smile disappeared in a wince at the scrape of my voice and didn’t return. “It’s my attendance that’s spotty, not my record.”
“Ah, of course, yes. Well, good then,” said Mike, looking everywhere but at me. “Well, you can enroll her as soon as you’re settled in.”
“We’ll see,” my father had said, and resumed grimacing out the unblemished expanse of the window.
—
The never-used appliances, never-slept-on beds, newly laid laminate flooring without so much as a footprint to mar its sheen. Until I realized the similarity, I couldn’t understand why I felt so instantly at home here. The white, the chrome, the lack of human grease: inside, on that first day, our house felt like a hospital. Only better; the soft white rooms were comfortable, not clinical. Clean, but not sterile, and with recessed lighting that made everyone’s skin look soft and dewy. Even mine.
But as July stretched into August, I began to peer outdoors. I pressed my nose against the endless windows, leaving oil on the glass. I looked to the shadowed drop-off, the dock’s dark wood steps, the tall trees and the openness beyond them. I began to open the door and cross the porch, venturing out a few steps and then farther as the sun dropped down behind the trees. And eventually, my bare feet found the wooden steps and carried me—along the dock, above the water, until I sat on its tip in the orange, fragrant evenings, and gently dropped a foot into the river. I found, after the initial shock, that the air is so very smooth. Lubricated, draping like liquid velvet over my outstretched arms and legs.
When I inhale, it slips down my throat as gently as a summer breeze.
—
This is part of the promised package: the house on stilts, the yard, the trees, the staircase and the dock, the small, bobbing motorboat beside it. Our piece of brackish riverfront in private isolation—follow it for fifteen winding miles, and it brings you to the sea. They’re gifts of the funding company, along with my father’s six-figure salary, a leather-seated Lexus, and the handsome, poised physician whose number we have programmed on speed dial.
“The best care,” Mike Foster had said, and I’m getting it. My doctor’s name is Sharp, and he is—incisive and quick and no-nonsense, with dark eyes that miss nothing. He wields his needle precisely, with the same practiced assurance as Dr. Frank but none of the joshing and grinning. Dr. Sharp is all pointed questions and focused attention. I saw him on the second day. I am taking a host of new pills, per his instructions. I hope, more than anything, that I won’t be seeing much of him.
Because I like it here. I like the humid dampness in my sheets, where Mama’s poetry book is hidden underneath my pillow. I like the smooth heat of the sea-glass necklace, resting against my skin. And I like this place. The fecund banks, choked green with weedy growth. The cypress trees that rise like sentries straight from the depths of the water. The pale stripes of sand on the river bottom, the waving, tangling hair of reeds and algae. And the dock, its limber legs sunk deep and fast. The posts are made from the trunks of young trees, slender but sturdy, dark and polished, and punctuated here and there by the twist of a sudden knot. My father cautioned against splinters, but they’re as smooth as waterworn stone, buffed by the passing touch of a hundred different hands. At its farthest point, it sits surrounded by dark green water. Look down, and you’ll see fat, slate-colored fish making urgent paths through the forest of underwater weeds. Turn back, and the wooden path seems to emerge straight from an enchanted bowery, draped with the sweet breath of honeysuckle and decorated with the dusky lace of Spanish moss.
I have never seen anything like it.
—
“I’m making her a mermaid,” says Bee, pointing at the drifting doll. Barbie is on her back, her molded plastic breasts gleaming obscenely in the sun.
The
“Ah, of course, yes. Well, good then,” said Mike, looking everywhere but at me. “Well, you can enroll her as soon as you’re settled in.”
“We’ll see,” my father had said, and resumed grimacing out the unblemished expanse of the window.
—
The never-used appliances, never-slept-on beds, newly laid laminate flooring without so much as a footprint to mar its sheen. Until I realized the similarity, I couldn’t understand why I felt so instantly at home here. The white, the chrome, the lack of human grease: inside, on that first day, our house felt like a hospital. Only better; the soft white rooms were comfortable, not clinical. Clean, but not sterile, and with recessed lighting that made everyone’s skin look soft and dewy. Even mine.
But as July stretched into August, I began to peer outdoors. I pressed my nose against the endless windows, leaving oil on the glass. I looked to the shadowed drop-off, the dock’s dark wood steps, the tall trees and the openness beyond them. I began to open the door and cross the porch, venturing out a few steps and then farther as the sun dropped down behind the trees. And eventually, my bare feet found the wooden steps and carried me—along the dock, above the water, until I sat on its tip in the orange, fragrant evenings, and gently dropped a foot into the river. I found, after the initial shock, that the air is so very smooth. Lubricated, draping like liquid velvet over my outstretched arms and legs.
When I inhale, it slips down my throat as gently as a summer breeze.
—
This is part of the promised package: the house on stilts, the yard, the trees, the staircase and the dock, the small, bobbing motorboat beside it. Our piece of brackish riverfront in private isolation—follow it for fifteen winding miles, and it brings you to the sea. They’re gifts of the funding company, along with my father’s six-figure salary, a leather-seated Lexus, and the handsome, poised physician whose number we have programmed on speed dial.
“The best care,” Mike Foster had said, and I’m getting it. My doctor’s name is Sharp, and he is—incisive and quick and no-nonsense, with dark eyes that miss nothing. He wields his needle precisely, with the same practiced assurance as Dr. Frank but none of the joshing and grinning. Dr. Sharp is all pointed questions and focused attention. I saw him on the second day. I am taking a host of new pills, per his instructions. I hope, more than anything, that I won’t be seeing much of him.
Because I like it here. I like the humid dampness in my sheets, where Mama’s poetry book is hidden underneath my pillow. I like the smooth heat of the sea-glass necklace, resting against my skin. And I like this place. The fecund banks, choked green with weedy growth. The cypress trees that rise like sentries straight from the depths of the water. The pale stripes of sand on the river bottom, the waving, tangling hair of reeds and algae. And the dock, its limber legs sunk deep and fast. The posts are made from the trunks of young trees, slender but sturdy, dark and polished, and punctuated here and there by the twist of a sudden knot. My father cautioned against splinters, but they’re as smooth as waterworn stone, buffed by the passing touch of a hundred different hands. At its farthest point, it sits surrounded by dark green water. Look down, and you’ll see fat, slate-colored fish making urgent paths through the forest of underwater weeds. Turn back, and the wooden path seems to emerge straight from an enchanted bowery, draped with the sweet breath of honeysuckle and decorated with the dusky lace of Spanish moss.
I have never seen anything like it.
—
“I’m making her a mermaid,” says Bee, pointing at the drifting doll. Barbie is on her back, her molded plastic breasts gleaming obscenely in the sun.
The
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