Josh came over and knelt beside Dad.
He tried speaking to him, but Dad couldn't understand.
Josh raised his voice.
That didn't help.
I touched Josh's arm and shook my head.
"He can't hear anything right now."
Josh looked at the empty spaces behind Dad's ears.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he stood and walked toward the dock.
I knew that look.
He was angry.
Very angry.
But he was trying to keep himself under control.
His mother was still there.
So were his uncles, cousins, and other relatives.
A family reunion had turned into something nobody wanted to discuss.
Cindy approached us again.
"Is he okay?"
I looked at her.
She was holding the same paper plate.
There was still food on it.
That little detail bothered me more than it should have.
Dad was sitting there soaked and shivering, and she was still carrying lunch.
Josh answered before I could.
"Mom, what were you thinking?"
She frowned.
"Oh, don't start."
"Did you push him?"
"It was a joke."
"He's sixty-eight."
"He isn't made of glass."
Josh looked at the pond.
Then he looked at his father-in-law.
He didn't answer her.
I could tell he was trying not to say something he couldn't take back.
I understood that.
But understanding didn't make me feel any better.
A few relatives offered towels and dry clothes.
One of the cousins brought an old sweatshirt from his truck.
Dad changed behind the side of a parked vehicle.
His wet shirt went into a plastic bag.
I kept looking toward the water.
Maybe the hearing aids were near the edge.
Maybe they had fallen close to the dock.
Maybe we could find them before they were damaged.
I knew those were hopeful thoughts.
I worked in a dental office.
I dealt with equipment that needed careful handling.
I understood how quickly moisture could ruin something electronic.
And these weren't ordinary devices.
They were small, complicated hearing aids with batteries and delicate internal parts.
Still, I wasn't ready to accept that they were gone.
Josh took off his shoes.
Two cousins followed him.
They walked down into the pond and began searching with their feet.
The water was brown and cloudy.
They couldn't see much.
They moved slowly along the bottom, feeling through the mud.
Every few minutes, one of them would lift a hand.
We would all look.
A bottle cap.
A small stone.
A fishing weight.
Once, somebody found a lure tangled in weeds.
Not the hearing aids.
I stood on the bank and watched them keep searching.
Dad sat under a tree with the sweatshirt pulled over his shoulders.
He looked smaller than I remembered.
Not physically.
Just tired.
He had spent his whole working life being the person who could handle things.
Now he couldn't even hear the people trying to help him.
I went over and sat beside him.
He leaned toward me.
"What happened?"
I repeated the explanation slowly.
He watched my mouth.
I pointed toward the pond.
Then I touched both ears.
His eyes lowered.
He understood.
He didn't get angry.
That almost made it worse.
He simply nodded.
After a while, he leaned close enough to speak directly into my ear.
"Don't let this become a big family fight."
I looked at him.
He tried again.
"Please. I don't want trouble because of me."
I swallowed.
He was worried about making trouble for someone else.
Even after everything.
I wanted to tell him he had every right to be upset.
Instead, I squeezed his hand.
The search continued.
Josh and the cousins stayed in the water as the afternoon moved toward evening.
The sun lowered behind the trees.
The music had stopped.
People began packing food into containers.
The reunion was technically still happening, but nobody seemed interested anymore.
Cindy eventually went to sit with some relatives.
I didn't speak to her.
Not once.
I knew that if I opened my mouth, I might say something I couldn't take back.
Looking back, I was also afraid of how easily she could turn the argument around.
She had a way of making herself the injured person whenever someone challenged her.
I didn't want Dad's accident to become another story about how badly I treated Josh's mother.
So I stayed quiet.
By the time the cousins climbed out of the pond, it was nearly dark.
They had searched as much as they could.
Their feet were muddy.
Their clothes were wet.
They had found a fishing lure, a few pieces of trash, and several small stones.
Nothing else.
Josh came over.
He shook his head.
"I'm sorry."
I looked past him at the water.
The hearing aids were still down there.
Or maybe they had been carried farther into the pond.
Either way, we weren't going to find them that evening.
Dad stood slowly.
He thanked the cousins for trying.
That was the first thing he did.
He thanked the people who had spent hours searching for something that should never have been lost in the first place.
I helped him toward the car.
He held the plastic bag containing his wet shirt.
The drive home was quiet.
I kept thinking about the cost.
Four thousand one hundred dollars.
Three and a half years of careful use.
And the warranty that had already expired.
I also knew something else.
We couldn't simply expect insurance or Medicare to replace them.
The money would have to come from somewhere.
That was when the problem became bigger than the pond.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Money We Had Quietly Saved for Eighteen Months Was Supposed to Make Someone Else Very Happy
The Afternoon Everyone Watched My Father Fall Into the Water, and Nobody Knew What to Say
Part 2 of 20
