Pace Long's Companion (F)

Two days after his 11th birthday, and three days before Valentine's Day, Pace Long broke through the ice on the upper part of the Sandy River and was carried downstream nearly twenty feet. By coincidence a witness, Johnny Banks, was parked on the shore and saw the boy fall through. Banks called it in and then grabbed a crowbar from the back of his tow truck and crawled out to the boy who was staring skyward through the ice. 

While Johnny hacked at the ice, Pace closed his eyes, the last thing he would ever remember from the incident. He saw Johnny, and then he didn't. 

Six minutes. 

Paramedics, afraid that the ice would not hold, slid the carry basket out to Johnny. County water rescue was twenty minutes away. 

Johnny kept smashing the ice, prying up chunks.

Seven minutes. 

About a dozen onlookers were gathered on the bank. A few called out. "C'mon. Johnny!" "Keep going, man!"

Eight minutes. The ice cracked, a sound like a gunshot. One last hunk of ice and Johnny reached down into the water and pulled the boy out. 

Dead at the scene they said. Breathing at the hospital. That's how it was summed up. 

The next day at school, classmates looked at the empty desk. Their teacher Mrs. Tastides had tears in her eyes when she asked them to make Get Well cards for Pace.

"Is he gonna be brain dead or something?" Matt Hill asked.

"Matt, don't even think such a thing, much less say it."

Pace came back to school the following Monday. Teachers fussed over him, the principal did as well. The other students didn't know what to say. Finally, at recess, Kenny Horton socked him in the arm. "Shouldn't have gone out there."

Pace grinned. "Nope, guess not."

When Pace was 12, he and his father saw a log truck turn over on a Honda Civic from out of town. 

"See Pace, see how easily it happens." The voice in his head. "At any moment, gone."

Two college kids on Spring Break were killed, sure enough, instantly.

When Pace was 15, a player from Williams backpedaling on defense fell and cracked the back of his head on the hardwood floor. The crowd silenced. Turns out, a heart attack.

"Never know, Pace. Old. Young. Healthy. Or not."

At 37, Pace got the news his high school girlfriend Annabelle Lewis died from breast cancer. Black hair, dark brown eyes. Funny. Sweet. 

"Oh, Pace, you know how it goes, don't you?"

Still, the news gave him pause.

"Come on, Pace, you know."

When he was 47, Pace heard Johnny Banks died. 

"Sure, send a note to the family."

At 52, his father. 

At 59, his mother.

At 74, his wife. 

"Always about, Pace. Waiting, yes. Coming, yes. But, you know."

Lyman 2024