LITMIR.BIZ

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I was too far out.”

      “That’s exactly the point . . . If you’d listened, Mrs. Wiggins wouldn’t . . .” We all look at the dog covered in sand. Mom turns away first and sets Lauren down. “Why are you doing this to us?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Easy, Kit,” Daddy mumbles.

      “I’m serious, Paul. I want to know.” She glances at her portable bar. “The doctors don’t know, her teachers don’t know, maybe she knows. Do you know, Lily? What’s wrong with you?”

      “Kit!”

      “Shut up, Paul.”

      My sister and I aren’t allowed to say “shut up.” Lauren sticks her thumb in her mouth; back home, sucking her thumb would cost her a quarter.

      Jesus stands in the bushes. Except for the white robe and fishing hat with bright-colored doohickeys all over it, He’s almost invisible in the brush and willows, like a puzzle in Jack and Jill magazine—“Find the Bunnies” in the March issue, “The Pilgrims’ Hats” in November’s.

      If I’d died, Frieda would have said He had a plan for me.

      “What happened out there?” Mom asks.

      “I . . . don’t . . . know,” I say, keeping an eye on the bushes. Tears roll down my cheeks, fat hot salty tears that make me flinch when they race across my scratched face. I feel my tail trying to get out.

      “That’s not good enough, Lily.” Mom glances at the bar again. “Don’t you see what you’re doing to this family?”

      “That’s enough, Kit.”

      I know what happened out there. I know Mrs. Wiggins saved me, not Jesus. Before Jesus evaporated like fish food, He stood up and turned away for a second. When He did I saw a Chatty Cathy pull-string peeking through the back of His robe and seams, where His plastic molds were fitted, running down the back of His arms and legs. When the water lifted His hair I saw what Mom calls root plugs, and a sliver of dark Holy Land skin peeking through the white at the back of His neck.

      He’s a doll.

      He’s a phony.

      Mrs. Wiggins saved me. I close my eyes and press myself against her. “Wiggins wiggins bo biggins,” I cry into her wet coat.

      For a minute I’m alone with her on the beach. We live here, just the two of us, and my family only visits when we send them smoke signals, which they can’t read, so they never ever visit, which is fine with us, just fine.

      “Banana-fana fo figgins . . .”

      When I open my eyes again, Mom kneels beside me. “Oh God, Lily,” she says, “I’m sorry . . . I was so scared. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, and then the way you . . . and the . . . dog . . . The whole thing is so awful. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that, Lily. Thank God you’re all right, thank God . . .” When Mom touches my shoulder, one of her tears falls on my arm.

      In fairy tales, tears change everything.

      Lauren stands behind her, her arms crossed on her freckled chest. Her face is red and swollen from crying.

      A wave laps the back of my legs. It shifts Mrs. Wiggins a little, making my sister jump. I press a bare foot against the dog’s thick wet body so it won’t move. The cold water washes over my feet, squishing the gritty sand between my toes before it’s sucked into the lake again.

      “I hate you!” Lauren suddenly yells, and runs to the weeping willow where our parents first kissed.

      Mom rocks me, whispering what sounds like a prayer in Romanian.

      Dad sits beside us. After a minute he asks, “Would you like a drink, Kit?”

      Mom nods.

      I sneeze.

      “Bless you,” they both say.

      * * *

      Later, I sit between Mom’s long tan legs, facing the lake. Her breasts cup the back of my head, and I feel her heart pounding while she combs my hair with her fingers, checking my scalp like she checked Lauren at Crawford Quarry, the way monkeys on TV nature shows check each other for fleas. “Trauma to the head” is Mom’s biggest fear. “Something could be happening in there and we’d never know until it’s too late.”

      Dad brings the first aid kit from the car and disinfects my scratches and cuts.

      When Mom wraps the dry wool blanket around me even tighter, I realize that she’s forgiven me for killing Mrs. Wiggins.

      I can’t forgive myself though. I’ve killed my best friend. I push the sharp end of her tooth into the center of my hand, but it resists going in.

      “You okay?” Mom asks.

      Yes. No. “Yes,” I whisper.

      If Mom and I sit like this until morning, never fall asleep and never move, we could turn back time. Mrs. Wiggins wouldn’t have died, and then, even if nothing were ever right again, Mom would have loved me once, just once, as much as she loves Dad.

      “Can you keep a secret, Lily Lou?” She breathes slowly and deeply to keep from crying. I nod and look over my shoulder. Her cheeks are shiny with tears; she’s cried off all her eye makeup. “Sometimes I don’t know what to do,” she says quietly. “Sometimes things happen . . . and I don’t know what to say, or how to fix them. There’s no instruction book, you know. I blurt stuff out without thinking. I hurt your feelings. Or your father’s. I’m not a nice person sometimes.”

      “Yes you are,” I say quickly. It hurts to talk and I touch my lips. The salt on my fingers makes it worse.

      Up the beach I hear the shovel digging in the sand. Dad and Lauren are burying Mrs. Wiggins.

      * * *

      When I open my eyes again, the lake is dark, and the sunset skips across the water. Dad has built a fire, and it pops and crackles, sending sweet-smelling sparks into the air. Mom calls them “fireflies.” Her portable bar sits in the sand beside us; the fire highlights the vodka bottle and a half-full plastic cup.

      “She was old, and sick,” Mom says. How long have we been talking? The cold penetrates my clothes and wool blanket, and I press myself into her for warmth. “The water, the swimming . . . it was just too much for her.” Mom sniffs. “I know you, and you’ll think about it until you make yourself sick. Listen to me, Lily, okay?” I listen to the waves lap the beach. “It was an accident. Accidents happen, sometimes awful, unfair things happen. Terrible things. You’re too young to take on the world’s heartbreaks. Nobody’s shoulders are that big.”

      Mrs. Wiggins?

      My embryo tail swells and lengthens, pushing out of me, digging through my skin and clothes, planting me like Mom and Dad’s kissing tree, deep into the beach at Peace Lake.

      “Mrs. Wiggins saved me,” I say. I clutch the dogtooth extra tight.

      Mom sighs and kisses the top of my head. “I know,” she says, then leans away, reaching for her purse. “Listen, now that you’re awake, I’m going to stretch my legs.” She digs out her cigarettes, stands up, and brushes off her pants.

      I watch her walk to the water’s edge and stand there. Even from the back, Mom is beautiful. Prettier than Aunt Jamie, prettier than anyone. “Mom?” I say quietly. I know she can’t hear me.

      Dad’s long shadow, carrying the shovel, appears between us. “Doing better?” he asks me.

      I want to tell him that lies hurt so much that sometimes you can’t lift a juice glass or swim back to shore, but I don’t, and he tells Lauren to sit with me while he smothers the fire and puts our things in the car.

      She sticks out her tongue, begging me to slug her.

      So

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