She tried to offer Cindy advice over the phone. “This will take time,” she murmured. “Be patient. Little by little, you’ll feel better.”
Her words did not comfort Cindy at all. Would she ever feel better? Cindy doubted it. How dare she feel better when Clint was dead?
Clint’s family, while they lived only a mile away, still hadn’t come to visit. Cindy hoped they never would.
Ann kept insisting that she come out of the bedroom and greet people, and on the one day that Cindy finally relented, Ann helped her get out of bed. Then she gently guided her down the stairs, into the living room, and onto the marine-blue suede couch in the living room that she and Clint had just purchased. Clint had loved it because it reminded him of the ocean. Now it reminded her of the waves that had beaten him so brutally. She would have to get rid of it, she thought in passing, as she sat on it and shivered.
The guests who came to offer condolences didn’t stay long. They seemed to be at a loss what to say. Many of them were the same guests who had been to their wedding a little over a week ago. Most were pale and ashen. They shook their heads in disbelief.
“He was so young,” Moira mentioned, tears in their eyes. She was an old college friend of Clint’s. “I can’t believe this happened.”
“He had everything ahead of him,” one of Clint’s mother’s friends kept repeating.
There was an assortment of people, friends, co-workers, neighbors from down the road who Cindy and Clint had barely met.
Finally, Cindy had had enough. Without warning, she flew out of the living room.
Ann grabbed her arm in the kitchen. “What are you doing?” she asked, mortified.
“I’ve had enough!” Cindy screamed, breaking into tears. “I don’t want to see anyone! I refuse!”
And with that, she’d stormed back up into her bedroom, leaving Ann to pick up the pieces—and hadn’t left since. That was days ago.
Cindy lay there now, staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought. For the millionth time, she struggled to remember, to try to recall the events of the past days.
When they’d finally found his body after two days, washed up on the rocks, inside of a cove, crumpled, his head snapped, beaten by the surf, she’d felt herself die with him.
She had been called immediately to identify the body.
“It’s not him,” she said at first.
The local police looked at her strangely.
“That’s not him,” she repeated. “Clint is alive. He was stronger than any wave.”
The police scratched a few words on a pad of paper.
“Does he look like him?” one of the cops asked quietly.
“It’s Clint’s body,” she started yelling. “But it’s not Clint. I know him. I love him. He would never have let this happen.”
There had been a full out search for him on the island when he didn’t show up at the hotel that night. Cindy remembered a wild rush of phone calls between the States and the island. Her family couldn’t get a flight. Two top executives at Clint’s firm got involved. There were calls to officials on the island. The firm was well connected and sent down people on a company jet to help with the search. Some of them suggested that she return home. This could take weeks, they said, even months. They would cover all bases.
Cindy refused to leave without Clint. She spent every moment staring at the ocean, praying. Even though she begged for Clint to be saved, deep within she knew it was too late.
She lost all track of time. It was as if lifetimes passed as she sat without moving, gazing at the sky.
But to everyone’s amazement, it was only two days until they found him, his body washed up on shore.
“A stroke of luck,” she heard one official say. A tall guy with a moustache and squinty eyes.
What kind of luck? Cindy wondered.
“Yeah,” the other official, a shorter, squat guy, agreed. “These kinds of searches can go on for years with nothing to show for it. Usually the ocean takes them out and under. Who finds a body here?”
They both shrugged and looked at each other. Cindy’s stomach clenched. She imagined Clint being taken out and under by the unforgiving ocean, dragged into oblivion, with nothing left behind. Should she consider herself lucky that they’d found his body?
The police had called someone from Clint’s firm in to identify the body as well. Henry Greerson. He’d been sent down by the firm to oversee everything and make sure Cindy was well cared for. Cindy had met him once or twice before. She never much liked him. He was a middle-aged guy in a button down suit who seemed cold and withdrawn around her. Clint had liked him, though. They’d worked together on several projects. Clint said he was a good man. Clint said that about everyone, or almost everyone. If he liked you, he loved you.
Greerson immediately identified the body. Soon after, the death was declared accidental. Strong turf, sudden riptide. These riptides happened all the time on the East Shore of Barbados.
Cindy remembered Greerson escorting her home on the plane, along with the remains. The two of them didn’t talk to each other. She had nothing to say, and neither did he. At least he respected her need for silence, and probably realized she was in shock.
Cindy spent the first days back mostly curled up in bed. Ann didn’t intrude. She only helped Cindy come out of the bedroom when guests appeared. Otherwise, she brought her food in on a tray, and put soft music on the CD player. Ann had always been the most wonderful older sister anyone could have ever wanted. Her husband, Frank, told her to stay as long as she was needed. They had a lovely marriage. It seemed that things always went smoothly in Ann’s life. Cindy never felt she could quite live up to her.
Cindy’s relationships with guys growing up was always short and fitful. She was always afraid they would leave, the way her father had. She had a few good friends, but became quite bookish, preferring her time alone, studying, doing research, gathering all kinds of information for papers she wrote, sketching and making collages. . Ann was always there, watching over her, worrying about Cindy all her years growing up.
When Cindy met Clint, everything seemed to change. She’d become happy, secure, confident. She left the house freely, went new places with him, laughed a lot, seemed like a different person. Her sister Ann told her she didn’t trust the relationship, though she didn’t know why. Now it was as if an old premonition of Ann’s had come true. It was clear how worried Ann was about what would become of Cindy now.
Slowly Cindy began to emerge from the bedroom. She felt claustrophobic in there, dreaming of Clint almost every day. In the dreams, he looked real, completely alive. He was standing on his surfboard, waving at her, trying to speak.
But she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The surf was too rough, too loud. It got in the way. She waved back, but couldn’t reach him. Then the wave pulled him back out and took him away.
She woke with a start every time.
“He’s trying to reach me,” Cindy kept telling her sister.
Ann didn’t say much in return.
“I know he is,” Cindy insisted. “In my dream, his mouth is open and he’s trying to talk. I can’t hear him.”
“They are just dreams,” Ann finally said, softly. “He’s gone, Cindy. It’s you who wants to see him again. Those are your wishes.”
Cindy was frustrated. Her dreams felt like more than wishes. She was going to say something else, but Ann interrupted, “It takes time for a person to absorb a shock like this. It takes time for it to feel real.”
Ann always had something sensible to say, but this time Cindy didn’t want to hear it. What happened to Clint wasn’t sensible—it didn’t make sense at all. She had seen Clint surf in much rougher waters than that. She couldn’t fathom how he could have drowned.