Part 3Drowned to Save Her Sins

The sharp wail of sirens ripped through the heavy morning fog.

Two patrol cruisers and a search-and-rescue utility truck screeched to a halt along the levee. Officers and tactical divers in drysuits spilled out of the vehicles, hauling heavy sonar gear and retrieval lines.

"What happened? Who called this in?"

The lead detective—tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp, intense eyes—marched down the embankment.

"Officer! Right here!" the woman in the vest cried out, trembling as she pointed at Eleanor. "This psycho threw her teenage daughter into the spillway! It’s been almost twenty minutes!"

The detective looked at the churning, dark water, his face instantly hardening.

"Dive team, gear up! Deploy the side-scan sonar and the drag nets immediately!"

Two divers began securing their safety tethers, but Eleanor stepped squarely in front of them, blocking their path.

"Stay out of the water!"

She thrust her chin out, glaring at the first responders like an outraged matriarch whose private property had been trespassed upon.

"This is a private family matter! Who gave you permission to interfere?" Eleanor yelled. "My daughter is playing hide-and-seek with me! If you jump in there with all that gear, you’re going to terrify her!"

The detective stared at her for two solid seconds, stunned by the sheer absurdity of what he was hearing.

"Ma'am, do you have any concept of how fast this spillway is moving? You think a human being has been holding their breath under that for twenty minutes? What do you think she is, a fish?"

He shoved her aside with one broad arm. "Interfering with emergency personnel is a felony. I will cuff you right now."

Eleanor stumbled, nearly falling into the mud.

Richard quickly caught her, flashing a placating, greasy smile at the officer. "Detective, please, don't take it the wrong way. My wife’s had a lot of trauma... she’s not entirely well up here," he said, tapping his temple in a low, conspiratorial whisper. "But honestly, our girl is just acting out. She does extreme breath-holding all the time. It’s like a party trick. She’s fine, really."

Hovering above the detective’s shoulder, I looked at Richard’s nauseating facade.

He knew. He knew a human brain dies after six minutes without oxygen.

He just couldn't bear to let his carefully constructed life crack open. He had spent eighteen years minimizing my slow murder into a "harmless domestic spat."

"Back off! Both of you!"

The detective shoved Richard away, barking into his shoulder radio: "Team One, sweep the downstream banks! Team Two, probe the deep channels! Move!"

"Splash. Splash."

Equipped with high-intensity underwater torches and sonar probes, the rescue divers plunged into the freezing, murky depths.

Eleanor stood on the bank, smoothing down her windblown hair. A faint, sneering smirk touched her lips as she watched the bubbles churn.

"All this drama for nothing," she muttered to Richard. "Do you think Iris planned this whole spectacle just to make the world think I abuse her? How did she turn out so vicious? Cora was an angel, but this one is pure poison."

Richard kept his mouth shut, staring blankly at the water.

"Vicious?"

I laughed—a soundless, hollow laugh.

When I was seventeen, I studied until my vision blurred every night and won the prestigious statewide academic scholarship. A full five-thousand-dollar grant.

I ran home that afternoon, clutching the official certificate in trembling hands.

I had planned to use the money to buy Eleanor the cashmere scarf she had stared at in the department store window for years. I wanted to show her that I was worthy. That I could make her proud.

When I knelt by her armchair and presented the envelope, she didn't smile.

Her eyes locked onto the gold seal of the certificate, turning colder and more manic by the second.

"A scholarship?" she had whispered, her voice shaking with sudden rage.

Then came the crack of her hand across my face.

"How dare you win a scholarship!" she shrieked, hauling me up by my collar. "Your sister died at eight years old! She never even got to finish elementary school! She will never have a scholarship! Who are you showing off for? Are you bragging that you outlived her? That you're better than her?"

That evening, she dragged me out to a stagnant swamp on the outskirts of town.

She ripped the certificate and the check into tiny shreds, scattered them into the black muck, and shoved my face down into the decaying swamp water.

"Eat it!" she screamed. "Swallow what you owe your sister!"

I inhaled toxic silt and coughed blood for weeks. An x-ray later showed permanent fibrous scarring on my lower left lung.

That was the day I finally understood: in Eleanor’s eyes, my very breath was a theft of Cora’s existence.

"Captain! We have a sonar hit!"

A diver broke the surface twenty yards out near the concrete bridge pilings, his voice cutting through my memory.

The entire bank fell dead silent.

"Depth is roughly thirteen feet, wedged between two support pylons! Definite human silhouette!"

The lead detective ran to the water's edge. "Is there any movement? Any vital signs?"

The diver took a breath and plunged back under.

Fifteen seconds later, he surfaced again. His face was ash-white behind his mask.

"No signs of life... The current pinned her against the concrete... her jacket is completely tangled in submerged rebar and weeds." He paused, his voice cracking slightly. "She’s... she’s gone."

Silence crashed over the riverbank.

The elderly bystanders gasped, tears springing to the woman’s eyes.

The detective clenched his fists, spinning on his heel to glare at Eleanor with pure fury. "Is this the 'tantrum' you were talking about?"

Eleanor didn't even flinch.

She pulled a travel pack of tissues from her trench coat pocket and delicately wiped a speck of mud from her manicured fingers.

"Oh, please. Cut the theatrics," she yelled out toward the divers. "Did she pay you guys to put on this little show? How much are you charging per hour? It's very dramatic, really."

She took a step toward the water. "Iris Hollis! I'm counting to three! If you don't drag yourself out of that river this instant, don't you ever dare set foot in my house again!"

"One!"

"Two!"

"Splash—"

With a heavy heave, three divers surfaced together, hauling a mud-caked, weed-draped body onto the rocky shallows.