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The Surfacing

by Kurt Newton

Eight-year-old Ellie Fortier exited the back door of her lakeside home into a clear moonlit night.  She was careful not to let the screen door slam shut. She didn’t want to wake her grandfather, who was babysitting her for the night but had fallen asleep in his favorite chair.  Her mom was at the hospital. Her dad — well, she didn’t want to think about her dad right now. What was more important was what she had to do.

Dressed in a light windbreaker, jeans and sneakers, she tiptoed down the back porch steps and hurried along the gravel path that led to the long wooden dock that pointed like a finger toward the center of the lake.  Lake Ochabee. When she reached the end of the dock, she hesitated.

She stared out into the open water.  She could feel its coldness and depth.  But she trusted it. If there was a God, she hoped he lay at the bottom of all that cold, dark water.

To her left, moored to the dock’s side, her father’s motorboat sat.  Alongside it, like a child close to its parent’s side, rested the small skiff Ellie’s father let her paddle around in.  As her small hands worked to untie the knotted rope, Ellie’s lips moved silently, repeating a chant she had begun fifteen minutes earlier after the phone call came informing her grandpa that there was still no change in her father’s condition. Daddy will be all right… Daddy will be all right… Oaky will fix it… Oaky will make it better…

Her fingers finally loosened the damp knot and she climbed down into the small boat. Without wasting any more time, she picked up the oars and began to row.
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