Girl Underwater by Claire Kells Read Free Book Online

even slower than the processing system. The windows load in cumbersome sequence, and the hard drive is festering with viruses. When I got to college, my technical savvy multiplied by about a thousand; I bought what everyone else bought and installed when everyone else installed. I converted from IBM-ism to Apple worship. I ditched my BlackBerry and bought an iPhone. This was the price of fitting in, and I paid it willingly.
    Finally, Internet Explorer flashes on-screen. I try to install Firefox and then Chrome, but both crash. It’s thirty minutes before I’m even in my e-mail account.
    801 new messages.
    I archive five hundred of them in one fell swoop, careful to avoid anything from Coach Toll. It takes only a few seconds to find it, with its bleak subject heading and familiar list of recipients. It says, simply,
Update
.
    My fingers tremble as they pass over the keys. I don’t want to read it; I don’t want to
know.
Anything. All those people. Crying. Screaming. Phil Markey’s skull with its sunken look, blood draining from his left ear. Coach wouldn’t mention those details in an e-mail, but
I
know them. I carry them with me. I’ll carry them for the rest of my life.
    I can’t bear the thought of reading about Colin’s fate. This is a fact of life, a simple acknowledgment of my physical and emotional limitations. For weeks, I wondered if time would change that, but it hasn’t. Colin saved my life on that plane.
    And for what?
Why?
So he could suffer in an intensive care unit for weeks afterward? I stopped asking the staff for updates after hearing the words “critical condition” for the twentieth time. I worried that one day, “critical” wouldn’t suddenly be “stable,” or “fair,” or “good,” as I’d hoped—but “gone.”
Had that day finally come?
    I close the laptop and sit in darkness for a long time. In addition to the antique computer, my desk is cluttered with remnants of high school: handwritten notes, chewed-up pencils, a jar of change. A stack of envelopes crowds the far corner, as if banished there by some subtle force.
    There are fifteen of them, all sealed. All addressed to Avery Delacorte, but with different return addresses. Newton. Watertown. Lexington. All Boston suburbs, all within easy driving distance. I open the one dated three weeks ago.
    The spelling is horrendous, but someone has made the necessary corrections in a neat, tiny print. The writing itself evokes a strong sense of character that comes through in the straight lines and looping vowels. I know immediately who this letter is from.
    Dear Avery,
    I got your ledder (letter). I love (loved) it. You shud (should) come to dinner at my house. Granddad liks (likes) you a lot.
    Love, Tim
    I read the others. Some are written in Tim’s hand, but others provide colorful anecdotes of the boys’ lives.
    One letter.
I sent
one
letter to each boy, none more than three pathetic lines long. There were no personal details—no details at all, really. Just condolences and apologies and a vague sense of regret. In the aftermath of so much trauma and sickness and loss, I figured they would never remember me. The doctors assured me they probably wouldn’t.
    In return, their grandparents and aunts and other relatives sent me pages upon pages of updates. Their words yearned for a connection I couldn’t give them. If Colin were able, he would have confronted me by now. He would have demanded,
Why?
    With this thought, I open the laptop.
    Dear Team,
    As you all know by now, our small community suffered a terrible loss when Flight 149 crashed over the Colorado Rockies. We lost an incredible person and a great swimmer in Phil Markey, who perished in the tragedy. He was a real asset to this team and will be sorely missed.
    Avery Delacorte is recuperating in Brookline. She informed me via her father that she will likely return to the team in January.