Page 57 of Mirror Image

I don’t know how she planned on finishing that insult because I pushed at exactly the same moment that Izzy pulled. And then my sister was in the water. With some effort, I hauled myself upright again and scanned the white-capped current of the river. It took a few long seconds, but she eventually popped up to the surface sputtering and coughing. The life vest would keep her from drowning if she stayed calm—which was not a given.

“Sam!” Leo called out from the other raft. I saw him pull out a throw bag, preparing to toss it. “Rope, rope, rope!” he yelled as he sent it flying in her direction, just as we’d practiced in training.

With Sam wild eyed and flailing, there was no way she could get to it.

“Damn it!” I spit, already shucking my jacket and unlacing my hikers.

“Are you out of your mind?” Izzy asked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get her—see if you can maneuver the raft closer to us,” I instructed over my shoulder a second before jumping in. I was a strong swimmer, and thankfully, the current wasn’t overpowering. Once I was close, I called out loudly over the water. “Sam!” I needed her to hear me and what I was saying so she didn’t grab on to me in her panic and take us both down. “Sam, look at me!”

“Mary! I-I can’t do this. I’m going to drown!”

“Nope, no, you’re not. When I get close enough, I want you to grab on to the back of my life jacket, okay? I’ll pull us in. But you have to calm down. Can you do that?”

She nodded. “I-I think so!”

I swam closer, holding out my hand to pull her toward me. “Okay, grab on, now!” I yelled, giving her my back.

By the time I felt the pull of her grip, Leo’s boat was close enough for him to extend an oar, leaving Nan and Naomi to back paddle, slowing the raft long enough for me to grab his outstretched offering, allowing him to pull us to within reach. I grabbed the perimeter line in one hand before turning my back—Sam included—to Leo so he could hoist her up by the lapels of her life vest and into the raft.

“We got ’em!” Nan screamed over to Izzy once I had joined Sam in the middle of the floor.

“Here, this should help,” Leo said as he pulled two emergency thermal blankets from their bags and draped them over our trembling bodies. “Are you okay?” We both nodded, teeth chattering too hard to speak. He let out a long sigh. “Then let’s get moving.”

For the last two hours of our trip, our guide didn’t say another word about what had happened, but I could feel the anger radiating off him. Richard had been kicked out two weeks earlier. Now I wondered if we might be next.

She came with me to collect firewood, falling into step behind me without asking. We walked like that in silence for a few minutes before I heard her voice. It was soft with a hint of a warble.

“I-I’m sorry.”

I stopped, closed my eyes for just a second to prepare myself, then turned around to face her. “For what, exactly?” I asked, my expression impassive. “For attacking me verbally? For attacking me physically? For risking our lives? For maybe blowing up our dream by getting us kicked out of here? Which part of it are you sorry for, Sam?”

“All of it,” she replied without hesitation. “I can’t . . . I can’t explain why, but today, this date? It’s just a really shitty day for me, and I couldn’t deal.”

I put my hands on my hips and tilted my head. “Really? What could possibly be so ‘shitty’ that it’s worth trying to claw my eyes out over?”

“Please, Mary,” she replied softly. “I mean it, I can’t talk about it. But . . . just know I’m so, so sorry, and it won’t happen again.”

“Damn straight it won’t,” I agreed with a nod. “Because I’m not putting myself in that position again.”

“No, don’t say that . . .”

“What do you want me to say, Sam? That it’s okay? It’s not. You could have gotten us both killed today.”

When her eyes dropped to the ground, I saw tears start to roll down her cheeks. It was the first time I’d ever seen my sister cry.

“I know that. And I swear to God, Mary, I’ll do better.” She reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. “You have given up so much for me, you’ve defended me, you’ve . . .” She sniffed, using her free hand to wipe away some of the dampness. “You’ve loved me. No one’s ever loved me before you. No one.”

It’s hard to stay furious with someone when they say something like that to you—especially when you know it’s not an exaggeration. This was a rare glimpse behind the iron mask Sam wore every day. Her battle armor.

Finally, I sighed in resignation and squeezed her hand back. “Yeah, okay, fine. But if anything like that ever happens again—”

“It won’t!” she jumped in, a grateful grin transforming her face. “I promise you, it will never happen again.”

I knew instinctively this wasn’t true. It would happen again. Not because she wanted it to, but because she was helpless to stop it, to stop herself.

Chapter Twenty-One