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Outside I saw Jamie half-carrying Christ, dragging him up to the nearest person in uniform—a woman with a jacket that said “EMT” in yellow letters on the back. Jamie’s bushy black mane was slicked and soaked down his back, nearly down to the top of his pants. His shirt was torn and he was either muddy or bloody, I couldn’t tell which.
“Dave, I’ve got to go. Jamie just got here with a friend of ours. I think he’s hurt. ”
“The friend, or Jamie?”
“Yeah,” I said, even though it didn’t answer him very well. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll be careful, though. I’ll take care of myself. You go get some rest. Love you both,” I added, and closed the phone.
“Thanks,” I said to Nick as I pushed past him and out to the front, through the glass door and into the night—which had gone cold. Or maybe I was only tired, and drained, and hungry, and the world felt cold even though it wasn’t.
“Jamie? Christ?”
“What are you doing here?” Jamie lowered Christ into a crumpled sitting position against the building, where the EMT shined a light into his eyes and tried to talk to him.
“Same as everybody else, I guess. ”
He grabbed me by one arm and gave me a hug that I was preposterously happy to receive. He felt slim and tight under my arms, but comfortingly, comfortably strong.
“Glad to see you made it in one piece,” he said into my hair, then pulled back to look at me. “But I thought you were headed for the Choo-Choo?”
“I was, yeah. I made it, too. But then I ended up doubling back. Long story. ”
Nick emerged behind me, squeezing into the space beneath the overhang.
“Ah,” Jamie said, as if it answered everything. He pointed a thumb down at Christ. “Lookit what I found. He was floundering around on Fourth Street; Becca and me nearly tripped over him on the way back up to her place. ”
“Hey darling,” I said, crouching down beside Christ. His orange semi-Mohawk was flattened and brown, and his cheeks looked even more gaunt than usual. Around his eyes a blue-gray cloud smudged itself deep, giving him the look of a corpse, though his chest rose and fell, fast and hard.
“Hey,” he mumbled back, the single sound stretching over a wheezing pair of breaths.
“Jesus, Christ. I thought you were still down there, you know that? I half swam across the river and half climbed the damn bridges trying to get you. ”
Something tight and curved stretched on his mouth, almost a grin. “Dumbass. ”
“Tell me about it. ”
“We’re all dead, now. Get off of me, lady,” he said to the EMT. “I’m fine. Get the fuck off of me. ”
She backed away, but came back a second or two later with a towel and a bottle of water. “I don’t know if you’re fine or not, but here—take these. ”
He took the towel and wrapped it around his shoulders, then opened the water and downed it in a few quick gulps while I watched. “Didn’t realize,” he gasped. “Didn’t realize how thirsty I was. Water, water everywhere—and all the boards did shrink,” he bubbled, killing off the last of the bottle and dropping it empty down at his side.
“You’re alive, though. Christ, you’re alive. And now . . . now I sort of want to kill you. ”
“Nothing but love for you too, Eden. And I didn’t tell you to come out and get me. I didn’t ask for help. ”
“Yeah you did. Like, a dozen times you asked for help. ”
“Oh. Well. I meant today. Or yesterday. Whichever. I didn’t ask for help then. There wasn’t any help for Ann Alice, and I could find my own goddamn way out of the undersides. How exactly did you plan to contribute to my survival, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But if you’d drowned, I would’ve felt guilty for years to come. ”
“Drowning was the least of my problems,” he said, putting his hands down on his knees, and putting his head down on his hands.
Guilt, I thought.
I sat down next to Christ and tugged at the leg of Nick’s jeans. “Guilt—that’s what it is,” I told him—realizing I was abruptly shifting subjects, but lacking the vitality to summon up a good transition.
“Guilt? Who, Caroline, you mean?” Nick said.
