Free Remember The Moon by Abigail; Carter Page A

with the paddle.
    “Maya's calling 9-1-1,” I told Pete as I struggled to wrap the pale canvas ties around the orange-covered floats of my life jacket. “Where’s Marcus? Where’s my dad?” Pete paddled behind me so I couldn’t see his face.
    “Jay, your dad fell in when the canoe tipped.” Pete’s tone was ominous. “Marc’s diving for him, but we need help.” His words made no sense to me in that moment.
    “Marc’s diving for him?”
    “When the canoe tipped, only Marcus and I came up.” We lurched forward violently with Pete’s strong strokes. I fell back, my ass now soaked.
    Marcus surfaced with a small splash in the distance, flipped and disappeared again into the patent-leather surface of the water.
    “You stay in the canoe, Jay. You need to alert the police or whoever comes to help. I’m going to keep diving.” I held both rails as the canoe tilted and Pete lowered himself into the water. Marcus came up, panting as he clung to the side of the canoe as Pete dove in.
    “We’ll find him,” Marcus managed, too winded to say more. We watched Pete surface and dive a couple of times until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I pulled off my lifejacket and, despite Marcus’s protests, jumped over the side of the canoe, shivering with cold. I paddled toward Pete and took a deep breath. A rush of bubbles stinging my nose interrupted the underwater silence. For a moment my panic subsided, until in the blackness I lost my bearings, unable to tell up from down. A flash of something pale below my feet elicited an audible scream, my mouth filling with water as I kicked my way to the surface, gasping for air, coughing. I was a surprisingly long way from the canoe.
    “Get back to the canoe, Jay,” Pete yelled from about fifty feet away, the canoe just beyond him. “You were just meant to be our lookout and to help keep the canoe in position. We’ll find him, I promise.”
    “But I saw something!” I dove again, this time better prepared. I could feel my hair floating around my head and see the whiteness of my own hand. I searched the blackness for what I had seen before, moonlight touching something pale, a fish or human flesh. Don’t let him be dead . A muffled yell from above caused me to do a 180-degree swivel for one last look before breaking the surface. Pete, waving one arm, swam awkwardly toward the canoe, which now floated free, unmanned. I saw Marcus break into freestyle, heading toward Pete. I tried to do the same but instead flipped to my back in fatigue, twisting my head as I swam to stay on course, kicking hard.
    By the time I got to the canoe, Marcus was already in, trying to pull my dad up while Pete and I each held an end steady. The canoe began to tip, but Pete held it and somehow Marcus got my dad’s limp body into it. Marcus kneeled over my father, who now lay in the bottom, skin gray, water sloshing against his face. Pete pulled himself up and in, resumed his place in the back of the canoe, and picked up the paddle. Marcus was attempting to give my dad mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions. I wanted to jump in and knock him out of the way. I needed to be the one helping my dad, but I had to cling to the outside of the canoe. There was no room for me with my father taking up the entire bottom.
    My kicks contributed little to our progress toward shore and I knew I created drag for Pete. We could see flashing red and blue lights off to the right, through the trees of the shoreline, making their way along the road. Marcus tilted my father’s head back, pinched his nose and breathed into his mouth, desperation on his face as he waited a few seconds, then repeated.
    “C’mon, c’mon, Mr. Cavor, breathe!”
    I kicked like mad, every muscle in my body burning. At the dock, the police and paramedics were waiting. Two policemen held the canoe as the paramedics hauled my father in his cut-off jeans and black Rolling Stones t-shirt – the mouth and tongue mocking – onto the dock, where they