The sky tears open.
Brightly lit drops of rain pop and sizzle like the bacon on the grill at Elmer’s this morning. I wish I were there right now, eating chocolate chip pancakes with Lauren. I wish I’d worn the new culottes Mom sewed for me too—bright, flowery ones that match hers and Lauren’s. I wish Mike Nelson, from Sea Hunt, would swim by in his black rubber leotard and save me.
Boop boop, dit-tem dat-tem what-tem chu!
What color was the ribbon Jamie made me?
Purple. Purple?
Am I still kicking? I don’t feel my legs anymore. They don’t tingle, they don’t anything. My arms are empty sleeves that lay limp on the surface of the lake.
I’ve.
Stopped.
Moving.
And they swam . . .
And they swam . . .
I slip under again. My heart is on a trampoline without a spotter.
Is this when you say the Lord’s Prayer for real?
Our Father . . . I can hold my breath for a while, just not as long as Theresa and Carol.
My stomach fills with a thousand macramé knots as I slip underwater. Instantly, my lungs push against my chest. They want out, they want to swim up for air. Numbness is all I feel between the stormy surface and the sandy bottom of Peace Lake.
“Even strong swimmers can drown,” Coach Betty told us.
Up ahead is the shark curtain.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“Nah,” Jesus says, looking up at me from a rusty barrel at the bottom of the lake. “Mrs. Wiggins is dying, not you.” He looks at His bare wrist. It’s half past a freckle. “She’s almost here,” He says, then dissolves like fish flakes in the goldfish bowl back home.
And suddenly, like the Chief Pontiac hood ornament on Dad’s car (or stories of dolphins saving children in Aunt Jamie’s favorite storybooks), Mrs. Wiggins dives for me and I’m face-to-face with her big wet head and bloodshot eyes.
Am I dreaming? Is this really happening?
“Grab my collar,” she says, though it’s hard to understand her with a stick in her mouth. So I do, and pressing myself against her we fly through the shark curtain, through bright stripes of stormy light and warm currents of water until we burst onto the surface of Peace Lake, spitting and coughing.
* * *
Once upon a time . . .
Mrs. Wiggins saved me. I slip my hand out of her collar and we bob on top of the water. Her head is bigger than mine, and with her mouth open, her abscessed gums and rotting teeth, her cancer smell is everywhere. She trembles with cold and pain because the stick is cutting into the corners of the black lips that outline her bloody grin. Three dark teeth stand on their heads, connected to her bottom jaw by a spit-glittered thread of skin. She can’t chew anymore. She hasn’t eaten kibble in a week.
“Give me the stick,” I say, reaching for it.
The old dog pulls away. She’s scared; I see it in her eyes.
“Drop the stick!” I scold, but she doesn’t and starts paddling toward shore. “Wait!” I yell, and somehow muster the strength to lunge at her. She yelps and turns around, flailing at me with her paws, scratching my face and mouth. It’s a blur of water and movement, her legs, my arms, sky, trees, Daddy’s rowboat nearing us. She thinks I’m trying to hold her down, she thinks she’s drowning.
Then it’s over.
I’m breathing, the sun is warm on my face, and Dad is calling “Lil-EEEE!”
My body’s awake. I feel everything, and wave at his boat. “I’m okay!” I shout.
It’s over.
“Mrs. Wiggins?” My heart beats like crazy. The water is still. “Girl?” But she’s quiet and her eyes are glazed. Her mouth stands open, the bloody stick wedged in its corners. Her breath smells like roses, and I remember reading that sainted people smell like roses when they die. A small pool of blood floats between us; in its center is one of her sick teeth.
“Take it,” she says, though it’s still hard to understand her with a stick in her mouth.
“Don’t die,” I sob. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says. But it’s not. Jesus said she was dying, but I killed Mrs. Wiggins. I demanded she come to Peace Lake; I swam out too far.
She bobs a little more, and then tips to one side; the water buoys her. “I’ll take you back,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, draping my arms over her. With my chin in her wet thick hair, I clutch her tooth and, looking straight ahead, paddle us toward shore. Panting and crying, we pass Dad who stands up in his rowboat, staring.
Mom and Lauren wait for us on the beach. I see them.
“We’re going to make it!” I tell Mrs. Wiggins. “We’re almost there!” Panting. Kicking. I’m alive. “Mom!” I call. Mrs. Wiggins saved me.
Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool
Swam three little fishies and a mama fishie too . . .
When I’m close enough to see Lauren point at us, I feel a whoosh of energy and know the dog’s scared brave blood is in me now. It slipped into me through one of her cuts, like in werewolf movies, making one blood where there was two; one new person: inside and out.
Mrs. Wiggins and I chase each other around the house, both of us barking, until Mom says to stop. We run like football players, long watery strides, until we fall into the summer grass, exhausted and giggling, Mrs. Wiggins underneath me, chewing on me with her soft gentle mouth.
A final wave pushes us onto the sandy beach, and I throw myself off the old dog and smile up at Lauren and Mom. With the sun behind their heads, their faces are dark, their bodies outlines.
I lay there long enough to run around the house again.
Something’s wrong. “Mom?” I finally ask. She doesn’t move except to cover her mouth with her hand.
I hear a splash behind me. “Lily?” Dad tosses the oar on the sand, and stumbling, exhausted, wades toward Mom.
I see them now. All of them. The rowboat floats away.
Little waves slip under Mrs. Wiggins’s body, rushing in and out of her ears, making her lips flutter like they do when she sticks her head out the car window. I clutch her tooth in my hand.
Lauren shakes. When she cries, “Dummy!” I get goose bumps.
I sit up, take the stick from Mrs. Wiggins’s mouth, and throw it down the beach.
“You killed her!” Lauren cries. The sun lights her hair like a match.
I killed Mrs. Wiggins. I’m a liar and a killer.
When Mom picks up Lauren, she collapses and sobs so deeply Mom’s whole body shakes. Daddy pats my sister’s back, hands her his hanky, and says, “It’s going to be all right. She was an old, sick dog. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Mom spins around. “All right? All right? Are you kidding me?” Her nose flares (like Ferdinand the Bull) when she turns toward me and says, “I guess I was right: we can’t trust you.”
I try to say something but I’m an eight-week-old fetus again.
“For Christ