Drowning by T. J. Newman

Author:T. J. Newman [Newman, T. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Me too,” Fitz said.

With a phone to his ear, he leaned against the railing on the starboard side of the ship, looking to the horizon. As far as the eye could see, it was water. Only water.

“I understand what’s driving you, Chris,” Fitz said. “More than you know.”

Chris waited for more. Fitz waited for the lump in his throat to go down.

He thought of exactly fourteen months and five days ago. Of how he’d kissed his wife on the forehead, keys in hand, and said he needed to get some air. Of how he’d looked through the front window as he backed out of the driveway at all their friends and family, dressed in black, nodding respectfully, speaking softly, holding paper plates full of potluck casseroles and baked goods. He remembered how several houses down, he’d pulled over, opened the door, and thrown up on the street where he’d taught Michael to ride a bike all those years ago.

“My son’s name was Michael.”

The sun had been setting and the coroner had been walking to his car when Fitz pulled into the parking lot. The man stopped when he saw Fitz in his black suit and loosened tie. With a small nod, he headed back toward the building.

“Are you sure?” the coroner had asked, his hands resting on top of a closed manila file.

Fitz had nodded from the other side of the desk.

“He suffered,” Fitz said, squinting into the sun’s reflection off the water. “He didn’t die on impact. He was alive. Fifteen minutes. Maybe more. Michael was alive that whole time. And alone.”

When he said his son’s name now, a hollow ache expanded in his chest. His name was all over that manila file. Michael Andrews Fitzgerald. Printed with his height and weight and age beneath pictures of his body in the mangled car, the drunk driver slumped over in his own car in the background, dense Hawaiian vegetation surrounding them on both sides of that isolated two-lane road.

It haunted Fitz every single day: The thought of Michael alone and scared. Knowing he was dying. Pleading for help. Did he cry out for him? For his mother? Did he blame them for not being there when he needed them most?

“If someone had just gotten to him sooner,” Fitz said. “Every day. That’s the first thought when I wake up, the last thought before I go to sleep. If someone had gotten to him sooner, would he still be alive?”

A flock of birds flew overhead in a V and Fitz looked up. One bird broke formation and dove, disappearing into the water. Moments later, some distance away, it popped up and bobbed on the surface with a fish in its beak.

Fitz still wasn’t sure he would ultimately survive it. The pain that came with losing his only child, every day, threatened to break him. But today had been different. For once, his pain had a purpose. His actions could spare another father that moment when someone in uniform stands before you and says the unimaginable.

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