The Color of a Silver Lining

by Julianne MacLean

  Down they came, splashing into the churning water nearby with a rescue basket. One diver swam toward the other raft while the second came our way. Another chopper arrived with two more divers.

  Meanwhile, I was still performing CPR on my daughter, and I had no intention of stopping.

  When the diver reached our raft, he grabbed onto the side and pulled the snorkel mouthpiece out of his mouth. He saw what I was doing. “Let’s get her out of here!”

  “She’s not breathing!” Susan shouted. “She needs to get to a hospital!”

  That was obvious.

  The diver shoved the basket up over the side and into the raft, but I didn’t want to put Louise in it because I’d have to stop CPR.

  “Do you have a defibrillator in the chopper?” I asked, still doing chest compressions.

  “Yes! We’ve got an AED. Let’s get her up there!”

  Claire helped steady the basket in the center of the raft while I lifted Louise’s tiny, cold body and placed her inside. It was a challenge because the swells were still enormous and we were rising fast over the crests, then sliding down into the troughs.

  The diver made sure Louise was secure, then he signaled to the chopper pilot to quickly hoist her up. As she rose out of the raft, I fell to my hands and knees, finally breaking down into an agonizing fit of sobs as I watched her go.

  “Please, save her!” I cried as I looked up, even though I knew they couldn’t hear me over the noise of the chopper and the waves.

  Claire wrapped her arms around me while I wept uncontrollably, never taking my eyes off Louise until she was safe inside the helicopter.

  * * *

  The chopper hovered there for a moment, then the basket was lowered again.

  “Why aren’t they going?” I asked the diver who was still in the water, hanging onto the side of our raft. “She needs to get to a hospital! They could come back for the rest of us.” I was incredulous and nearly hysterical.

  “We’ve got a paramedic up there,” he replied. “Your daughter’s in good hands. Let’s get you up.”

  The basket dropped into the water. The diver swam to fetch it and bring it back.

  Everyone agreed that I should be next because Louise needed me, and I didn’t argue. I got in as quickly as I could. When the basket lifted me up, I realized I was shaking uncontrollably from both the cold and the unimaginable trauma of the past ten minutes. With teeth chattering, I clutched the metal cage with numb, aching fingers, praying continuously that Louise would be okay, because I couldn’t lose her. I loved her more than life itself. If she died, I was certain I’d die too. I’d never get over it. I’d never stop crying or blaming myself for losing sight of her, for not being able to save her.

  The noise from the chopper engine and spinning blades was deafening as I was hauled up to the giant red machine hovering above. I looked down at the two yellow life rafts below, where others were being plucked out of the frothing ocean. A fishing boat arrived just then and approached the second lifeboat. They threw a ladder over the side.

  I looked up again. With every inch that brought me closer to the helicopter, I was more desperate to reach Louise.

  At last, I felt the pull of the cable as the basket was dragged inside.

  “How is she? How’s my daughter?” I asked, my gaze darting wildly around the interior of the chopper.

  She was on a gurney, tucked under a blanket, strapped in.

  “Mommy!”

  A rush of relief flooded my body. I burst into tears and fought like a wild creature to get out of the basket and reach her.

  “Louise, I’m here!” I scrambled on hands and knees across the floor and buried my face in her tiny neck, where I wept uncontrollably. Thank God…

  I was vaguely aware of the paramedic wrapping a blanket around me.

  “Your nose is cold,” my daughter said in the sweetest voice imaginable, though she seemed weak and groggy.

  My tears turned to laughter, and I drew back to look down at her angelic face. I pushed her wet curls away from her forehead and kissed her cheeks.

  “It was chilly down there,” I replied, rubbing my nose against hers, “but we’ll both be warm soon. Everything’s going to be okay now, sweetheart. You’re safe.”

  I gazed down at her for a joyous moment. My love for her was bursting out of me. I felt so incredibly blessed. I never knew such a release of pain and fear.

  “Is Auntie Claire okay?” she asked, weakly.

  “Yes, she’s fine. They’re bringing her up soon. But how are you feeling? Are you okay?”

  “I’m tired. Are you okay?”

  I laughed. “Yes, I’m great.”

  I turned to the paramedic who was waiting for the next arrival. “Thank you so much for bringing her back!” I shouted to him over the noise of the chopper. “There are no words to say how grateful I am!”

  He handed me a headset to put on, then spoke to me through the microphone. “I saw you doing CPR down there. You were the one who brought her back, not me. She was conscious when I pulled her in here.”

  My surprised gaze swept back to Louise on the gurney, and the paramedic approached to put a headset on her as well.

  “You woke up in the basket?” I asked her. “That must have been scary.” My poor, darling girl wouldn’t have known what was happening to her. She would have been confused and disoriented.

  Louise blinked a few times. “I wasn’t scared. Grampy was with me.”

  The chopper lifted slightly on a gust of wind.

  I inclined my head at her, puzzled. “What do you mean…Grampy? Who are you talking about?”

  My father had passed away when I was ten years old, so Louise had never met him. As for her paternal grandfather, I was a single mother and Louise’s father and I weren’t together. In fact, I knew very little about him. We’d only spent a weekend together. He didn’t even know about Louise, and I had absolutely no idea if his parents were still alive.

  “Grampy,” she repeated, as if I should understand. “Your daddy. He’s in heaven now.”

  Heat pooled in my belly, and my heart began to pound. “Is that where you were just now?” I asked, gently. “In heaven?”

  She nodded, and I cleared my throat.

  “What did…” I paused and swallowed uncomfortably. “What did your grampy look like?”

  Louise wet her lips. “He had brown hair and a mustache and happy eyes that smiled at me. He told me not to be afraid. But I wasn’t afraid. I was just sad.”

  Not entirely sure what to say, I glanced over my shoulder at the paramedic to see if he was listening through the headsets. He must have been, because he raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Why were you sad?” I asked, turning back to Louise.

  “Because I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to stay there.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I liked it. I flew over the clouds, and it wasn’t rainy up there. The sunlight was pretty. But they all said I had to come back.”

  I felt breathless and shaky. “Who’s they? Who said that?”

  Just then, the basket clanged against the side of the chopper with a fierce gust of wind. Claire was inside, shivering in the wind. The paramedic pulled her in.

  “My God, she’s okay!” Claire said. “Louise!”

  My sister climbed out of the basket and crawled toward us. I threw my arms around her and we embraced tightly, each of us crying our eyes out.

  “Thank God she’s all right!” Claire shouted over all the noise. “I was so worried.”

  “Me too, but you saved her in the water. You didn’t let her go.”

  Only then did I realize I had no idea what had happened to Louise, exactly. They had been out of my sight for those crucial moments before Dalila sank into the depths.

  “How did you end up in the water in the first place?” I asked Claire, still shouting. The paramedic handed her a headset as well. “The last thing I remember, we’d handed Louise up through the hatch…”


  Claire nodded as she adjusted the microphone around her mouth. “Yes, and you climbed out of the hold next, but you fell into the water right away. One of the crew members went in after you—it must have been Susan—and another one had Louise in his arms. I’d just climbed out behind you when another big wave hit us and swept us all overboard. I was scared but I just kept screaming your name and Louise’s name, and then I saw her in the water, in the middle of the sails and rigging. I swam to get her, then I tried to swim for one of the lifeboats, but I got disoriented. The waves were so huge. I couldn’t get anywhere. I just started yelling for help. That’s when Susan came for us.”

  I listened to this with shock and horror, unable to bear the fact that my sister and daughter had endured such a terrible ordeal.

  And I had questions—important ones—but I couldn’t ask them while Louise was listening through the headsets, so I decided to wait until we landed and Claire and I could talk privately.

  The other woman from the lifeboat was brought into the chopper just then—we found out that her name was Margaret—and we all consoled each other.

  * * *

  The chopper pilot took us directly to the hospital where Margaret was reunited with her husband John, who had ended up in the other lifeboat. They wept as they held each other, because neither had known the other was alive.

  Meanwhile, Claire called her husband Scott to let him know that we were all okay, and I called our mother. They were relieved to hear our voices because, by this time, the disaster had made local news headlines. Evidently, Dalila’s captain and six passengers were still missing and a massive rescue operation was underway. Claire and I hadn’t known about that until Scott informed us. We were grief-stricken by the news, and doubly grateful to be alive.

  It wasn’t long before a pediatrician arrived to examine Louise in the ER. He wore a tie with Elmo on it.

  “I heard that you were very brave today,” he said in a friendly voice as he listened to her chest with the stethoscope.

  She smiled and nodded at the compliment.

  “It must have been scary in such a bad storm.”

  Louise merely nodded again.

  He draped the stethoscope around his neck and spoke gently to her. “Can you tell me everything that happened to you?”

  She looked at me for encouragement and I squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, sweetheart. The doctor needs to know if you hurt yourself. Go ahead, tell him what you remember.”

  Louise wet her lips and looked up at the doctor. “The boat sank and I fell in the water. I tried to swim because I’m a good swimmer, but I was scared.”

  He nodded sympathetically. “Did you hit your head or anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And how long were you in the water? Do you remember?”

  She shook her head.

  “It must have been very cold.”

  “Yes.”

  He looked in her ear with the otoscope. “Did you swallow a lot of water?”

  She nodded again. “Yes, and I couldn’t breathe. I was kicking my arms and legs, but the waves were big. They kept splashing me in the face.”

  I had to fight to stay strong as I listened to her describe the details, because the image of my daughter thrashing about in the water, all alone and panicking, was not an easy one to swallow. I hated myself for losing sight of her, for not being able to protect her.

  “Then I drowned,” she said plainly, “and I died and went to heaven.”

  The doctor simply nodded at this, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to say.

  “But your mommy brought you back to life because she’s an excellent nurse. You’re a very lucky girl.” He moved to the foot of the bed. “Can you wiggle your toes for me? Very good.” Returning to her side, he asked, “How are you feeling now? Overall.”

  “My chest hurts a little,” she shyly replied, and pointed at her heart. “Right here.”

  He raised her hospital gown and examined some bruising where I had been doing chest compressions for over five minutes. He felt around the area, asked her to tell him if it hurt when he put pressure on it. Then he glanced across at me. “You were quite a hero today.”

  “No, really, I was just a mom.”

  “You saved your daughter’s life.”

  A lump formed in my throat and I had to lower my gaze.

  He tested Louise for strength, sensations, and reflexes and asked her questions to determine if she had suffered any neurological damage because of a lack of oxygen to her brain. There was no evidence of that, which was a relief to say the least, and I suspected that the cold water had slowed down her body systems, which helped bring her back.

  When he finished examining her, he turned to me and said that he saw no reason to admit her. He then told me what to watch out for at home, and if there were any issues at all, to come back and have her checked out right away.

  He said good-bye to Louise and pushed past the privacy curtain, but I still had questions, which I didn’t want to ask in front of Louise. I told her to wait there, that I would be right back.

  I caught up with the doctor by the nurses’ station. “Dr. Patterson. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” He turned to face me.

  I glanced uncertainly at the women behind the desk and felt suddenly self-conscious, so I pulled him aside, down the corridor, and spoke in a hushed tone.

  “Do you see many children who say they died and went to heaven?”

  He considered that for a moment. “No, I can’t say that I do.”

  “But you didn’t seem to find it strange at all—that she would say something like that.”

  He studied my face. “No, I just thought it was something you must have said to her. I assumed you’re religious.”

  I shook my head. “No. I mean, yes, we go to church, but I didn’t tell her anything. I certainly didn’t tell her that she died.”

  His eyebrows pulled together with concern. “Did she say anything else about it? That she saw a light, or anything like that?”

  “Not a light, exactly,” I replied, “but I haven’t questioned her very much. She did mention clouds and sunlight, so maybe she did see that, I don’t know. What I find most strange is that she told me she saw her grandfather, but she’s never known him because he died long before she was born.” I paused and took a breath, trying to make sense of it. “The way she described him… It was like she knew him intimately. Affectionately. She called him Grampy.”

  Dr. Patterson simply stared at me. I suspected he didn’t have the slightest clue what to say.

  I shivered a little and rubbed my upper arms. “You’ve never encountered anything like this before? With a child who died or flatlined?”

  “No, but I’ve certainly heard plenty of stories about near-death experiences. I just never met anyone who actually had one.”

  A couple of nurses walked by, and I waited until they passed. “So… Do you think that’s what it was? Do you think she experienced the afterlife?”

  Hearing myself say the words felt completely crazy.

  He quickly held up a hand. “Now, now, I don’t know anything about that. I don’t really subscribe to those beliefs.”

  “How would you explain it then?” I quickly countered, although I wasn’t trying to argue with him. I wasn’t even sure I subscribed to those beliefs myself. I just wanted to know what he thought.

  He shrugged a shoulder. “I think that when we die, there are all sorts of electrical impulses in the brain that can cause hallucinations.”

  Suddenly, I did find myself wanting to argue with him…

  “But isn’t there evidence that some people see and hear things on the operating table when they flatline? I’ve heard stories where people say they floated up to the ceiling and witnessed everything that was happening while they were clinically dead.”

  He scratched the back of his neck, as if he were uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was taking. “Maybe, but a
s far as I know, there’s no scientific proof of any afterlife, but it’s not my field. If you like, I could ask for a psych consult.”

  Psych?

  No. Absolutely not. I had no desire to go that route with my daughter. Not at this stage.

  “Um…” I pretended to think about it. “No, thank you. Let’s just leave it for now. Maybe she was imagining it, or dreaming. I don’t know. I’ll keep an eye on her and let you know if she needs to be seen. Thank you.”

  I turned away from him and hurried back to Louise.

  Chapter Three

  Emma

  Victoria, British Columbia

  There was a time I believed I would love him forever. But Carter and I were young when we met. I was barely fifteen, in the ninth grade, and caught up in the passionate madness of adolescent hormones. Not to totally discount what we felt for each other. Puppy love is just as real as grown-up love. But everything’s so dramatic when you’re that age. Emotions are heightened. That’s why Romeo and Juliet died tragically. If they had been in their thirties when everything happened to them, I doubt Romeo would have taken the poison, and Juliet most certainly wouldn’t have stabbed herself in the stomach. They would have known that life has ups and downs, and we must go on, and even if the heart can’t mend completely, there will be joy in other places, somewhere further down the road. I understood that now.

  At the time I came to realize this, I was thirty years old, and though my heart had been broken, I knew it was time to patch up the wounds I’d suffered lately and get on with living.

  Which was why I needed Carter to sign the divorce papers.

  * * *

  Carter and I had arranged to meet at our house in Victoria, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, where he continued to live after we separated. We had purchased the house together the summer before we got married, with the help of his parents, who gave us the down-payment as a wedding gift.

  I loved that house, even though it fell squarely into the category of “starter home” and needed work to this day. When we bought it, it was dated and rundown, but we preferred to call it cozy and “lived in.” What made it special was its magical backyard with an expansive stretch of green grass, a patch of forest with a wooden bridge across a babbling brook, and best of all, hidden in the trees, surrounded by carpets of lush green moss, was a child’s playhouse that looked like something out of Hansel and Gretel. It was a miniature Tudor Revival structure painted pink and blue, with mature English ivy spilling out of tiny window boxes. When we were shopping for our first home, it was the playhouse that had sealed the deal. It was also one of the reasons why I couldn’t continue to live there with Carter. I couldn’t bear to look at it.