Learning to Swim

by Sara J. Henry

  It was a long trek down the hill, Dumond carrying Paul, me playing both flashlights in front of us. At the base, Baker was waiting, ever-patient, calm and ready. I fell into her arms wordlessly. Guess I forgot I wasn’t the hugging type. Baker held tight and patted my back once, before releasing me to give the air horn a blast. She knew what I’d found, and lost again.

  She turned to Paul. “Hey, little guy,” she said. “You sure gave us a scare.” She ruffled his hair and snuggled a blanket around him, still in his father’s arms. People began to straggle off the hill, weary but ebullient. We stopped to collect the kids from Holly’s house, and trekked back to Baker’s house together. Mike called the Saranac Lake police to report we’d found Paul, and Dumond made a call, I suppose to leave a message with the Ottawa police.

  It was a crazy celebration: eleven adults, most of whom hadn’t known each other before, plus eight kids, crammed into Mike and Baker’s kitchen area. We were tired, dirty, and nearly giddy. Baker kept the table filled with sandwiches, chips, cookies, beer, and soda, and I think even she was amazed at how much my housemates ate. I had to tell three times how Tiger had found Paul. Paul, ensconced in his father’s arms, piped in with bits of French and English mixed together that made everyone laugh. Mike and Zach had found the cave and Zach had squeezed in, but found nothing other than a few drink cans and empty chip bags. Mike Jr. and Jack strutted around, proud that they may have helped find Paul by telling about the cave, never mind that their tales had probably enticed him to go cave hunting in the first place.

  No one knew why Paul had hidden himself up on that hillside, that far from the house. When we’d asked if something had scared him, he’d just shrugged. Maybe he had been looking for a great hiding place. Or maybe he had been worried about seeing his father. It didn’t matter now. Dumond sat with his arms lightly around his son. He was deeply fatigued but looked years younger, a different man than the one I’d met that morning. Finally Baker took her youngest son off to bed. Holly’s two youngest had already fallen asleep on the sofa.

  I stirred and looked at the wall clock: 10:15. Unbelievable that I’d just left this kitchen this morning to head for Ottawa. “I need to go home,” I said, into a momentary silence, and stood. I looked at Dumond, across the table. “You can stay at my house.” I was too tired to make it sound gracious.

  Dumond nodded. Zach, Dave, and Patrick hopped up to leave, grabbing sandwiches on their way out.

  We loaded our bags into the Mercedes and tucked Paul into the backseat with Tiger, where he promptly fell asleep. I directed Dumond out of town and into Lake Placid, along Main Street and into my parking space. Never had my paint-peeling, ramshackle house looked so good. Dave’s car was already there, motor pinging the way old cars do after they’ve been shut off.

  Carrying his sleeping son, Dumond followed me up to my bedroom. I set down Paul’s bag and pulled down the covers so Dumond could lay Paul in the bed. “You guys can have this room,” I said. I nodded toward the outer rooms. “The bathroom’s outside there, and there’s another bathroom downstairs, off the kitchen.”

  He glanced around. “This is your room. Where will you sleep?”

  I tugged a sleeping bag down from the top shelf of the closet. “On my sofa, out there,” I said.

  He nodded, grimacing an apology at taking my bed. I was so tired that standing upright was a huge effort, and I was almost swaying on my feet. I turned to leave just as Dumond moved toward me. He put his right hand out and grasped mine, his skin warm against mine. “Thank you,” he said.

  The contact of his skin on mine felt like a conduit, an opening into my soul. Suddenly I wanted to cry, long and hard. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me while I cried until I couldn’t cry any longer. I wanted to cry for Paul and for all the things I’d ever lost or never had. If I had looked at him I would have lost control. I muttered something, broke his grip, and left, pulling the bedroom door closed behind me.

  By the time he came out to go into the bathroom, I’d brushed my teeth, washed my face, kicked off my sneakers, zipped myself into my sleeping bag, and wiggled my bra off from under my clothes. I closed my eyes to pretend I was asleep, and when I opened them it was morning.

  I LOOKED AT THE WINDOW WITHOUT RECOGNIZING IT, AND squinted to see if the curtains had the cartoon character pattern of my childhood curtains.

  Sometimes I think that when you’re in a deep sleep you regress into your past, and wake up with your psyche in an entirely different place and time, before you’ve made it back to the present. This morning I’d made it to about age eight, a relatively uncomplicated time.

  Sounds came from downstairs: a shrill boy’s laugh, a man’s deeper tones, and a slightly higher voice punctuated by a stutter. My brain slowly identified them: Paul, Dumond, Zach. The window came into focus: chipped paint, the curtain I’d made from a sheet, the old glass that looks grungy even after just being washed.

  Across the room my bedroom door stood open. I was alone. Even Tiger had deserted me.

  I lay there a moment, and when I stirred, it hurt in a way I’d never hurt before. Deep-water swim one day, sit in a car six hours, and then crawl around in underbrush. My body wasn’t taking well to this new regimen. I regretted not having taken a hot bath last night.

  I wriggled out of the sleeping bag and padded into my bedroom for clean clothes. The bed was neatly made, Dumond’s bag nowhere in sight. I stumbled back to the bathroom. I pulled the plastic shower curtain closed and stood under the spray with my eyes shut, for once not caring if I drained the hot water tank.

  I’d found Paul’s father; I’d delivered Paul safely. My adventure was over, and I had to reset. I had to block this mix of tumultuous emotions and move back into my safe, sane existence.

  I had no idea how.

  The anemic spray of the shower was beginning to run cool. I stepped out and toweled dry, moving slowly. Combing out my hair seemed impossible, even with my wide-toothed comb, and I gave up. My hair is so thick and curly that snarls just look like more curls, so it doesn’t much matter. I pulled on jeans and polo shirt, and headed downstairs barefoot, carefully holding the railing.

  As I stepped out of the stairwell, faces looked up from the picnic table. Paul was almost bouncing, eyes shining, his face alive and bright in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

  “Troy, Troy, Troy!” he chirped, as he untangled his legs from the bench. “Goot morning!” He ran toward me and wrapped his arms around my waist, and I automatically hugged him.

  “Hey, hey!” Zach said, teeth flashing in a grin. “We’re all t-t-talking English today.”

  “Good,” I said, almost dourly. My vocal cords felt as if they hadn’t been used for a year. “I don’t think I remember any French.”

  Dumond sat at the table, hair damp, wearing a T-shirt and warm-up suit I recognized as Zach’s. “Good morning,” he said pleasantly. “Zach was kind enough to lend me some clothing, and keep Paul company while I showered.”

  “So I see.” Somehow he seemed right at home here, not out of place as I’d felt in his fancy office, his stately house, his expensive car. This annoyed me.

  “Troy, Troy, come zee my things,” Paul begged, pulling at my leg. “J’ai beaucoup de choses, beaucoup de jouets. They are from Papa, from my maison.” He looked up at me, face bright and happy. Overnight he seemed to have turned into a normal kid, nothing like the thin pale wraith I’d held on my lap on the shore of Lake Champlain. Kidnapped, mother murdered, tossed off a ferry to drown, lost searching for a cave—apparently all that was behind him. He had toys to show me, a whole bagful, and that was what was important.

  I glanced at Dumond, who smiled ruefully. I let Paul pull me into the living room, where he had laid out the truck, the fat teddy, the action figures. Paul was making a complicated demonstration involving a little plastic man I wasn’t quite following when Dumond appeared and handed me a steaming mug. “Zach says you drink coffee sometimes. We weren’t sure how you took it.”

  The h
ot mug felt good to my hands. I took a giant swallow. On the rare occasions I drink coffee I drink it with milk only, and this was loaded with sugar, but I didn’t care. I could feel it infusing life back into me, as if my brain cells were realigning.

  Dumond perched on the arm of the couch, an indiscriminate nubby gray-brown fabric useful for hiding soda spills and pizza stains. We watched Paul play. Here sat the man who had slammed me against a wall yesterday. Here, playing happily on the floor, was the boy who had been kidnapped and almost drowned. And here was Troy, in the middle of it all. It was surreal.

  Paul was still grimy. “Paul, have you had a bath?” As soon as the words left my mouth I realized this wasn’t my concern anymore. But Dumond didn’t seem offended, and when Paul looked at me blankly, I pantomimed scrubbing. It was one thing to talk to Paul in my rusty French; it was another to trot it out in front of his fluently bilingual father.

  Paul shook his head, and looked at his father imploringly.

  Dumond laughed, a deep delighted laugh, and stood up. “No, Paul, Troy is quite right. Il faut que tu prennes un bain. You’re overdue for a bath.”

  We climbed the stairs. I started the water running in the tub while Dumond helped Paul undress. I went to get clean clothes from the ones Baker had lent us, and when I returned, Paul was in the tub, splashing his plastic men in the water. Dumond was sitting on his heels, leaning against the wall, watching his son.

  “Et voilà, des vêtements propres, ici,” I said, showing Paul the jeans and T-shirt. “I’m putting them here on the toilet.” He nodded, bashing the little figures in the water and making sputtering, crashing noises. Dumond closed the door part of the way behind us, and followed me into my bedroom.

  He sat on the end of my bed. “How did you find him?” he asked. I think he knew I hadn’t just found an abandoned boy on a ferry. I sat against the wall and told him all of it: Paul’s fall from the ferry, my swim to reach him, bringing him here. I know I tell it flatly; I scoot past the grim parts. But a father, I expect, would live every moment no matter how you told it. Something flickered in Dumond’s eyes when I told him about the sweatshirt that had been tied around his son’s arms, but he didn’t speak until I was done.

  He shifted where he sat. “So someone threw him off the ferry.”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “And he has been kept prisoner this whole time.”

  I nodded again. “He said he was moved once, to a different place.”

  We sat in silence, until Dumond spoke suddenly. “You saw no one?”

  “No, I just saw Paul fall toward the water. I never even looked up at the deck—I kept my eyes on where he went in. When we got back to the dock, that ferry was on its way back to Vermont.”

  “So you got him out of the water and brought him here.” His tone was even, but I don’t think I imagined the blame behind his words. I flushed. I looked down. I studied a tiny spring from a ballpoint pen that had somehow rolled between the gray painted floorboards.

  The words were thick in my mouth. “I probably should have gone to the police,” I said. “Or the hospital. But I didn’t think anyone could do anything right away—and Paul was wet and tired and I wanted to get him warm and dry …” My voice trailed off.

  He started to speak again, but Paul interrupted from the bathroom, calling, “Papa, Papa.” Dumond moved toward the doorway, and I stood. “Papa, est-ce que je dois vraiment me laver les cheveux?” Paul asked plaintively.

  Dumond forced a laugh. “Mais oui. Of course you must wash your hair.” He turned toward me, once again the crisp efficient businessman. It amazed me how quickly he moved from one persona to another. “I’d like to make some calls and my cell isn’t working well here. May I use your telephone? I’ll reimburse you, of course.”

  “Sure.” I nodded toward the phone on my desk. Only then did I notice that the message light was blinking. “Just a sec,” I murmured, and went over and pushed the Play button.

  Hello, Troy, came Thomas’s pleasant tones. Just calling to see how things are going. Please give me a call. Damn. He’d be wondering why I hadn’t called him back.

  Dumond paused, hand over the phone. “Do you need to use it?”

  I shook my head. Thomas would be at work. Not that I felt like talking to him anyway. Dumond picked up the receiver and began punching in numbers.

  As I helped Paul rinse his hair and dry off and get dressed, I could hear Dumond, calling his office and giving instructions; speaking in French to someone named Claude; getting a doctor’s referral and, with calm insistence, making an appointment; and speaking with someone I assumed was the Ottawa police. Then he called someone else, speaking in voluble French, fast and emphatic, then slower and calming. He was just hanging up as we emerged from the bathroom.

  “His nanny, Elise,” he explained, eyes on Paul. “She has been with Paul since he was a baby, and she came with me from Montreal, as my housekeeper. Now she can be a nanny again.” I couldn’t help but wonder if he was romantically involved with the nanny; he’d hardly have been the first.

  Paul handed me the comb I’d bought him, and I ran it through his wet hair. Dumond watched, and I could see him noticing the worn lettering on the T-shirt and the faint grass stains on the jeans. “They’re Mike Jr.’s,” I said, a bit defensively. “Baker and Mike’s son.”

  Dumond nodded. “Paul, mon p’tit, could you please go show your toys to Zach? Veux-tu montrer tes jouets à Zach? Je pense qu’il veut les voir. We will be down in a minute.” Paul nodded, and walked carefully down the stairs, holding the railing as I’d shown him.

  Dumond watched him go, and looked at me. “I want to head back to Ottawa today.”

  I nodded. Of course. Paul would go home to Canada with his father. My life would go on, minus one small child I hadn’t known a week ago. “Did you want to see the police here?”

  He shook his head. “No, we’ll do that in Ottawa, tomorrow morning. The kidnapping took place in Canada.”

  “But the ferry,” I pointed out. “That was in New York.” State lines, I assumed, ran through the middle of lakes.

  “I’d rather everything be coordinated by the Canadian police. They can work closely with the Montreal police; they can speak French with Paul; we’ll be in our own country. It will be better for Paul to be home.”

  He stood. I felt the razor, cutting me out of their lives. Paul would remember the woman who rescued him, but to Dumond I was forgettable, expendable. It was a not unfamiliar feeling.

  “I’d like to buy some clothes this morning before leaving, for Paul and myself.” He gestured at the track suit he wore, smiling slightly, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Of course he wouldn’t be comfortable driving across the border in a borrowed track suit. Nor would he want to wear yesterday’s crumpled Armani.

  In the living room, Zach was delighting Paul by pretending not to understand how the bucket loader worked.

  “So you turn this crank like this?” Zach fumbled with the truck.

  “Non, non, non!” Paul declared, and with great deliberation showed Zach how to move the bucket arm up and down.

  From the doorway, Dumond cleared his throat. “Paul, mon fils, we need to go shopping.”

  “Shop-ping?” Paul looked up, inquisitive. “Pourquoi?”

  “Because you need some new clothes, my son. And so do I.” He turned to me, “Do you know where to go?”

  “The Gap on Main Street would probably have everything you’d need. If not, there are other clothing stores up there.”

  “Do you need to work, or can you go with us?”

  “Um, no, don’t have anything I have to do right now. Just a sec,” I said. I ran upstairs for shoes and socks. On the way back down I realized I was ravenous, and stopped in the kitchen to slather peanut butter on a slice of bread to eat on the way.

  IT’S A QUICK WALK TO THE GAP, ABOUT HALFWAY UP MAIN Street. Two boys from the track team I used to cover ran past, waving at me. As we passed the high school I pointed ou
t the outdoor speedskating oval where Eric Heiden won his five gold medals in the 1980 Olympics, and then the arena where the U.S. hockey team had defeated the Soviets in the Miracle on Ice, en route to winning gold. Dumond nodded politely. Maybe he’d seen it before, or maybe he was, like me, underwhelmed by skating rinks where something exciting happened a long time ago. And a Canadian wouldn’t likely be impressed by U.S. skating and hockey victories.

  In the store Dumond quickly selected jeans, a pullover shirt, and a cotton sweater, emerging from the dressing room with Zach’s warm-up suit in a neat bundle. The young clerk was ogling him as if he were a rock star. “I’d like to leave these on,” he told her. She fell all over herself setting aside his price tags and the warm-up suit, and we went to the kids’ floor downstairs.

  I’d thought he’d get Paul one or two outfits, but Dumond apparently didn’t do things by halves. He quickly acquired a stack of clothes. This was going to run into hundreds of dollars, even at a discounted outlet store. I shifted on my feet. “You know you may have to pay taxes on this at the border, and duty on anything not made in the States,” I told him. I knew that Canadians here fewer than forty-eight hours get only a fifty-dollar exemption, although it was possible that children’s clothing was exempt. Of course Paul had been here a lot longer, but Dumond wasn’t going to announce that to border agents.

  He shrugged. “We’re here; we might as well get it now.” He watched Paul eyeing a new jacket in front of the mirror. “I don’t think many of his old things at home will fit.”