GOD LAUGHS LAST, conclusion

Previously: Karol and her four year old daughter, Beanie, were at an off-site cottage owned by the couple who ran the Honey Pot Campgrounds. Karol had been cleaning for them since her husband ran off and left her to care for their two daughters alone.

This afternoon, Beanie overheard two men loudly arguing about throwing a dead woman into the lake near the cottage. The men saw her and, although one of the men grabbed her, the other let her go back to her mother. When Karol called 911 for help, she was told there was a big fire in town and there was no help available.

They were on their own, with only the promise of her friends from camp coming to their rescue.

When they tried to escape the two men, the van broke down in the middle of the deserted camp road. One of the men used his big truck to push the disabled van into the water near the boat slip. Here is where we continue:

The water couldn’t have been that deep when the truck stopped ramming us; maybe we could wait it out, breathing the air inside until they were gone. Let them think we were dead. If we held out that long, I could let enough water in to open the door and float to the surface. By then, our friends should be here.

Beanie trembled as she watched the murky water slowly crawl over us. I held her tightly and kept whispering happy thoughts into her ear. “Jeff is coming to rescue you. He’ll dive right in and save us. I promise.” Jeff was her favorite lifeguard at camp.

All she wanted was to hang onto me and watch the scary-looking water. When she spied a water snake swimming near the window, she shrieked, her cry piercing my ears.

“He can’t get us. He can’t get in. Don’t worry,” I assured her, hoping I was right, because immediately after heights, came snakes on my fear ladder.

With my mind so preoccupied with Beanie and planning how to escape this mess I hadn’t noticed the lukewarm water seeping through the rusted floorboards. It was up to my calves. I wasn’t certain how much longer we could play dead. Unaware of everything going on in the outside world beyond our watery prison, I didn’t know if the two men were gone or still waiting for signs of life.

The engine had pulled the van almost vertically, filling the front seats slowly with water. Holding Beans, I climbed over the seats, trying to steady myself on the slick rugs by hanging onto anything I could. Everything in the rear cargo space had shifted and piled up behind the back seats so we couldn’t reach the doors. That left only the small side windows for escape. Beanie might fit through those. I wasn’t certain if I would. Sending her out alone would be a final, desperate, last resort.

We’d have to return to the front when the entire vehicle filled with water and escape through the driver’s door. I needed this oxygen bubble in the back to keep my thinking straight while I planned our next move. Time slowed and it felt like we’d been underwater for hours.

Water was trickling into the rear of the van through cracks in the old door, and soon the vertical tilt was evening out. The entire van softly thudded onto the muddy bottom of the little cove while the contents of my purse and the cleaning supplies began floating around our shoulders.

Perched on my lap, gripping me tightly, Beans began screaming again. “Snake, Mommy. Snake! It got in. It got in!”

The sight of a long, dark object slithering through the water toward us startled me into gasping in a big mouthful of water. Coughing and choking to clear my lungs, I froze when the slimy creature make contact with my neck. Oh, God. We’d never make it out of the van alive, I thought. Something odd about the snake though. The scales were more like hard ribs. Weird. I smacked it away with one hand that wasn’t being gripped by Beanie and laughed.

“Oh, boy. Honey, that’s the vacuum cleaner hose.”

We both had a fit of hysterical laughter with that discovery. Then, I said, “Honey, we have to get out of here. Do you think you can hold your breath while we go out the door? You’ll have to hold your nose and promise not to breathe until I tell you to.”

“I do it when I’m playing Polo with Katie.”

“Good. Because we’re going to swim to the front door together and I’ll try opening it. You have to take the biggest breath you’ve ever taken and hold it. Then we’re gonna swim like crazy.”

Now that all four tires were flat on the bottom of the lake there was an air pocket at the top of the front seat. While I pushed and pushed to open the door against the water outside, I held Beans up into that pocket and told her to take a big breath. I gulped some air from the top and put my hand over her mouth and nose to keep her from accidentally inhaling water.

Pulling her down into the water with me, we emerged from the vehicle while I pushed off the mucky bottom and swam one-handed toward the surface, praying the men had left. We had only been about ten feet below the surface and reaching air took less than a few seconds but my baby had begun to panic and inhaled water on the way up. Choking and coughing, she struggled against my frenzied attempts to hang onto her.

She slipped out of my grasp, flailing at the water uselessly while I tried to keep myself afloat and reach out to her. I watched helplessly as her little head bobbed in and out of the water, then disappeared. Oh, God. Oh, no! No. No. No. This wasn’t happening. Oh, God, damnit, do something.

I dove under the water, trying to find her, swimming in the direction I saw her last. I surfaced to catch my breath, realizing we were closer to the pier than I had thought. Racing down the rickey wooden planks above me were Jeff, Mike, and Todd.

Thank you, thank you, God. Thank you. “ She’s in the water. I can’t find her. Help!”

Jeff wasted no time diving into the water and doing a meticulous search of the area, diving in, searching, and then surfacing to check for bubbles or clues. Mike and Todd helped me out of the water while watching for signs of Beanie. I sat dazed on the little pier, watching Jeff dive and search, dive and search.

Jeff finally swam back to us, shaking his head sadly, when something in the water under the dock startled him. Somehow, Beanie had doggy paddled her way to the supports underneath, hanging on for dear life. We couldn’t see her because she was hidden under our feet and was too exhausted to cry out.

Jeff was elated, and picked her up in his strong swimmer’s arms, handing her up to Mike. She was still coughing and spitting out water but she was alive. The snot running down her face was a beautiful sight because it meant she was still breathing and alive! Jeff pulled himself onto the pier and we all took turns hugging her.

When she finally caught her breath she looked up at Jeff lovingly and said, “I knew you’d save me. I knew it.”

“You’re my favorite little Beanie. Of course, I’ll always save you,” he said with tears running down his sunburnt cheeks.

“Katie. Katie? Who’s watching Katie?” I asked, terrified that she had been left alone wondering what was happening with her sister and me.

“Don’t worry. She’s with Tyler,” Mike said. “We took so long to get here ’cause Gordy got upset and we thought he was having a heart attack. We took him back to camp and Ava drove him to the hospital because all the ambulances were at the fire.

“Oh, no! Will he be all right?” I asked.

“We hope so. Boy, he loves these girls. He was crying and promising to kill whoever hurt his Beanie,” Mike said. “I’ve never seen him so upset.

We walked to the cottage where I took Beans to the bathroom for a warm bath. Drying her off with a fluffy, clean towel, she hugged me tightly and said, “I love you, Mommy. I was scared but I knowd you’d find me. An, I saw a snake but, I wasn’t scared of him.”

“Well, good. Maybe you won’t ever be afraid of snakes again. I’m so proud of you for saving yourself Beanie. I didn’t know you could swim.”

She quietly said, “I can’t.”