Page 102 of I'll Carry You

Another wave nearly ripped them apart. “Dad!”

The water felt choppier, the current faster. “We’re going to do this together, okay?” Dad said, breathing hard. They couldn’t tread water, couldn’t stay still. The more they lost themselves to the current, the farther it pulled them out.

Jason sucked in a breath as his father pulled him away from his neck, taking his hand instead. “Swim that way!” His father pointed. “Hard as you can now, Jason. I’m right beside you. You just keep going without stopping. I’ll be right here the whole time. Next to you.”

Jason gritted his teeth, water in his mouth, stinging his nose. He coughed, then sucked down a deep breath. They swam forward. Occasionally, Dad grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him forward. Then Dad gave one last big shove, and Jason felt the grip of the current loosen around his legs and torso.

He flung his body forward, weeping and sputtering, kicking and breathing until his hands hit the rocks.

A small crowd had gathered and a man pulled him out, hooking his arms under Jason’s armpits. Jason turned, scanning the water for his dad.

“Dad!” He lunged toward the water, but several sets of hands held him back.

“Let me go. I have to get my dad!” He searched the churning water. “Let me go, let me go! Dad’s still there. He was right next to me. Right beside me.”

But he was alone.

Jason rakedhis fingers through his hair, then pounded the steering wheel with the fleshy part of his palm. He was late. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been late anywhere, and the feeling was suffocating.

And this might be the most important thing he’d ever tried to be there for.

Damn cell phone reception at Mildred’s house meant he hadn’t gotten Jen’s voice mail message until he’d taken a break from work and gone into town in search of a sandwich since he’d skipped lunch. By then, it was already past four thirty, and he’d turned the car and driven straight here.

Jason resisted the urge to stop staring at the clock on his dash, his eyes flicking back to the parking lot. There wasn’t a single spot available. And the half mile up to the parking lot was equally crowded, lined with parked cars on each side.

The boats—he shuddered—were going to leave without him.

He saw a sign for the boat launch and drove toward it. Maybe if he left his car near there, he could just worry about the fine later.

He drove straight to the launch, pulling his car to the side. A group of people near the launch gave him strange looks. He jumped out of the car, leaving his phone and keys inside it. He’d tried calling Jen about twenty times. Now that he was here, he realized why. No service.

Some things in Brandywood he wasn’t going to get used to, that was for sure.

He ran onto the launch. “Has Peter Yardley’s boat gone?” he asked a passerby, who stared at him as though he was a maniac.

Maybe he was a maniac.

He didn’t have a coat, for starters. He’d left it in Chicago. And the only clothes he had were old things that Mildred had dug up from her attic that had belonged to her husband, his grandfather, John. His grandfather had been close enough in size and stature that Jason hadn’t rushed out to buy clothes.

“All the boats are gone,” the man answered, then pointed out to the water to the right. “But they’re not far.”

Jason took off running alongside the water’s edge. What was he hoping to do exactly? Wave them down? Have them turn around and come back for him?

The colored twinkle lights from the boat blurred in his vision. The cold air filled his lungs, and he dodged people by the water’s edge, not paying attention to the stir he was causing.

He had to get out on that boat.

If Jen was out there, he wanted to be with her.

The thought was singular in his mind, pulsing with an urgent beat as he ran out of shoreline to run along. He stopped, watching the boat gliding into the water.

The gentle lapping of the lake brought terror to his heart.

She was out there, slipping farther away.

Peeling his shoes and socks off, his heart continued pounding in his chest.

He hesitated, his bare feet aching in the icy mixture of snow and mud by the water.

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