Ghost River Jon Coon (free reads TXT) 📖

“Me too,” he answered as he turned for her to return the favor of unzipping his suit. “How was the new underwear?” he asked.

“Is that a question you should be asking a girl?”

“If the girl’s a diver, it’s okay,” he grinned. “So were you warm enough?”

“For the first dive of my life, I was almost too warm. It was wonderful.” She unzipped her polar fleece jumpsuit revealing the heavy lycra pull-over beneath. “Now I can breathe,” she laughed. They sat on the blanket, watching and listening, taking a moment to consider their interaction with the departed spirit and the life it represented.

“Hear the owl?” he asked. It was soft, away in the trees. Soon its call was returned from miles down the river.

“Okay, let’s talk.”

“You planned this?”

“Yep, it’s time.” They lay back on the blanket, looking at the reflections of the moon and stars on the water. “There are reasons I never married, and they’re hard for me to talk about. I told you my folks are dead. That’s not quite true. My mother is. My dad’s in prison for killing her.”

“Oh, Gabe, that’s awful.” She sat up abruptly.

“It is. He was an abusive drunk. He’d hit the bars on the way home from his two-week shift offshore and blow most of his paycheck. He came home drunk again that night. They fought, and he beat her to death.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I tried to stop him. He came after me. I think he would have killed me too, but I hit him as hard as I could with his whiskey bottle. He went down and didn’t get up. I called the cops.” Gabe looked off into the clear sky, remembering that awful night. “I’ve got a temper, but I never knew how dangerous it could be until that night. I wanted to kill him. I still don’t understand why I didn’t.”

“Because you’re nothing like him.” She grabbed his arm, her face distorted in concern.

“I’ve always been afraid booze might trigger that anger in me again, or something worse. That’s why I hardly ever drink. It’s like living with a bad dog in a cage. If you can’t control him, don’t let him out.”

“But, you just said it was self-defense.”

“Oh, I stopped the fight, but I was too late to save my mom. The most important thing a man can do is protect the ones he loves. I couldn’t do it.”

“Gabe, no. You were only a kid, younger than Paul. You couldn’t—”

“I was the only one who could have saved her. I didn’t, and that’s all that matters. There’s more, Carol,” He took both her hands in his and held tightly. “I should have been there for Charlie, and I wasn’t. I failed him just like—”

“Don’t say that. You weren’t there. There was nothing you could have done except get killed with him.” Tears were running down her face.

“He was my partner. No matter what I should have been there.” He released her hands and wiped her tears.

“Growing up I was afraid that if I cared about someone, the same thing would happen. Trouble would come, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. What if I had my dad’s temper? What if I lashed out at my kids the way he did at me?”

“I’ve never seen you lose it. There’s not a mean bone in your body.”

“I’m not so sure. Splitting logs helps, but maybe I just haven’t been pushed hard enough yet.”

“I don’t believe that at all. I know you. I’ve known you for years. You’re a good man, Gabriel Jones. And there’s nothing about you that will make me think differently.”

“Jones. That’s not my real name.”

“What?”

“There was a lot of publicity about Mom’s murder. The court agreed to let me change my name to protect me from it while I was in the orphanage. I liked the Indiana Jones movies, so Jones was the first thing that came to mind . . .”

“What was it? Your real name?”

“Boudreaux, it’s an old Cajun name.”

“It’s a beautiful name. Perhaps one day you’ll reclaim it. Gabriel Boudreaux.” She kissed his cheek gently.

He didn’t argue, but he knew he would never be Gabriel Boudreaux again. He wanted no part of his father’s name or legacy. He took a deep breath as though preparing for a dive and continued, “Okay, here’s the rest. I haven’t told you what happened in New Orleans. The aftermath of Katrina was the worst I’ve ever seen. So much death. Over eighteen hundred died, and seventy percent of them in Orleans parish where we were working. A lot were old. They didn’t have a chance, but they had lived, you know? They’d had life. Then as the water started going down a chopper spotted the roof of a bus. We took a boat to check it out.”

“A bus?”

He nodded, his gaze distant for a moment. “Probably trying to get out too late, caught in the flooding. It was two weeks after the storm, and bodies were decomposing. It was bad. I went into the bus first. It was half full of dead kids.

“When I got inside I felt sick. Like I was going to throw up in the Aga. I could taste the death in the water. I picked up a school bag and saw a name. I must have said it aloud because as soon as I did, a little girl screamed and reached for me. Then they all started screaming for me to help them. I passed out. The safety diver got me out, and I woke up at Tulane Medical Center.

“The nurses kept me sedated for a few days because I was having violent hallucinations. They said it was severe PTSD. Then Alethea came in. At first she just sat and held my hand. Then she started talking and sometimes singing, very softly, in French, like my mom used to do. She pulled me back from the edge. When I could speak, she listened. She told me I wasn’t crazy, that sometimes spirits cry out