Mia
“A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.”
IT WAS THE kind of perfect July day that made a person think life couldn’t get much better.
At age ten, Mia was again beginning to believe that happiness wasn’t something that had forever abandoned her and her sister. There had been plenty of days when she couldn’t believe anything else. When it had felt as if not even the sunshine could penetrate the clouds of sadness that hung over them both.
But today, today, Mia had seen Emory smile at something Grace’s mother said to her about a book she’d just finished reading. She really couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Emory smile out of the blue like that. Had it been before their parents were killed? She tried to think of when the last time would be, but all she could come up with were memories of when she was really little and Emory was a teenager. Maybe it had been the time she had let Mia try on her makeup, watching as she applied it herself and ended up looking more like a clown than the high-fashion model she’d been attempting to look like.
She decided then that it didn’t matter when exactly. She was just glad to think that Emory might be happy again. Because if she could be happy, then maybe Mia could be too. Maybe that would make it all right not to feel guilty.
“Your sister’s really pretty,” Grace said from her spot beside Mia on the dock.
Mia dragged her toes through the warm lake water and said, “A lot prettier than I’ll ever be.”
“You’re pretty too,” Grace said.
“Thanks,” Mia said. “But Emory looks like our mom. And she was beautiful.”
“Do you miss her?”
“I miss her and my dad. But sometimes, I wonder if my memories about them are real. Or if they’re just dreams I’ve had.”
“I bet they’re real,” Grace said.
“It scares me that they’ll all go away. And I won’t have anything of them left.”
Grace went quiet for a few moments, and then, “Maybe you could think of some special memories and go through them every now and then. Sort of like practicing the memories so they stay strong.”
Mia glances at Grace and says, “You’re really smart.”
Grace shrugs. “I’ve thought about how hard it must be for you and Emory. Not to have your parents, I mean.”
“Maybe it’s been harder for Emory than for me,” she said, glancing at her sister who is still talking with Grace’s mom. “She kind of had to grow up overnight.”
“She sure does love you,” Grace said.
“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if Emory hadn’t been my sister.”
“Well, she is, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
The two girls sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, glad for their friendship. At ten, Mia didn’t take any of the people in her life for granted. She knew how one day everything seemed like it would last forever, and the next it could all go away.
“Wanna swim?” Grace asked, getting up from the dock and shucking off her jean shorts.
“Sure,” Mia said, pulling off her coverup.
“One, two, three,” Grace said. “Here I go!”
Mia watched as Grace dove headfirst into the water. She glanced at the life jackets a few feet away and then at Emory whose back was to her. She knew the rule was that she always had to wear a life jacket in the lake, but Grace hadn’t, and just this once wouldn’t hurt anything.
Wanting to jump in before Emory spotted her, Mia dove headfirst into the blue green water just out from the dock.
It felt amazing, cutting through the surface. She felt herself going down, down, down. She hadn’t meant to dive so hard. Fear shot through her, and she wished she hadn’t jumped off. Her head hit the bottom of the lake, and she opened her mouth in a scream, instantly choking on the water that started filling her lungs.
Disoriented, she tried to swim up but found herself hitting the dirt floor again.
Panic grabbed her by the throat, and the desire to breathe was almost more than she could resist. Her lungs felt like they had been pumped full of water, her chest so tight that she feared it would rip open beneath the pressure.
She began to flail with her arms and legs, her mind screaming with fear. She found the bottom of the lake with her feet and pushed off, reaching for the surface, for air.
She felt the hand grab her arm, and instead of latching on and letting it pull her to the top, she began to fight. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire. She kicked in an effort to break through the surface, grabbing onto the waist of the person trying to help her.
She opened her eyes and in the murky water could make out the pattern of Emory’s bathing suit. It took a few seconds for Mia to realize she was preventing her sister from getting them to the top. She forced herself to quit fighting even though her brain screamed for her to climb over Emory.
They broke the surface then, and Mia could hear Emory coughing and gasping. And then she was coughing too, so hard that it felt as if her insides would come up through her throat.
She locked her arms around Emory’s neck, holding on so tight that she pushed her sister beneath the surface.
Others were in the water now, Grace’s mother, wearing a life jacket, and Grace, also wearing one. They each grabbed Mia’s arms, pulling her away from Emory and dragging her toward the dock.
Mia was aware of Emory resurfacing, coughing and gasping. Every instinct screamed for her to continue fighting, but she was too exhausted. She let herself be dragged to the shore where Grace and her mom pulled her onto the sand. Grace’s mom dove back into the water, swimming toward Emory and then helping her back to safety.
Once Emory was on the ground beside her, Grace’s mom ran back to the dock, and Mia could hear her calling 911, pleading with the operator to send someone quickly.
Mia was so spent she could barely hold her eyes open. But she could see Emory’s face through her squint, how pale she was and the way her chest heaved for air. Another kind of fear swept over her then, and she reached for her sister’s hand, realizing that in addition to nearly drowning herself, she had almost drowned Emory.
“I’m sorry, Em,” she said in a barely audible voice. “You saved me. I—”
“Shh,” Emory soothed, linking their fingers together. “You’re okay. We’re okay.”
Mia wanted to thank her, but she couldn’t force another word past her lips. She lay there, staring at her sister, imagining what would have happened if she had not come to her rescue, knowing she would now be on the bottom of the lake, staring straight up with her eyes open but unseeing.
~
IT’S THIS IMAGE that brings Mia upright from her position on the cold, stone floor. A scream is stuck in her throat, and she can’t draw air into her lungs.
It was a dream. She’d been sleeping.
But the sensation of not being able to breathe is the same as the one she’d known drowning in that lake all those years ago. She opens her mouth and forces air in, grateful for the fact that she’s not filling her lungs with water, but oxygen.
She presses her hands into the concrete, her back screaming now from her sleeping position on the hard floor. No blanket, no pillow, just the cold floor.
Tears well in her eyes, slide down her face, even as she hates herself for them. Something tells her this is what they want. They want her to break. To stop fighting. Accept whatever it is they have in store for her.
She wonders if Grace is nearby. Has she stopped fighting?
Is it inevitable? Can someone break your will simply by being determined to hold out longer than you?
She wonders how many days it has been since she’s had food. The water comes through the window in the door at what seems like regular intervals. Just enough each time to keep her mouth from drying up to the point that she can’t swallow.
She wonders if this tomb they have created for her is a slowed-down version of drowning. She thinks about the bottom of that lake, the terror she’d felt in imagining that she would find death there.
She feels the same terror now for the thought that she might find it here, in this dungeon-like room. She forces herself then to think of what Emory would do. Pictures her sister diving off the dock that July day to save her with no thought as to her own endangerment.
Is Emory looking for her now?
Of course she is.
Mia knows her sister. Knows how devoted she is.
Even if she doesn’t deserve that devotion.
Mia feels a bone-deep shame for the way in which she’s taken that devotion for granted. She vows then and there that if she makes it out of here alive, she will never again take Emory’s love for granted.
Loneliness hits her like concrete being poured onto her chest. She starts to cry, even though she hates the undeniable evidence of her own weakness.
“Please don’t give up on me, Emory,” she says out loud. “Please keep looking. I don’t want to die here. Please don’t give up on me.”
Laughter echoes from the other side of the door, sending a chill up Mia’s spine. A woman’s laugh. Amused. Indulgent?
Mia wraps her arms around her knees and covers her head with her arms. She will not cry. She will not. She. Will. Not.