I pulled my hand back, staring at the young man in the water. He smiled at me, his russet curly hair dripping water into his eyes. He blinked the water away, dove beneath the surface, and came back up, breaking the water at the edge of the dock. I fell backward, afraid he would climb out and — And? I couldn’t complete the thought; I had no idea what he might do.
“Where did you come from?” I asked in a whisper.
He laughed at me and pointed across the lake. “I saw your sister,” he said, “and came to say hello.”
There were other fish in the water, I could see them clearly now. Maybe they weren’t fish at all. I held my cane across my chest. If he made to come closer, I could strike him. But he didn’t come closer; he paddled in the water a short distance off the dock, then turned and dove and was gone.
As quickly as that, he was gone, and I didn’t see him surface again. I watched and waited, and my father came to get me, and still the young man didn’t come up for air. I think I was breathing hard enough for both of us.
Later in the bathroom as I tidied myself, there lingered a glimmer of fish scales on my fingertips. I washed these off as quickly as I could and hurried to join my family for breakfast.
“She couldn’t have been more than five,” Aunt Esme said. She wiped her ringed fingers across her apron-covered belly, leaving broad strokes of flour on the polka-dotted fabric.
“Seven if she was a day; a mother knows,” Mother said.
My mother and Esme worked side by side rolling pie dough, debating when I had learned to walk again. I wanted to tell them that I was still learning, that I hadn’t mastered it at seven or fourteen, but I kept quiet. I pressed the star-shaped cookie cutter into the dough they had rolled for me. Granny sat at my side, weaving lattice over cherry pies. Father was resting, and Laura and Winnie had left without me that morning.
“Eugene had it right though, walking her every day the way he did,” Granny said.
My head came up at that. “Uncle Eugene taught me how to walk?”
Mother and Esme looked back at me together, as if they were joined at the shoulder and had to turn as one. They could have been sisters, not sisters-in-law, with their curling auburn hair and green eyes.
“He would have doctored you himself if he knew what he was doing,” Esme said with a wide smile. She had a nice mouth, colored into a bow with red lipstick. “Like as not, he’d have wound you into a taffy puller to get that leg of yours pulled straight and true.”
I pressed the star cutter into the dough but didn’t pull it free. “I don’t remember much about him.” Admitting this did not shock my aunt or mother the way I thought it would. I withdrew Uncle Eugene’s photograph from my pocket, and Esme sighed when she saw it.
“Lord, wasn’t he as handsome as autumn apples.” Esme wiped her hands clean and took the photograph. “This was taken at the Seattle house, by the pond.” Her eyes flicked up to me. “I’m so sorry, sweet one.”
“Talking about it doesn’t bother me,” I said.
“She has what you might call a fascination about it,” Mother said, and smiled at me the way you might at someone who needed calming before they came unhinged.
“It’s just that you’d think I would remember,” I said.
“What’s to remember?” Esme said. She handed the photograph back to me, before peeling the dough away from the stars I had cut and working it into another ball. “It was a warm day and you wanted to swim.”
It was my unfortunate luck to go swimming in contaminated water. “I mean my uncle. He taught me to walk again. He—” I looked up at my aunt, finally putting the pieces together. “He pulled me out that day, didn’t he?”
“That he did. Like I said, he would have doctored you up if he’d a known how.”
I slipped the photograph into my pocket as Laura and Winnie came into the room. Their cheeks were glowing, the tips of their hair clinging wetly to their shirts. I stared at the pair of them as they danced around Mother and Esme, twirling and laughing.
“Come swim,” Laura said, and wriggled her damp head in Mother’s face.
“Yes, do!” Winnie snuggled up to Esme, who pushed her away and pretended revulsion.
“Since when do you swim, my daughter? Since when?” Esme laughed when Winnie took her by the hands and twirled her around.
Couldn’t abide all those fish mouths.
Don’t go out there.
Winnie leaned across the counter and grasped my hands, the dough stars squashed under the press of her arms. Her fingers curled into my hands, pinching. “Will you come?” she asked.
“I—”
“Oh!” Winnie’s mouth widened in an O that told me she hadn’t forgotten I couldn’t swim, just that she didn’t care if she reminded me.
Winnie gave me what probably passed as a sweet smile to everyone else, but to me it stung like a slap. I saw the void within her dark eyes and heard the echo of her words amid the blackberry vines. I’m glad he’s dead. Glad.How could anyone think it, let alone his own daughter?
I waited each night for Laura to leave the house. She always went in her nightgown and grew smart enough to leave out a towel for herself. Tonight, she left even before our parents had turned out their light.
She looked small against the lawn in her bright white gown. It fluttered behind her like wings, her hair loose around her shoulders. I drew an image in my mind of her rushing off to meet a secret lover, and remembered the boy in the lake.
I watched Laura now, kneeling at the end of the dock, wriggling her hand in the water. She stood, stripped her nightgown off, and dove into the water.
In the room next to mine, my mother laughed. It was followed by my father’s voice — was he singing? I pressed my forehead to the cool window and stared down at the puddle of Laura’s nightgown. What was she doing? Had she lost her mind? In the distance, I saw the light on the island and shivered.
Night made the walk to the lake too dangerous for me to contemplate, but I did contemplate it. I thought long and hard, but fell asleep before I could decide. I woke with a start, to a clock that read eight A.M.
I stumbled out of my room and ran into Laura in the hall. She was humming, tying her hair with a ribbon at the nape of her neck.
“Laura—”
“Morning, sleepyhead,” she said and glided past me, into her room. She closed the door behind her, and that was that.
There wasn’t a moment in the day to ask what she had done. I watched as she and Winnie exchanged secretive glances, and wondered if Winnie had taken to swimming in the lake with her. Had they gone to the island?
Laura repeated the pattern over the next two nights, and I never saw any sign of Winnie. It was the following morning that Winnie came to my room, just before sunrise, in tears.
“Is she here?” Winnie looked around the room. Winnie looked in the closet and under the bed before flopping back on it with a sob.
“She?”
“ ‘ She’ Laura, your sister!”
“What’s happened?” I asked, and slowly lowered myself to the foot of the bed.
Winnie wiped the sleeve of her nightgown over her wet cheeks. “It was supposed to be a game, but you didn’t play.”
I frowned at Winnie but said nothing.
“The light on the island, the stories we told, Laura going off to swim.” Winnie seemed to want to laugh, but it came out as another sob. “Why couldn’t you play?”
Father’s words hadn’t been a game though; he was serious when he told us not to go out there. Did he know the island’s secret, or was he simply being a father?
“Was I supposed to follow her?”