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THREE

DAVID DID THE SMART thing: he didn’t try to swim with the unconscious man to the river shore. He stayed right where he was, his left arm wrapped around the ladder’s rung, his right arm around the chest of the man he’d pulled from the SUV, bracing himself against the current of the river.

I stood by the riverbank, still in shock, wilting with relief, feeling like a miracle had just been bestowed on me. But he wasn’t safe yet. That water was cold, and freezing water saps strength. How long could he hold both himself and a grown man out of the water?

I watched him, never took my eyes off him, while I hit Redial for 911. “A marine unit is on its way, ma’am,” I was told.

“Hold on — a boat is coming!” I shouted, but I was certain David couldn’t hear me, focusing his energy on staying above water, the harsh splashes from the river’s current, which seemed to be picking up, tossing him about while he clung to the ladder. Somehow, he managed to turn his head in my direction and find me. I waved to him and shouted, “I love you!” but he couldn’t possibly hear me or read my lips.

I saw it first from the reaction of the people on the bridge, pointing and jumping and shouting — the police rescue boat coming from the east, siren flashing, nearly flying over the water, racing to the scene.

“Get there, get there,” I whispered. “Hang on, David. Hang on just a little longer; they’re coming.”

The boat slowed and pulled up right alongside the ladder. Rescuers opened a side door on the boat and dropped some kind of wide, flat platform onto the water. Two officers crawled out onto it, as if carefully navigating an ice floe. One rescuer grabbed the man and pulled him onto the platform. The other rescuer dragged David onto the boat.

I exhaled the largest breath ever.

The boat sped off, presumably to some meeting point with an ambulance, while rescue workers looked to be performing CPR on the other man.

I ran back to our car, parked by the pub David owns, and drove quickly to the hospital. I called our daughter, Grace, who at age twelve had a phone. Hemingway Grove was a small town in most respects, and I wanted her to hear the news from me first. When I heard her voice, emotion clogged my throat. But I had to minimize the drama, the danger — I just told her that we’d had some excitement and Daddy had rescued a man who fell in the river. Everybody’s fine, I assured her.

Was I right?