“No one charged you with being my savior,” Camille’s voice shook, the confrontation not something she really wanted.
“No one had to charge me with it. I made the decision on my own the night the
Christina went down.” Oscar sealed his lips as if he’d let something slip he hadn’t intended.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her boots slipping once on the moss. He avoided her by looking out at the stream. He took a few moments to answer, and when he did he still didn’t meet her stare.
“Do you remember when you woke up on the
Londoner? When you asked me if I’d seen your father?”
Camille nodded, and hoped their argument was over. “You said you didn’t see him.”
He shook his head. “I lied. I did see him in the water. He was trying to stay above the surface after I got ahold of the dory.”
It was as though freezing shocks of ocean water were striking Camille in the face all over again. She jumped from the rock, the hem of her skirt nearly tripping her.
“Did you row to him? Did you try and save him?”
He shook his head again. “No.”
“Why not?” she screeched. “Oscar, how could you not help him?” She couldn’t blink. She couldn’t do anything but stare at him in disbelief. He’d abandoned her father, the man who had given him everything.
“Because I spotted you,” he answered, hardly loud enough for her to hear. “I saw you in the waves and I chose to row to you.”
She loosened her fists, stunned.
Oscar sat down on the rock, the toes of his scuffed leather boots buried in the dry layer of pine needles.
“I tried to go back for him,” he said, kicking at the needles, “but by the time I pulled you out of the water and looked back, he was gone.”
She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. If she’d only held on to her father’s hand. Oscar would have been able to save them both.
“If there had just been a way to get to the both of you,” he said.
Camille sat on the rock beside him, laying a tentative hand on his arm. “You’re the most capable man I know, Oscar. If there had been a way, you’d have found it.”
She pressed her hand against his solid arm, the flaxen hairs covering his skin coarse against her fingertips. She wanted to soothe him more, reassure him like he always did her.”
―
Angie Frazier,
Everlasting