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The sun beams across the riverside park, warming their backs while they consider every detail. They’re finishing up, the techs dwindling, and Malcolm starts walking the wrong way to Gil’s car. Dani catches bits of “please,” pieces of “stop,” strains of “no” as he hastens away from them.
"Bright, you're hallucinating," the words make it out without consideration as he's hightailing it to the Hudson.
Dani doesn't get a glare from Gil. No follow on statement from JT. They're both trying to catch up to him where he's scrambling through a swath of stones, down the wide bank to the river.
Her words only appear to spook him, driving his feet faster into the mottled surface. It was the first thing she’d thought of, doesn’t know what to do.
And she stops.
Bright splashes in up to waist depth, the sky blue of his shirt soaking to midnight before Gil and JT each grab a suit-jacketed arm, pulling him back. His legs kick and fight, battling those unseen and spraying water up into their faces. His heel batters JT’s shin thrashing to get loose, yet JT maintains his clench. Chests speckled with castoff droplets, pants draining to their ankles, they get him back to the bank, Bright’s flailing taking him to the ground.
Gil kneels and grapples to cross Bright’s arms over his stomach, gripping him by the wrists, and leans into him, the side of his body from knee to shoulder forming a restraining hold from Bright’s seat to his head to prevent escape and hits from connecting. Gil’s right foot is planted in the ground for stability, his whole body facing land, while Bright points upriver.
“Malcolm, you’re safe,” Gil soothes. His chest heaves, finally catching some breaths.
All she can do is watch.
Bright’s struggling limbs still wrestle against Gil, arms twisting trying to pull out to no effect, legs hitting ground that only harms himself. Gil keeps speaking to him in words she can’t hear in a tone meant to de-escalate panic into calm. But his head is rocking strands that spring against Gil’s shoulder, his feet pushing at stones and sand. Looking for any way to get free again.
JT backs away, now a spectator too, unsure how far is far enough. Whether he should stay a few feet down, or head up the bank to the small hill Dani’s standing on, arms across her stomach.
Funny how they could share the same poses, yet she so still, and he so animated. How quickly a scene could turn from repartee to getaway. How rapidly ground could descend from sure to uncertain.
How the present still of quiet was scarier than the chaos of the past fifteen minutes.
Gil’s hold loosens and they shift, Gil sitting and Bright curling into his chest. Voyeurs to the intimate moment, they head back to the car, waiting for them to return.
It’s a quiet ride, no quips to fill the air, no discussions of how many PCBs they picked up from the river, no thoughts of how their waterlogged seats will necessitate detailing Gil’s upholstery. They could ask what happened, but it doesn't matter.
A.
The victim’s necklace had a heart that turned into half a heart on a girl in a box in a basement no one belonged in. Not ten-year-old boys, not thirty-year-old men. Decaying hands grabbed for the necklace, reached for him, pulled him under.
B.
Bright red flags flapping by the water taunted that his father was still recovering in Claremont Psychiatric from a wound he’d inflicted with his own hand. He would do it again. He needed to wash himself of the stains.
C.
Last sleep had come Monday, no maybe Sunday. Or was it Saturday? His head was swimming trying to keep the case straight. Could he make it one more day without wiping out and getting beached?
D.
He could count his hallucinations in hours instead of days instead of weeks. He wanted them to end and walked into the water.
E.
It was Wednesday. Not a special day by any standard. The river seemed appealing.
All they want to do is stay in the car on the way to Bright’s instead of getting out at the precinct. Nothing matters more than helping him.
But he needs help they can't give.
And that hurts.
JT and Dani exit to the steps, not saying anything. There aren’t “hope you feel betters” for getting forcibly removed from a river. No “see you soons” for wherever Gil’s taking him after he gets him changed. No words to reduce the trauma trapped in his overtaxed frame, vying to see who will win.
And Bright can’t look at them. Whatever he’s feeling is welling in the floor mats, hiding between the seat and the dash. He’s giving every indication he doesn’t want to be talked to, and they worry any words might make things worse, might start another race where they can’t catch him.
They watch as Gil pulls away, shrinking as they’re reduced to onlookers.
But Gil’s not enough help either. As soon as paperwork is finished and his kid’s escorted away trying to find solace in the floor, Gil is alone.
Looking at his hand trailing residual water from the back of Bright’s neck. “I love you, kid,” looping through his mind on a rickety track, the words often unused, terrified this would be the time he’d fall off.
Yet not returned. Bright hadn’t said a word since breaking from the scene. He’d pointed at a card to get them to the hospital.
Gil drives home like it’s been a day of errands, yet he has nothing to show for it. An empty apartment. A cold ring he twists around his finger. Whiskey he’s deciding whether to pour.
He picks up the phone.
Because they might not be able to talk to his kid, but they can talk to each other. He can tell the team Bright’s somewhere with people who might help, doing his best to manage until he can come back to them. That he’ll be okay.
And maybe even believe it.
Three whiskeys in a living room on a Wednesday.
A day they helped their friend.
fin