Splashes. Coming closer.
Then Frannie was there. Reaching out. Her hand gripping Claire impossibly warm and solid. “I knew it was you,” she said, breathless. “I just knew it.”
Claire couldn’t speak. Frannie was alive. She had come. She wore an orange life vest around her neck, her fair hair plastered against her head. Frannie put her arms around Claire as best she could, bumping into her as the water swirled around them.
“Beth, thank God,” Frannie said. Frannie floated back, her eyes meeting Claire’s in the dim moonlight. “But where is...?”
Jenny.
Claire blinked against her blurred vision and shook her head. Beth was slipping. “Help her,” Claire gasped.
Frannie grabbed at the tree branch with one hand and Beth with the other. The tree bent with their weight. She shoved a life vest at Claire. “Help me get this on Beth.”
“Her arm,” Claire warned as Beth moaned. “It might be broken.”
Frannie nodded in acknowledgement but didn’t waste breath on an answer. Between them, they strapped the vest on Beth, tying the canvas straps tight. As the vest buoyed Beth, her weight on Claire eased and she breathed with relief.
Frannie unfastened the knots in her own vest and it took a moment for Claire’s numb mind to understand what she was doing. “Take this.” Frannie shoved the vest at her. “Put it on.” She held on to the branch above them to keep from going under.
“No,” Claire said, understanding dawning. “You can’t—”
“Do it,” Frannie snapped. The branch cracked. Frannie’s feet pumped under the water to keep herself afloat. “You have to hang on to Beth,” she said. “I’m going to tie this rope to you and tow you to shore, but there’s junk in the water so we have to—”
“No.” Claire was still holding the life vest in one hand, the branch in the other. She couldn’t let Frannie swim in this treacherous water without the life vest. It was too dangerous.
“For Pete’s sake, Claire,” Frannie sputtered out, “just let me save you.”
Claire heard the determination in Frannie’s voice, and saw that stubborn expression she knew from eighteen years of taking care of her little sister.
“It’s not far,” Frannie panted. “I can do this. But you have to do what I say. Please.”
As much as everything in her wanted to protect Frannie, she couldn’t. Not if she wanted to live. Not if she wanted to give Beth and her baby a chance. Claire put the water-soaked vest over her head and tied the straps with frozen fingers. Frannie knotted the end of a rope through the loop on the vest.
“Let’s go,” Frannie said. “Lay on your back, and hold on to Beth. Don’t let her go.”
Claire swallowed. She wouldn’t let go. Not when they were so close to being saved. Then, they were moving. The tree that had been her and Beth’s salvation receded into the darkness. Frannie’s strokes were strong, each one a tug that pulled them through the dark water.
“Watch out,” Frannie warned with a splutter.
Something—a floating log—hit Claire’s legs and then disappeared in the dark. Beth groaned in pain. Frannie’s strokes slowed. She changed direction once, then a few strokes later, veered again. Claire could hear her breath rasping in her throat. Claire tried to kick her legs but they were leaden weights.
Frannie stopped once, treading water. “I’m coming back,” she yelled into the dark. “Where are you?”
Claire heard shouts. Men’s voices. Frannie adjusted her direction and set out, her strokes sure and strong again.
“Almost there,” Frannie gasped.
Then, Frannie was slowing... standing... her shoulders coming out of the water. Claire’s cold-deadened feet knocked against something. Solid ground. Claire closed her eyes, the world shifting and spinning. Were they saved? Were they safe?
Shouts and splashing sounded around her.
“Mel, help me with Beth.” Frannie’s voice was distant and echoey. Claire felt Frannie pull Beth away from her.
Claire tried to turn herself from her back to her front, to get her legs under her, but her body wouldn’t obey.
Strong arms—impossibly warm—went around her and she heard her name. “Claire.” The voice sounded far off and blurred, but so much like Red’s gentle voice in her ear, just like when they woke in the morning, the sun dawning outside their bedroom window.
Claire let herself believe for a moment that it was Red. That she was safe at home, in his arms.I need you. I’m not fine without you.If only she could say those words to him. She felt herself lifted out of the water. Carried. Gently lowered to solid ground. She pried openher eyes with effort. Golden light brightened the sky—when had the sun risen?—and Red was there.
