“No,” he said, looking down at her. “I’m sure it won’t. Book it.”
“I already did.” She smiled at him, and he was fairly sure he was about to smile back. And maybe kiss her. Or fire her and then kiss her. Or give her a raise and then kiss her.
Thoughts of kissing were abruptly aborted, however.
“Mommy! Mommy, Mommy!”
Children. Maybe Winnie was right, and they did terrify him. This one’s screams certainly did.
“Elliott!” came a woman’s cry. “Oh, my God, Elliott, what are you doing? Sit down! How did you get—sit down, I said!”
“Well, shit,” Lorenzo said. Because his surgeon’s brain had already computed what was happening, and what would happen next, and it involved him and hypothermia, and even as he was shrugging out of his coat, he knew what had happened.
The child had been at the playground, no doubt, and had wandered out onto the wide Fiedler dock. Some idiot had left a kayak tied there. The child, approximate four years old based on size and pitch of voice, had climbed in, and either the rope was insufficiently knotted, or the child had untied it, but that didn’t really matter, because the kayak was now about ten yards off the dock, and Lorenzo was already running so that when he dove in the river, he’d be as close to the boat as possible. “Call 911,” he ordered, and he imagined Winnie was already doing just that. There was the end of the dock, and then he was in the air, and then the achingly cold water swallowed him.
He heard the rush of water, surfaced, his head already in a vice of cold. He checked his distance to the child, heard the screams of the mother, and, though it might have been wishful thinking, caught the sound of Windsor Smith’s calm, authoritative voice.
He swam—memories of him and Obasi laughing and clinging to the edge of their two-person scull, a mandatory drill for Harvard’s rowing team. Then again, that had been in September, not late November. He was losing feeling in his legs.
His hand gripped the edge of the kayak. Elliott saw him and screamed. “Mommy! Help!”
“I’m helping,” Lorenzo said, even as his teeth started chattering. “Sit down, please. I don’t want you to fall in.”
But the kid looked terrified and leaned further away, causing the kayak to tip.
“Grab on to the nice man!” his mother screamed from the dock. “He’s a nice, nice man! He’s not a stranger-danger man, Elliott! Hold on to him, honey. I know you’re scared and your emotions are valid, but Mommy will be so proud if you hold on to him! You can have extra dessert if you sit down and hold on to the nice man!”
Parents today. So ineffective. Lorenzo heard a siren in the distance and idly wondered if his brother might be working today, or if Boston Fire did water rescues, or if that would be the Coast Guard.
Hypothermia tended to slow brain function.
“Sit down, Elliott,” he said. But Elliott did not, just leaned out further, defying physics. Lorenzo pulled down on his side of the kayak to counterbalance it. He tried to boost himself in, but the angle and the cold prevented that. If the kid went into the river, Lorenzo was not sure he could save him. So he lunged up as best he could, grabbed the kid’s ankle and held fast.
“He’s getting me!” Elliott screamed. “Help me, Mommy!”
“I’m actually helping you right now,” Lorenzo said. His whole body was shaking. The kid started kicking him. Really, the lack of gratitude. “Stop, Elliott,” he said, but his voice was hard even for him to understand, given the chattering teeth.
“Elliott. Sit down,” came a voice. A voice that took no shit. “Right now.”
Elliott sat, whimpering
“Good boy,” Lorenzo said. Otherwise, he had no plan. Freeze to death while waiting for help appeared to be the best he could do.
Something hit him on the head. “Sorry,” said Winnie. Somehow, she also had a kayak, but cleverly was in hers, not clinging to it. “Can you hang onto the rope? I’ll paddle us back to the dock.” She indicated the line tied to the stern, which had just bumped into his head.
“I’m afraid to let go,” he said. Elliot made another lunge, trying to get away from Lorenzo.
“Elliott, if you don’t stay right there, Santa Claus will not come to your house this year. You understand me?”
“Yes,” came the little voice. He settled back onto the seat.
Winnie maneuvered the kayak around Lorenzo, looped the rope under one of the bungee cords that crisscrossed the top, and tied it. Lorenzo saw flashing red lights—a fireboat approaching. His odds of not dying had just risen.
“Hey, there. How you doin’?” said a firefighter.
How were they doing? Not well.
“The kid is fine,” Winnie called. “This guy probably has hypothermia. Probably faster if I just paddle them back to the dock.”
