3 days

That summer when dad had walked in from outside, grinning like a mad man and ranting on about boats, my two brothers and I all had thought that he had finally cracked. He was saying something about how fun it would be to own a boat and be on the water pretty much every day. My brothers and I didn’t think much about it because he would always say how fun it would be to own this or how fun it would be to own that. But when he had actually purchased a boat, we were all flabbergasted. I don’t know how in the world he paid for it but when we all had driven down to the docks, sure enough, there was the little motorboat. It was in pretty poor condition too, with chipping, bleached paint, a few broken deck boards, and altogether, probably wasn’t even that buoyant, but dad seemed overwhelmed with pure rapture just looking at it. Dad said that he wanted to enjoy 3 precious days on the water with his sixteen-year-old daughter and 11-year-old sons, spending a great end of summer boat trip. It sounded like torture to me. I would have much rather hung out with friends or watched TV, but dad was very clear on the point of having the whole family come. That night, dad explained that we would all be leaving tomorrow morning which meant that we had to spend most of that night packing all of our supplies for 3 days on the water. Dad fussed over what we were going to eat while Cody and Steven complained over which board games to bring. I took the time in my bedroom, flipping through some of dad’s old photos from when he was a young adult. I was only 8 years old when my parents divorced, which meant that Cody and Steven had been only 3. They don’t remember any of what happened, but I do. It all seemed like it had happened yesterday. Since I was only 8, I don’t remember a ton. But from what I do remember, I was sitting on the last step of the stairs of our apartment, listening to mom and dad fighting in the dining room around the corner. I didn’t really understand what they were talking about, but the last thing I remember of mom was when she screamed, ‘why didn’t you watch her? You knew the risk and still you did it!’ Then I had been caught and sent to bed. The next few days I didn’t see mom at all, and dad spent his days at the table, staring at paperwork and crying when he thought that we weren’t around. A few days later I was told what they had been talking about. They had been talking about Maggie. Poor, sweet, innocent Maggie. My thoughts crumbled when dad walked into my room and asked, “you just about packed, Jess?” “Yeah,” I lied. “Good. The boys and I are eating dinner right now and then we’re all going to bed so that we can get an early start for tomorrow. I plan that we leave about 7 AM.” “Yeah, okay. Cool,” I answered. His glance lingered on the photo book, a hard expression on his face, probably thinking on how rough life had been 8 years ago, and then silently walked out of the room and down the hall. I mean, being blamed for letting his infant daughter drown probably wasn’t the easiest for a 30-year-old man. And then getting divorced after that was just salt in the wound. The boys and I had been at grandma’s when it happened but apparently, dad had taken my baby sister Maggie to the beach about a week after she was born. He had brought an inflatable raft and had fallen asleep while out on the water. When he woke up, Maggie was gone. I never even got to meet her. And if I’m being honest, that was why I didn’t want to go on the boat trip in the first place. I was scared of the water. All of that thinking must have made me tired because I feel asleep without difficulty. The apartment had never really felt like home to me which normally caused me to stay up. When I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing. It was a beautiful start to an August day. Up until then I remembered that I hadn’t packed anything the night before and the fact that it was 6:45. So I quickly threw some clothes into a bag, scarfed down breakfast, and hopped into the truck right before they pulled out of the driveway. We headed out from Santa Barbara and towards the water. When we got there, we unpacked everything onto the boat and set sail. The first thing dad taught us on the boat was to always wear a life vest when on deck. It was a little bit too dangerous to go without. After all of the precautions of being on a boat, we had lunch. It was only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but they tasted great. Then we all had some down time over the afternoon. The boys played one of their many board games and I took a nap. When I got up, the sun was setting, and it was dinner time. They were having some left-over chicken noodle soup from a few days ago, and I joined them. It was cold but still pretty good. Dad was explaining that tomorrow we would go fishing over the side of the boat and see what we could catch. After dinner, we all cleaned up and we went to bed. Dad said he would stay up for a while just to make sure that our course was correct. I spent a few minutes writing about how our trip was going so far and then drifted off to sleep. I noticed two things when I awoke. One was that the sun either wasn’t up or it was stormy weather and two, I couldn’t hear the usual hum of the boat engine. When I got to the deck, I was hit with a powerful wind and sheets of rain. I threw on my raincoat and stepped out onto the deck, wondering where dad and the boys were. And then I fell. I guess I hadn’t really realized how wet and slippery the deck was because when I walked out, my foot slid, and I went barreling towards the boat’s railing. My first thought as I flew over the edge was that I was going to die. I kind of knew the fundamentals of swimming but because of my fear of the water, I didn’t really care to take classes, and I had forgotten to put on my life vest before walking onto the deck. The water was so frigid that it sent my body into shock which made it extremely hard to move. I slowly started sinking through the vast and deep water. A splash sounded above me, and I felt strong arms wrap around me, lifting me to the surface. “Jess! Are you there?! Oh, come on, please wake up. You have to wake up! I… I can’t lose you too.” When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the deck, the rain falling on my face. Dad gasped and threw me into a tight hug. And that was when I finally realized how much I meant to him. I mean, he had lost my sister, mom and almost me. When he pulled away, I just stared into his eyes. They were green I noticed for the first time. I had been told that Maggie’s had been bright green as well. “Dad, I love you. I know I don’t tell you that.” It was hard to tell what were tears and what was rain, but I think he started crying. I hadn’t seen him cry for 8 years. “Maybe let’s just go home. Why are we even on this trip? I don’t know why I keep coming back to the water. I guess there’s something that just keeps drawing me back to it.” “Yeah, let’s go find the boys,” I agreed. “I’m ready to go home.” THE END.