Free The First Time She Drowned by Kerry Kletter Page B

father to rent us a boat?”
    “As long as this one floats!” Matthew said.
    “And no pirates,” I added.
    My father disappeared inside a ramshackle shop that sat as wobbly legged and filmy white as a seagull on the edge of the pier. When he appeared again, he was below us and teetering in a rowboat so tiny and old and tired that it seemed to be drowning beneath his weight.
    “Ahoy, maties!” he called as he maneuvered the boat to the dock’s edge.
    My mother groaned.
    “Sorry—it was all we could afford,” my father said sheepishly.
    Matthew and my mother climbed in, and the boat rocked and drifted under new weight. My mother shrieked, laughing nervously like a young girl on a Ferris wheel. Her face was flushed and happy when she turned to me. I stood on the dock and watched as a thin highway of murky sea quickly opened up between us.
    “Looks like you’ll have to jump,” she said as the boat continued to move away.
    I glanced down at the water, hungry and lapping against the docks. I couldn’t see the bottom, only the vision of myself tumbling into the depths.
    My father struggled to steer the boat closer to me, but, as in all situations involving my father, the opposing current was stronger.
    “I’ll catch you.” My mother held her arms wide. “Now hurry up before your father manages to steer us to Cuba.”
    “But I don’t want to go to Cuba!” I said.
    “Believe me, we’d be dead before we ever reached Cuba,” my father said, chuckling.
    “You’re not helping,” my mother snapped.
    “Think of it this way,” Matthew offered. “If the boat sinks, at least we’d all go down together.”
    I started to cry.
    “Oh for God’s sakes,” my mother said as I blubbered. “Ed, dosomething.”
    “I’m doing everything I can.”
    They all looked at one another, my father rowing against the current, my brother in the middle, my mother with her arms now folded angrily across her chest.
    “Just jump!” they all said at once.
    “Do it for me.” My mother held out her arms to me again. “Do it because you love me.”
    I closed my eyes and willed myself to jump. It was an act of faith, and all I had to do was trust that my mother would catch me. But my legs felt like they belonged to someone else the way I couldn’t stop them from shaking.
    “One, two, three,” she counted.
    I opened my eyes. I was still on the dock.
    “Oh, thanks a lot,” my mother said. “Now I know how you really feel.” Then she turned to my father. “Just return the damn thing. We’ll do something else.”
    “But it’s already paid for!” my dad said. The only thing he loved more than my mother was his money.
    She stared at him hard. “Seriously?” she said. “Nice.” She half stood, wobbling as the boat rocked and creaked with her movement, forcing my father and Matthew to grip the sides for dear life.
    “Mom, wait,” Matthew said. “We can figure out a way to get Cassie.”
    “Forget it,” she said, lowering herself off the side of the boat and swimming to the ladder at the far end of the dock. She climbed up, came over to where I was standing, glared at me and then turned expectantly toward my father, waiting to see what he would do. Itwas clear she expected him to go and return the boat despite his protests, but instead he just dug in his oars and the boat slipped away. My mother and I stood there for a while in silence, watching them shrink into the distance, Matthew waving to us as they went.
    “It’s okay,” my mother said to me finally, her eyes still on the water. “I didn’t love my mother either.”
    “But I do love you!” I cried.
    She turned her back to me and headed for the shore.
    • • •
    For the next few hours my mother sat on a plot of sand and stared out at the water, waiting for Matthew’s return the way a prisoner might keep a longing watch over the outside world through a small cell window. She swatted at the big green horseflies that surrounded us. She sighed repeatedly and