamed. She must have trailed him down to the shore. He hesitated, torn between returning to her and saving Kiefer but when he remembered the boy couldn’t swim, Cole ran into the lake.
“Cole, don’t!” Maggie wailed but he ignored her. All Cole could think about was how he’d lost his kids. He couldn’t bring them back or change what happened he could keep Maggie’s son from drowning.
As soon as the water deepened, about five or six feet out into the lake Cole dived into the water and swam to where he’d last seen Kiefer. Halfway to the spot, the storm hit and heavy rain pelted the water like tossed pennies. Each raindrop stung as it struck Cole’s arm and head. Wind gusts stirred up the lake waters into a choppy, rolling boil and swimming grew increasingly difficult. His belly pain slowed Cole down, too but he finally caught sight of Kiefer’s head bobbing in the water no more than five feet away. With a burst of energy and intense effort Cole reached him, shouting his name over the wind. Kiefer raised his face from the lake and joy shot through Cole. He wasn’t too late. Cole maneuvered next to the kid and grabbed him.
“It’s all right now,” he shouted over the noise of the storm. “I’ve got you.”
Kiefer latched onto him with desperate hands and sent them both underwater. The teenager clutched Cole like a baby koala bear and hung on. Under calmer conditions and without a bellyache of historic proportions Cole would have towed Kiefer toward shore or even the capsized paddleboat but he couldn’t manage either. All he could do to tread water but he wasn’t sure how long he could hang on.
“Cole!” He heard his name shouted and peered through the rain. Kaitlin and her friends approached in the inflatable boat. It bobbed up and down on the waves but the teens managed to bring it beside Cole and Kiefer.
“Take him!” he shouted and choked as lake water filled his mouth with a pungent metallic taste. “Grab Kiefer!”
Cole tried to make the boy release his grip but he wouldn’t until several pairs of hands grasped Kiefer’s sodden shirt and hauled him into the little boat. “We’ve got him,” Kaitlin screamed. “Cole, give me your hand. We’ll get you too.”
Although Cole doubted the tiny craft would hold all of them, he reached upward and stretched out his left hand toward Kaitlin as the worst cramp he’d suffered in a long time bent him double. Cole gasped. When he did, water poured into his mouth. Cole choked, coughed and gagged as a second harsh spasm spiraled through him. He couldn’t stay afloat. Cole clutched his gut and floundered in the unstable waters. He attempted kicking his legs, moving his feet to paddle but he failed.
Water closed over his head in a dark curtain and he couldn’t see anything. Cole tried to yell but more water cascaded down his throat and he couldn’t breathe around it. Cole couldn’t catch his breath and he wasn’t able to stick his head above the water. He tried hard and surfaced once.
From the shore which seemed far away Cole heard Maggie’s screams. She called his name an
d he attempted to swim toward her but he couldn’t. Fatigue pulled him down into a darkness he couldn’t fight any longer as he slipped beneath the surface of Tablerock Lake.
His thoughts tumbled without reason and he found it hard to focus. Cole thought of Maggie, of her premonition and realized she’d called this one right. He would die here and stay forever. I wanted to stay but I didn’t mean like this, he thought with panic but as Cole sank deeper into the lake, he quit struggling. A calm peace replaced the panic and he went down glad he managed to save Maggie’s son. At least he spared her that one grief Cole thought but she’d mourn him too.
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Cole thought and the last thing he knew was her image imprinted on his heart, the face loved.
He thought he heard her voice and then he knew nothing.
Chapter Twenty Three
Light penetrated darkness but Cole couldn’t summon strength to open his eyes. Brightness flickered on the edges of his consciousness but no matter how hard he tried Cole couldn’t reach it. He struggled to speak, to say something to whoever might be near enough to hear but his aching throat refused to work. All efforts to wiggle his hands or kick his feet failed and so he sank back into a cold nothingness. Maybe he was dead.
When Cole surfaced out of the black, frozen void he heard voices, distant and yet familiar. Cole strained to make sense of them but the sounds were too jumbled. He ached with cold and wished for a warm blanket or some heat. Restless Cole struggled to move, to sit up or shift position and a woman’s voice reached him with clarity. “Cole,” she said, urgency propelling her voice through the murk into his psyche. “Cole, can you hear me?”
Warm fingers, so alive and strong, wrapped around his icy hand and he savored the touch. With effort Cole moved his hand so whoever it was would know he appreciated the gesture. He waited and heard the same voice say, “He’s responding. I don’t care what anyone says.”
A different voice but also feminine murmured, a deeper note and Cole recognized it this time.
“Maggie, you should go home and get some rest. You’ve been here since it happened and you’ll make yourself sick. You can’t help Cole if you end up in a room down the hall.”
He tagged the speaker ‘mom’ and Cole knew too who owned the other voice. Maggie. Recollection rushed through him the way a strong wind rustles away the last of the autumn leaves and memories shot at him, swift and clear. Cole remembered all of it, his life back in St. Louis, the summer spent with Maggie, her premonition and the day on Tablerock Lake. And most of all he knew he loved her.
A softer sound crept through his thoughts and he recognized the sound of weeping. The quiet sobs evoked an echoing sadness within him. Such a poignant sound sounded deeper than any bearable grief. Cole tried harder rouse so he could offer comfort. As he attempted to focus, Maggie’s voice, broken with sobs, filtered through his fog. “I can’t leave and I won’t. I’ve got to be here when Cole wakes up. I’ve got something I have to tell him.”
Whatever it was, he wanted to know. Cole strained, making a mighty effort to fight through the invisible layers. He worked at it until he succeeded. When Cole opened his eyes, the rush of light blinded him with such intensity he almost shut them back but he refused. His lips moved around the ventilator tube in his throat as he tried to speak her name, to say “Maggie”.
Before anyone noticed his return, Cole heard his mother say, voice thick with emotion, “They don’t expect him to come around, Maggie. We’re just waiting with Cole so he won’t go alone. I’ve watched you the last three days and you break my heart. Go home, sweetheart. I’ll stay and if there’s any change I’ll call you.”
“No, Mrs. Celinksi,” Maggie said. “I’ll stay. Cole’s staying. He said he would.”
Tears filled his eyes as Cole listened and he labored to move his hand enough to get Maggie’s attention. He didn’t manage it, though, and Cole thought he’d failed until he heard another voice say, “Mom, Cole’s eyes are open and he’s crying.”
In his mind he tagged her. Kaitlin. Maggie’s daughter.
He blinked two, then three times and the vague blurs of light and color sharpened into Maggie’s face. Cole watched her grey eyes illuminate with radiant hope as he stared up at her, his cheeks wet with tears. Maggie cried too but a dazzling smile blossomed. Her hand touched his face and wiped his tears away. “Oh, Cole,” she said and he’d never heard anything more beautiful than her voice. “Oh, Cole, you’re back.”
Other faces loomed around the bed, his mother, Kaitlin, and even Kiefer. Cole tried to acknowledge them all but he couldn’t and it didn’t matter because all of them cried too. They laughed and talked in a babble so jumbled he couldn’t make out any of it. It didn’t matter because their joy reached him. Cole let it touch his soul, fill it and deliver love. Just before he closed his eyes, too weary to keep them open any longer, Cole made a huge effort and whispered “Maggie,” around the ventilator tube. Fleeting, so soft like the brush of angel’s wings her lips touched his cheek and he slid back into the dark, unable to stay conscious.
The next time Cole roused and came to, his throat hurt but the ventilator was gone. Beyond the windows, he saw that night filled the sky with black. Within the dim room Maggie was curled up in a chair beside the bed. He said her name, his voice hoarse and too low to wake her, but he tried again and this time she woke. Befuddled with sleep Maggie rubbed her eyes and then grinned.
“Hi, Cole,” she said as she stood up. She leaned over him, kissed his forehead, cheeks, then mouth with tiny butterfly kisses and then buried her face against his shoulder. She remained therefore a few moments, then lifted her head and smiled at him. “How do you feel? You gave us all quite a scare.”
“Thirsty,” he croaked in a hoarse voice.
Maggie poured a cup of water from a carafe on the nightstand and let him drink from a straw. “Does that help?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Cole said. His voice came out sounding almost normal, just weak.
“Do you remember what happened?”
He did. “Kiefer got in trouble and I swam out to get him just as the storm hit,” he said. “And then everything happened just like your dream. Is he okay?”
Maggie couldn’t stop touching him. She stroked his cheek, patted his hands, and left her hand over his. “He’s fine. He’s been here too, along with Kaitlin and your mom. I called her to come down when the doctors said they didn’t think you’d make it. It’s been three days. The doctors all but gave up on you because you were in the water for several minutes and you weren’t breathing when they pulled you out. They said you probably would never come around.”
Cole remembered the snatches he’d overheard. “But you didn’t give up.”
“No, I didn’t and wouldn’t. Do you need another drink?”
“Please.”
“Here, sweetheart,” Maggie said. “Take it easy, okay?”
“Sure but you have something to tell me before I can. I heard you say so,” he said, “What is it?”
Her mouth worked as if she might start crying again but she smiled. “I should have said it a lot sooner and I thought there for awhile I might never get to say it to you. Cole, I love you.”
Three words, short and simple, the ones he’d wanted to hear hit him hard, with the force of a freight train or the power of a tornado. Her statement engulfed him, swamped his brain and filled his soul with a brilliant light. In his weakened condition, it was almost too much to absorb. His heart trembled until he thought it would cease beating and as the words soaked into his reality, Cole died, the old Cole who spent too many years chasing Yuppie rainbows and a new man surged out of the wreckage. Her words completed him in a way he’d never been. He’d longed to hear her say so and he’d almost told he loved her a dozen times.
The words came easy now, bubbling up from within his heart, “Maggie, honey, I love you too.”
Tears balled within his throat and turned his voice husky but when she answered her words rang clear as any church bell. �
��I know,” she said with complete certainty. “I’ve always known.”
So did Cole.
Ten Months Later
On a sun kissed May afternoon Cole Celinksi climbed down from the ladder and surveyed his handiwork. He’d just finished the exterior paint on the last cabin, a bright new coat of the same red barn paint used throughout the resort matched with fresh white trim. With his head cocked to one side Cole considered it and decided it looked fine. The new flower boxes he’d built last winter were in place under the front windows of each cabin, already planted with soft purple Sugar Daddy petunias. A brand new heavy duty swing set replaced the worn out model and the swimming pool, just filled for the season, sparkled. Spiffy new striped umbrellas shaded each of five new patio tables and matching chairs. Fresh gravel lined the drive and parking spots. Cole squinted and couldn’t spot any weeds but he noticed how well the new bluegrass thrived. Lake Dreams hadn’t looked this grand in years, if ever.
Cole devoted every weekday to working on the resort and did the weekend weather shift at one of the Springfield television stations. The video he’d made with a little help from some of his camera operator friends from The Lou ran as a commercial across the Ozarks and in both the Kansas City and St. Louis markets. Reservations were booked well into the summer and the website picked up hits each day. By the end of the year Cole thought Maggie’s little resort would run in the black, not red and turn a nice profit.
Cole gathered up his tools and the ladder to put back in the shed. He washed most of the paint off at the outside spigot he’d installed then wandered down toward the office, wiping one hand on the leg of his overalls. Maggie wasn’t there so he checked the kitchen but when he found it empty Cole figured she’d be at the new house. He crossed the newly seeded lawn to where the new rustic log home sat beneath tall old trees.
Lake Dreams Page 22