A Child To Open Their Hearts

Joni.

Hettie was screaming but she was screaming inside. She had no room for anything else. Where...?

She’d swum here. There was a rip, running south. Hettie could swim well. Surfing had once been her life, but to swim against the rip in these conditions...

The guy on the boat had seen. If she could grab Sefina and tow her with the rip, maybe he could help.

A mother and a toddler?

She couldn’t think like that.

As a teenager she’d trained as a lifeguard, hoping for a holiday job back when she’d lived at Bondi. Her instructor’s voice slammed back now. ‘Look to your own safety before you look to help someone in the surf.’

This was crazy. Past dangerous.

Oh, but Joni... He was fifteen months old and she’d cradled him to sleep for the past few nights. And Sefina... Battered Sefina, with no one to turn to.

Forget the instructors. Her clothes were tossed onto the sand. ‘Stay,’ she yelled at Bugsy, and she was running into the waves regardless.

* * *

The rip was so strong Max was swept south the moment he hit the water. Anything in that pool would be tugged straight out, past the reef and out to sea.

He surfaced, already being pulled.

But Max had swum like a fish as a kid, and for the past few years gym work and swimming had sometimes seemed the only thing that had kept him sane.

He couldn’t swim against the rip but if he headed diagonally across he might collide with...with what he hoped to find. That slip of crimson.

He cast one long look at the pool, trying to judge where he’d last seen that flash of crimson.

He put his head down and swam.

* * *

Was she nuts? Trying to swim in this surf? But if she got past the breakers she only had the rip to contend with. She could deal with the rip, she thought. She knew enough not to panic. The guy on the boat would have seen her. If she could reach Sefina and hold on to her, she could tread water until help came.

Even if the guy hadn’t seen her, she was due to go on duty at midday. The staff knew she’d gone for a walk on the beach. If she didn’t return they’d come down and find Bugsy, find her clothes... Once the rip dragged her out, she could tread water and hope...

Yeah, very safe, she thought grimly as she dived through another wave. Not.

What would she do if she reached them? The lifeguard part of her was already playing out scenarios.

The quickest way to kill yourself is to put yourself within reach of someone who’s drowning. They’ll pull you down as they try to save themselves.

There was her instructor again.

Sefina wouldn’t try to save herself, though. Sefina wanted to die.

Sefina...

She’d known how unhappy the girl was, but in the post-cyclone chaos all Hettie had been able to give the young woman had been swift hugs between periods of imperative medical need. She’d promised her she was safe in the hospital. She’d promised they’d sort things out when things had settled.

She hadn’t realised time had been so achingly short.

Hettie surfaced from the last breaker and looked around wildly. The rip was stronger than she’d thought. Maybe she’d missed them.

And then she saw someone else in the water, swimming strongly across the rip. The guy from the boat?

There went her source of help if she got into trouble, she thought grimly. All of them in the water? This was breaking every lifesaving rule, but it was too late to back out now. She was watching the rim of the foam where the deep pool ended and the relative calm began.

There! A sliver of crimson.

She must have shouted because the swimming guy raised his head. She waved and pointed.

He raised a hand in silent acknowledgement and they both put their heads down and swam.

* * *

He could see her now, or he could see the swirl of crimson shawl she’d wrapped around her body. If he could just get closer...

The pull of the rip was hauling him backwards. By rights it should’ve propelled the woman’s body towards him.

Was she stuck on the edge of the reef? Had the shawl snagged?

The rocks were too close to the surface for safety. He should stay well clear...

He didn’t.

* * *

This was crazy. Suicidal. She couldn’t swim into the foam. She daren’t. As it was, the rip was pulling so hard she was starting to doubt her ability to get herself to safety.

A breaker crashed on the rocks and threw a spray of water, blocking her vision. She could see nothing.

With a sob of fear and frustration she stopped trying and let herself be carried outward.

Free from the foam she could tread water. She could look again.

She could see nothing but white. Nothing...

* * *

There! Max’s hands had been groping blindly in front of him, but the touch of fabric had him grabbing.

He had her, but she was wedged in rocks. He was being washed by breaker after breaker. He couldn’t see. He pulled upwards to take a tighter hold—and a child fell free into his arms.

The child must have been clinging, or tied within the shawl. The rip caught them again and they were tugged outwards.