Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO SAW BLUE I would later learn that Michael Rowan first noticed my dress.
Not my face.
Not my arms.
Blue fabric.
He was fifty-three and ran evening fishing trips three days a week during summer.
That night his clients had canceled because one of them got sick.
Michael decided to take his small center-console boat upstream alone and check two fishing spots anyway.
He heard someone scream.
Then saw the cruiser accelerate away.
He assumed somebody on the boat was celebrating.
Then he saw pale blue moving in the water.
He turned.
I remember hearing another engine.
At first I thought Charlotte and Daniel had changed their minds.
That hope lasted perhaps one second.
Then a smaller boat came toward me.
A man shouted:
“Ma’am! Look at me!”
I tried.
The current kept turning me.
“Can you swim?”
I could.
Technically.
I had swum laps until arthritis made my shoulders complain.
That did not mean I could swim well in a dress after being thrown unexpectedly into a river at seventy-four.
“I’m trying!”
He threw a flotation cushion on a line.
It landed three feet away.
I missed the first grab.
“Again!”
He pulled.
Threw again.
My fingers caught the strap.
“Hold it!”
I wrapped one arm through.
Michael maneuvered alongside without running me over.
He did not try to haul me vertically by my arms.
He brought me toward the stern ladder.
I remember his voice more than anything.
“Slow. I’ve got you.”
I could not climb.
My legs shook too badly.
He got lower, hooked his arms beneath mine, and with enormous effort helped me over the platform.
I collapsed.
Coughed.
Vomited river water.
Michael turned me partly onto my side.
“What happened?”
I could barely speak.
“They pushed me.”
“What?”
“My daughter.”
He stared.
“Who pushed you?”
“Charlotte.”
Then I said Daniel’s name.
Michael grabbed his radio and phone.
I remember the dispatcher asking whether I was conscious.
Michael answered:
“Yes. Elderly female, possible near drowning. She says she was pushed from another vessel.”
Elderly.
May you like
I would have objected any other night.
That night I was too busy breathing.
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