Lisa Unger - Darkness My Old Friend

When Henry could bring himself to look at Jones, he saw that the other man was staring at him. Jones Cooper had a chilly, assessing gaze that made people question themselves. What did he see when he looked at Henry? A coward, surely. A fool. Henry squared his shoulders, told him about the night and what had happened.

“I never touched her, except to hold her as she cried that night. She told me that she was unhappy, that there was someone else beside her husband. Michael came home and caught us in an embrace. It was very awkward. I left.”

Henry paused to breathe. “I never thought… she was in danger. I wouldn’t have left her if I had.”

Jones glanced around the clearing, scanning the night with his flashlight.

“Why now?” Jones said. “Why are you telling me this now?”

Henry had a thousand answers. I thought she’d run off with someone else. How could I admit to loving another woman who would never love me? I was ashamed. I was angry. I never thought she’d come to harm . He issued some jumble of those things, couldn’t even bring himself to look at Jones.

“It doesn’t much matter at this point.” Jones had to raise his voice over the wind.

“But would it have mattered then?” Henry asked. He was practically yelling. “Would you have looked at her case differently had you known?”

Jones rolled his head to the side, seemed to ease some tension out of his neck. “I might have looked at you a little harder.”

“But not at Michael. Or Mack?”

“It’s hard to say,” he said. Jones started moving back to the path.

Henry followed. “After my run I went back. I saw Mack’s car in the driveway. Claudia Miller was sitting in her window, watching. Whatever happened that night, she must have seen it. Maybe she lied about the sedan.”

“Why would she lie?”

“That’s what I thought then, too. But who knows why we lie? A hundred reasons big and small.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” said Jones. “We’re wasting time. If those kids are out here in this weather, we need to get them home.”

Jones was walking more quickly now, with a sudden purpose.

“Where are we going?”

“To the river.”

“The Black River?” said Henry, even though there was no other river he could have meant. “Why?”

“Don’t ask,” said Jones. “Just move faster.”

Jones felt as if he were dreaming. Was he? A year ago he’d found himself in the woods on a night like this one. Back then he was trying to bury his past, to protect an awful secret he had hidden for decades. Tonight he was following the path of predictions he didn’t even believe. He could smell the rotting vegetation, slick in the rain, beneath his feet. The rain falling on his hood, the rushing river off in the distance, it all created a cocoon of sound around him. Even though Henry trailed behind him, Jones could believe he was alone in this place. He could turn around at any time, say to Henry that they needed to call the police, conditions were too harsh, the night was too dark. Those kids could be anywhere. And no one would have questioned that. But he didn’t. The irony, of course, was that if Eloise hadn’t come to him, it might never have occurred to him to check the banks of the river.

The Black River wasn’t normally deep or fast. But tonight it could be, according to the news, a full two feet over its normal depth. The river worked its way through a glacial ravine lined with hemlock and pine, its rocky bed studded with boulders. Even in the summer, the water was cold.

As Jones crested the rise, he saw that the river was high. And down below on the banks, he saw the beams of two flashlights bouncing like fireflies. The path before them, the one that would switch back all the way to the riverbank, was washed away with rainwater. It would be faster, possibly safer, to cut down through the trees.

But it would be treacherous; he thought about telling Henry to go back and call for help. But then he was making his way down the side, gripping onto wet trees, feet slipping beneath him. He crashed his knee against a rock. He heard Henry making a similarly graceless descent.

The voices below, raised and frantic, carried over the sound of the river. But Jones couldn’t hear what they were saying. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled at them to stay where they were. But then he saw the flashlights start to move downriver fast. They were running.

The bank of the river was gone; he had to make his way through the trees that usually stood high above. Up ahead he saw the flashlight beams bouncing, and he and Henry followed. Henry pulled ahead of Jones. He was lighter and stronger. Jones was already panting with effort, feeling the fact that he was as out of shape as his doctor kept telling him. Did you know , his doctor asked, that survival in extreme circumstances can come down to how long you are able to hold your own hanging body weight? How many pull-ups do you think you can do? Three, Jones could do three pull-ups, maybe four if he’d had a light lunch.

As they drew closer, he saw the three slender forms. He heard Henry yell something, but Jones couldn’t make it out. And what happened next seemed like a memory, as though he had already been there so many times. And each time the events unfolded in exactly the same way, no matter what he did to try to alter them. He had the thought that maybe that’s just what life was, after all. Maybe you repeated it over and over again until you finally did the right thing-even though it was never really clear what the right thing was. He moved closer to them, called out to them again. But his voice was lost.

He watched, helpless, as the smallest form moved too close to the water and lost her footing. He watched her cling for a second to a thin branch, which broke off in her hand. The other two forms bent toward her like reeds, arms outstretched. He watched her fall into the cold, rushing water. And then, a second later, while everyone else stood stunned and rooted, sound and distance isolating them all from one another, he raced down what was left of the incline and jumped in after her.

The cold hit him like a freight train, sending a shock through his body. The rushing water churned around him, then pushed him toward the surface, where he gulped at the air before going down again. He could hear her yelling in front of him. He tried to swim, but the current carried him along, knocking him against the rocks. He wouldn’t have thought this river could be so powerful, that his physical strength would be nothing against it. There are things more powerful than your will . Isn’t that what Eloise had said? He still didn’t believe it, even now when it proved to be true.

And then everything suddenly seemed to quiet. The girl had stopped yelling, the current slowed. He could still hear voices on the bank. He dove below the surface. At first there was nothing but a rushing flood of cold. Then he saw her floating up ahead. Or rather he saw something darker than the rest of the darkness. He used all his strength to reach her, to be faster than the water that pulled her along, too.

Finally he was able to put his hand on her; her arm was impossibly thin and cold, her fingers so small. He tried to pull at her, to take her up with him. But something held her fast. He grabbed hold of her leg and dragged himself down to where he could feel that her foot was wedged between two large rocks. He yanked at her calf, his chest growing painful with his held breath. When he realized he wouldn’t be able to free her, he started working on the laces of her thick leather boots. He could only feel them beneath his fingers. He could see nothing now. All he wanted to do was surface and take the air into his lungs, but he knew if he did, the current would take him and he’d never find her again in the dark water, never be able to fight his way back to her.