The Art of Floating by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe Page A

house as they pleased—they were the only ones allowed to come and go, slipping in and out of the back door like ghosts.
    Forbidden to visit, M took to sitting across the lane on the lowest branch of a gnarled oak tree. Each morning at 7:00 she arrived, climbed to the branch, and sat watching her daughter’s house until 11:00 at night. She kept a whiteboard on her lap, and every few hours she wrote a note to Odyssia in big black letters and leaned it up against the trunk of the tree.
    I LOVE YOU
HE’LL BE HOME SOON
THE BEACH PLUM IS BLOOMING
YOUR FATHER MISSES YOU
I MISS YOU MORE
BLUE SKY TODAY
    Sometimes, when M’s strength waned, she wrote a single word on the board.
    HOPE
LOOK
BLOSSOM
    On days when she couldn’t find any strength at all, M just held up the blank whiteboard, hoping Sia could imagine what she would have written if she’d been able.
    A couple of times each day, Stuart stopped by to deliver food and drink and to check on the situation himself. “Remember her name,” he whispered again and again into M’s ear. “Odyssia will come home.”
    â€œPerhaps I was wrong,” M said. “Perhaps we should have called her Daphne.”
    Or Muenster Cheese
, Stuart thought.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    In the earliest days, just after the realization that Jackson was gone,
really
gone, Jilly force-fed Sia by squeezing her jaw open at the hinges and pouring warm broth or iced tea down her gullet the same way you’d get a stubborn dog to take a pill.
    â€œDo it,” M commanded whenever Jilly sneaked out of the house and across the lane to cry in M’s lap. “Make my girl eat.”
    So while Sia would have preferred to dry up and blow away in the wind like a ball of dandelion fluff, Jilly heeded M’s commands. Every time Sia refused to eat, Jilly climbed onto the bed, straddled her waist, squeezed her clenched jaw open, and poured. She harped at her the entire time, spilling broth on the mattress and pillow, grumbling and crabbing until as many ounces as possible had made their way into Sia’s belly.
    â€œDamn it, Sia. You’ve never been this difficult in your entire life,” she’d holler. “It is too goddamn hot to be wrestling with you. Open your mouth right now!”
    Mostly Sia gave in. It was just too hard to fight. But every time Gumper felt her slipping away, he leapt onto the bed and nuzzled until he felt her hand dig into his fur.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    As she lay in bed, Sia played the if/then game with God:
    If you bring Jackson back, I’ll better govern my emotional boundaries.
    If you bring Jackson back, I’ll shovel snow in the winter.
    If you bring Jackson back, I’ll stop drinking coffee.
    If you bring Jackson back, I’ll let Jilly know how important she is to me.
    If you bring Jackson back, I’ll give 10% of my earnings to a church. Any church. You pick.
    If you bring Jackson back, I’ll exercise more often.
    Cook more often.
    Shave more often.
    Print on both sides of the paper.
    Recycle batteries.
    Return library books on time.
    Be better.
    Be kinder.
    Be . . .
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    While Sia bargained with God, the townspeople passed the house in a steady, thudding stream. Like cows heading in from the field. Sure, they were sad about losing Jackson—every single one of them loved him like a son/brother/father/favorite cousin/crush/friend/lover—but they were also a bunch of nebshits who couldn’t help but poke their noses into anything and everything.
    As the weeks passed and the bushes pushed up over the eaves and the pale blue paint began to chip and flake, folks did three things: stare, wonder, and whisper.
    The grass grew ankle-high, then calf-high, and kept going. Weeds swallowed the mailbox post.
    stare
    wonder
    whisper
    Even with the house closed up tight, Sia could feel their collective ache. Like a continuous earthquake