In Your Dreams

His niece was eighteen, too.

He’d want someone to try one more time for Abby.

He pulled as hard as he could, bracing his legs against the car, all the air in his lungs leaving in a bubbling rush.

And then they were moving, heading up, and how they were doing it, Jack didn’t know because he couldn’t think anymore, but they were making it, a centimeter at a time, and then there was the sky, red and purple and violently beautiful, and full of air, like icy needles in his lungs, but so, so good, the sound of his gasps tearing through the cold.

His gasps. Not the kid’s.

He held on to the boy and tried to keep going. It wasn’t pretty. It was hard and sloppy and weak.

A siren screamed, then another. Police and firefighters, on their way.

The dock was still so far away. Jack closed his eyes, his head slipping again under the water. Shit. Kicked harder, his legs really just flailing now.

The boy was still and quiet. No breath, no coughing. No resistance.

Jack’s labored panting rasped in and out of his aching lungs.

The water splashed, over and over, a hopeless, wet sound as his arm smacked lifelessly in a sorry imitation of swimming. He held on to the boy with his other arm, and God, it was hard.

Still not there. Still not there. In between each stroke, Jack’s face dipped a little lower in the water. He choked on some water.

Still not there.

Then someone grabbed his arm. Sam Miller, clinging to the dock ladder, reaching out for him. God bless Sam Miller.

The other boys reached down and grabbed on to their unconscious (dead) friend, hauling him up the ladder, ice in their hair now. One of the boys was sobbing.

Sam reached down for Jack, pulling him up, which was good because Jack was not going to be able to make it out himself. Water streamed off him, and he fell onto his knees. “On his side,” he managed, and they obeyed, turning the limp boy onto his left.

“Oh, shit, Josh,” the sobbing boy said. “Josh, please.”

Josh. Right. Josh Deiner. A troublemaker.

It was now too dark to see if any water had come out of Josh’s mouth, up from his lungs. Jack pushed him on his back and started chest compressions. He couldn’t feel his hands, but this was a brutish job, just push, push, push, elbows locked, fast and hard.

The sirens were louder.

Sam breathed into Josh’s mouth.

One...two...three...four...five...

God, he was tired.

And then there were red-and-blue flashes, and footsteps thudded down the dock.

“Jack, we got this,” said a voice. Levi. Emmaline Neal was there, too, another cop, a good hockey player. They knelt down and took over compressions.

There was a clattering, and Jessica Dunn and Gerard Chartier were running with the stretcher.

“Dry him off!” someone ordered. “He has to be dry if we’re gonna shock him.”

There was a whole crowd now. The three boys were being wrapped in blankets and hustled away, their faces white in the gloom.

The sun was still setting. How could that be? It seemed as though hours had passed.

Someone put a blanket around Jack, too, then led him down the dock, arm around his waist, holding him when he staggered. The three boys climbed into the back of one of the town’s two ambulances.

The other would be for Josh.

“Let’s get you out of the cold,” said the person at his side. It was Emmaline. Huh. He thought she was back with Josh. She opened the door of her cruiser and gently pushed him in.

“Is he dead?” Jack asked.

She glanced down the dock. “He’s not dead till he’s warm and dead. You know that. Let’s worry about you right now, okay?”

She was about to close the door when Sam Miller came over. His face was ruddy now—he was warming up. “You saved us,” he said, his voice cracking. “You saved us all.”

But Jack hadn’t, because Josh Deiner’s body was still on the dock, Levi and Gerard on their knees next to him as if in prayer.

* * *

THE MEDIA CALLED IT the Midwinter Miracle, going for alliteration over accuracy. And for a few days, it was big news. Anderson Cooper, among others, came to town and interviewed the three boys—Sam Miller, Garrett Baines and Nick Bankowski, who were tremulous and fine, save for a broken nose on Nick. Their parents wept and called Jack a hero, an angel, the hand of God. A former navy SEAL was interviewed and attested that it was a “helluva rescue.”

As police spokesperson, Levi gave a statement, as well, and when Anderson asked if Jack was indeed his brother-in-law, Levi said, yes, he was. When asked to characterize Jack, Levi said, “He’s a good guy.” That was it, and Jack was grateful.

He himself was asked for interviews by fifty-seven media outlets. He didn’t give any.

That night in the E.R., Jack’s father hugged him for a long, long time. Pops’s voice broke as he told Jack how proud he was. His sisters fussed over him and his niece wept, and his nephew got teary-eyed, as well. Mrs. Johnson made him his favorite dinners every night for the next week, as did his grandmother, not to be outdone. So there was a lot of food. Jack tried to eat it.

Josh Deiner was unavailable for comment, since he was in a coma. There was brain damage. He was on a ventilator.

At night, when Jack couldn’t sleep, it was Josh Deiner’s still, limp body he saw, lying on the wooden dock, ice forming on his eyelids since there was no heartbeat to keep him warm. The face of Josh’s girlfriend as she sobbed on Anderson Cooper’s shoulder. And the words Josh’s mother had spat at him in the E.R. ran through his brain, over and over and over.

You left him for last. The one who needed you the most, and you left him for last.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_ce0036f6-f331-51f6-8370-291a0a25f549)

EMMALINE SAT IN front of the computer with Carol Robinson, who tapped the screen. “That one’s cute. He has beautiful eyes.”

It was true. “Yeah, but look. Aggravated assault.”

“That rules him out?”

“It does, Carol.”

“You’re so fussy. All right, who’s next?”