On September 15th, my cousin drowned at Lake Almanor, California. This is day eight of my experiences during the week that followed.
I wake up to little girls laughing and the dog jumping on me. It looks like it’s about 5 a.m.
It’s not 5 a.m. It’s closer to 7. But it’s cold and feels overcast even though it’s not. I look outside, and no one is searching the lake. It seems like someone should be searching whenever there’s even a hint of daylight. We only have 24 hours. And it’s not like he’s going to be at the surface that whole time. Part of the 24 hours includes the time it takes to come up. That’s just not that much time.
The cabin is in chaos. The kids are playing storm the castle up in the loft. By 9:30 we’ve made three pots of coffee. My aunt and her friend go over to the staging area. It turns out there basically isn’t a staging area at this point. There’s no one in charge. They have a couple boats out. One of the dogs is sick. One of the main guys we’ve been working with isn’t even coming today. This is getting frustrating.
I just don’t know if we’re ever going to find him.
My dad and uncle go out on a neighbor’s boat. They ask if I want to go. I don’t. My cousin doesn’t either. We look at each other. I’m pretty sure we have the same thing on our minds.
My cousin is going up to the market. I ask him to buy more half-and-half. I tell him my theory that if we buy more half-and-half, if we prepare to be here for longer, then they’ll find Logan. It’s the same reason I don’t do anything to our house that’s going into default. As soon as we get the carpets cleaned, they’ll send a foreclosure notice.
I go up to our friends’ cabin that they’ve been nice enough to let us use so that more people can stay up here. I’ve been sent up there to “rest.” I try. It doesn’t work.
When I come back down, I open the refrigerator and find the largest size of half-and-half that they sell at the market.
The family who’s lived down the street from my aunt since forever comes up to the cabin. Their youngest daughter and my younger cousin were best buddies. They bring ridiculous amounts of food that we somehow eat in no time.
I have a minor freak-out when it suddenly seems like the venue for the memorial isn’t going to be big enough. It’s like trying to plan a wedding without having any invites or RSVPs. The minister from UU ends up friending me on Facebook and talking me down.
The search yields nothing. Nothing except the beautiful/disturbing discovery of two red roses floating in the water in the area where Logan drowned. We find out later that a man, who claimed he was part of our family, rented a boat and went out for the day, presumably to search for Logan. And then we remember it’s been one week since the accident.
Life is a mystery.
Read the next chapter: Sunday — We Get Desperate
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.