I did not read the obituaries for those children.
Not even for the little boy who was stuck up a tree.
—
After supper we walked down to the beach so that Grandma could go for her daily swim, which she did every single day of the year, even in the dead of winter. I figured she’d probably die like that someday. Drowned. Her body would just drift on the waves until it finally washed ashore. She said she wouldn’t mind drowning. She said if she had to choose between all the horrible sudden deaths, she’d choose drowning. Maybe even out of all the ways to die, she said. Drowning wouldn’t be so bad.
She waded in and then dove over the seaweed and did the breaststroke, fast and sure, until she was so far out we could hardly see her. Corbin followed her, yelping and groaning as he passed the kelp beds.
I did not swim in the ocean. Ever. I loved swimming in lakes—clear water, neatly enclosed, polite little fish—but even just the idea of swimming in the ocean was horrifying. The tide might suck me out and never bring me back. One of any number of big, wet mammals might suck me under and eat me or I’d drown. The ocean was rocky and weedy and full of floaty bits and weird creatures lurking in the dark and pebbly starfish and urchins and garbage and all kinds of writhing, wobbly, disgusting things. The salt felt caked on whenever I got out, and my hair was crunchy with it. It was not refreshing. It was not fun.
Owen felt the same way about oceans. He and I sat on a log, watching the waves and kicking the coarse sand at our feet.
“They’re really far,” Owen said.
“I know.” I’d stopped watching because I could feel the anxiety pushing in. She did it every day, I told myself. She was a strong swimmer. And so was Corbin. She could bring him in if he got tired. But what if she suddenly had a cramp? Or what if something bit her? What if she had a stroke? And then Corbin would be out there all alone. I glanced up and tried to find them way out on the surf.
“There.” Owen pointed.
I saw two tiny specks that looked like seals bobbing along. Too far! That’s too far! But if I shouted, they wouldn’t hear. If I shouted, Owen would hear my fear and he would get scared too. Instead I circled my wrist with my other hand and found my pounding pulse and pressed down hard on the little blue vein, willing it to slow down. I pressed so hard that I winced with pain, and I knew there would be a bruise there later.
After breakfast the next morning, the boys and Sherman headed into the forest behind Grandma’s cottage to build a Gnomenville outpost while Grandma whooped my ass at Scrabble. I’d lost three games in a row when Owen came yelling at the top of his lungs down the path.
“He fell out of the tree and hurt his arm and he won’t stop screaming!”
“Oh my God!” I grabbed Owen’s shoulders. “What happened?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!” Owen hollered. “I think he might be dead!”
“Hold on. Just hold on a minute,” Grandma said. “Owen, you do know what happened. You just told us. And you, Maeve, take it down a notch, for everybody’s sake. Screaming people are not dead people. Now, Owen, go get the first-aid kit from under the bed and meet us on the trail.”
Not even a minute into the forest, I could hear Corbin screaming.
“We’re coming!” Owen hollered as he caught up with us. “I got Grandma and Maeve and the first-aid kit!”
“I’ll take that, thank you.” Grandma lifted the kit out of his arms.
“Help!” Corbin screeched. “I need an ambulance! I need a fire truck! It’s broken!”
Everything I had learned in my first-aid courses fell out of my head and trailed behind me like Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs. By the time we got to Corbin, I had no idea what to do, even though I’d rehearsed this kind of thing in my head over and over.
Sure enough, Corbin’s arm was broken between the elbow and the wrist, twisted into a very wrong S shape. When I looked at it, I wanted to vomit. I actually had to look away.
I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew something bad was going to happen. I should’ve gone with them into the forest. I should’ve been watching them. Let them go, Grandma had said. They’re little kids, playing. That’s what kids do, Maeve. You have to let them be kids.
Including this? Sprawled on the forest floor with a broken arm and so pale that he looked dead, even if he wasn’t?
“Accidents happen,” Grandma said as she opened the first-aid kit and handed me a splint.
Accidents could be prevented. Accidents wouldn’t happen if people weren’t so careless. Accidents happened when people weren’t paying attention, or when they ignored the obvious. Like how stupid it was to let two little kids play alone in a forest teeming with bears and coyotes and a swift-water creek and trees and trees and trees to fall out of.
“Unroll the splint, Maeve.”
So I did. I unrolled the splint and threw it at her. She gave me a quick, cool look and then went to work splinting Corbin’s arm while Owen hopped nervously, chewing his fingers, and Corbin screamed his head off.
“I need a fire truck,” Corbin said once his arm was splinted.
“You don’t,” Grandma said.
“I need an ambulance!”
“No you don’t,” she said. “You didn’t break your leg. You can walk to the car. Now let’s go.”
—
Back at the cottage, Grandma arranged Corbin in the backseat with a bunch of pillows to prop up his arm and gave Owen strict instructions to help keep the pillows from toppling over. The nearer we got to the hospital, the less Corbin wanted to go. But within the hour he was wheeled into surgery, protesting at the top of his lungs that he was about to be de-limbed by an embedded agent from King Percival’s army.
“That’s a good sign,” I said as we found a bank of seats in the lobby and settled in to wait for Dad and Claire, who were already on the next ferry.
When Claire and Dad rushed in about an hour later, Claire went straight to the nurses’ station to ask about Corbin, and Dad went straight for Owen, picking him up and clutching him as if he was comforting Corbin by proxy.
“I can’t believe it,” Dad said. “Surgery!”
“It’s just a broken arm,” Claire said as she lowered herself into the chair beside me.
“Just a broken arm?” Dad set Owen down and sank into one of the chairs. “A broken arm is serious, Claire. Especially one that needs surgery.”
“It might be serious if he was stranded in the wilderness for days on end.”
“It can be serious,” Dad said. “Infection. Nerve damage.”
“Well, Billy, of course you’re right,” Claire said brightly. “So let’s all sit here sick with worry. I’m sure that will be very helpful.”
Whatever was happening, it was not about Corbin’s broken arm.
“What do I know?” Claire added, and then she pushed herself up and headed for the vending machine. She fed it some coins and punched some buttons and came back with a handful of granola bars. “Anyone want one?”