The water lifted them, carrying them away. Gretchen slipped her head through her floating pants and reached for Josie’s hand. But Josie and Vera were already on the current, rocketing downriver. Josie struggled to keep proper hold on Vera. The woman’s body was completely limp. Water surged over Josie’s head, and she spluttered as her mouth broke the surface. Again, she felt a squeezing in her chest. Calm, said a voice. Stay calm. But there was no staying calm. A scream ripped from her throat as she turned onto her back and pulled Vera onto her stomach. The makeshift flotation device wasn’t enough for them both. Josie’s head kept sinking below the surface. Her lungs burned.
She concentrated on trying to keep her arms wrapped around Vera. Water poured over her head, into her lungs. Flailing, she broke the surface again, and her body hacked so hard trying to expel the water that pain pierced her upper back. Then the water surged over her again. Her eyes were open but all she saw was darkness. The black abyss of the angry, voracious river. It was swallowing her whole. She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stop anything. Not the river. Not Vera’s death. Not her demons or the tears that came even now in her last moments as she sank.
The darkness can’t hurt you, Jo.
It was Ray’s voice, one of the last things he had said to her. She heard it as clearly as if he were talking into her ear. But that was impossible because she was underwater, clinging to a dying woman who was still bobbing along the surface of the river only by virtue of Josie’s pants. There was some kind of shift in the current, as though they’d passed through an eddy or something. Their bodies spun sideways and Josie’s head broke water again. She coughed, trying to get the water out of her lungs. Vera’s head flopped against Josie’s shoulder. Josie willed her legs to work, to paddle, to keep herself afloat. In her periphery, she saw a large branch shoot past them. Trees. She had to get to the shore or close enough to any trees overtaken in the flooding to grab onto them. They’d never make it following the current. Emergency responders wouldn’t find them before Josie tired out and drowned.
Her legs kicked as she craned her neck, trying to find any sign of land. Finally, to her right, a grove of trees came into view ahead. Every muscle in her body burned with the effort of paddling sideways with Vera hooked onto one of her arms. They barreled past the trees before Josie could reach them. A grunt of frustration escaped her. It was getting harder to take in breath, to stay afloat, to hold on. But she was closer to the edge of the water than she had been. She sent up a silent plea to any higher power that might be listening, and a moment later she was rewarded by another smattering of trees, these with more spindly trunks but grouped closer together. She reached out her free hand as the current carried them past. Her palm slapped against the trunk and slid off. The same thing happened with the next tree. The water was moving too fast. With every ounce of energy she had left, she kicked again, thrashing her body into a turn and bracing herself for impact.
Her back slammed into the next nearest tree trunk and then her body was crushed by Vera’s weight. It nearly knocked the wind out of her, but luck was with them finally. Even as the current tried to slide them around the side of the trunk and back downriver, the tree branches extended down and stopped the water’s progress. Josie reached her free hand up and grabbed onto the thickest branch she could find, holding the two of them in place. She squeezed her eyes shut and held on, feeling a small bit of relief.
When she heard screaming, her eyes snapped open. Hurtling toward them was Gretchen, inflated pants under her arms. She was either going to hit the tree trunk or fly right past them. Keeping hold of Vera, Josie shifted her position, trying to get closer to the trunk. With one arm looped around Vera and the other around the tree trunk, she extended her legs, letting them bob in the current. “Grab on!” she shouted to Gretchen.
As she neared, Gretchen reached out both hands toward Josie. They latched onto one of Josie’s thighs and slid down.
“No!” Josie screamed.
Gretchen’s grip tightened around Josie’s ankle. For a second, Josie waited for her hands to loosen, for her to be swept past them, but Gretchen held so tightly that Josie could feel her skin bruising. With agonizing slowness, Gretchen used Josie’s leg to pull herself closer to the trunk until she could wrap her arms around its girth. Josie’s arms felt jelly-like. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold on—to Vera and to the tree. Once she was sure that Gretchen wasn’t going anywhere, she shifted Vera’s weight and drew closer to Gretchen. “We have to climb,” she said. “Up into the tree. There are some branches above that will hold us, at least until rescue comes. Help me with Vera. I’ve got to get her up there.”
Gretchen’s face was paler than Josie had ever seen it. Her lips were nearly blue. The air was warm, but the water was cool, and they’d been in it… how long? Josie had no idea. It seemed like an eternity. Days. Weeks. Gretchen took one arm from the trunk and turned Vera’s face toward her own. Her fingers pressed into Vera’s neck. “Boss,” Gretchen said. “She’s gone.”
“No,” Josie said.
Beneath the water, something banged against her legs. Debris. God knew what was in this water. Josie hated to think about it. She reached up to check Vera’s pulse for herself, but she couldn’t find it. Slapping Vera’s cheek, she yelled, “Vera! Vera! Wake up!”
“She’s gone,” Gretchen repeated.
“No!” Josie insisted. More slaps. “Vera! Come on! Wake up!” Frantically, she looked around. She couldn’t do CPR out here. There was no way to do compressions. She could try to inflate Vera’s lungs, but there was no way to position her head and neck properly so that the air actually reached her lungs. “No,” Josie sputtered. “No.”
Gretchen reached across Vera and shook Josie’s shoulder. “Boss, she’s gone. There’s nothing we can do for her now.”
“Then what?” Josie shouted, spittle and rain and river water flying from her lips. “What now? We can’t just—what do we do? Just let her go? Let her wash away? No!”
Gretchen’s fingers dug into the muscles above Josie’s shoulder blades. “We can tie her—tie her here to the tree using our pants. We climb up, wait for help. She might hold here long enough for rescue to come.”
Josie looked at Vera’s ashen face, felt her lifeless body against her side. Gretchen held tight to Josie, watching her with wide eyes, waiting. Beyond her, the river roared on. The peaked roof of a house came into view, someone’s home—someone’s life—floating past with glacial slowness that seemed at odds with the power of the water all around them. Something broke inside Josie. She felt it. Like the railroad levee. A dam bursting open. What was beyond it was unstoppable. Silent sobs wracked her body. The emotion flowed out of her so fast and so hard, like it was pummeling every soft place inside her on its way up and out, that she couldn’t speak. Tears blurred her vision until Gretchen and Vera were hardly visible.
She wanted to tell Gretchen that she agreed they should tie Vera’s body to the tree so they wouldn’t lose her, but her throat wouldn’t cooperate. All that came was the raging mass of emotions. A lifetime’s worth, it seemed. Josie nodded through her tears. Up and down, up and down until she heard Gretchen say, “Okay, okay. You just hold onto her while I tie our pants together, okay? That’s the only way they’ll fit around the trunk and Vera.”