Though it was almost October, the air was muggy and thick, not the normal crisp prelude to autumn. I could feel the hot, wet air in my lungs as I rode behind Rene on my bike, following the tracks out of the train yard toward the river. In the woods, the scent of apples was thick, nauseating. Apples had ripened with the first signs of fall and then rotted in the heat, their small suicides leaving only sad remains, pulp and empty brown skin littering the ground beneath our feet. I dodged them like land mines while Rene plodded and plundered through the rotten mess. Rene, who had to have weighed close to two-hundred fifty pounds, had to stop several times to catch his breath. I waited as he bent at the waist, clutching his chest.

“You okay?” I asked.

Too winded to speak, he nodded. But despite Rene’s obvious exhaustion, we kept traveling further along the river’s edge, early morning sunlight struggling through the thick foliage.

Teacups. The first thing that I saw were about a dozen perfect china teacups floating along in the current, bobbing and dipping downstream: some with rims lipstick-kissed, some still filled with tea now mixing with river water, all of them disengaged from their saucers. In the hazy sun, it was almost beautiful, only a floating tea party. Before I saw the wreckage, I saw this.

Then, with a gesture that struck me as almost grand, Rene motioned toward the place where the woods opened up, where the train had jumped the tracks.        It had derailed just after the bridge, and one of the rear cars had fallen into the river. The early morning sun glinted in the silver metal of the train, in the broken glass, and in the water. The other cars were tipped on their sides, bloodied people crawling out of the broken windows and doors. Some passengers sat stunned and silent on the bank of the river, while others screamed.

“My baby,” a woman wailed, futile in her attempt to climb the embankment where a child lay motionless on the grass. Her feet kept slipping, her fingers clawing at the earth. She looked up at us and screamed, “Why?” Rene reached for her hand and, bracing himself, helped her up the hill. She staggered across the grass and then collapsed on top of her child, her whole body shaking.

I turned toward the river, paralyzed. I could feel my pulse beating in my neck, in my temples. I willed the other thoughts out of my head, the other disasters.

“Dere’s people stuck inside,” Rene said to me, grabbing hold of my arm, as if to wake me from sleep, “You got to go in dere.”

Rene went to a woman who was beating her fists on the window of a wrecked car, and I rushed blindly down the riverbank to the car that had tumbled into the river. The water was cold and smelled swampy. It soaked my work clothes, the weight of water like the weight of deep sleep. Remarkably, the car was still upright. I shielded my eyes against the sun and scanned the row of windows looking to see if anyone was trying to get out. I fought against the current, holding onto a fallen tree so as not to get swept away. There were several shattered windows; I made my way to the closest one and hoisted myself up into it. I swung my leg over the edge and lowered myself into the car, where I was waist-deep in the water again. Inside, I saw more teacups as well as white tablecloths floating in the water. Plates and soup bowls, water and wine glasses. I pushed through the water using the dining tables for leverage.

“Hello?” I hollered, but my ears were filled with the sound of the river. “Is anybody in here?” I made my way from one end of the dinette car to the next, my legs shaking with the effort and the cold. I could see the narrow serving area and the entrance to Le Pub, the lounge car. “Hello?” I said again, louder this time.

I fought my way to the far end of the car and looked for another open window. My hand throbbed with the beat of my heart. There was no one here. But just as I was about to hoist myself out of the water, I saw something through the window into the next car. I pried the doors open, and stepped through into the lounge. An upright piano was floating in the water, bobbing and dipping in the current as the river rushed through the windows. Relieved, I turned to go back. And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw something else.

The porter’s black and white uniform was fanned out like a nun’s habit; his head was immersed in water, his arms outstretched. The dead man’s float. Shelly had learned how to play dead at the public pool that summer. I’d watched all of the children in her swim class floating like toys in the water. It had given me a sick feeling in my stomach then. Now, my stomach turned again. I was shaking badly. It felt like the river was inside of me, cold and wet. Unforgiving. I went to the man as quickly as the river would allow, and gently rolled him over.

His face was bloated, pale blue and swollen. At the sight of his face, I turned away, feeling bile rising in my throat, and I vomited into the river water. I turned back to the man and felt the shivering turning into something more like a small convulsion. I had the momentary impulse to give in to the current. I was so full of the river by then I could have just let it carry me away. But something inside of me pulled me out of the wreckage, back into the water, and slowly, slowly, up onto the muddy shore where I could barely feel my legs.

The police and the town’s only ambulance had finally arrived. The emergency vehicles were parked cockeyed and tilted on the grassy shore. The red and blue lights swirling and humming reminded me of a carnival. Of a mid-way. Of some terrible ride.

There were other drowned people. Their bodies lay along the river’s edge, a morbid picnic. There was so much blood; the grass beneath my feet was slick with it. Children cried in their parents’ and strangers’ arms; the air was loud with the sound of sirens and screaming. I recognized faces but could not connect the faces with names. I concentrated instead on teacups, a hundred bobbing teacups, and I made my way out of the river. I climbed the bank, my boots and eyes filled with water, walking and walking until I couldn’t hear the sirens or see the train. About a hundred yards from the accident, I sat down under a great willow tree, exhausted, and put my face in my hands. I was fatigued, delirious. I blinked hard against the exhaustion and all of the pictures on the backs of my palms and on the backs of my eyes. But no matter how hard I tried, all I saw was the dead man’s face, and every breath reminded me of the other man I’d left for dead in this river.

I could have been there minutes or hours. The lack of sleep seemed to make time mutable. I could barely keep track of it anymore. Entire days went by sometimes without my noticing. Months could have passed while I sat at the river’s edge. Seasons changed.

I lifted my head only when I sensed someone standing in front of me. The sun was bright behind her, but I could make out the silhouette of a young girl, maybe sixteen, seventeen years old, her belly swollen like an egg. An apparition. A cruel trick of my mind, intent on its return, as always, to Betsy. Her name found its way to my throat but not through my lips. I squinted against the sun, and quickly realized that this was not a ghost, not Betsy, but a real girl. A girl with skin the color of blackberries, holding a suitcase, her hair dripping river water onto my legs.

“What’s your name?” she asked, her accent jarring me, clearly placing her far away from home.

“Harper,” I answered, standing up awkwardly, as if I were only going to shake her hand.

“Harper,” she said. And then she pressed her tiny hand against her swollen stomach, a gesture I could never forget. “Please,” she said. “You gotta help me, sir. My mama’s dead. I got nowhere to go.”

What happened after this (the moments that followed, the months that followed) I can only explain as the acts of a man so full of sorrow he’d do just about anything to get free of it. Here I was at the river again, with only a moment to decide. Forgiveness. For twelve years, I’d only wanted to say I was sorry, but before this there was no one left alive to offer my apologies to.

“Please,” she said again.

 And this time, I didn’t turn away.

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