Alex burst from the break in the trees frantically enough that, had she left the woodland a little way further up the roadside, she might have missed him altogether. Any other time it would’ve been odd, him just sitting there in his cab, pulled over awkwardly on the track running up towards the house. But not today. It was as if he were waiting for her, his unmistakable battered blue tow truck a beacon of hope where it sat in the dusty layby. Her burning lungs had gasped at this meagre stroke of luck, if luck had any part to play here. His being there had saved vital minutes. Precious time reclaimed by not having to make it all the way back up the lane to the house.
Ted Foster’s hands were already braced on the steering wheel, as if by some sixth sense he knew what was coming to find him moments before his daughter slammed herself, wild and startled, against his truck bonnet. Alexandra had looked crazed, unrecognisable when she’d sprung in front of his windscreen, the vein in her neck jumping with the emergency pulsing through her lean frame. Her eyes had been too white, as white as Ted’s knuckles had been while he’d sat there, solemnly regarding the truths he couldn’t take home.
Ted had made the call as they’d started through the small copse of trees and across the farmland beyond, calmly relaying to the operator the information Alexandra had managed to unscramble as her voice had cracked and her legs momentarily buckled.
Help is coming! The thought screamed through Alex’s head. Dad’s coming, Dill, Dad’s coming.
Her pumps were no longer squelching against the dusty earth. Alexandra Foster had been the fastest runner in her year group ever since St Cuthbert’s sports days, but she couldn’t swim like she could run, and Finn knew it. People didn’t run at all in college, she’d found. They ambled. Everywhere. To the cafeteria, the art block – allowing the effortlessly honed muscles of youth to slacken. Alex hadn’t run anywhere since leaving high school last year, but dormant muscles had responded to her demands and she was flying. Ted was flying too. His own burst of adrenalin allowing a man of over fifty to keep pace with his seventeen-year-old child as they rushed in panicked determination to where she had left them.
Alex could hear Rodolfo’s heavy barks guiding them back to the water’s edge, rudely echoing above the peaceful gushing of the river. The Old Girl, the locals called it, Mind the Old Girl and her changing moods. They’d all had it drummed into them as kids. Dill too. He knew, he knew! Alex felt her throat tighten again, her heart twisting as they burst through the long grasses back into the clearing by the alder trees.
Finn had nearly reached Dillon further downstream when he’d turned and screamed at Alex across the water, screamed at her not to come in any deeper but to run! Run for help! So she had, back to the house, instead of floundering on uselessly against her own panic. She thought they’d still be in the water now, but they were back in the clearing, Finn kneeling in the dirt crouched over two wet gangly legs, dripping indifferently where they poked out from under him. Dill looked tiny beneath Finn’s teenage frame, as if the water had shrunk him. A mischievous little boy, playing possum.
Ted skidded in beside them on the floor, Finn moving instinctively from where he had been desperately pressing a rhythm into Dill’s sodden chest. Alex watched her father, useless again as Rodolfo’s barking turned to whimpers and Ted took over the task of thudding urgent hands into his boy’s chest.
‘You spit it out, son, you hear me? You spit it all up right now!’ he commanded.
Finn was standing over them both, his hands locked at the back of his head, motionless as he watched. The water hadn’t soothed the nettle stings angrily covering Finn’s legs where his long shorts hadn’t protected them just half an hour ago. Half an hour, when stingers and the end of the summer were their only cares in the world.
‘Son, you start breathing, son. Right now!’ Ted pleaded. Alex watched her father punctuating his need with every downward lunge against her brother’s skinny body. But Dill wasn’t doing what he was told.
Ted breathed into Dill’s bluing lips. Still, Dill’s legs didn’t move from where they peeped beneath his father’s body. One of Dill’s shoes was gone. Alex’s thoughts started to fire off like the cracker-bombs their mum had confiscated from Dill that morning. The world seemed to fall away then, numb beyond the mystery of that one missing red pump. Dill couldn’t walk home with only one shoe! Where was it? He had been wearing them both when Alex had followed Finn into the undergrowth, away and out of sight for just a few silly minutes. They needed to find that shoe, right now, right—
Alex heard her father’s voice falter. ‘Dillon Edward Foster. You cough it up, son … or your mother is going to be awful upset.’
I only left him for a minute … But Alex wasn’t as sure now. She’d been distracted.
‘Dillon Foster, BREATHE!’
Alex watched in silence as her dad tried to breathe life into his child, his huge hands grappling at Dill’s expressionless face for better purchase. Alex felt the agitation lurch inside her chest. Her father wasn’t being gentle any more, he shouldn’t be so rough with him! Didn’t he realise? He was going to hurt him.
Something warm spilled down both of Alex’s cheeks.
‘BREATHE, GOD DAMN IT, BREATHE!’ Ted shook Dill as if trying to rouse him from a stubborn sleep. He sank his mouth over his son’s again and, at last! Alex thought she saw Dill shift beneath their father’s solid frame. She held her breath … Yes! She could definitely hear it, a new sound! A breathy, jarring sound! Struggling to make its way clear of where it originated.
Something gave in the pit of her stomach. Oh, Dill! Thank—
Ted turned his head from the little boy’s face, strain etched in his eyes. Alex watched her father’s chest convulsing in short, sudden jerks beneath his shirt. She’d never seen her father