“Can you two come to the table?” Beth called, feeling slightly ridiculous.
Jack slouched her way to a chair, the sleeves of her sweatshirt pulled down over her hands. Beth watched her daughter insert crackers into her mouth. There was definitely something strange going on. Lana wasn’t dominating the table with her opinions and pronouncements. She was sitting across from her girls, sipping a Diet Coke, eyes shifting from one to the other.
Beth tested the water, watching Jack out of the corner of her eye as she spoke.
“Well, I had a hard day. My patients get wound up this time of year. It’s cold outside and in their bones. The holidays are long gone, and family isn’t showing up with babies and presents anymore.”
No reaction from Jack. She was looking down at the table, eyes locked on the slice of cheese she was tearing into strips.
“February is tough,” Beth continued. “Some of them start misplacing pills or not taking such good care of themselves in the shower. I had one guy today who had a rash on his—well, you’re eating. Anyway. Mr. Rhoads, the gentleman from up here, with the ranch across the slough? He’s not doing well. He’s got one of those coughs that sounds like he’s pulling a rake up his throat. And I can tell he’s not getting enough—”
“Mom?”
“Yes?” Beth tried not to sound too eager.
“Do we have any cherry tomatoes maybe?” The girl’s head was still down, her hair forming a thick curtain Beth longed to pull away from her face.
Beth kept her hands to herself. She walked to the fridge, using the trip as an excuse to shoot a look at Lana, searching for a hint as to what was going on. Lana bugged her eyes at Beth in a way that meant either “Keep pushing her” or “Get the damn tomatoes.”
Beth placed the tomatoes gently in front of Jack. “Honey, how was your day?”
Nothing.
“Jack?”
Lana coughed. “Jack had a challenging day. There was a dead body found in the slough.”
Jack rocked her head back and forth, in assent or recognition. Lana continued in a whisper. “She had some tourists who came upon it over by the north bank. She had to take charge and report it and everything.”
Beth reached out to touch Jack’s shoulder, slow and tentative at first. When she felt Jack press into her hand, she scooched her chair closer and swept Jack into a tight sideways hug.
“Honey. That must have been awful.”
Jack leaned into the hug and ate a tomato.
“It’s terrible seeing a dead body. It still gets to me every time when a patient’s life ends. It must have been scary to come upon him in the water like that.”
“He was young,” Jack mumbled. “At first I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl because of the long hair. For a minute it felt like it could have been me.”
“Jack, you know that would never happen to you. You’re so careful. You’re a great swimmer. And strong. The slough is your second home.”
Beth remembered their earliest days together, just the two of them, Beth collecting rocks on hikes through the high grass, Jack cooing at the sea lions from the front of the baby carrier. By seven, Jack was picking her way down the scree behind the house on her own, wading into the muck to build tiny forts where she imagined otters might like to sleep at night. When she was twelve, Jack begged Beth for a paddleboard for Chanukah. After a tense negotiation in which the girl just kept repeating, “I am very responsible,” Beth gave in. And got used to watching Jack shuffle down the hillside, the board affixed to the top of her head like a helicopter blade.
Now that same pink board was leaning against the wall by the back door, a towel draped over it like a shroud.
Beth pulled back to look at her daughter, her hands holding up Jack’s shoulders.
“What happened after you . . . ?”
“The coast guard came. And some sheriff’s deputies. A couple detectives from Monterey. There were a lot of uniforms.”
“Jack, you were very brave.”
“No, not really, I mean, I just took care of my group and showed the officers where the body was in the mud.”
“Did they say anything about who it was that died?”
“Not while I was there.”
Lana coughed. “I looked it up on my phone. So far, they’re just reporting that the slough is shut down until further notice. The last time someone died in the slough was two years ago. A fisherman had a heart attack and fell out of his boat. They found the boat, and then they found him a couple days later.”