Page 53 of I Do, I Do, I Do
She missed him. And she had no one to blame but herself. She had driven him away by bludgeoning him with inane politeness. It was disappointing that he’d given up so easily, but she had been the cause of their estrangement, if she could call it that.
Ben was heavy on her mind as she wandered out on the ice capping the lake. An inch of new snow covered the surface, but she felt the hidden smoothness beneath the soles of her boots, saw the tracks of animals in the snow. The strangeness of walking on frozen water interrupted her thoughts. If someone had told her a year ago that she would be walking on ice, she would have laughed and insisted they were dreaming.
A sharp cracking sound erased the smile from her lips. She didn’t know exactly what the noise meant, but it sounded ominous, almost menacing. And now she noticed that she’d wandered beyond the animal tracks.
Panic stopped her heart when the ice seemed to give way beneath her feet, seemed to sink beneath her weight.
For an instant she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Then she grabbed her skirts, fixed wide eyes on the shore, and dashed forward.
It happened fast. One minute the ice felt almost solid, the next second she dropped into water so cold that for an instant her brain and heart were shocked into paralysis.
Black icy water swallowed her whole, freezing against her face, penetrating her layers of clothing.
She had never learned to swim.
Thrashing wildly, the wet weight of her coat dragging at her arms, she tried to claw upward. The top of her hat banged against an ice ceiling, then broke through, and she gulped for air. She wasn’t facing the shore, couldn’t see if anyone had noticed her plunge through the ice. Throwing out her arms, she tried to lean on the surface with the idea of pulling herself out of the freezing water. But the ice broke, and she sank again. This time her toes touched a sandy bottom and she pushed off, but not hard enough. Her head didn’t break water this time.
As her heavy clothing pulled her down, it occurred to Juliette that she was going to drown. In water shallow enough that a tall man could get his head above water to breathe.
She fought to bob up again, but her limbs were numb with cold and her effort feeble. In a second she wouldn’t be able to help it, she would open her mouth and suck water into her lungs.
She was going to die. And not one person would shed a tear at her demise. It was a sad thought to have as her last. But there wasn’t time to compose a thoughtful or eloquent last thought. The blackness closed over her and her water-heavy boots and clothing pulled her to the bottom.
Zoe couldn’t believe her eyes. When she looked back at the snow-covered lake, Juliette had simply vanished. Then it struck her. Juliette was on the ice? The ice wasn’t thick enough to walk on, and wouldn’t be for at least another week.
“Oh, my God!” Wildly, she looked around for assistance. “She was on the ice!” Screaming to catch the attention of the men nearby, she ran to the shore and immediately spotted Juliette’s footprints among those of a dozen small animals. “Help! Help me!”
“Get blankets and towels,” Ben shouted, almost knocking her down as he ran past her and out onto the ice. He’d taken only a few steps before he fell through. Swearing, he broke the ice ahead of him with his fists, leaving a jagged black path.
Horror paralyzed Zoe. Eyes wide, hands pressed to her mouth, she watched him struggling through the ice and water. The water reached his thighs, his waist, then his chest. Her heart pounded, each beat shouting hurry, hurry, hurry.
It wasn’t until Mrs. Eddington tugged her arm and anxiously asked what had happened that Zoe came to her senses. “Bring blankets and towels,” she ordered. “Go!” She saw Clara in the distance, preparing to launder a few things since it was a fire day, and she screamed Clara’s name.
Now others came running, and another man plunged into the water, then another, struggling after Benjamin. Then Tom was suddenly on the shore, holding out his arms, stopping others from rushing into the icy lake.
“Too many people will confuse things. Give them room to work.” He looked at Zoe. “Who?”
“Juliette. She can’t swim.”
Tom’s expression turned grim. “Anderson! Bring enough wood for a bonfire. We’ll worry about paying later. Move, man!”
One of the men who had gathered to watch scowled and spit on the sand and rocks. “What was the damned fool doing out on the ice? Everyone knows it isn’t thick enough to walk on.”
Clara paused in her rush toward the shoreline and pushed her face up close to his. “She’s from California. She doesn’t know about ice. So just shut your face.” When she reached Zoe, she anxiously asked, “How long has she been under?”
“I don’t know.” Zoe twisted her hands together, wanting to plunge into the frigid water herself. But Tom was right. Too many people in the water would hamper the rescue effort.
Finally she noticed that Clara had snatched up blankets. And she realized Clara had guessed what had happened the minute Zoe screamed her name. Thank heaven their husband had married bright women.
Time slowed to a crawl. Out on the ice, heads broke the surface of the black water, gulped air, and vanished again. Zoe couldn’t tell which of the heads belonged to Ben and which belonged to the other two men.
“I didn’t treat Juliette very well,” she said suddenly, staring at the lake. “I resented it that she was a real lady and that she’d had an easy life. I hated her for being Jean Jacques’s first. And I hated her for paying Tom to pack us in.”
“Her goody-goody ways made me want to smack her, and that prissy little holier-than-thou voice she spoke in sometimes.” Clara also stared at the lake. “She doesn’t know how to do anything useful.”
“If she dies, I’ll feel guilty all the rest of my life for the times I wished her dead or wished she would just disappear. Maybe God is punishing me by granting my wish. I can’t stand it.”
“I could have taught her more about cooking and laundry, but I didn’t, even though she was willing to learn. It was more satisfying to criticize and sneer at her efforts.”
