Page 10 of The Things We Never Say

Rowing out to his sailboat in the dinghy he saw that the current was faster than he had anticipated, there had been a full moon recently; it was an outgoing tidal current. The air was sharp against his face. Whitecaps appeared, and the water was moving quickly. He only noted it.

As Artie tossed the dinghy line into the sailboat and then moved to start hoisting himself from the dinghy into the back of the boat, his foot in his rubber boot slipped, and as he tried again his foot did not make it fully onto the sailboat; he saw the rope from the dinghy slipping quickly off the sailboat, and the dinghy, so quietly and suddenly, rocked precipitously and then floated away in the current. Artie was in the water, clinging onto the back of the sailboat! His rubber boots were filling with water. He tried to hoist himself up, and he could not. In just a few moments he had to let go of the boat, and sinking into the water he began to travel down the cove, the dinghy bobbing far ahead of him now. The water was so cold he felt as though he had been dropped into a test tube of acid. And he could not stop thinking: But this was my dream.

It felt very slow-motion and he could not believe it, but he understood that it was real.

He thought, I have to get my boots off, and when he tried, reaching down, he started to sink. When he tried to kick them off, they would not come off.

He began to swim a breaststroke, but he became exhausted right away, and he could not seem to make progress against the current, which was moving away from the shore. So he stayed with his arms spread out on the water. He saw a red buoy coming near him and he reached for it, but it was not close enough and then it was past him. He laid his head back on the water, looking up, breathing through his mouth. But he understood that he would not last much longer. His boots, filled with water, weighed him down, as did his sweater and his coat. He thought: This cannot be happening. This cannot be true, please let this not be true. Even as he knew that it was. He stared up at the sky. Oh, it was beautiful! White clouds moved far above him, momentarily blocking the sun, and then the sun came out again. This had been his dream: floating out to sea in the water with a blue sky and white clouds above him. But his mind was both stunned and very clear, and he thought again: This cannot be happening. Even as he understood that it was.

—

It was a motorboat he heard, and lifting his head he watched as it came closer. In it were a man and a younger man, both yelling at him as the boat sped toward him. It arrived next to him, and the man stopped the boat, which floated alongside Artie, and the younger man threw him a life jacket, which Artie grabbed with both hands. And then the older man, who kept saying things to Artie that Artie could not understand, threw him something else. It was like a big sling, and Artie tried to nod. He understood that he was to get his arms through it, but he could not, and the life jacket bobbed away.

“Hang on to it!” This is what Artie thought he heard the man yell. And Artie hung on to the sling and felt his body moving until it was right alongside the motorboat.

And then Artie felt that he was inside a dark tunnel, and the tunnel was getting smaller, swirling around him faster and faster.

2

A page had been turned.

It was that quiet and that simple, but Artie—having almost died—no longer wanted to.

—

In the hospital he stayed for two nights, and he was astonished at the sense of safety, the comfort, he felt during nighttime in this place. He had shivered and shivered—and been delusional—but they had slowly warmed him up, a cannula of heated oxygen had been hooked up to his nose. And even though they had kept him awake, they finally said he could sleep, and he was so peaceful he felt that he was a baby. He was aware of the slight sound of a nurse or two coming in to check on him. When he woke, he (a little bit) wanted to go home, but they said: One more night, “just to be sure.”

He had lost consciousness as he was dragged back to the shore alongside the boat, they had not been able to get him into the boat, but he fuzzily remembered the ambulance waiting, he (sort of) remembered the kind strong calmness of the EMT folks who lifted him from the water. He’d kept saying things, but he could not recall what. And then at the hospital a nurse appeared by his side, and he turned his head partly to see her better. Her young face was tired-looking, and her brown hair was sloppily tied up on her head; she said, “Can you tell me your name?”

He just watched her.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked.

He kept on watching her, and then he said, “I’m not dreaming, am I?” He really wanted to know. The nurse placed her hand on his arm. “You’re not dreaming, Mr. Dam. You are alive and you’re going to be fine.”

“Okay,” Artie said. Then he said, “How did you know my name?”

“Your wallet,” she answered kindly. And then she walked away.

Looking around slightly he saw that he was alone in a curtained-off area of the emergency room; his clothes had been removed; he wore a johnny from the hospital, and a thin blanket covered him. He was very cold, he could not stop shivering, and they explained to him that they had to warm him slowly; they gave him spicy tea to drink, which he did. Machines were beeping behind him, and the light above him was bright.

—

And then Evie walked hurriedly in. “Hello, sweetie heart,” he said. She put a small pile of clothes down on the empty chair beside him; her mouth was moving but she did not cry. She handed him a pair of his old glasses, which he put on, and leaning down she hugged him, and then she sat on the bed next to Artie opening and closing her mouth with no sound coming out, holding on to his hand tightly. “Hey, hey,” he said. “It’s all fine now, sweetie heart, don’t you worry.”

“You scared me.” She said this finally, and her mouth moved again. “I was so scared!”

He felt a great sense of surrender.

“It’s all just fine, Evie,” he said.

Later he was moved to a room where his bed was near the window, and he could see the water from where he lay. The other bed, behind a curtain, was empty. A doctor came in and told him that he had not had a heart attack, which they had been worried about, that he seemed to be fine, was recovering very well, but they would like to keep him at least two nights for observation.

Evie sat next to him the whole time; she still held on to his hand. “Artie, you could have died,” she said.

He watched her, and he thought of his last few months. As he thought about this, he understood: I did not want to die, I just did not want to live.

—