Once I manage to lock onto a handful of his shirt, I don’t let go, not even when his fingernails tear into my bare skin.
Not even when I feel a sharp pain in my side—a hot line of fire—a blade, slicing across my ribs.
Macy attaches herself to Leo’s back like a monkey, holding him down while Pam plunges the T-grip of a paddle down into the water like a fishing spear, over and over, aiming for the tendrils of bleached-blond hair that surface as Leo thrashes.
All I can feel is adrenaline. Even the pain in my ribs fades. I hold on.
Leo twists violently against me, kicking out at Pam, dunking Macy underwater, and momentarily wriggling free of my hold on his shirt.
His head breaks the surface, water streaming down his face as he sucks in air. My gaze locks on his teeth, bared like an animal’s. And then we’re on him again, pushing his head back underwater as hard as we can. For Deborah, for Allie, for Imani, for everyone we left behind on the river.
Water blurs my vision as I fight to hold on, rage and loss and pain ripping through my throat in a ragged scream.
Will it ever end?
Are we strong enough?
After a horrifying eternity, his thrashing finally slows, bubbles streaming from his mouth and nose, his hair floating like a halo just beneath the churning surface.
Then the struggle stops altogether as his body sags beneath the combined weight of our hands and bodies.
Pam lets go first, the paddle slipping from her fingers as she gasps at the dark shape lolling in the water between us. His eyes are open wide, staring at nothing. A thin stream of water dribbles from his slack mouth. Macy lets go next, coughing, her swollen face streaked with water and blood and a feral expression that slowly loosens into disbelief.
I finally let go too, unwinding the shirt from my numb fingers and staggering backward in the water.
I stand there panting, closing my eyes for only a moment before hurrying to retrieve the kayak that’s nearly floated into the current. As I reach for it, the pain in my ribs roars back to life. My heart pounds in my chest.
I press my hand against it.Alive. Still alive.
Thank you,I tell Parker, tears spilling down my frozen cheeks as I struggle toward the others.
I suddenly know that I would still be thanking him even if it were me face-down in that river. Even if it had gone a different way, I’d be grateful with my whole heart. The same way Parker must have felt at the bottom of that cave while we said our goodbyes.
Thank you for staying with me,I tell him. Then I reach out for Pam and take hold of her outstretched hand.
And he reallyhasbeen here on the river with me this whole time. I know that now.
I no longer feel the need to understand whether I’m hearing his voice because of “Third Man Syndrome” or because his soul is reaching through the universe to find me. Maybe neither of those things are true. Maybe both are true. All I really know is this: I’ve been hearing his voice so clearly not just because I want to survive, but because in a very real way, he still lives in the deepest parts of my mind and body that he shaped by loving me so long and so well.
Every conversation, every shared silence, every night I tucked myself against him before bed—all of it is recorded at the most intimate, cellular level. I haven’t been imagining him. I’ve been keeping him with me everywhere I go, so deeply that his voice can still speak to me, urging me to fight, begging me to keep going, even warning me to play dead, asking me to stay and survive in hopes that I’ll find the sun again somehow after the darkness.
It means there’s some part of Parker that will stay alive as long as I do. His kindness, his strength, his humor, his love for me, his sense of adventure, the sound of his voice are all woven into my heart. And that’s real enough for even a skeptic like me.
I don’t hesitate as Pam helps me into the kayak, thrusting a paddle into my outstretched arms before getting in behind me, while Macy splashes toward the women back on shore.
Pam winces, staring at the blood trickling down my side. “Are you okay? Do you want to stay behind—”
I shake my head. The wound at my ribs is bleeding steadily, and it hurts like hell, but it isn’t deep. “We’ll get there faster if we row together,” I say.
And I’m strong enough to keep going, I think to myself.
In the distance, through the moonlight, a black streak circles above in the canyon overhead.
It’s probably not a hawk. They usually don’t fly at night.
But my chest aches with love anyway as the breeze lifts the winged creature up, up, far beyond what my eyes can see.
Hi, Parker,I mouth.
