The Last Dive

by Bernie Chowdhury

  “Sure, sure. I had to keep moving out of your way.” Chrissy swam to the edge of the pool as McLaughlin took a deep breath and decided not to intervene. “Hey, see those big things on your feet? They’re called fins. Denny told us they were for swimming. You should try using ’em instead of flailing around with your arms.”

  “I did not use my arms!”

  “Did too.”

  “Did not.”

  “Yep. You hit me three times with your arms. I counted.”

  McLaughlin thought for a minute that the two men would go at each other physically, acting out a rivalry more befitting brothers than father and son. Their constant banter and bickering made it seem that they were on the verge of killing each other, but McLaughlin came to realize it was all part of the way they interacted. Maybe they would spur each other to be better divers. And they were an asset to the class: They were helpful with the other students, assisting them with minor equipment adjustments and encouraging them whenever they felt doubts about their abilities after the pool sessions.

  During the ten-week class, the students got to know one another very well, and they would gather after class at a local diner to socialize. Both Chris and Chrissy wanted to include Sue, their wife and mother, and when they came home after the first meeting at the diner, they encouraged her to join them. “But I don’t know anyone. I’ll feel a bit silly crashing your class get-togethers,” said Sue.

  Both men chimed in at once, “No, everybody’s so nice. We want you to meet them. They’ll all make you feel like one of the family.”

  Sue knew how much her husband enjoyed meeting people. She had been amazed when he had gone to her five-year high school class reunion. Her former classmates had changed so drastically—just as she felt she had—that she felt a bit awkward, and had trouble initiating conversations. Having gained some weight since high school, and with her life so drastically different from what she had imagined it would be, Sue was self-conscious at the reunion. Chris, on the other hand, went up to everyone he could, cheerfully and unabashedly introducing himself, shaking hands and smiling like a politician on the campaign trail. He would always find something of common interest to talk about and his relaxed manner, constant smile, and plentiful jokes made other people warm up and feel good. When the event was over, Sue had to drag him away.

  At home, Sue told Chris how awkward she felt at the reunion. Chris hugged his wife and told her, “You’re so strong and full of encouragement all the time. You know, I could never live without you. If you ever died, I know I wouldn’t be able to go on without you. But I know if I die, you’ll be able to pick up and you’ll be dating other guys. Then you’ll find a nice guy and get married again.”

  She got strength from her husband’s cheerfulness, and was grateful for his obvious love for her in spite of the pounds she had put on during their marriage. Whenever she brought up the extra weight in their private conversations, he smoothly, lovingly cast aside her self-doubts and recriminations. “We’re perfect for each other. Nobody else would be right for me. We fit together like puzzle pieces. You’re my Puz,” Chris would say as he snuggled up to his wife.

  Chris appreciated how trustworthy his wife was and relished their partnership; he would never think of doing anything without talking to her about it first, and trying to include her. She was always supportive of him, no matter what plans he came up with, or how their fortunes turned, and she always encouraged him to follow his dreams: “Chris, you only live once. Whatever you want to do, go for it, and make the best of it,” she would remark to him, reiterating what she believed and what he wanted to hear. Sue was Chris’s anchor, keeping him rooted, yet letting him flow with his current in whatever direction he wanted to go.

  Sue joined Chris and Chrissy at the diner after her evening class let out. She was thankful for a break from her studies—and from having to cook. The other members immediately welcomed her. “We couldn’t wait to meet you! We wanted to see the superwoman that could put up with the dynamic duo!” one of them declared. At one point, over pie and coffee, someone asked, “Sue, how do you do it? These two never stop, never slow down. How do you possibly keep up with them?”

  Sue laughed. “I get people like your instructor to baby-sit occasionally so I can get a break.” Chris and Chrissy could only grin sheepishly.

  After ten weeks the classroom and pool sessions were over, and McLaughlin held his final training at Dutch Springs, a local rock quarry that had suddenly flooded years before and taken on a new life as a swimming hole, and a testing site for divers. The quarry’s owners had installed underwater platforms rising several feet off the bottom so that students could demonstrate their skills without having to wallow in the fine silt that covered the floor of the quarry. The Pennsylvania water was cold, and in spite of the platforms, the sheer number of diving students from many different schools caused turbidity. Silt stirred as the masses walked in and out of the water, or when they swam along the bottom to examine some of the many boats that had been sunk here purposely for their amusement.

  On dry land, before and after each dive, McLaughlin had to overhear both Rouses keep up a steady stream of bickering. “Hey, Chrissy, where did you put the spare parts box?” Chris called out at one point.

  “Me? You were supposed to bring it.”

  McLaughlin saw Chris’s eyes flash. “Don’t start with that again! Every time I ask you to bring something you forget it and then try and blame me.”

  Chrissy threw his fins to the ground. “No. Definitely not. You didn’t ask me to bring anything other than what I brought. Don’t try and blame me for something you forgot!”

  “Yeah, right, just like the tools I asked you to bring to the job last week. Remember? It took you two fucking hours to go and get the tools, and I had to work late to make up for it.”

  “Yeah, I remember. That was my fault, and I said I was sorry. Ya don’t need to keep bringing it up. You always do that. Besides, I told you I would have worked late to make up for it. This time, I did not forget anything!”

  Chris set his jaw. “All right, all right. Let’s try and forget it. How about getting me a sandwich from the cooler? I know we managed to bring that with us!”

  “Why do I have to get everything for you? What am I—your fucking gofer?”

  Chris let out a long sigh. “Man, you can’t even get me a sandwich without whining? After all I’ve done for you?”

  The other diving students were long familiar with the Rouses’ ritual of mutual abuse and tried to ignore it. They knew that underwater the Rouses’ breathing regulators kept them from snapping at each other—somewhat. They still used hand gestures. But with only one dive left in the final two days of training, McLaughlin had had enough. “Okay, that’s it,” he said, getting up to insert himself between the two men. “If you two can’t get through this dive without arguing, you’ll have to wait until next week for another shot at your certification.”

  The prospect meant failure. That was unacceptable. Both Rouses bit their lips and sank into sullenness. They voluntarily separated themselves and prepared for the dive, contenting themselves with nasty glances at each other. They went through the dive without incident, passed the course, and received their diving certification cards.

  After finishing her evening college course, Sue joined a woman friend from the flying group to take diving lessons. The woman had already signed up for classes given by a different shop from the one Chris and Chrissy had used for their training, but Sue did not think it would make a difference. Besides, it was nice to have as a diving partner someone she already knew. Instead of the intense, ten-week course that Chris and Chrissy had undergone, Sue found herself in an abbreviated one-weekend class. On Sunday evening, she arrived home with the news that she’d be going on her checkout dives the next weekend. “I can’t believe the instructor said I’m ready for the checkout dives,” she told Chris and Chrissy. “I don’t feel comfortable at all. It was such a short class. I didn’t get anywhere near the training
you two had.”

  Without hesitating, Chrissy said, “Don’t worry, Mom, there’s nothing to it. Dad and I will go with you if you want.”

  Chris agreed right away. “That’s the spirit, Junior. Sue, we’ll be right there with you. No sweat.”

  Sue liked the idea that her two guys would rally round her. When she donned her equipment to get in the water with her class at the quarry, Chris and Chrissy looked on from a distance. As she would find out later, husband and son did not like what they were seeing. “I don’t like this instructor,” Chrissy said to his father. “Can’t he see that Mom’s not really comfortable? He should be giving her more pool training instead of dragging her out here before she’s ready.” Chris turned to his son and said, “Junior, we gotta keep an eye on Sue. I really wish she would have done the training with us, and with Denny.”

  Chrissy agreed. “Yeah, Mom’s not real comfortable with this. I’m gonna be ready to get in the water fast in case she needs help.”

  “Good idea. Why don’t we just slip into the water and hang around without making it look too obvious?”

  “I don’t care about not making it look obvious.”

  “Let’s just be cool, and not piss off the instructor. We want Mom to get her card, and after that she’ll be diving with us,” said father to son.

  During the checkouts, Chris and Chrissy swam with Sue and the class on their underwater tour. The quarry was cold and the visibility bad, with silt particles suspended in the water, turning it an unappealing brown. At one point, the instructor turned to Chris and wrote on his slate, “Which way to shore?”

  Chris couldn’t believe it. Here was an instructor who was lost, and was asking a newly certified diver for directions. Chris pointed into the brown haze, indicating which way back. When the instructor turned away, Chris looked at his son, pointed to the instructor, rolled his eyes, and shook his head. Chrissy nodded in agreement.

  With the support of Chris and Chrissy, Sue persevered and completed her certification dives, which was more than some of the other students accomplished. Two divers had joined the class specifically for the checkouts, one a firefighter, the other a former Special Forces soldier. Both men gave up after the first day of dives; the cold, murky water made them uncomfortable and put them off diving. Chris and Chrissy would ensure that Sue could follow through; no matter how they bitched at each other, the Rouses always stuck together. At least when the task at hand demanded it, they were a team, no matter how murky and perilous the water.

  All three of the Rouses were now certified divers and headed each weekend to Dutch Springs quarry, with every descent leaving Chris and Chrissy more relaxed and adventurous in the water, eager to explore every silty corner of the immense quarry. Sue didn’t feel so adventurous and contented herself with diving with Ken Reinhart, Chris’s former flight instructor and a close friend. Although he wasn’t a diving instructor, Reinhart had enough experience teaching people how to fly planes to know Sue required someone at her side until she became completely comfortable underwater. He patiently coached Sue on the finer points of diving.

  From Ken, Chris and Chrissy found out how much additional instruction Sue needed. They insisted that their former diving instructor, Denny McLaughlin, dive with Sue, check out her techniques, and coach her. Impressed with Chris and Chrissy’s concern for Sue’s well-being and comfort, McLaughlin agreed and refused to accept money from the Rouses for any extra instruction. It was compensation enough to see a family so enthusiastic and conscientious about diving.

  At the quarry, all three Rouses were soon diving each weekend on their own, picnicking together in the fields between dives, helping the harried instructors get their numerous students in and out of the water, attending to occasional equipment problems, and reassuring those whose nerves faltered. They embraced the sport with fresh and infectious enthusiasm.

  It had taken both enthusiasm and grit for Sue and Chris to win their prosperity and ensure the success of their relationship. They had started out with challenges of their own making: Sue became pregnant while Chris was still in high school. They were both so young when they started dating—Chris was sixteen and Sue was seventeen—that neither of them thought they wanted children. Sue didn’t think she would even marry until she was thirty or forty years old. She was very studious, liked foreign languages and political science, and wanted to pursue a career, maybe as an interpreter, or something to do with international business. Now, eighteen years old and pregnant, Sue had some difficult choices to make.

  Her father had stepped back, telling her to make her own choice. Sue and Chris knew they were in love, and both were excited about having a baby. They agreed they should get married. Although she had been an outstanding student, and had earned a state scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, motherhood forced Sue to put aside her plans to go away to college. At first the newlyweds lived at Chris’s parents’ house, and the new husband and father worked up to three jobs at a time. Chris was peacock-proud when both his wife and newborn son attended his high school graduation.

  Chris’s hard work paid off quickly. That fall, the couple rented some property, bought a mobile trailer home, and moved out of Chris’s parents’ house. But only one month later Sue was hospitalized and diagnosed with kidney stones, which required surgery. In their effort to save money so that they could move out and be on their own, the couple had decided not to purchase medical insurance. They were young and healthy, they thought, so the insurance seemed unnecessary. Now, they had to pay all of Sue’s medical bills out of their own pocket. When Sue was released after the surgery and a ten-day hospital stay, the couple faced several thousand dollars of medical bills. And the convalescent young mother could not lift anything, including the seven-month-old Chrissy. All this meant they had to move back in with Chris’s parents so that Sue could recover from the operation, and also have help caring for Chrissy. It was a hard blow for the newlyweds, but they were both determined to make their marriage work.

  Chris found a job at a car dealership doing mechanical work, which allowed him to quit his other jobs. With Chris and his parents helping her out Sue recovered from her surgery, and after a month the couple and their infant were able to move back to their mobile home, their hard-won second independence a family Christmas present. Sue’s medical bills still hung over the family’s head, and she got a part-time job as a waitress at a local restaurant; both sets of grandparents took turns caring for Chrissy while Chris and Sue worked.

  After a year and a half Chris was growing frustrated at his job. “These guys give me all the crap work, all the stuff they don’t want to do, all the stuff that pays the least amount of money,” he would complain to Sue. “I mean, how many oil changes can I do in a day, or a week or a month? It’s like that’s all they’ve given me. I can do better stuff than that!”

  “You’ve got to say something, Chris. They’re going to keep walking all over you unless you speak up!”

  As much as Sue encouraged her husband to be more forceful and aggressive so that he would be given more challenging and better-paying car repair jobs, Chris kept quiet at work, slowly seething because he was not being given an opportunity to do different kinds of work for which he was qualified. Sue worried when his job so upset Chris that he started getting frequent stomachaches and would be so sick that he could not go to work.

  Another six months passed. Then one day he came home to tell his twenty-one-year-old wife he had quit his job. Sue was shocked, but she decided to support his impetuous choice. She saw that her husband was too easygoing and wasn’t good at asserting himself and insisting he be given better-paying work. He deserved to be happy, after all, and surely he’d provide for the family somehow.

  Chris sold his motorcycle and bought a front-loader tractor that could dig trenches and lift large amounts of just about anything. He started an excavating business, clearing land for roadways and driveways, and digging drainage ditches and holes for pools and septic tanks. He liked his job and kn
ew that he was good at it. He was happy—and he remained undaunted by his parents’ protests that he should get a real job, which Chris took to mean a job in which someone else would get to boss him around. Anybody else’s doubts about him only made him more determined to generate enough work to pay for the machinery he needed, put food on the table, and provide a home for his wife and son.

  Chris bought a small dump truck so that he could haul materials to and from work sites, which expanded the scope of jobs he could accomplish. Word quickly spread throughout Pennsylvania’s Bucks County about the affable, hardworking young man, and soon Chris Rouse found plenty of work through word-of-mouth referrals. His customers liked his honesty, his efficient bids, and his resourcefulness. Chris’s parents, notwithstanding their initial protests over their son’s choice of work, cosigned a loan application that enabled Chris to buy the larger machinery he needed to expand his business.

  Things were going well for the Rouse family, and Chris enjoyed his son immensely. The boy was so energetic, and as soon as he could, he talked incessantly, even carrying on conversations with himself when others weren’t nearby. Everywhere Chrissy went people were struck by the cute, engaging, and curious little boy.

  When Chrissy was three years old, the family went to the zoo. That night, just when they were trying to fall asleep, Chris and Sue heard Chrissy calling to them from his crib in the next bedroom. “Mo-o-om? Da-a-ad?” Chrissy asked. Both parents responded with a concerned “Yes, Chrissy. What’s wrong?”

  “Let’s talk.”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Let’s talk about the zoo.”

  “Let’s talk about the zoo” became the family’s catchphrase from then on when they wanted to initiate an emotionally warm discussion, make up after an argument, or apologize.