The Night Swim(14)

Being here in Neapolis for the first time since I was a child, I’ve come to the conclusion that to overcome my past, I must remember it. Every detail. From the poignant, to the trivial, to, yes, even the horrifying.

When I return to a familiar place, or stumble across a scent that takes me back to my early childhood, or even taste a food I haven’t eaten since I was young, I glimpse a snapshot of forgotten memories. It helps me remember. Funnily enough, writing you these letters helps as well.

It’s excruciating, this lancing of my emotional wounds. If I’m asking too much of you to share the burden then feel free to rip up my letters. I won’t judge you. But I’ll keep writing, nevertheless. I find these letters cathartic. It may take me a while to get my story out. Some of it is buried so deep that I need time to digest it before formulating it into words.

So where were we, Rachel? I remember now. I was telling you about my mom. At first she waved off her diagnosis as a blip. Another obstacle to overcome in a lifetime of hurdles. Eight months after her diagnosis, she was sicker than ever and trying to pretend there was nothing wrong.

On the first day of the school vacation, Mom insisted on dropping us at the beach. She stopped her beat-up sedan in the dirt parking lot, leaving the spluttering engine running while she popped the trunk. Jenny went out to retrieve our beach bag and towels.

With Jenny temporarily distracted, Mom slipped me cash.

“Ice-cream money,” she whispered. “Don’t tell Jenny where it came from. She’ll make you give it back.” I bunched it up in my fist.

“Have fun,” Mom said, blowing us kisses as she jerked the car into motion. She was heading to the hospital for an appointment. “I’ll expect you both at dinnertime. Not a second before.”

“Sure, Mom,” said Jenny. Her voice was drowned out by the rattle of the car. It badly needed a repair that it wouldn’t get unless it broke down entirely. Mom hadn’t held down a regular job since she was diagnosed. She worked when she was able, which was becoming less and less frequent. When she did get a shift, she came home ashen. It would take her days to recover.

Jenny must have seen me slip the money secretly into the pocket of my shorts as we walked down the path toward the beach. She knew my mother better than me.

“Give it up.” Jenny held out her hand.

“Give what up?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“You know what.”

“Mom gave it to me. It’s for ice cream.”

“We don’t need ice cream.” Jenny held out her palm for the money.

I handed over the crumpled note. Mom’s little gambit hadn’t worked. Sometimes it felt as if Jenny were the only grown-up in our family.

Jenny and I found a spot on the sand not far from the Morrison’s Point jetty. Her school friends arrived throughout the morning. They congregated near us in small satellite groups of teenagers, lying on towels and listening to music on boom boxes.

The boys wrestled with each other or kicked around balls on the sand. The girls rubbed each other’s backs with coconut oil and compared tan lines while watching the boys surreptitiously through the tint of their sunglasses.

Oblivious to the antics of teenagers, I built an elaborate sand castle with turrets, which I decorated with shells. When the heat intensified, Jenny’s friends abandoned their towels to cool down in the water.

The jetty was high and the water was deep, so that only the bravest dived in. The boys egged on each other to jump, hooting in derision if someone chickened out. The girls mostly waded in their bikinis into the waves, where they swam and splashed each other.

Jenny lay on her towel, reading a book and listening to music on our transistor radio. Occasionally she lifted up her head to glance wistfully at the sea.

Eventually, she asked if I was all right playing alone on the sand while she swam. I shrugged. It didn’t matter to me either way, so long as Jenny didn’t make me join her. I hated swimming. Still do. Mom and Jenny tried to teach me, but I always flapped about and swallowed seawater until I ran out of the waves in tears, vowing never to swim again.

Jenny tossed her sunglasses onto her towel and told me not to go anywhere. I nodded without looking up as I contoured a sand castle with the edge of a shovel.

Some boys who’d been jumping from the jetty wolf-whistled as Jenny walked down the sand in her coral bikini. I sensed her self-consciousness, though she tried to hide it by standing taller and pushing her long golden hair behind her shoulders.

Jenny didn’t wade into the water like the other girls. She went to the jetty and climbed to the top of the wooden rails. She balanced like a flamingo before diving into the water in a low racing dive that skimmed under the surface with barely a splash. I had the impression that it was her way of telling those boys to leave her alone. She emerged a distance away among her school friends, who were chatting as they bobbed in the waves.

I returned to working on the outer walls of my sand castle. A shadow fell across the sand. Looming over me was one of the boys who’d wolf-whistled at Jenny. He had dirty brown hair and pale gray eyes. He held a lit cigarette casually between his fingers. His friends up on the slope of the beach seemed to be watching him with rapt attention. I had a feeling that he’d been sent to talk to me on a dare.

“Nice castle,” he said.

“Thanks.” I pressed my last shells into the sand to decorate the turrets.