Page 24 of No One Aboard
Call sign: Minnow
Day 2 at Sea
Rylan knelt on the carpet of the salon, sketchbook on his thighs. Lightning pulsed through his right arm, and the heel of his hand ached, but still he drew. He’d been drawing since yesterday, since they’d left land behind. It kept him calm, curious even. He was counting the hours until they would reach their first dive destination tomorrow.
“Ah, there you, Rylan!” Francis materialized, a plastic mannequin’s head and torso tucked under his arm.
Rylan blanched. CPR training was one of the cornerstones of being a rescue diver, something Francis was determined both his children would be, because there was no activity or hobby in their lives that Francis did not want the Camerons to maximalize. Rylan couldn’t enjoy art without being prompted to research curators at museum galleries. He couldn’t admire the surface of the sea without a thorough explanation of bathymetry and plate tectonics. And he certainly could not take an open water dive course without then completing Advanced, Rescue, and someday Master levels.
If only he could be like Tia, who blew through Francis’s checkpoints with effortless disinterest.
Francis placed the mannequin in front of his son. He plucked the sketchbook from his hand and flung it on the sofa, leaving Rylan feeling amputated.
“Before we get started, I think it might help if you get the mannequin a name. Motivation, yes?”
Rylan nodded, but motivation wasn’t what he needed. “Okay. Uh... Nemo,” he said decisively, pocketing his pencil. He was in his third read of20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Captain Nemo was his favorite character, possibly in all of literature.
Francis clicked his tongue. “Like the clown fish? Well, whatever works for you, son. Now, do you at least remember the song that uses the right rhythm for chest compressions?”
Rylan swallowed. He had tried to explain to his father that CPR training wasn’t for him, that he couldn’t act under pressure to save his life, let alone someone else’s.
“U-um... it’s, um...”
Francis snapped his fingers. “Come on, Rylan. People could be dying. You need to know this off the top of your head.”
People dying. People dying because of diving accidents or storms. People dead because he couldn’t save them.
What is it? What’s the song? How many chest compressions in a minute? How many, how hard, what place, what strength, what, oh God, oh God...
“Rylan.” Francis sat across from Rylan and took his hands firmly. He placed them on Nemo’s sternum. “Like this.” He pushed his son’s hands up and down while muttering the lyrics of “Stayin’ Alive.” “Got it?” he said after a minute.
Rylan didn’t know how to respond. “I can try,” he offered and mimicked to the best of his ability what Francis had done.
“That’s fine,” Francis said finally. “Now add in the breaths.”
Rylan repeated the compressions. How many times until he did rescue breathing? Twenty? Thirty? And was it threebreaths or four? Or maybe it was two. He squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t stupid, but damn did he feel like it.Oh shit.He’d lost count of where he was. Rylan hesitated, then stopped and leaned down to give Nemo a fake rescue breath.
Francis groaned and sat back on his heels. “Congrats, son. Nemo’s dead.”
Rylan kept his expression neutral. Failure was familiar. He felt almost at home in Francis’s random assessments followed by an unsurprised disappointment.
“You’re not helping him, Francis.” MJ took up the entire doorway, even slouched.
Francis made a sound in the back of the throat that was an amalgamation of a scoff and a snarl. “He needs this skill to pass the rescue diving course.”
“I’ve certified hundreds of people as rescue divers.” MJ kept talking as if Francis hadn’t spoken. The air between them seemed to hum. “And if any of them was as worked up as him, I’d stop. He can’t learn when he’s panicking.”
Francis threw up his hands. “Then he’s never going to learn. Your input is appreciated but unnecessary. I can handle my kid.”
MJ had Francis’s full attention now. She rubbed at her chest, right below her collarbone. “Something’s not right about the route you’ve mapped out,” she said. “I came to tell you. Since you’re captain and all.”
Francis stood and crossed the room. “The route’s fine.”
MJ blinked at him. “The coordinates, they—”
Francis tossed his hands in the air. “All right, all right, I’ll go take a look. Be right back.”
He left, and Rylan released his own breath. He realized he’d been clenching the pencil in his pocket so tightly that it had snapped in two. He dropped the pieces on the ground and stared at them.
