Harper Allen - Protector With A Past

The lake had been bluer, the summers so much longer back then….

And Davey had been the center of her world—at nine years old, the big brother whose word was the final say on any question, the infinitely wiser and stronger being that a five-year-old little sister could only hero-worship and try to emulate.

Sometimes, if she was really lucky, she could tag along after him—like now.

Her job had been to sneak down to the boathouse after dinner the night before and hide the life jackets under the front seat of the little Sunfish so everything would be ready the next morning. She’d felt important that he’d trusted her with that. The life jackets were bright orange. Davey had told her that was so people could see you floating in the water if you had an accident and they were looking for you. He hadn’t known why they smelled like wet dog, though, but they did, Julia had thought as she put them carefully in the little compartment under the boat seat.

They smelled the way King, Davey’s old German shepherd who’d died last winter, had smelled after he’d been playing in the lake with them, before his fur had dried off in the hot sun.

Now it was the next morning and she was in the Sunfish, and pieces of fog that looked like rags were blowing off the top of the water as Davey cast off and jumped from the dock to the boat. Watching him, Julia shivered, but she was careful not to let him see. What if one day he was too late, and he didn’t make it back into the boat in time? What if he untied the ropes and pushed off and then stood there on the dock while she floated out into the lake alone? It was too scary to think about. Besides, Davey would find a way to get to her. He wouldn’t ever leave her.

They really weren’t supposed to be out here by themselves at all, but it wasn’t the first time Davey had taken the boat out in the early morning. He was a born sailor, Dad had told the other fathers at the yacht club that day he’d taken them there. He’d ruffled Davey’s hair proudly and bought him a white sailing cap with the club’s crest on it, but there hadn’t been any small enough to fit Julia. She hadn’t minded. It had been enough just to be out with them, away from her mother’s sad silences.

And right now it was enough to be here on the lake with Davey, even though he was kind of mad at her. She was wearing the fat orange life belt that jammed up under her chin so high when she was sitting down that she had to keep tugging on it to keep it from touching her mouth. It tasted like wet dog, too. But Davey wasn’t wearing anything over his striped T-shirt, and that was her fault. Julia felt the heavy orange canvas creeping up her chin to her mouth again and pulled it down. She was sure she’d put both life jackets under the seat last night, she thought miserably. But when they’d gotten out onto the lake and Davey had told her to take them out, she’d only found one.

One of the very best things about having him for a big brother was that he didn’t stay mad long, though. He was already smiling at her again, pointing at a blue heron flying low across the lake. His best friend Cord knew all about the birds and the animals that lived around the lake because his ancestors had always been here, not like their family, who only came here for the summers and then went back to their big house on Long Island for the rest of the year.

Cord was just as good a sailor as Davey was, but when Julia had asked him if his father belonged to the yacht club he’d scowled. Then one corner of his mouth had gone up in a funny kind of a smile and he’d pulled at her pigtails and told her that his dad didn’t have time to belong to clubs. Afterward Davey had told her not to ask dumb questions, and if she had to, to ask him first. But she’d known that Cord hadn’t really been angry with her, because he’d found a perfectly round stone later that day, and he’d given it to her for good luck.

They were changing direction. Davey had told her it was called tacking, and Julia had thought at first he’d said attacking, because when it happened the boom came across the boat and if you weren’t careful it could hit you. She looked out across the water to where their house was, big and white, with the lawn that Cord’s dad had mowed yesterday looking like green velvet.

Just then the heron circled back, maybe to have another look at them. Davey glanced up as the wide-winged shadow passed over him.

And the boom attacked him.

It was like watching one of the movies that Dad had taken the year Davey learned to dive off the high board. Dad had sat in the dark in their living room, running the movie over and over again, backward and forward and slowing it down so he could show Davey all the things he was doing wrong. After that, Davey had practiced and practiced until the instructor at the swim club had told him he wanted to put him on the diving team. But when his dive was finally perfect and he’d shown Dad, he’d never gone back to the pool again.

It looked just like the movie when Dad slowed it down, Julia thought, sitting scrunched up on the hard wooden seat and watching Davey with her eyes opened so wide they hurt. The boom swung over like it was going through molasses and then it hit Davey’s head with a solid thunk just as he started to duck. Slowly she saw his neck snap sideways. Slowly the rope he’d been holding fell from his fingers, but it didn’t hit the deck right away. It seemed to hang in the air at the level of his waist, and then it was down by his knees, and then it was tangled around his feet.

But Davey’s feet were moving, too, rising up into the air with the same kind of slow motion that everything around her seemed to have, the toes of his shoes touching each other in a V shape as he started to fall over the side of the boat. He looked like a seesaw, Julia thought. His hip was on the edge of the boat and his feet were still sliding up through the thick air in that weird and frightening way but his head was already touching the water.

Any second now the seesaw would come up again. Any second now the movie would start running backward and Davey would slowly tip back into the boat and his feet would go down on the deck and his eyes would open and everything would be the way it was supposed to be and she would laugh and tell him how funny he’d looked and he’d start laughing, too, and then they’d go home together and maybe this afternoon Cord’s mom might take them to town for ice creams. Any second now all that would happen.

Except all of a sudden the movie started running really, really fast.

She saw Davey’s striped T-shirt sliding under the water and then his legs and his white sneakers, still tangled up in the rope, and the rope started snaking over the side of the boat until it reached the end and it stretched tight from the cleat it was tied to.

It felt like there was something big sitting on her chest, not letting her breathe. Holding onto the edge of the boat, Julia slid off the seat onto her knees. She was too afraid to stand up because the deck was moving up and down, and instead of going in a straight line the Sunfish felt like it was going to tip over onto its side. She bit her lip and scrambled over to where the rope was rubbing the white-painted wood and she tried to pull on it, but it stayed tight and the thing that was sitting on her chest seemed to be getting heavier and heavier and she couldn’t get any air into her at all.

Then the wind shifted again and the little Sunfish picked up speed and the rope rolled over her fingers and she started screaming and screaming and far off by the shore she could see Cord Hunter, Davey’s very best friend, jumping into his dad’s old motorboat and heading out towards her….

Nothing had been the same after that. Julia stood in the dark bedroom and felt the predawn breeze coming through the pushed-out screen and went deeper into the past.