Down River Read Free Page A

go? Try to find a flatter rock to hold?
    But the choice was not hers, caught in the cold current, being twisted and turned. Her shins scraped boulders on the riverbed; she pulled her legs up and arms in for warmth, for safety, but found neither. She saw bloodred salmon streak past her in the foam, going the other way. How could they fight this water? she wondered. It might be easier going deep down.
    Deep down, deeper…Mommy and Jani had gone deeper, so deep. The wet, white arms of water and death had taken them away. It would be easier that way, to let it all go, let everything go.
    Lisa tried to swim for the riverbank, but each time she neared a handhold, the river snatched her away. She knew enough to try to point her feet downstream, but she couldn’t control that. When her numb legsbobbed up, she saw the water had ripped off her shoes.
    She was doomed. Dead. Smashed by violent fists of water…her lungs burning to get a breath. Icy water surged up her nose into her sinuses. Get your head up! Take another breath! Hold the air in!
    How had she fallen in? The water had looked so beautiful, even alluring. Did something trip her? Surely no one had pushed her. Had Mother and Jani pulled her in to be with them at last? Was this just her memories turning to a drowning, screaming nightmare again?
    No, this was not some awful dream where she could will herself to wake up. She had to fight. To live. Dear Lord, help me. Help me be safe and warm.
    But the force was brutal, banging her through waves like giant fists, slamming into rocks. Like a leaf going down a storm sewer…lost at sea. Her mother had lost her mind, Grandma said, postpartum depression or some sort of mental aberration made her kill herself. Daddy’s desertion of the family might have caused it, too. That’s what a psychiatrist had told her once.
    Mother, I didn’t know. I was only a child. I knew you were sad, but if I had known you were desperate, I could have helped you. At least I could have saved Jani for Grandma to raise along with me…. Someone once said you loved me, so you wanted to take me with you. But it’s wrong to kill someone who hasn’t had a chance to live….
    But should she have drowned, too? Why had Lisa lived when Mother and Jani died? She was haunted by a thought she’d told no one, not even her psychiatrist. When she’d yanked back so hard from her mother’s grasp, did that send her over? If she had not pulled back, maybe there was a split second where her mother would have changed her mind. In that last moment, had she sent them into the wild, white water?
    So confused, so dizzy, so caught in a spin of water, of fears…
    Whispers, loud ones, roared all around her, wet and cold in her ears. Stop it! Stop the memories! This was real. She had to find a place to get out. If only she’d told Mitch she was sorry. Not sorry she didn’t go with him, but that she still cared, still wanted him in some sort of angry way, but now all she wanted was out of this forceful, freezing water. Fingers going numb, so cold. Keep your head. Keep your courage. Don’t let go! She heard a voice in her head and heart shouting, “Don’t let go!”
     
    Mitch was getting panicky. Because Lisa was in the river and his kayak was on top of it, she was moving away from him faster and faster. And she had a head start.
    At times he lost sight of the flash of orange that was his best chance of tracking her in the foaming rapids. On river right, he passed a big boulder, fighting hard not to be smashed into it. Unfortunately, hewas in a wide, flat-water kayak best used on the lake, not the narrower white-water craft designed for mobility. It took much more strength and skill to maneuver this craft in white water. Yet, heedless of humps and holes and the danger of submerged rocks, he dug his paddle in faster, faster, trying to catch up.
    Trying to catch up—the story of his life. He’d been raised in the shadow of an older brother who was brilliant, Superman, his