Flame
***
Time dragged on my eyelids. I hefted them open again, but the scene was the same. Alex lying as if dead, apart from the rise and fall of his chest, the flickering of the lights on his monitors, and Ayasha, leaning on him gently, infinitely patient, waiting. The sight tore anew at my heart, though I saw it everyday.
From this angle it looked like he was a boat she was sitting in. It reminded me of last summer…
Alex was cruising shark-like around the swimming hole, Yashie propped on his back and holding onto his neck, like a whalerider. Intermittently Bhask would surface with a hug gasp, then duck dive to the bottom again, searching for a stone George had thrown him.
I sat at the water's edge with my feet in the water, trying to stay calm. George sat beside me doing a much better job. It was stinking hot. Even in the shade of the trees around the waterhole the heat hung in the air, dragging everything down. But nothing was tempting me to get in the water.
"Bhask tells me you used to like swimming," George said.
"Uh huh," I replied, wiping the sweat off my forehead.
"Tell me what you liked about it before."
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"It was… um… peaceful… it was…"
I had trouble remembering how that felt. It was very different to how I felt about it now. Now, I watched it swirl round my knees, heavy and dark, dragging at me, waiting for me to slip. So long as I kept looking at it, and concentrated, I could keep my legs in the water. But nothing more. I breathed deeply, trying to reassure my lungs with as much air as I could.
"Just don't think about it," Alex called gently, pushing off the other bank to make a little bow wave in front of him. Yashie watched it, pleased.
I laughed shortly, fear cutting it short. Yeah right.
"You're very good at not thinking about things when you want to," he said, and though his voice was calm, I knew he was thinking of the many times I had avoided thinking about him, or Bhask, or fully explored the consequences of my actions. But this, this I couldn't control. The fear was clamped around my mind seamlessly, and I couldn't find an edge to pry it away.
"You can swim, you know," Bhask said, floating on his back to catch his breath, "Yashie will be swimming before you do."
Yashie already knew how to swim. I knew this, but I also knew I wasn't supposed to know it. I had seen Bhask teaching her, like I had taught him when he was little. Like I should have already done with Ayasha, if my fear hadn't crippled me. Bhask didn't know I secretly watched him when he secretly took Yashie to the waterhole. I didn't want him to know I didn't trust him in the deep water. Because it wasn't him that I didn't trust: it was the water.
"Come on, Mum-"
"Let her be," Alex told him, pushing off the other bank and gliding serenely through the water.
I wished I could join them. I wished I could conquer this. But they didn't know how much it took me to just sit here on the edge, so close to what I feared, my feet even touching it, letting it surround my legs and grasp at them.
"Mum," said a small voice. I looked up in surprise. Yashie was holding her hand out like a queen, reaching for me, and like a queen, expected to be instantly obeyed. My fingers tightened their hold on the grassy bank.
"Mum!" she said, frowning, not understanding why I didn't come to her immediately. I bit my lip. I hated to see my baby frown. The others watched me silently, and the air seemed to be so heavy and still that everyone must've been holding their breath together. I watched in agony as Ayasha's little forehead crumpled in frustration. She jigged her hand at me.
As slowly as I could, I eased myself down into the water til my toes felt the soft bottom, the water rising shocking cold around me. Here, I could stand, the water reaching half way up my waist. It sucked at my legs, encircling my belly. I breathed with my mouth open, holding my arms out of the water, watching my baby desperately. They watched me back from the other side of the water hole, as still as hippopotamus. Why couldn't they just come over? It was so much easier for them. Surely they wouldn't make me swim.
I couldn't bear for the water to cover my chest, my lungs, surround my neck. I was panicking just thinking about it. Alex watched me panic, calmly treading water. How could he be so cruel?
"Mum?" Yashie said softly, her eyes lost, wondering why on earth I still wouldn't come. My heart was tearing in two.
I pushed off the edge and the water embraced me, sliding around my back, weighing on each gasping breath. I kept my eyes on Ayasha's, and forced myself to just kick and stroke, kick and stroke, the rhythm helping me keep the panic under control, but my mind was filled with memories of biting cold, burning lungs, water imprisoning my frantic, clawing hands, darkness seeping down my limbs. As I edged closer Alex took Yashie's hands and pulled her off, trying to give her to me.
"Alex, don't!" I said, my voice almost a sob. But my arms grabbed her automatically, and she grasped my neck with affectionate lip smacks. One arm held her tight, and my other clamped onto Alex's shoulder. Finally, finally, something solid. His arm cradled me, taking my weight away from the pull of the water, holding me close.
"Alright?" he asked softly, but I couldn't reply, burying my face in his shoulder. It took all my effort just to hold onto them tight and breath. Alex reached out with his free arm and pulled us smoothly through the water, back towards the bank. As soon as I could reach it I hauled myself out and lay down full length on the grass, feeling the solid world beneath my heavy limbs, worshipping the way air surrounded me, and I only had to relax to breathe. Yashie wriggled away and Alex pulled her back into the swimming hole, gliding away from the bank again.
I hate you Alex, I thought impulsively, wretchedly, for making me do that. But I said nothing, pressing my cheek into the grass, eyes closed tight, and feeling the panic slowly ebb away. I knew I didn't really hate him. I hated the whole situation: the oppressive heat, the dark malevolence of the water, the ease with which the others enjoyed it and I couldn't.
And most of all, the crippling fear that kept me locked away from them.
***
"Mum?" Bhask said, and I came back to the present in a blink. "You ok?"
"I'm fine," I whispered, frowning, chasing away the memories and stretching my back uncomfortably, "You taking over?"
He nodded. Bhask slept at the hospital while I went home. Neither of us wanted Alex to be alone there.
"Watch Yashie for a sec? I'm just going to get some coffee," I said, walking zombie-like for the coffee station round the corner. I pressed the glowing buttons and stared mindlessly at the brown liquid jetting into my cup.
As I walked back down the corridor, I heard Yashie scream. I dropped the coffee and ran for the room. Bhask cringing away from her, and she was glaring at him from the bed. I had never seen a more foul expression my Yashie's face.
"I just tried to pick her up!" Bhask said, astonished, "She just screamed, and, and I think she was going to bite me!"
"I don't think she's going anywhere tonight," I sighed, leaning on the doorframe. There was no way Ayasha was giving up her Dad so soon.
"Whoa!" I heard someone yelp behind me, slipping on my coffee. I went to clean it up, then drove home alone through the dark and the snow.