Heartache on Sable Lake – Part 4

            She needed to see if Max was alive and the only way to do that was to swing her legs over her seat and crawl back to where he was. She knew how to take a pulse. She learned in the first aid class they’d taken at the Red Cross last year. She just had to get to him.

            Diane turned slowly, carefully bringing her legs over the seat so that she faced the back of the canoe and Max. She put one hand on each side of the canoe and slid forward, dropping to her knees as she moved forward. She grabbed the middle bar and inched toward Max. She studied the top of his hoodie. Was he breathing? With the wind blowing and the canoe rocking, she couldn’t tell. She scooted closer and then reached out to touch his head.

            She tried to move his head to her lap, thinking she could turn him face up, but she couldn’t get enough leverage. I’ll have to stand up in order to turn him over, she decided, and so, holding the sides of the canoe she slowly stood, the rocking and the turning nearly making her sick. I can do this. I have to do this, she thought, and so she let go of one side, reached down and pulled hard on Max’s right shoulder. But he was dead weight. She pulled harder and just as she was able to move him just the slightest bit, she fell backward, hitting her back on the edge of the canoe and somersaulting into the water.

            She sank for only an instant until her life preserver brought her bobbing to the surface. She was a few yards from the canoe which was drifting and rocking. The water was cold, so cold, cold like it might be in a month or two under a layer of ice. Her sneakers filled with water.

            “HELP! HELP!” There was no one to hear her but she screamed anyway. There were no houses on the lake, no trails close to the water. There was a road but it was at least a mile away. No one would see what was happening. They were here, in the middle of this giant lake, all alone.

            She swam toward the canoe, hoping to grab the side and maybe even climb back inside but once she got to the canoe, hanging on to the side with both hands, she worried about pulling it over. She treaded water while she looked over the edge.

            “Max. Oh God, Max. Don’t be dead. Don’t have us both die out here in this lake.” She felt herself getting weak.

The frigid water and the struggle to hang on to the canoe while it bounced around in the waves had drained her every cell. She leaned her head against the side of the canoe. We’re going to die out here, she thought. No one will know until the canoe washes up on shore. She started to relax into that thought, the inevitability of it, when she remembered that Max still had his phone. Her phone had gone flying into the water when she fell overboard, but his should still be in the pocket of his hoodie. She hitched herself up trying to reach Max’s hoodie, but her weight tipped the canoe, so the edge was nearly in the water. She held on and treaded water while the canoe rocked in the water. The phone wouldn’t work anyway out here. It was only good for taking pictures. She heaved a sob and then screamed. MAX!

Then she let go. She decided to let herself sink into the water, go under, float away, feel the lake close in over her head. Finish it.