My grandfather’s cigarette never left his lips, so everyone remembers him with a perpetual Popeye squint from the smoke wafting up to his eyes. My memory is much more specific. I remember the day grandpa saved my cousin Karl’s life.
Grandpa owned a cottage on Lake Muskego, and he’d have the extended family out for a week in late August. That was perfect because, not that us kids would ever admit it, that’s the part of summer when time got a little heavy on our hands. He’d set up mattresses on the floor in the attic for us and our parents would take the guest rooms on the first floor. The cousins would hang out at the lake all day, play freeze tag in the evening, and, since it was way too hot to sleep, talk the night away in the attic. The adults, meanwhile, would spend their evenings sipping bourbon on the porch and watching the fireflies in the yard until the wee hours. It was pretty much the highlight of everyone’s summer.
Grandpa left the cottage to Karl when he died. Karl continued the August tradition, although now it was more likely second cousins on the mattresses, and the cousins were the adults sipping bourbon on the porch.
Karl was a congenial host. He could do everything that needed to be done, but he did it all a step slow. That had an oddly calming effect on people, and often you’d walk into the kitchen and there’d be half a dozen ordinarily frenetic teens sitting quietly around the table while Karl made breakfast. And, unlike Grandpa, Karl lived at the cottage year-round, so he was beloved by the community as well.
As a single parent it had been a couple of years since I had been out to the cottage. Eva is eight but she still remembered being there when she was five. She’s nothing if not persistent: drip, drip, drip, and here we are, back at the cottage in August. I had a long talk with Jesse, my sister’s oldest son, about keeping an eye on Eva. Let her play on the beach and dip her toes in the water but that’s about it. He said he would. He’s fourteen and mature for his age so I felt pretty good about the situation.
I brought quite a bit of work with me. My new job said overtime only due to extenuating circumstances, but it turned out extenuating meant pretty much all the time. So, I spent the week slipping off to do remote work in the morning. Eva would track me down in the afternoon and regale me with her adventures. As an only child, she was eating up all this family time. She was getting tan too. I didn’t even know she could do that.
It wasn’t lost on me that she was eight and the youngest of the kids. Karl and I were eight, and also the youngest, the year of the accident.
Everyone else had taken a trip to the grocery store to pick up some ice cream. Grandpa was smoking on the patio deck. Karl and I were playing with Legos on the pier. One of our toy trucks went into the water and Karl reached down on the left side of the pier to retrieve it and fell in. The left side of the pier was off limits: the right side was all clear blue water but the left was murky and full of seaweed.
At first I just laughed but when Karl didn’t pop out of the water I looked down and could tell he was struggling. I reached in but he was too panicked to even grab for my arm. At some point I could tell he was taking in water. I tried grabbing him as he dipped deeper and deeper into the seaweed but I failed. Eventually I could only see his hands, floating helplessly above the seaweed. He was gone. Just at that point an arm pushed past me and into the water, and pulled Karl out by his hair. Grandpa laid him on the pier and started CPR. At first, nothing. But finally Karl spit up some water, rolled over on his side and started breathing. I just sat on the pier in a daze.
The doctors said Karl suffered an anoxic brain injury, lack of oxygen to his brain, and that it would impair his cognitive abilities for the rest of his life.
Karl and I never spoke of the incident. The only reminder was a sign that grandpa posted on the porch wall just before it led to the patio. “Keep to the right.” It was a reminder intended for other people; from that day forward Karl never went near the pier again. Neither did I.
It was our last day at the cabin, and I had just finished up some work and was sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee with Karl. Eva and Jesse came in. Jesse tapped me on the shoulder. “Eva has a favor to ask you.” I looked down at my daughter, tan and happy in her swimsuit. “Dad, I want to jump off the pier.”
I looked at Eva. “Are you sure? You’re a little skittish around water.”
Jesse snorted. “She’s not afraid of the water. You are.”
I looked down at Eva. She was poised like a border collie, waiting for the signal. I shrugged, looked at Jesse and said, “I guess so.”
With that, she was off like a rocket, through the kitchen and past the patio, heading for the pier. I looked at Karl and Karl looked at me. We both scurried to the patio door to shout the warning, but by the time we got there she was already at the end of the pier and leaping into the water with all the energy and happiness one eight-year-old could muster. She splashed into the water, on the right side of the pier.
I looked at Karl and shrugged. He gestured back at my left hand. When I looked, my hand was resting on the sign. “Keep to the right.” Karl gave my shoulder a squeeze and smiled. Together, we headed down to the pier as Eva dog paddled furiously out to the floating platform, Jesse side stroking alongside her offering encouragement.
