Free The Cartoonist by Sean Costello Page A

sat beside Kath on the dock...the Bowman harem, as Scott liked to call them. Kath’s feet were dangling in the water and she was watching a trio of loons.
    “Neat the way they dive, eh, Mom?” she said as the loons submerged in silent sequence. Her voice was lifeless and flat.
    Disturbed by her daughter’s tone, Krista went momentarily blank. She simply could not think of how to answer. “Uh-huh,” she said finally. “They sure can hold their breath. Let’s see how long they—”
    “What happened to Daddy yesterday, Mom?”
    Krista turned to face her only child, so small and vulnerable looking in the sketchy dawn light.
    “It was like he said in the rec room yesterday, hon. Your daddy got stuck in the rocks down there and couldn’t get unstuck.”
    A deep cleft furrowed Kath’s brow between her tired eyes. She kicked with one brown foot at the water, as if to punish it.
    Then she looked squarely at her mom, fixing Krista’s gaze as only a child’s eyes can. Her next question seemed to quiver on her lips, a question she’d been prodding and poking at since late the morning before.
    “Could he have drowned? Really drowned?”
    There was only one answer to this question, and it was one Krista hated to give. For a cowardly moment she considered lying, telling Kath her dad would have gotten out just fine on his own after another minute or two...but she choked off the idea as quickly as it raised its deceiving head. There was no room here for a lie. Later, it would not be forgiven.
    The answer was a simple affirmative, a single syllable that cut the legs out from under every child’s innate belief that their parents were invulnerable.
    “Yes, honey,” she said. “Your daddy could have drowned.”
    Kath fell silent then, her eyes resuming the same glassy blankness they’d acquired in the rec room the morning before. After a moment she stood.
    “I want to go see if Daddy’s okay,” she said softly.
    Krista took her hand. “Not now, sweetie. He’s sleeping. Let him sleep. He’s all right. You can see him later.”
    Kath hesitated, looking up at the house and her parents’ curtained window. Then she sat again. She kicked at the water, thoughtful. After a while she went in for a swim.
    * * *
    At about nine-thirty on that sunny Sunday morning, Scott cranked himself up into a sitting position on the side of the bed. His first thought was that he had never been so stiff...even yesterday had not been this bad. And now his head was in on it, too. He felt as if he’d just put the wraps on a giant, week-long booze fest.
    The Valium , he thought as he rose unsteadily to his feet. The Valium had done its job. Wobbling like a wino, he took an uncertain step forward and had to prop a balancing hand on the night table. He waited for his head to clear, then shuffled carefully into the bathroom. More than anything he wanted a shower, but when he thought of standing there for the ten or so minutes it would take, he opted instead for a bath. Lounging in a tub of hot water would do more for his tender muscles anyway.
    While he was sitting on the toilet and peeing forever, Krista popped in and drew his bath. Just as abruptly she vanished, only to promptly return with a tray of French toast and a pot of hot coffee. She helped him into the water, which was just this side of scalding, then rested the tray on the edge of the tub.
    “Sore?” she said, twining her fingers in his chest hair.
    Scott nodded between gobbles of toast; he was voracious. “Understatement,” he said after clearing the pipes with a mouthful of coffee.
    Krista began kneading the muscles of his right calf. In appreciation, Scott’s eyelids drooped to half-mast. He finished his breakfast quickly and then stretched out, allowing the water to work its way up to his chin.
    “You sure gave me a scare last night, mister,” Krista said, donning an oversized sponge-glove and starting on the muscles of his thigh.
    He regarded her quizzically. “What do you