Page 8 of Summer Shivers
A female officer blocks my view of what’s happening. “Would you like to tell me what happened?”
I try to look over her shoulder, to see what going on. The sight of them picking his body out of the water to lay on a stretcher beside the pool makes me shiver.
“Can we get a blanket over here?” she calls out; moments later I’m surrounded by a musty smelling gray blanket. It’s scratchy, but it’s warm.
“I don’t know what happened,” I tell her.
“Why don’t we go sit down over here.” She motions to one of the lounge chairs on the other side of the pool. Even further away from where Harrison’s lifeless body lingers. My feet don’t want to move, and it takes the officer forcibly guiding me, one hand at my lower back, to get them to cooperate.
Nothing seems to be working for the paramedics either. I raise a shaky hand to my mouth. It smells like chlorine.
“Genevieve, can you tell me what happened?” She takes the phone from me—I didn’t even realize I still had it—and mumbles something to the 9-1-1 dispatcher before disconnecting the call.
“I can’t. I don’t remember anything after we went to bed.”
“Why don’t you tell me the last thing you do remember,” she urges.
“This morning. I came to look for him and saw him floating in the pool. He wasn’t breathing.”
“What time was that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe twenty or twenty-five minutes ago.”
“Why were you looking for him?”
I can’t stop looking at the people surrounding Harrison. He’s clearly not waking up and it appears nothing they try to revive him works.
“Uh.” I look back at the officer. “He didn’t make the coffee.”
“Does he usually make coffee?”
“Yes.”
“Were you upset that he didn’t?”
“No. Just confused. It was unusual. He’s always up early to make the coffee and leaves me a mug by the bed. He doesn’t sleep much, but he’s okay with that. Was okay with it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Obviously, he’s dead.” I gesture to the body they’ve stopped trying to revive.
“We’re just going to have to wait and see what the medical examiner says, and then we’ll go from there.” She rubs my back in an awkward motion, as though any type of touch will be reassuring at this point.
“He’s not waking up. . .” The words drift from across the pool.
“No!” I scream, I want to rush to him but my legs give out and I sink to the ground, my chin falling to my chest, too heavy to continue holding up. “This can’t be happening. It can’t be. This isn’t real.” I rock back and forth, clutching the blanket to me, willing the words I chant to come true. Someone starts to scream. I cover my ears to drown out the noise before I realize it’s me. The female officer kneels before me, her mouth is moving but the words jumble in the space between us.
I can’t make them out.
The only thing I hear are the sounds of my own cries echoing in the air.
four
GENEVIEVE
The medical examinerarrives and officially declares Harrison dead. The police continue to try to help me figure out what happened. I have no idea what to tell them. It’s as though they think asking the same questions over and over will somehow make an answer materialize. It takes the female officer finally asking something that makes sense to jog my memory again.
“Why do you think you didn’t wake up last night, Genevieve?”
