Jack rocked her head back and forth, in assent or recognition. Lana continued in a whisper. “She had some tourists who came upon it over by the north bank. She had to take charge and report it and everything.”
Beth reached out to touch Jack’s shoulder, slow and tentative at first. When she felt Jack press into her hand, she scooched her chair closer and swept Jack into a tight sideways hug.
“Honey. That must have been awful.”
Jack leaned into the hug and ate a tomato.
“It’s terrible seeing a dead body. It still gets to me every time when a patient’s life ends. It must have been scary to come upon him in the water like that.”
“He was young,” Jack mumbled. “At first I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl because of the long hair. For a minute it felt like it could have been me.”
“Jack, you know that would never happen to you. You’re so careful. You’re a great swimmer. And strong. The slough is your second home.”
Beth remembered their earliest days together, just the two of them, Beth collecting rocks on hikes through the high grass, Jack cooing at the sea lions from the front of the baby carrier. By seven, Jack was picking her way down the scree behind the house on her own, wading into the muck to build tiny forts where she imagined otters might like to sleep at night. When she was twelve, Jack begged Beth for a paddleboard for Chanukah. After a tense negotiation in which the girl just kept repeating, “I am very responsible,” Beth gave in. And got used to watching Jack shuffle down the hillside, the board affixed to the top of her head like a helicopter blade.
Now that same pink board was leaning against the wall by the back door, a towel draped over it like a shroud.
Beth pulled back to look at her daughter, her hands holding up Jack’s shoulders.
“What happened after you . . . ?”
“The coast guard came. And some sheriff’s deputies. A couple detectives from Monterey. There were a lot of uniforms.”
“Jack, you were very brave.”
“No, not really, I mean, I just took care of my group and showed the officers where the body was in the mud.”
“Did they say anything about who it was that died?”
“Not while I was there.”
Lana coughed. “I looked it up on my phone. So far, they’re just reporting that the slough is shut down until further notice. The last time someone died in the slough was two years ago. A fisherman had a heart attack and fell out of his boat. They found the boat, and then they found him a couple days later.”
They all turned to the window, as if the dark could tell them something.
“I don’t know what could have happened.” Jack’s voice was low, uncertain. “The guy was wearing one of our life jackets, but he wasn’t on my tour. He didn’t have an empty boat or a paddleboard or anything that I could see. He was dressed in normal clothes, jeans. Heavy boots. Like a fisherman. But not one of the regulars. I think.”
“Did Paul know who he was?”
“Paul wasn’t there.”
Beth put her arms around Jack again and gave her a long, slow squeeze.
“I’m so sorry this happened, honey. You can sleep in my room tonight if you want.”
Jack closed her eyes and gave a grateful nod. She pressed her head into Beth’s soft shoulder, breathing in her mom’s steady scent of eucalyptus trees and salt.
Lana coughed again. “I’ll call the school and tell them you won’t be in tomorrow. You can stay home with me.”
Jack raised her head in surprise.
“What? No, Prima. I mean, thank you, but I should go to school. I’ll feel better that way.”
“We’ll all feel better in the morning,” Beth said. “Go get your pillow. And your blanket. It’s too cold tonight for you to steal mine.”
Lana watched them get up from the table and fingered the pills in the pocket of her robe. She was six days away from chemo, which meant a bad week was starting. She felt short of breath, her lungs laboring to push out a hacking cough that made her eyes water. Not that her girls noticed. They were focused on each other now, shuffling to Beth’s bedroom in a tight huddle of hugs and whispers. No “You okay, Ma?” Not even a “good night.” Lana felt the energy drain out of the room, the tide of love receding.
Chapter Eight
Jack floated through North Monterey County High on Monday in a fog. On one level, she felt comforted by the normalcy around her—the shouting kids, the smell of chalk, the ritual passing of papers from desk to desk—but each time the bell rang, Jack realized she had no memory of what the teacher had talked about all period. Presidents, maybe. Or covalent bonds. She headed home with a backpack stuffed with indecipherable notes and arrived to a quiet house. There was a note on the counter that her mom had gone to Gilroy to visit a former patient. She peeked into her old room and saw her grandma, snoring in bed. She grabbed some grapes from the fridge and settled on the couch to try to do her homework.
At six o’clock, there was a knock on the door.
Jack ignored it and kept plodding through Spanish verb conjugations. She figured it was one of Lana’s deliveries of new appliances or fancy face serums. But then the knock came again, louder.
Jack followed her mom’s rules. Walk to the door. Ask “Who is it?” without unlocking. Wait.
“We’re here from the Monterey sheriff’s department.”
Jack squeezed her eyes shut, hard. Her mind flashed back to the mud flats. The glint of sun on the dead man’s long hair, the water pooling in his jacket. Jack wanted to run into her old room and crawl under the covers. She wanted to grab her board and charge down the gravel hill to the water, to paddle back in time somehow to before yesterday ever happened, before the water darkened.
She opened the door.
It was the man and the woman from the day before, him in a dark brown suit, her in a shiny purple jacket that matched her nails.
“Jacqueline Rubicon?” the woman said. “We met yesterday?”
Jack stared at her, a mess of hair and discomfort.
“Is there an adult home with you?”
“Uh . . . hold on.” Jack shut the door, ran to the back bedroom, and woke up her grandma.
When the door opened the second time, Lana stood in front of Jack, wearing a headscarf and her thick, satiny bathrobe like a shield.
The man spoke. “I’m Detective Nicoletti. And my partner, Detective Ramirez. From the Monterey sheriff’s department. May we come in?”
Lana swept out her arm, directing them to the kitchen table.
Nicoletti seemed to be the one in charge. “We’re glad you’re both at home,” he said. “We were hoping to talk with you, Jacqueline, about what happened at the slough. Of course, if that’s all right with your mother.”
This last word earned the detective a full-wattage smile from Lana and an offer of something to drink.
“She’s my grandmother,” Jack said.
“You didn’t have to tell him that,” Lana hissed, her back to the detectives as she scrounged in the cabinet for matching water glasses.
The detectives lined up with their notebooks on one side of the table, Lana and Jack on the other. Before anyone else could speak, Lana leaned forward.
“Have you determined what happened?”
“We’ve identified the person who died,” Nicoletti said. “On Jacqueline’s tour yesterday.”
“He wasn’t on my tour.”
Nicoletti kept talking as if he hadn’t heard Jack speak. “We’d like to show you a picture of him. Not from when he was in the water. From before.”
The detective slid a photograph across the table. His thick fingers stuck to it for a moment. Then he looked up.
“Do you recognize this man?”
Jack and Lana both stared at the picture. The man was handsome, slim, with dark brown hair hanging past his shoulders. Thick eyebrows, big bright eyes, clean-shaven. He was wearing a fancy backpack with neon straps and clips, standing in a forest and smiling wide for the camera. He looked like he was ready to charge up a mountain.
Jack shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”