Free The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen Page A

His eyes burned and he blinked rapidly. He sucked big, grateful gulps of air into his lungs.
    The entire pool had gone quiet. All around him the people stood still and watched the little boy, the silence simultaneously eerie and reverent. Someone had turned off the never-ending radio they kept cranked over the speakers at an obnoxious volume. He looked around for the child’s mother, but no one stepped forward. A little girl was crying hysterically; he assumed she was the boy’s sister. He saw Zell slip an arm around her, and the girl struggled against the restraint, trying in vain to get to the boy’s side. The lifeguards kept working on the boy, who was blue and unconscious. Lance prayed for the first time in a very long time. “Please, please, please,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
    Suddenly he remembered his own son and scanned around to account for his children. He found Alec frozen in his spot in line for the diving board. Their eyes met, and Alec gave him a smile so fleeting he wasn’t sure he saw it, then gave him a thumbs-up, an affirmation that his father had done something right when it counted most. But would it count if the boy didn’t survive? Lance pulled himself from the water just as the distant wail of sirens approached. He caught the eye of the beautiful woman, and they exchanged grim looks.
    After the EMTs arrived, things moved fast. From a distance, it was hard to make out exactly what they were doing. Lance just saw arms flying and faces frowning. In short order they’d secured the boy’s neck, put him on a stretcher, and headed to the ambulance. The boy’s older sister, a little girl Lance had seen playing with Lilah just a few minutes before the whole episode began, ran after him, screaming his name. “Cutter!” And then, “I have to go with him!” Lilah and Jencey’s daughters did their best to comfort her, but she was inconsolable, shaking them off and attempting to catch up to the ambulance and climb inside.
    The EMTs, intent on helping the child and seemingly unconcerned about his hysterical sister, bustled past as if she wasn’t there. One, filled with a grace the other two did not possess, turned back. “We’re going to take your brother now,” he said. “We’re going to help him.” He squeezed the little girl’s thin shoulder and raced after his coworkers. Moments later the ambulance shrieked away with lights flashing and siren blaring. The nearby adults, suddenly linked by the situation, formed a messy circle around the girl, offering words of comfort and trying to decide what to do. The children gathered there, too, wide-eyed and silent.
    Zell, ever helpful, rubbed the little girl’s back and assured her that she could go to the hospital just as soon as they got the boy settled in. She said “settled in” as if he were going to a bed-and-breakfast. But her voice was soothing and even and seemed to calm them all down.
    “Someone needs to call his mother.” The woman standing beside Jencey spoke up, her voice shaky. She had scooped up her little boy and was more clinging to him than holding him.
    Zell spoke to the girl. “Do you know your mom’s number, honey?” Zell leaned over to Lilah. “What’s her name again?” she stage-whispered.
    “Cailey.” Lilah’s attempt at a stage whisper came out sounding more like a hiss.
    The little girl ceased crying long enough to give her a “duh” look and nodded. Zell handed her a phone, and she punched in the numbers. Before it could start ringing, Zell took the phone from her hand.
    “But I want to talk to her,” the girl cried out, trying unsuccessfully to get the phone from Zell.
    Zell turned to the girl. “Cailey,” she said, gentle but firm in the face of the girl’s hysterics, “you can talk to her once I’ve explained the situation.” She took a few steps away from them and turned her back to speak to the boy’s mother, a woman who, at that moment, had no idea that something terrible had just