“Oh, about a quarter of an hour ago.”
“Where were they headed?”
“Toward the sea, I suspect. And a lovely day for a stroll it is.”
The sea? Panic gripped him.Oh, dear God...
Daniel ran outside, across the wide lawn, down the rocky decline and onto the pebbled shore. He looked wildly about, up and down the coast. Then, out on the channel, he glimpsed a lone, dark-haired figure swimming with clumsy strokes, then disappear below the surface.
“Lizette!” he cried.God, help me!
He ran across the rocks and splashed into the water, pausing only long enough to haul off his boots and throw them back on shore, then he swam out after her. He tried to gauge where he’d seen her go under. At least he thought—feared—it was her.
When he reached the spot, he dove down. He searched frantically through the cold, dark water. When his lungs forced him, he lurched up and sucked in air. He searched the surface, desperate to see her.
Hearing a shout, he spun around. There were Thomas and Kendall on the shore. Remembering Kendall had never learned to swim, Daniel dove back down, scarcely giving thought to the men. He swam deeper, deeper, his long arms stretching, his fingers combing the water. There! He caught a handful of fabric. He held on and kicked closer, wrapping one arm around the figure and trying to drag her to the surface. At first he could hardly lift her, but then she began to rise. He kicked and pawed at the water with all his might. He felt her moving, kicking beside him, and rejoiced. She was alive!
He broke through the surface and filled his burning lungs with air. Only then did he realize that Thomas was there, had swum out and helped him pull up Lizette. His gratitude was quickly suffocated by the realization that it had been Thomas’s movements, not his wife’s, he had felt beside him.
The long, full gown Lizette wore, sodden with water, had become a weighted anchor dragging all three of them back down. Slowly and painfully, the two men kicked, paddled, and pulled themselves back to land. Together they hauled Lizette carefully toward shore. Richard Kendall waded into the surf to help them, and together they laid her carefully down onto the pebbled beach.
Richard leaned close, listening for breath. He turned her on her side and began compressing her abdomen, releasing a stream of water from her mouth.
“I’ve got to find Anne!” Daniel ran over the surf and dove back into the water. Thomas followed after him.
Back and forth they swam, pawing the dark water, coming up with only handfuls of shale and debris. After seemingly endless, exhausting dives, Daniel fell back on shore, panting. Thomas crawled out after him.
“She’s gone,” Richard said.
“I know. We could not find her.”
“I mean your wife. She’s gone. I could not revive her.”
Daniel fisted his hands and pressed them to his forehead and down into his eye sockets. Then he forced himself onto his hands and knees and crawled over the wet pebbles to the prone body of his wife.
He laid his head on her chest, then looked up at her face and stroked her damp cheek.
“I am sorry, Daniel,” Kendall said quietly.
“She was going home. To France. She was trying to swim there.” Daniel’s voice broke.
Richard laid a hand on his shoulder.
Daniel moaned and sat down, pulling Lizette onto his lap, into his arms. “I could not find Anne. I know you did not mean to lose her. I tried, I did ...”
Kendall sent Thomas to the cottage to fetch some blankets. One to warm him, Daniel supposed. Another to cover his wife’s body. His own body was wracked with shivering, his muscles tight and convulsing. The waters of the channel were cold, even this time of year. Had the cold stolen her consciousness, even before she drowned?
For a moment, he was struck with the desire to walk back into the sea that had claimed his wife, daughter, and unborn child. Let it claim him too. Anything to stop this crushing pain.
But even as he entertained the thought, his own words to Lizette echoed in his mind,“You are not God.”
“Oh, God ...” He moaned and began sobbing. How could he go on? It was all his fault. How could he ever forgive himself?
“Daniel,” a voice spoke softly behind him. Or maybe he had imagined it.
“Merciful heavens!” Kendall exclaimed beside him. “Is that Anne?”
Daniel turned. There was Charlotte, the sun at her back, casting a golden glow around her. He winced. His mind must be numb, or hallucinatory.
