Ryan could move around the captain to hold out a hand; blood was in Cal’s dark brown hair, flecks and smears among the gray streaks and the gray above his ears and in his short sideburns, and on his hands and sleeves and jacket and face. But what Rusty saw in a grateful instant that released her into time and space again was his ownblood, pumping within his body, coloring his face a deep, living red.
The helicopter veered and climbed and turned and the crewman rolled the captain onto his back and, without looking, reached up for the compress Gina had removed from the first-aid kit. Rusty looked at her hand, holding the compress as limply as with guilt, then Rusty looked up at the tearless futility of her daughter’s face. The compress did not change hands. The crewman was looking at the captain’s face and reaching toward Gina’s hand; then he lowered his arm and placed his fingers on the captain’s throat. Rusty knew from the crewman’s eyes, and from the captain’s face while he was still on the ladder, that this touch of the pulse was no more than a gesture, like the professionally solemn closing of a casket before its travel from the funeral home to the church service. Her legs lay straight in front of her, and she bent them and with her palms she pushed herself up, stumbling into the imbalance of the helicopter’s flight, rising from the captain’s blood and wiping it from her palms onto the legs of her jeans.
“And it was his own fault,” she said at the kitchen sink, surprised that she had spoken aloud, in a voice softly hoarse, after the silence of sleep. She cleared her throat, but it was dry, so she left the sink and the window and the images between her and the pines of the dead captain in the helicopter, and the first fin—the second: no one had seen the shark that came up under the mate—and poured a glass of orange juice and drank it in one long swallow, her hand still holding open the refrigerator door. She stood looking at the turkey,covered with plastic wrapping, the pan holding it set parallel to the length of the shelf. Last night she had removed the shelf above it to make room for the turkey’s breast. She had put in the ice chest the random assortment of food from the shelf that leaned now against one side of the refrigerator. Some of the food she had thrown away—a peach and two oranges molding at the rear of the shelf, a tomato so soft her fingers pierced it, some leaves of rusted lettuce, and a plastic container of tuna fish salad she had made last week—and was angry again at her incompetence, after all these years, at maintaining order in a refrigerator, at even knowing what on a given day it contained. She gazed at the turkey and saw Gina’s long bare legs beside hers in the water, bending and then kicking the soles of her sneakers against the noses of sharks.
It was what the captain had told them to do—had shouted at them to do—and for forty-seven minutes, according to the Coast Guard, Rusty had kicked. Her arms were behind her, down through the life preserver, her hands underwater holding the bottom of its rim, which she squeezed against her back. Gina, holding the same preserver, was to her right. Rusty could glance to her left and see Cal’s back, his head, and his arms going down through that preserver; Ryan and the captain were behind her. She wore jeans, tight and heavy with water, and when a fin came toward her she drew in her legs, then kicked between the eyes as they surfaced, those eyes that seemed to want her without seeing her. Later when she told the story to friends at home, she said the eyes were like those of an utterly drunken man trying to pick you up in a bar: all but a glimmer of sentience and motive invisible beneath the glaze ofdrunkenness, so that he did not truly see you, but only woman, bar, night. Those were the men, she told her friends, that even Cal handled gently, saying they were not responsible for anything they said or did. Each time she
The helicopter veered and climbed and turned and the crewman rolled the captain onto his back and, without looking, reached up for the compress Gina had removed from the first-aid kit. Rusty looked at her hand, holding the compress as limply as with guilt, then Rusty looked up at the tearless futility of her daughter’s face. The compress did not change hands. The crewman was looking at the captain’s face and reaching toward Gina’s hand; then he lowered his arm and placed his fingers on the captain’s throat. Rusty knew from the crewman’s eyes, and from the captain’s face while he was still on the ladder, that this touch of the pulse was no more than a gesture, like the professionally solemn closing of a casket before its travel from the funeral home to the church service. Her legs lay straight in front of her, and she bent them and with her palms she pushed herself up, stumbling into the imbalance of the helicopter’s flight, rising from the captain’s blood and wiping it from her palms onto the legs of her jeans.
“And it was his own fault,” she said at the kitchen sink, surprised that she had spoken aloud, in a voice softly hoarse, after the silence of sleep. She cleared her throat, but it was dry, so she left the sink and the window and the images between her and the pines of the dead captain in the helicopter, and the first fin—the second: no one had seen the shark that came up under the mate—and poured a glass of orange juice and drank it in one long swallow, her hand still holding open the refrigerator door. She stood looking at the turkey,covered with plastic wrapping, the pan holding it set parallel to the length of the shelf. Last night she had removed the shelf above it to make room for the turkey’s breast. She had put in the ice chest the random assortment of food from the shelf that leaned now against one side of the refrigerator. Some of the food she had thrown away—a peach and two oranges molding at the rear of the shelf, a tomato so soft her fingers pierced it, some leaves of rusted lettuce, and a plastic container of tuna fish salad she had made last week—and was angry again at her incompetence, after all these years, at maintaining order in a refrigerator, at even knowing what on a given day it contained. She gazed at the turkey and saw Gina’s long bare legs beside hers in the water, bending and then kicking the soles of her sneakers against the noses of sharks.
It was what the captain had told them to do—had shouted at them to do—and for forty-seven minutes, according to the Coast Guard, Rusty had kicked. Her arms were behind her, down through the life preserver, her hands underwater holding the bottom of its rim, which she squeezed against her back. Gina, holding the same preserver, was to her right. Rusty could glance to her left and see Cal’s back, his head, and his arms going down through that preserver; Ryan and the captain were behind her. She wore jeans, tight and heavy with water, and when a fin came toward her she drew in her legs, then kicked between the eyes as they surfaced, those eyes that seemed to want her without seeing her. Later when she told the story to friends at home, she said the eyes were like those of an utterly drunken man trying to pick you up in a bar: all but a glimmer of sentience and motive invisible beneath the glaze ofdrunkenness, so that he did not truly see you, but only woman, bar, night. Those were the men, she told her friends, that even Cal handled gently, saying they were not responsible for anything they said or did. Each time she
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