resurface

*NOTE: the two previous vignettes in this storytelling thread (Chapter 1 and Chapter 2) as well as this new addition can be read sequentially or each as a stand-alone!

//

"Yes, I'm taking a photo! Myron, squeeze in behind "E," would you?"

"Mom, stop zooming in! I know you're zooming innn," Elodie bellyaches in harmony with the hum of the boat.

"Jeez Laweez! I know how to take a..." Beth drawls off, squinting at the phone screen. The rumbles of restive discontent temporarily give way to plastered smiles. It's much easier to fake a smile when wearing sunglasses, Myron considers.

Ria's headache-inducingly high ponytail brushes his sunburned shoulder as she squirms out of frame as soon as her mother lowers the phone.

"Nineteen is a difficult age," Beth has been quick to say about either of her twin girls for the entirety of this painstaking summer. It was a blanket statement meant to cyclically table the topic, put him at ease.

Though he'd never admit to it, he found them both to be abrasive and, well, neurotic - expecting to be coddled for life after the death of their father 13 years prior.

But who was he to judge? To harangue? He certainly didn't seek to play replacement Dad. That wasn't his place. Beth knew that. He knew that. His role in their world was peaceable enough with the at-arms-length approach.

He dished out hefty sums of cash with a warm nod of the noggin every time they came home from campus, which probably went toward DoorDash gift cards and boatloads (ha!) of noxious hard seltzers. He was, with an unquestioning and loyal grin, paying for their $70,000-a-year education at an unavoidably culty New England private college. So be it.

Myron Tollis was not a stingy man, by any means. He reveled in being overly generous, open-hearted. He was a meat-and-potatoes kind of fella who always dreamed of having a 'family,' if only to fake smile with and mark calendars around.

After a devastating breakup of a long-term relationship in his mid-twenties (that brought him embarrassingly close to an impulsive overdose), Myron became a devout bachelor and careerman. A decades-long stint of flying solo. He did so well that even his larger-than-life older brother had to tip his hat to him for taking the family business up, up, and away.

And so he grew emboldened to indulge in his multi-millions. He bought a boat better classified as a small yacht and a summer home in northern California (his brother's territory). He got married in Newport, Rhode Island at a gray-whiskered forty-eight years of age, adorning Beth's freckled hands with an ostentatious $22,000 wedding ring.

However, Marshall hardly took notice of his baby brother's encroaching proximity, his lavish lifestyle. Who could dare disturb Marshall's poignant silence, the silence of an artist at work, of a creative genius?

In fact, as Myron now realized, staring out at the cerulean horizon, his self-important brother had never even met his wife and her girls ("Ri" and "E" as they were dubbed on Beth's meticulously updated Facebook page). Of course, he resented him for it (while simultaneously berating himself). Such is the bifold way of grief.

//

Shasta Lake and its spidery sprawling outgrowths, its dizzying dam was, perhaps, not the best setting after all to try and unite the extended family in the wake of Marshall's absence. Myron regrets this oversight. He's not good at this.

Two months ago, his lionized older brother lept off the Golden Gate Bridge, never to resurface. Feckless was the word he kept whispering under his breath at the funeral. Feckless. Feckless. Marshall was always feckless - a trait made excusable under the guise of artistic whimsy. Myron truly wondered how his brother's family put up with him all those years.

Said family now stood before him, a tableau of uncertainty, a mishmash of reserved glances and blank eyes over dripping soda cans. Sue, the widow, kept her gaze firmly on the treeline, a motion sickness band clamped on her wrist.

The two Tollis children, Cassandra and Casey, didn't seem to be speaking to each other. Out of spite, the former had dragged her live-in boyfriend along for the ride as a buffer. Lawson was his name.

Myron was immediately annoyed with the tag-a-long guest. Lawson was the type whose entire character revolved around living under a rock. He seemingly found it charming or funny to be loudly oblivious to any passing pop culture references in conversation. Be it Simone Biles or Joaquin Phoenix, he was sure to declare something along the lines of "I've literally never heard of them in my life!" followed by a well-rehearsed shrug.

By the height of this particular afternoon at the crest of August, Myron was starting to assume Lawson a pathological liar. Surely this level of self-indulgent ignorance was just an act. The more the imbecile doubled down on the performance, the more he wanted to just throw him overboard.

Despite his growing irritation at this crumbling, almost comical attempt to unite his new family with his brother's family (excluding the obnoxious plus-one), he couldn't help but circle back to Sue like clockwork, like an unflagging waiter on a luxury cruise.

"I'm sure I have a ginger ale in the cooler somewhere. Would you like a ginger ale?"

"I'm a tough cookie, Myron, don't fret about me," she glanced ever so slightly toward him to prove that her eyes were unclouded.

All he could do was offer a wordless salute and retreat.

The lone Bluetooth speaker was still rotating a mix of sufficiently agreeable alternative rock hits. "Scar Tissue" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers was the current lolling track for everyone to zone out to as the anchored boat bobbed aimlessly.

With the engine now cut, the muted conversation of the passengers rose to meet the sound of the lapping water. Cassandra was curled like a drowsy cat toward her boy toy, talking in confidence.

Beth, his ever-dutiful co-host and partner, was attempting to sustain a one-sided conversation with Casey, who had a Shakespeare play opened impatiently in his lap. The Comedy of Errors. Myron had stolen a peek at the cover earlier.

Elodie and Ria were both, unsurprisingly, on their phones, resembling a pair of negligent teenage lifeguards. With both their heads down in their matching baseball caps from the college bookstore, you could no longer tell them apart.

If he had been their father, he would have shipped them off to a months-long summer camp as preteens. A cellphone-less one, preferably. The two princesses could have done with some survival skills 101, some adrenaline-fueled hours immersed in the woods. Much like the shared misery of Boy Scouts that he and Marshall endured a lifetime ago.

Myron was now sweating profusely. He could feel the creases of his neck turning vermillion.

He checked his phone. 3 p.m. The tipping point of the afternoon.

His skin was itching, he was itching to abandon his solemn guests. To wrap all this up. To give up. No, that's not right. It's just the heat, it gets to your head. Calm down, he tried to steady himself.

If you really need to cool off, just jump. Take a dip. A little swim, Myron weighed. The urge to flee was familiar now, indistinguishable from the energy he held with a clenched jaw at his brother's funeral. A shit show, he'd decided.

The parade of his groupies, the hordes of young 'artsy' women he surely lured into his web, his bed, at some point or another. He was mad at everyone then - from stupefied Casey, doomed to try and insert himself within his father's residual fame as a portrait artist - to Sue, who he thought should have insisted on a painfully close-knit and private ceremony. Family only.

The same resentment built as he stood dissociating on his newfangled boat. Everyone's eyes were diverted from him. Indifferent or distracted. Unmoved by his kindness(es), his perpetually outstretched hand, his refilling wallet.

His heart thudded, furiously trapped. He wiped his brow, turned on his heels, headed toward the rail, and dove. It was a sloppy, rather undignified arc toward the water (but, then again, no one was watching). His stomach seized the second his toes left the ground - jolted by the recognition of gravity, inexorable in directing his path. One had no choice but to fall headfirst into the murk.

Slicing into the cool dark, his anger was startled, transformed into something much more elusive and more wounding. He brought one arm in, plugged his nose, and held his breath to try and preserve it (the unreachable) behind his eyes, for there it all was: Marshall, as a child, chasing him with a crawfish, the alien creature held out like a weapon; the creaky spines of Marshall's old mythology books which kickstarted his own uneasy fascination/mild phobia of whirlpools; Marshall burying their family dog after it got hit by a car in the summer of '77, dirt on his cheek; Marshall, wine drunk outside the gallery talking about his foible for cigarettes, the inevitable decline of one's lung capacity after age 35. Face obscured by smoke.

Myron resurfaced at last with a discomfiting cough, met with pairs of gawking eyes. Beth was clapping as you would if imitating a performing sea lion at the aquarium.

"Having fun there?" she yelled.

"Oh, you know, just seeing how long I can hold my breath," he coughed once more. Casey turned around and walked back toward the cabin area like an actor exiting stage left. I to the world am like a drop of water.

Myron attempts not to look winded while staying afloat, ignoring Lawson's belittlingly bemused expression. The wind cools his vulnerable face. There's pressure behind his eyes as if he's about to cry.

The lake has filled up again, he remembers reading on Facebook. A near-miracle. 10 years ago, when he was still firmly planted on the East Coast, unwilling to entertain his brother's whims, Shasta Lake had sunk to 30% of its full capacity. Leagues of dry, cracked earth made for stunning before and after photos. Apocalyptic musings.

Though a sun-bleached collar still remains, separating water and forest along the 365 miles of shoreline, the marinas and boat docks are no longer high and dry. He should count himself lucky. Investments. Timing. Those were always his thing. He couldn't have been here 10 years ago.

Casey reappears on the boat deck, now with a life vest in hand. He tosses it toward him, too accurately to be unkindly. Myron slips one arm in, grateful for the buoyancy. His legs kick lazily, moving toward the congregation of onlookers.

Poor Sue looks green. He'll take her (and the rest) back to the house now. Set her gently on the earth. Say something innocuous like "I know it takes a while to find one's footing." Swallow another bubbling question. Do you dream about him?

At last, he approaches the rope ladder - a humiliating, rickety climb. Casey leans over to offer help, his searching eyes so startlingly similar to his father's gaze.

"Feckless," Casey utters, just loud enough for Myron to hear him.