They Left Me to Drown: A Family's Regret

4: 4

By dawn the next morning, the storm had finally broken. The floodwater that had raged all night was slipping away, leaving mud and wreckage everywhere it went.

Inside the shelter, though, the mood had dropped below freezing.

June was curled against Sebastian's chest, face pale, pointing at a post on her phone and crying prettily, tears spilling like petals in the rain.

"Elmer, look. Blake Finch from the next town over posted this last night, and the background looks like the little motel in town. Nia... did she leave with some other guy last night? How could she do something like that, when Sebastian's still out there looking everywhere for her?"

Sebastian took the phone, and his face went hard in an instant.

*Letitia, that shameless woman. The whole family is here worrying itself sick over her, and this is what she does—running off to a motel with another man just to get back at me. I really misjudged her. She couldn't even bring herself to grab one bracelet for June, and her heart turns out to be this vicious, this low.*

Elmer shot to his feet and slammed a fist down on the table.

"The nerve! Our whole family bent over backwards for her, gave in to her every mood, and this is how she repays us? Humiliating the Swanson name like this?"

Their father's face darkened as he threw his jacket over his shoulder.

"Let's go. To the motel in town. Today I'm dragging that ungrateful thing back here, and I'll make her kneel and apologize to June, right in front of Sebastian!"

Their mother pushed herself up on her weak body too. "I'm going too! I want to see for myself just what kind of selfish, ungrateful animal I raised!"

The five of them set off downstream, righteous and seething, wearing the faces of judges who had already handed down the verdict.

In their eyes, I was surely hiding out in some warm room right now, guilty and content, savoring the thrill of betraying my family.

Up ahead, on the riverbank, several rescue workers in orange uniforms had gathered in a tight cluster.

From a pile of stones the water had just left behind, they had hauled up together a heavy shape wrapped in plastic sheeting.

The captain leading them turned around, straight into my seething father, glanced at the family photo in his hand that they'd been using to search, and came toward them with a grave look on his face.

"Excuse me. Are you Letitia's family? If you are, I'll need you to come identify the body."