Free The First Time She Drowned by Kerry Kletter Page A

377.”
    “Look at these gorgeous homes!” my mother said, and in a moment of clemency, she gave my father’s arm a quick squeeze. He was so pleased with himself that if he’d had a tail it would have been wagging.
    “Number 377,” he shouted. “Here we are!”
    My mother squealed. The house was small but lovely, hugged by a sprawling porch and surrounded by wispy green grass that lay down in a breeze.
    “It’s not red, though,” I pointed out.
    “That’s because you’re looking at the wrong house. It’s just behind this one.”
    We all leaned forward.
    The dread in the air was palpable.
    “Where?” I said.
    “Right there!” He pulled down the driveway and pointed to a second house that sat directly in back of the first.
    I could barely bring myself to look. My father was famous for his “Reverse Midas Touch”: Everything he touched turned to shit. I wrapped my arms around Betty and dared a glance out the window.
    “Oh my God,” Matthew said for all of us.
    We all gasped. The house was amazing. It was a huge, sprawling place, the red color of a barn with white clapboard shutters and windows that opened almost onto the beach.
    “The original renters bailed at the last minute, so I got it at a great price. Talk about good old-fashioned O’Malley luck, huh, kids?” He turned to my mother, his eyes hungry for her joy. “Whatdo you think?”
    She got out of the car and stood silently before it, her hair blowing against her face as she stared, stunned and agape, at my father’s miracle. We all held our breath as we waited for her reaction.
    “It’s beautiful,” my mother said finally. She turned to smile at all of us. Then she looked back at the house and her smile faded. “There’s no porch, though.”
    • • •
    We had barely unloaded our bags into the house before Matthew grabbed my hand and pulled me out the back door.
    “Come on,” he said, dragging me behind him into a wind that lifted the back of my dress like a kite. “I’ve got something to show you.”
    “Matthew, wait!” my mother shouted.
    But we were already gone, running, running away from the house and over the sand dunes. I had no idea where we were going, only that I was with my brother and released into wide-open space, taking flight. The air was thick with the sea I’d never seen, so salty I could taste it when I breathed. Then all at once, it rose up before us, or we rose up to meet it, and I was standing for the first time before the deep blue waters of the Atlantic.
    I gasped. Its enormity stunned me, ripped me out of the small ecosystem of my family and propelled me into a world far larger than I’d ever imagined.
    “What do you think?” Matthew said, smiling proudly as if he had built the ocean himself.
    I turned to my brother, seized and silenced by the beauty of this other realm, and it was then that he pointed out the sailboats,brilliantly colored triangles that square-danced against the sky. I watched them, captivated, watched the seagulls rise and fall with the waves, squawking into the wind.
    Matthew led me gently down to the ocean’s edge, where, in a small cove with shallow pools, we kicked off our shoes and let small fish scoot around our ankles. I felt that I had come home. I never wanted to leave.
    We must have been out there for an hour, wading in the water, watching tiny crabs scatter and trying to scoop up fish with our hands when my mother appeared on the sand dunes, my father trailing behind her.
    “Come on, Matty,” she called, waving. “Let’s walk down to the harbor.”
    Matthew raced up to her while my father and I followed, carrying between us the awkward silence of those who are left behind. We came upon the docks, where rows of sleek powerboats and boats with majestic fruit-colored sails
thwapped
in the breeze, and the voices of happy men shouted to one another over water that smelled like fish and gasoline.
    “What do you think, Matthew?” my mother said. “Should I tell your