At last she slammed against the side of the boat. The shock jolted her into full alertness. Her gloved fingers refused to flex as she reached for the bottom rung of the swim ladder. But she gave them the order, Close, damn you, close on the rope, and she watched what she could no longer feel as her right hand obeyed. Her left hand went out for the side of the ladder; again she was giving her numbed body orders, and half disbelieving, she found herself climbing up, rung by rung.
For one moment, lying on the deck, she couldn’t move. The warm air from the open door of the wheelhouse was steaming like hot breath. Then she began to massage her fingers until feeling returned to them. But there was no time to get warm; no time to do anything but climb to her feet and get to the winch.
Her hands were hurting now. But they were doing what she wanted automatically as she started the motor. The winch groaned and sang as it reeled in the nylon line. Suddenly, she saw the man’s body rising above the rail of the deck, the head bowed, the arms spread wide and falling limp over the nylon loop of the harness, water streaming from the heavy colorless clothes. The man fell forward, head first onto the deck.
The winch screamed as it dragged him closer to the wheelhouse, and then jerked him upright again, three feet from the door. She killed the motor. He dropped down, sodden, lifeless, too far from the warm air to do him good.
And she knew she couldn’t drag him inside, and there was no time to fool any more with the lines or the winch.
With a great heave, she rolled him over and pumped a good quart of seawater out of his lungs. Then she lifted him, pushing herself under him and flopping him again on his back. She pulled off her gloves because they were hampering her. And then she slid her left hand under his neck, clamped her right fingers on his nose, and breathed into his mouth. Her mind worked with him, envisioning the warm air pumped into him. But it seemed forever that she breathed, and nothing was changing in the inert mass beneath her.
She switched to his chest, pressing down as hard as she could on the breastbone, then releasing the pressure, over and over for fifteen beats. “Come on, breathe!” she said, as if it were a curse. “Damn it, breathe!” Then she went back to mouth-to-mouth.
Impossible to know how much time had passed; she was as oblivious to time as she ever was in the Operating Room. She simply went on, alternating between the chest massage and the lung inflation, stopping only now and then to feel the lifeless carotid artery, and to realize that the diagnostic message was the same-Alive-before she continued.
His body tossed on the deck under her efforts, the skin gleaming and waxen in its wetness, the heels of his brown leather shoes rolling on the boards.
Once she tried again to drag him into the wheelhouse, but it was useless. And dimly aware that no lights were shining through the fog and no helicopter was roaring overhead, she went on, only pausing suddenly to slap his face and call to him, to tell him that she knew he was in there and she expected him to come back.
“You know you can hear me!” she shouted as she pressed down again on the breastbone. She pictured the heart and the lungs in all their glorious anatomical detail. Then as she made to lift his neck again, his eyes snapped open, and his face suddenly fired with life. His chest gave a heave against her; she felt the breath pour out of him, hot against her face.
“That’s it, breathe!” she’d shouted over the wind. And why was she so amazed that he was alive, that he was staring at her, when she had not thought of giving up?
His right hand shot up and took hold of hers. And he said something to her, something murmured, incoherent, something that sounded nevertheless like a proper name.
Again, she slapped his cheek, but only gently. And his breaths came ragged yet rapid, his face knotted with pain. How blue his eyes were, how clearly and certainly alive. It was as if she’d never seen eyes before in a human being, never seen these fierce, brilliant gelatinous orbs staring up at her from a human face.
“Keep it up, breathe, you hear me, I’m going for blankets below deck.”
He grabbed her hand again; he began to shiver violently. And as she tried to free herself, she saw him look past her and straight upwards. He lifted his left hand. He was pointing. A light was finally sweeping the deck. And God, the fog was rolling over them, thick as smoke. The helicopter had come just in time; the wind stung her eyes. She could barely see the blades turning up there.
She slumped back, nearly losing consciousness herself, aware of his hand gripping hers. He was trying to speak to her. She patted his hand, and she said, “It’s OK, it’s fine now, they’ll take you in.”
Then she was barking orders at the Coast Guard men as they came down the ladder; don’t warm him up fast, and for God’s sake, don’t give him anything hot to drink. This is severe hypothermia. Radio for an ambulance at the dock.
She feared for him as they took him up. But in truth she knew what the doctors would say: no neurological deficit.
By midnight, she had given up on sleep. But she was warm and comfortable again. The Sweet Christine rocked like a great cradle on the dark sea, her lights sweeping the fog, her radar on, her autopilot keeping the same broad circular course. Snug in the corner of the wheelhouse bunk, dressed in fresh clothes, Rowan drank her steaming coffee.
She wondered about him, about the look in his eyes. Michael Curry was his name, or so the Coast Guard had told her when she called in. He’d been in the water for at least an hour before she’d spotted him. But it had turned out just as she’d thought. “No neurological problems at all.” The press was calling it a miracle.
Unfortunately, he’d gotten disoriented and violent in the ambulance-maybe it was all those reporters at the dock-and they had sedated him (stupid!) and that had fuzzed things a bit for a while (of course!) but he was “just fine” now.
“Don’t release my name to anyone,” she’d said. “I want my privacy protected.”
Understood. The reporters were being a real pain. And to tell the truth, well, her call for help had come at the worst of times, it wasn’t properly logged. They didn’t have her name or the name of her boat. Would she please give them that info now if she-
“Over and out, and thank you,” she said as she cut them off.
The Sweet Christine drifted. She pictured Michael Curry lying on the deck, the way his forehead creased when he woke up, the way his eyes had caught the light from the wheelhouse. What was that word he’d said, a name it sounded like. But she couldn’t remember, if she had ever distinctly heard it at all.
It seemed almost certain that he would have died if she hadn’t spotted him. It didn’t comfort her to think of it, of his floating out there in the dark and the fog, of life leaking moment by moment out of his body. Too close.
And such a beauty he was. Even drowned, he’d been something to behold. Mysterious always, the mix of features that renders a man beautiful. His was an Irish face undoubtedly-square, with a short and rather rounded nose, and that can make for a plain individual in many circumstances. But no one would have found him plain. Not with those eyes and that mouth. Not a chance.
But it was not appropriate to think of him in those terms, was it? She wasn’t the doctor when she went hunting; she was Rowan wanting the anonymous partner and then sleep afterwards when the door had shut. It was the doctor, Rowan, who worried about him.