Hello Beautiful

She was on the lake path now, still running. The ambulance and police cars had stopped up ahead but kept their flashing lights on. Sylvie was dizzy and slightly nauseous. There were gray spots in her vision that she knew weren’t part of the landscape. She was sprinting but falling behind, at the tail of this group. Please don’t be William, she thought, in rhythm with her footsteps. Please don’t be William. She stopped when she finally reached the parked ambulance. She stood, shaking from exhaustion and nerves, on the edge of the path. Because of the heat, the beach in front of her was already half filled with families and sunbathers. On the sand, kids had paused playing, and men and women in bathing suits were standing on their towels, hands shading their eyes so they could see what was happening in the lake. What could be happening in the lake? Sylvie thought. Kent and the other players had jumped down to the beach, where the paramedics and a handful of cops were standing at the very edge of the water. She turned in the direction they were looking and watched a boat approach at a very slow speed. One of the paramedics and a few of the basketball players waded into the lake. The other two paramedics waited at the water’s edge with a stretcher. The boat was close enough for Sylvie to see a man lying on the deck. She couldn’t see enough to identify him one way or another. Kent and Gus were up to their waists in water. With the paramedic, they raised their arms over their heads, and then they were lifting the man. His face turned to the side. It was him.

“William,” Sylvie whispered, as if to call him, as if in his current state he could hear only whispers.

William’s eyes were closed, and he was limp in his friends’ arms. He was wearing an untucked button-down shirt and pants. He didn’t have on any shoes. One of his arms hung down, touching the water, while the other rested on his chest. More friends joined Kent and Gus; more hands supported William as they struggled to carry him out of the lake. Kent staggered once, and Washington was immediately at his side, his arm around Kent’s shoulders. They laid William down on the stretcher, the movement gentle.

A teenage boy standing near Sylvie said, to no one in particular, “That guy looks dead.”

“Sylvie,” Kent yelled, and that was what unfroze her. She ran to them and, not knowing what else to do, how to help, held William’s freezing-cold hand as they carried him off the beach and across the path. When they reached the ambulance, a paramedic said, “Only one of you can come in the vehicle.” He looked at Sylvie. “You the wife?”

Sylvie stared at the paramedic. She felt like she couldn’t let go of William’s hand. His fingers were so cold that her skin seemed frozen to his skin, and if she was the wife, she would be the one to ride in the ambulance. So, without looking at Kent or anyone else, Sylvie nodded yes and climbed into the back of the vehicle.

The ambulance was in motion before Sylvie realized that William was breathing — shallowly — and she almost threw up with relief. She was wedged between the wall of the ambulance and the cot he had been strapped onto. The paramedic leaned over William. He pulled up his eyelid. Pressed his fingers to the side of William’s neck. Covered his body with a blanket. William’s face looked swollen, and his skin was a gray color. He had a bruise near one of his cheekbones. He was very still. Too still, Sylvie thought.

The hospital they drove to was the same one where Julia and Cecelia had given birth and Charlie had died. Time kept slowing down and then speeding up. Medical people wearing scrubs lifted William out of the ambulance. Kent was there; he must have taken a cab. He was talking to the paramedic about blood pressure, and she remembered that he was in medical school. “I should call Julia,” she said, and walked into the hospital, unsure if anyone had heard her.

While the phone rang — she was in a booth just off the emergency room waiting area — Sylvie blinked and touched her face. Her hair was stiff, probably from dried sweat. It felt good to sit on the booth’s tiny seat. Her body was a collection of aches and pinpricks; muscles she didn’t know she had were confused and upset by the ordeal of the past hours.

“Hello?” Julia said.

“It’s me.” Sylvie found it hard to speak. She realized she didn’t want to put what had happened into words. When she told the story to her sister, it would be real. It would have happened, and what happened would have consequences. What those consequences would be, she had no idea. She was too tired, and her imagination had been run over by reality.

“Where have you been?” Julia said. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the hospital. You should come here. We found William.” Sylvie hesitated. “He was in Lake Michigan. He tried to kill himself.”