Day Two hundred and seventy seven - The last dive of David Shaw

I only have that one picture to go by, and I looked at it so often that I have memorized the boathouse. If ever I see it, I shall recognize it. But this isn't just me going out on a limb, this isn't just me trying to find an almost invisible needle in a very large haystack. This is a desperation move in its truest sense. So I find myself in Krakow airport, and very soon I'll be talking with a couple of the experts I managed to find online that might steer me in the right direction. But they can't seem to decide exactly where it is : one says it's near Gdansk, and says maybe Warsaw. The picture isn't, alas, very revealing, and no landmarks can be found in the background that would make it easily findable. Just a lot of trees and vegetation. One of the experts suggests it might not even be on the Vistula itself, but on a nearby tributary... maybe. I roll the dice, and get a bicycle. Since what I am doing is born out of desperation, let's go all out crazy. The plan - such as it is - is to stick as close to the river bank, and ride up and down the length of it, all 651 miles of it, to see if I can find something. I know, deep down in my heart I know that this is folly - for all I know they might've left here, or were just visiting or whatever. But I have to try. I have to.

I know full well that this will be a mission of sacrifice. But I have grown stoic, so I grin and bear it. Every single day, rain or shine, I ride my bike. I've always been pretty good at it since I was a kid, so I can do about a hundred miles a day before I pass out. I usually sleep by the river, rarely venturing into the towns except when I need to buy some food. Because my budget is finite, I can't afford a room very often, but sometimes I get one, and I spend my whole day in bed recovering. I've never been one to eat much, and now I'm eating less and less. I've become almost stick thin, gaunt even. What I do eat is mostly chocolates and stuff that will keep providing me energy. Fruit, too. I have ridden up and down the river, where I can ride and still observe what's on the river, a number of times by now. No sight of them, nothing. My hope is gone. I ponder the merits of trying to do the same for the tributaries, but it's just... there are too many of them, dozens of them. I've committed my act of folly, I'm weary to my bones, nearly broke, and nearly broken. I lived a dream for a moment, but that dream was shattered when they left. I want to go home and curl on my bed an cry. I decide that I still have it in me to do it one more time, and here I find myself going through paths and roadways that I have come to know so well.

I'm about two hundred miles or so from Warsaw when triumph and disaster, those two imposters, strike. As I ride my bike, I spy from the corner of my eye the unmistakable boathouse I'd looked at so many times in the picture. It drifts lazily down the river, and I race to keep up with it. It almost seems as if I'm catching it, but it stubbornly remains a few steps ahead of me - more than that, really, it's just my perception that makes it look closer. The river now winds around a small hill, it's not that steep that I cannot ride up it, though for a few brief moments I do lose sight of the boat. Then I see it slowing down, and mooring just ahead. I can make out some figures, but I can't yet tell if it's them or not. What if it's not? I try to rein in my hopes. As I start going downhill, I start to pedal faster and faster - I'm getting closer. But suddenly my front tire blows out and I lose control of the bike. I come careening down the hill, crashing horribly, thrown forcefully to the ground, until I'm rolling down that hill, and towards the boat - I see it coming closer until everything fades to black.

I wake up, but it must be a dream. Though I feel much pain in my body, there's also a sense of immense peace - the children sleep nestled in my arms, and though I do not know this bed, the way it sways gently almost lulls me back to sleep. This is a good dream, I think. Then her face comes into view, a concerned face, a sad face, and not for the first time, she asks me 'What are you dong here?', and that question fully wakes me up. I look at the children, they've grown so much. They sleep soundly. I prop myself up against the back of the bed, so that I am now sitting. I look at Damaris, unsure about what to say first. Does she have any idea of what I had to go through, what I had to do, in order to find them? 'Why did you disappear?', I feebly ask. I'm feeling demure and achy and I hope to god this doesn't devolve into a fight. She sits by my side, brushes the children's hair softly with her hands. She has a very sullen and pensive look about her, then she turns to me and says, 'I had to give you a chance to be happy. I had to give that shot. You'd have been miserable with me.' I'm left aghast at her answer, and I ask her why didn't we just got a divorce, share custody of the kids, all the shit normal people do. And she baffles me, she says she couldn't do that, because that way she'd feel she had no control. I'm lost for words. But before I manage to say anything else, the children wake, and look at me with instant recognition! 'Daddy, daddy', they say as they leap into my arms. 'You're back from your trip to the moon!' What? I look at Damaris, she gives me a non-committal look that begs me to keep the pretense. 'I sure am', I tell the twins, 'that's why I fell down the hill towards your boathouse. I could see you from the moon all this time, and I had to time my leap juuuuuussst right so I could surprise you when I arrived. But your dad is a klutz, and I stumbled down from the moon.'The kids seemed delighted at this tall tale, and Damaris offers me a half-smile, one that indicated I'd done well. She sends the kids to play outside, and when we're alone again, I ask her 'So what now?'. She sits in silence, then says, 'Now I have to figure it all out.'

I don't lose sight of them for the next few weeks - we go everywhere together, we do everything together. Things seem to be working out. I'm happy, the kids are happy, and she seems happy. Or maybe just content. Every time I ask her how she feels, she says she's still figuring things out. I understand, and don't press her about it. One day I wake up to absolute stillness. We had left the boat moored ever since my stumbling arrival, while we pondered on what to do. I wasn't exactly averse to the idea of us living on a boathouse, cramped though it turned out to be, but I wasn't exactly keen on it. I get up, and as I prepare to exit the bedroom, I look down at the floor, and notice there's an envelope on the floor. My heart starts to sink. I open the envelope - it isn't even sealed - and remove a letter. It just says 'I'm so sorry'. My legs go weak, and I feel myself devoid of any energy, sapped of any will to live. I sit down on the floor, feel the gently flowing water rock it, feel queasy down to my stomach, as I read the letter over and over again. I can't go through this, through all this again. I can't do this again. I wouldn't have to - only god alone knows how I got this information to the Polish authorities, where I got accused of every wrongdoing under the sun - they eventually relent when they learn that the first instance of them disappearing had been reported to them by Interpol. Still, they keep a close watch on me, and tell me to stay in the country. I do so, I stay on the boathouse, still moored, still docked, because I don't know the first thing about boats. About a week later or so, the detective doing the investigation calls me and let's me know that they'd found them. I knew as soon as I heard him say it what he meant. A short while later, they come by and pick me up. It's a very short ride a few miles downriver, where they'd found their bodies tangled in the reeds. I kneel down to hold them, cursing myself for ever made the decision to look for them in the first place. They would still be happy without me. They would still be alive. 

What happens next is a blur, I knew of no one who could contact her family to let them know. Not even the people she'd worked with, of which I'd gotten to know a handful, knew much about her. A mystery to the end. Arrangements are made for the funerals, and it surprises me not one iota to find out that she'd paid for preneed funerals. Had she always planned this, had it been something she knew was going to be inevitable? Did not having control affect her that much? Everything seems to be happening in a way that's disjointed with time and space. The days have become living nightmares, and the nights are even more soul-destroying. Every single day I go down to that embankment where they were found. Sometimes I imagine them all alive and well and happy. Sometimes I try to put myself in her shoes, to try and understand what despair drove her to this. It hurts, it always hurts. Being alive hurts. Being without them hurts. I filled my backpack with heavy rocks, and I sling it across my back. I'm going, I can't stay here, not anymore. You may call it suicide but I'm being born again.