By the time I’d finished chumming the waters, an uncomfortable silence had settled over the charter. Phil pulled the tank and BC off Marshall’s back and set them with the other gear. The rest of the divers came up one by one, and each time I got to hear the shocked questions all over again.
Marshall’s body lay under a blue tarp, close to the benches where we stored the extra tanks. Nothing but a shape under a dark plastic shroud. I sat nearby, my arms and legs numb, my hands like deadwood. If I had only kept my eye on him, none of this would’ve happened.
Mom put her hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I nodded and wiped my face with a beach towel. I was nowhere near fine.
She rubbed a palm over her wet hair and looked east, where the sun hovered three fingers above the horizon. The air thickened with the rising morning heat and the smell of neoprene.
Captain Phil walked by with a tank over his shoulder and gave her the once-over, which would’ve really pissed you off. How he could switch gears like that, I had no idea.
Mom’s wet suit lay in a heap at her feet, and she was wearing the white rash guard you gave her four years ago for Christmas, the one with the O’Neill logo in red and black splashed across the front. Mom has worn that and a pair of black bikini bottoms for every dive since you went away, like it’s now her uniform.
She sat down on a bench near me and patted the spot next to her. “Maybe this is a good time to talk about what really happened,” she said in Greek. The two guys within earshot at the cooler glanced over at us. People huddled in small groups, half-dressed in beach towels and bathing suits, talking in hushed, funeral home voices. The sound of crying drifted up the narrow stairs that went to the head. There really was no place to hide on a small charter. Mom’s fishhook gaze made that very clear.
“Everything was fine,” I said, my first language suddenly feeling rusty in my mouth. “Marshall was good, keeping his fins off deck. For a new guy, not bad.” I washed the taste of vomit out of my mouth and spit over the side.
“I don’t give a crap about how good his buoyancy was,” Mom said. “I want to know what happened.”
For the first time that day, I really looked at her. The lines of her face were hard. So were her eyes. I knew what she really meant: How could my daughter let this happen?
I dropped the gear onto the floor with a clatter. “He took off, Mom. I don’t know why.”
“Why weren’t you watching him?”
I tossed my hands up. “There was an octopus. He was adorable. Colette and I were checking it out. Marshall was behind us. And then he was gone. He swam off by himself, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Okay, he swam off by himself!”
She looked baffled. “And why would he do that? No one with even beginner’s training does that.”
“People do stupid things. You know that.” My voice was rising, but I didn’t care. No one could understand us anyway.
“You sure you didn’t leave him behind, Tasia? I’ve seen you do this kind of thing before.”
“I’ve never left a diver.”
“No, but you push the edge of the decompression limits. Penetrate a wreck without knowing where all the exits are.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“And what about that shark last week, handfeeding him? That was—”
“The nurse shark? C’mon. They’re like puppies.”
“Do you want to keep your fingers? I swear to God, just like your—” She stopped and rubbed her face. Calming herself down.
“Like your father? Is that what you were going to say? I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“He wasn’t perfect, you know,” she continued in a deliberately calm voice. “Once you get underwater, you take risks. That’s all I’m saying. He was the same way.”
“Was? He’s still alive, Mom. When did you stop talking about him in the present tense?”
She pointed at Marshall and cut me off. “Look at what happened!”
As her words rung out, the chatter on the roof deck died. She took a breath and stood, apparently done with our conversation. Grabbed a stray mask and threw it in the nearest barrel of fresh water, sending a cold, wet slap against my shins. Her motions were stiff, unnatural, as if she’d forgotten how to tidy up after a dive. I watched her gather gear. Avoid my eyes. And Dad, you don’t know how I felt. She couldn’t even look at her own daughter.
The boat rocked her off-center as she grabbed a wet suit and switched on the shower, rinsing it down. Some of the water ran across the floor and pooled underneath Mr. Marshall.
“I didn’t leave him behind,” I said.
“How did he get lost, then? Explain how.”
“It was textbook. Everything I did. Until he left us.”
She put her hands on her hips, examining my expression. Finally, she exhaled and shook her head. “I shouldn’t have let him come with us. Too green. Not enough bottom time.”
“Gee, thanks for trusting that I’m not lying to you.”
She ignored me and looked west, toward shore. “We’re heading to the marina. The cops are too lazy to come out here, so they’ll meet us on the dock.”
A wave of relief washed over me. I knew I wouldn’t get an apology from her—that part of her personality has been broken since you went away—but all I wanted was to start our motor and get as far away as possible from the USS Andrews.
“Matt’s pretty close,” she continued, focused on the western horizon again. Her eyes said she couldn’t get there fast enough. I followed her gaze. Nothing in the distance but whitecaps and a few seagulls.
“His charter will be here in forty-five,” she said. “Maybe an hour. We’ll transfer the rest of the divers to him.”
“Isn’t Felix with him today?”
She nodded.
I looked away and took a sip of water. “I don’t want my little brother to see a dead dude.”
“He won’t.”
“He’ll hear about it.”
“Yeah . . .” She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand, distracted. “He’s seven. He understands death. He can handle it.”
“I’m seventeen and I can barely handle it. Call someone else.”
The wind was dying, but it still had the strength to carry a mist of sea spray, and I breathed in the sharp tang of salt. That’s when the feeling hit me again, so strong I was sure everyone within ten feet of me could feel it too.
Too cold, too dark, too deep. Leave now.
“We should all go in together,” I said. “The cops—won’t they want to talk to the others?”
“No, they’ll just want to talk to me. And Phil.”
That didn’t sound right, but everything I knew about police procedure I’d learned from reruns of Law and Order. And your trial, of course. “Captain Matt can’t be the only guy out here. It’s a Saturday. And it’s gorgeous outside.”
She shrugged. “His is the closest scuba charter. It has a group headed to the Haystacks, mostly snorkelers, but it’ll do.” She paused, clearly working the details out in her head. “You can help our people get one more dive in and then head back to shore.”