Bringing Lacey Home: a short story by Kody Boye
In which a girl attempts to find the remains of her best friend at sea
“Are you sure you want to do this?” my father asks. “No one would fault you if you stopped here.”
I look him straight in my eyes. Try my hardest not to tremble. Offer a nod, and say, “I’m sure, Dad. I… I have to do this. I made a promise.”
“Okay,” he says, a sad, faraway look in his eyes. “Good luck, Britney.”
It takes only a moment for me to pull the respirator over my mouth.
Then, a moment later, I fall backward, into the deep blue sea.
I have searched for her for exactly seventy-three days.
I know this number like the back of my hand. Understand its significance as if it is instrumental to life itself. I do not need a calendar to remember the day she was lost, nor a reminder of the implications that finding her would bring.
Though most who would stumble upon her would wonder who she was, I could take one look and know her instantly.
I would know it was Lacey just by looking at her bones.
Of course, finding her has been the greatest challenge of my life. Knowing that she might be here, and understanding what I might eventually find, is another thing entirely.
Out here, on the coast of California, people who have drowned will initially sink before they return to the surface. Left long enough, the body will then sink to the ocean floor once more, to be consumed by fish and crabs and sea lice. Within weeks, only bones will be left behind.
This is what I have been searching for this whole time. Her bones. Lacey’s bones. My best friend’s bones. The bones that will finally give me closure, and allow me to truly mourn the friend I have lost at sea.
I still have guilt over not being able to find her. To help her. To save her.
But, I then surmise, I assume this is my atonement. To find her now, after she has been lost for so long.
As I descend into the warm waters, within which I have come to feel more at home than I ever have before, I take note of the life around me—first the tropical fish, who are skirting away from my intruding form, then the sea anemones, who flare in response to my sudden entrance. The crabs along the coral lift their eyes to view my sudden advance, and though I cannot possibly know what a crab must think, I imagine they must consider me an angel—an otherworldly figure in their midst.
But I am no angel, I know, nor am I some otherworldly figure meant to do something impossible, something life-changing. I am just a girl. A simple girl. A girl who survived an accident, and has been haunted by it since.
Though Lacey’s ghost—her spirit, her essence—has never made itself known to me, I understand that she has always been with me, just waiting for me to bring her home.
The concept of finding her—of being able to truly bring her to rest—gives me pause. I come to a stop halfway down, and am forced to gain my bearings before I continue. For this, I allow myself a few seconds to acclimate to my surroundings. I lower my eyes to the seabed below. Then, slowly, I begin to swim.
It is an act that is as defiant as it is graceful, as breathtaking as it is exhilarating. The fins upon my feet propel me forward. The respirator affixed to my mouth channels oxygen into my lungs. The goggles shield my eyes, allowing me to see the world for what it truly is.
Beautiful.
But beauty, I have discovered, is often not appreciated until it is left behind, or lost, or forcibly taken from us. Some would find that it is not cherished until it is truly gone.
I once told myself that Lacey and I would be friends forever.
Now, I know, it was never meant to be.
I fight the urge to cry. To allow myself the mercy of my emotions. Knowing, however, that I cannot afford to dawdle, I continue to make a sweep of the jagged coral that cuts along the ocean floor like an artery running along the ocean floor.
After all this time, I know I will find them.
I know I will find Lacey Anderson’s bones.
The accident was never supposed to happen. As skilled kayakers, we should have known that paddling during high winds was likely to result in tragedy. But we’d told ourselves that we would be fine, that everything would be okay, and we’d disembarked with only one thing in mind: to see the coastline in all its glory.
It’d begun simply enough. Rowing from shore was second nature. Idling in the water, at the onset of an incoming storm, should’ve been just the same. But the tides, they’d been coming, and with them, the winds of change.
One moment, the waves were tolerable.
The next, the swells became too much to bear.
I’d tried to keep a level head. To keep myself from overreacting. Lacey, however, had panicked. She’d started rowing against my cries to wait for my help.
Then, just like that, we’d flipped.
In the ensuing panic, we’d plunged into the water. In the chaos that followed, I’d managed to slip from beneath the kayak and emerge from beneath the tumultuous waters. I’d twisted my head one way, then the other, had called, “Lacey!” in the highest voice I could manage.
But Lacey was nowhere to be seen.
I dived back under. Palmed the underside of the kayak. Tried, with every fiber of my being, to discover where she was. But no matter what I did, and no matter how hard I pleaded, Lacey was nowhere to be seen.
She was gone.
The blur of events that followed still haunts me. Even now, as I comb the coral for any sign of her person, I struggle to make sense of what exactly had happened to my best friend.
The Coast Guard had speculated that Lacey had hit her head when she’d tried to come up for air. Had knocked herself unconscious, and drowned as a result. It would’ve happened quickly, they said, and would likely have been painless. While I’d tried to argue that logic—and had said that there was no way that could have happened, because I had still been there, had still been looking—I could not convince myself that they were wrong, no matter what I said or did.
I realized, early on, that I was lying to myself.
The storm had lasted for roughly twelve hours, and during that time, I watched from my parents’ beachside home—not just hoping, but praying that somehow, someway, Lacey would emerge from the water. I’d sat next to a burning candle, my head down, my hands grasped in prayer, and asked God to bring her home. Please, I’d begged. Let my best friend be okay.
Seventy-three days later, I am still searching.
“Promise me something,” Lacey had said one day not long before she went missing.
“Promise you… what?” I had asked.
We’d been eating ice cream on the pier, and looking out at the dolphins as they pursued a school of fish throughout the shallows. Between the licks of ice cream, I’d gazed at her like she was an enigma, a force that could have withstood the test of time. I remember that she’d had a chocolate cone, me a vanilla sundae with banana, on account of the stomachache I’d been having at the time. I’d told her I’d come to the pier regardless, because at the time, it’d seemed important. The faraway look in her eyes seemed to indicate that something was on her mind.
“Lacey?” I’d asked, before lowering my cone from my lips to consider her. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she’d replied with a shake of her head. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just…”
“What?”
She’d closed her eyes. Sighed. Had said, “If something was ever to happen to me—”
“What are you talking about?” I’d asked.
“—promise me you would never stop looking.”
I distinctly remember the feeling in my chest—that tight, knotted sensation one gets when they are struck by an impossible decision, an unfathomable choice. Lost in the throes of anxiety and question, I’d been able to do little more than stare.
“Promise me,” Lacey had said when I found myself unable to speak. “Promise me, Britney. Promise me you’d look for me.”
“I promise,” I’d replied. “But, Lacey…”
She’d returned her eyes to the ocean.
“Do you know something I don’t?”
She hadn’t responded. She’d simply continued to eat her ice cream.
That conversation had taken place roughly three days before the accident—three days before our lives had been turned upside down by the disappearance of Lacey Anderson. To this day, I have wondered if Lacey had known something was going to happen, that something disastrous was going to take place. She’d seemed so honest, so sure of her request, that, at the time, I’d assumed that she had some sort of foresight on the matter, had been witness to some kind of premonition.
Then the accident had happened, and everything had changed.
My parents, crying.
The Andersons, grieving.
The police, investigating.
I’d talked to so many people. Had done everything in my power to try and find Lacey’s body. Even now, as I patrol this strip of coral for what feels like the thousandth time, I am still searching, even though others have given up.
Two months and thirteen days have passed since the kayaking accident, and not once have I thought about leaving Lacey behind.
The warm waters surrounding me are reminiscent of an embrace. A declaration. A promise that, if I only continue to search, Lacey Anderson will be found.
Deep down, something tells me that today will be the day.
Yet, I have been convinced of this each day. Every day. Every single day since the accident had taken place. I cannot count how many times I have dived down, how much oxygen I have bought to fill my tanks, how much energy I have expended in an effort to find my best friend. I have braved treacherous waters. Have maneuvered around poisonous fish. Have faced the dangers of coming in close contact with sharks. At some points, I have wondered if this search was fruitless. But then, I remembered my promise, and began my search anew.
Because that’s what friends do, I think, as I slowly but surely continue to swim along the ocean floor. They keep their promises.
For the past week, my father has taken me out beyond the crag of rock that is known as the Watchman’s Point. It was here, seventy-three days ago, that the accident had occurred, where the kayak had flipped over, where our lives had irreversibly changed—and though a part of me knows that finding her here is slim, it would be fitting for me to discover her remains where it all began.
I swing the flashlight in an arc before me. Trace the array of red and yellow coral, and the white sea floor below, with its light. I allow myself to feel hope; and here, I force myself to pray.
God, I think. Please… if I am meant to find Lacey’s bones… please… just give me a sign.
Something winks from the bottom of the ocean floor.
I blink. Bring myself to a halt. Swing the flashlight back in the same direction.
Something winks at me again.
I sliver of remorse fills me. I think, No.
Then, I begin to descend.
My heart hammers. Blood bleats within my ears. A cry would have escaped me, had I the opportunity to scream. But here, beneath the ocean’s waves, the world is as silent and remote as I imagine the surface of the moon.
It is eerily fitting, considering what I can now see.
Nestled, at the bottom of the ocean floor, along a snarl of coral, is a body—or, at the very least, what remains of one. Time, and the ocean’s many lifeforms, have left its skeleton barren—free of flesh, of any distinguishing feature.
Though a part of me wants to believe that it isn’t her, that it isn’t my best friend, the glass beads around the skeleton’s neck give her away.
I told myself that I would know Lacey anywhere.
Even by her bones, I think.
Here, within the ocean’s unfathomable depths, and the shadow of Watchman’s Point, I stare upon the remains of my best friend, where no one—no one but me, and God, and the world He’d created—can see me cry.
It takes several long moments for me to process what I am seeing. To understand the significance of what I’ve found. To comprehend that, in but a matter of moments, I will be returning to the ocean’s surface, and flagging my father down from where he has traced my location from the sonar upon his boat.
Slowly, I lift my head to the sky, and offer up one final prayer.
Thank you, I say.
A moment later, I rise to the surface—and like a whale breaking water, emerge with a gasp, a cry.
My father calls, “Britney! Britney!”
And I call back, “I’ve found her!”
“What?” he calls, the distance too far to determine his emotion, whether it be question, or even disbelief.
The boat draws forward slowly, cautiously. When it comes to rest a few feet away, my father grinds the engine to a halt, and leans forward to consider me.
“What did you say?” my father asks. “Britney—what did you—”
“I found her,” I tell him. “I found Lacey.”
“But… Britney… how can you be—”
“Our friendship necklace,” I say. “The ones we’ve worn since we were kids. The ones that had the glass beads.”
“You’re sure—” my father starts.
But before he can finish, I offer a nod, and turn my head to look back into the waters below.
My father turns his head to regard the radio. Lets loose a monumental sigh. He says, “I’ll call it in.”
“Okay,” I reply.
He turns and lifts a radio into his hand. Says something, though I’m not sure what.
All I can think, as I absently listen to him call the coast guard, is about what I’ve found.
I kept my promise, I tell myself. I kept my promise, Lacey. Just like I said I would.
“It’s time to bring you home,” I say.
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