She ran toward the rushing water. When she hit the edge, she sprang off her left foot and leaped, kicking her right foot out, throwing her body forward.
She didn’t count on the mud, the silty slick layer lurking beneath the surface. When her left foot hit and she pushed upward, she slipped. Her foot went out from under her, and she landed hard on her side, splashing into the center of the stream. As she hit the water, she cried out, “No!” because she knew. She’d seen it on the news—how cars, let alone bodies, could be swept away by a current. She scrambled for purchase, lunging for the pavement above her, but the water was too strong. Swept was the wrong word. It shoved, pushed, thrust, heaved her off the road and into the narrow chasm of the wash.
She thrashed and blindly snatched at rocks and dirt, trying to stop herself as she spun and tumbled in the violent current. Get on your back, the voice inside said. Her father’s advice about riptides. And then it was his voice, the one she’d always known, the one she’d heard again on the payphone: Don’t fight it. Let it take you. Ride it out. Keep your eye on the shore.
But there was no shore, only darkness and sharp rocks, a roar of rushing water, choking mouthfuls, the grit of sand in her eyes and teeth.
Her mother’s voice now, the voice she knew by heart: Buck up, J-bird. You have so much to live for.
I’m trying, she thought as she thrust her mouth toward what she thought was air. But the sky had disappeared, and the earth, too, the elemental world upended. The water did not heed her will. It did not care about her lungs and their need to breathe. It did not know of her desires or dreams or fears. But it also did not act upon her; this was not about punishment, or judgment, or morality. It simply followed the laws of nature. The larger the mass, the stronger the force of gravity. Her young, slim body in all its desperate exertions could not compete. She breathed in water instead of air—eighteen years later, forensic scientists would find that water in her bones as diatoms and know she drowned, would know it was her bones from DNA tests. They would know her body was pushed into a crevice in the side of the wash, trapped and buried by tons of mud, unseen until the dirt began to erode with wind and more water. They would find a piece of her tennis shoe and a silver earring buried with her in the dirt.
In the end, she did not think in language. Words, her beloved words, could not save her. Not love, nor home, nor friendship, nor beauty, nor truth, though these surely would have been among the last on her tongue if she could have brought them forth. She did not think in images, either. Her young life did not, as they say, flash before her. No glimpses of Mom with a bowl of popcorn on her knees, her laugh as loud as a freight train. No Dad raising his glass to toast her on her sixteenth birthday: Here’s to my beautiful girl. Go get ’em. No Dani giggling in a tent on a beach. No Adam, begging her to love him.
Instead, what Jess saw was light: millions of sparks behind her eyes. Before she lost all consciousness, she understood these sparks as galactic light, dust from the universe. Ancient light that had traveled for millions of years and only found its way to her now. The light of dreams. The light of both the past and future. Nameless light, unknowable light, but for a moment, hers.
Sundown at the Orchard
On the day of the memorial service for Jess Winters, the morning dawned bright and clear, the air warm but drier now on the cusp of fall. Out at the orchard, Iris and Paul finished setting up chairs and tables on the redwood deck. Esther, along with Rachel, Hugh, and, surprisingly, Dani, had dropped off trays of food and set up the kitchen and living room. Maud hadn’t wanted anything big. Simple, she’d said. Thank you. Thank you, she kept saying, her hands fluttering until she grabbed onto her elbows and held tight. Iris turned and scanned the view from the deck. They’d get to watch the sunset, maybe even glimpse the nearly full moon. At least they didn’t have to worry about the weather. They could give Maud a nice night. Pay their respects. Say good-bye to Jess. Finally.
Paul looked at his watch. “We have to get to T-ball, Mom,” he said. “Are you coming with us?”
“Can’t this time. I need to keep an eye on the irrigation,” she said. This time of year, with less rain, watering was crucial to make sure the kernels filled out the shells. Soon enough, it’d be harvest again. Soon enough, she’d be going twelve hours a day for three months straight. All those shells. She’d be a shaking shell of herself by the time it was finished. But this would be the last time.
Paul leaned to pick up his coffee cup, and he let out a small grunt. His left wrist was healed, but his shoulder would be in a sling for a few more weeks. Iris started to ask him if he was all right but stopped herself. He was all right. He was putting his house in Phoenix on the market. He’d given notice at the newspaper and enrolled Sean in preschool and T-ball here. He was coming home. For now, he said. Who knew for how long. The Sycamore Sun had an opening for an editor. Half my current salary, he said with a laugh.
“Will you take over the orchard?” she’d asked.
“I don’t know, Mom,” he said. “I don’t know yet. For now I’ll help out. I’ll help as much as I can.”
She’d nodded. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t want it, she’d sell it, then, though she hadn’t told him yet about her plans.
Now Paul said to Sean, “Go get your glove, buddy.”
His son ran to the house at full speed, his short legs chugging.
Paul laughed. “It’s like he’s set on one speed: Go!”
“He’s growing,” she said. “Already I can tell he’s taller.”
“Yeah. I guess they do that.”
She patted his unslinged arm. “He’ll be tall like you. Like Beau.”
They leaned on the railing together, staring into the trees.
She said, “It was good to see Dani.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I thought it’d be, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Different. But it was good to see her. She looks good. She looks the same.”
But she wasn’t the same, Iris thought. None of them were after all this time. After everything. Ruled an accidental drowning. No foul play. But it was still foul. Iris couldn’t get the detail of Jess’s earring out of her mind. That little piece of silver sunk into the earth as her flesh rotted away.
He said, “I need to go down to Phoenix next weekend. To deal with the house. Can you watch him?”
“Of course,” she said, and her heart lifted. “Of course.”
“I’m not ready,” he said. “I don’t want to pack up yet. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She thought about those weeks and months right after Beau died. She’d shaved her head as if going into battle, and in some ways she had been. She fought through the days, taking care of Paul, of the orchard, of everything, because if she stopped to look around, she might blow into bits.
“Do it anyway,” she said.
“Thanks.” He reached over with his good arm and put his hand over hers. “I couldn’t do it without you.”