Free Below by Meg McKinlay

countered Hannah, “what about the time you were coming down the tree and that bucket of . . . stuff . . . tipped all over you?”
    Dad laughed. “Yeah, and remember when . . .”
    I sighed and leaned back in my chair. That was my cue to switch off —
remember when?
Once they started telling stories, there was no stopping them. They would bounce back and forth across the table for hours. Serve and volley. Volley and return.
    And there was never anything for me to do, nothing for me to add, because all of it had happened before I was born, in a place I’d never been.
    The only family story about me was from the day I was born, the day I threw the grading and the pottery and everything else you could possibly imagine into disarray by arriving not only accidentally but also way too early.
    It was a good story, and Dad told it well.
    About how he piled everyone into the Valiant, spinning the tires as they took off and taking a big wounded chunk out of the sod lawn.
    How when he saw the fuel light flashing, he pulled into the shiny new gas station. And when he realized it had lots of two-for-the-price-of-one Mars bars, supersize hot-dog deals, and ice-cold slushies, but no actual gas yet, he put his head down on the steering wheel, making the horn blare.
    How for a brief, crazy moment, he contemplated driving four miles west, back to Old Lower Grange, because — who knows? — there might still be gas there, and if he really floored it, we might be able to make it out before the mayor flipped the lever and drowned us all.
    “It was quite the drama,” he always said. “Eh, Cass?”
    And what was I supposed to say to that?
    Because even though it was a good story, even though it was a story about me, it was also a story I had no way of remembering and really, technically, wasn’t even there for.
    So I didn’t say anything. I sat at the table and let the stories wash over me — all the
Remember when?
and
Oh, that was so . . . !
and
I couldn’t believe it when you . . . !
    And when Hannah burst out with “Oh, my God, remember when you threw mashed potatoes at me, Elijah? You were such a little brat,” and everyone turned to stare at the wall behind my head, I lowered my face over my hot chocolate and blew down onto the surface, hiding myself in the billowing clouds of steam.

The next morning, everyone went to work — Hannah to the town hall, Elijah and Dad in the studio, and Mom back to school to clean up for the year.
    And I went for a swim. With Liam.
    When I got to the lake, he was already there. He had hauled the raft out from behind the tree and was leaning over it, pulling the broken bits off and tying fresh branches on with new string.
    “I thought I could take it out,” he said. “Stop you from drowning and all that. We could go out to the tree.” He motioned to a paddle lying on the ground nearby. “See? I came prepared.”
    I knelt down next to him. “Do you think this’ll hold both of us?”
    He shrugged. “Only one way to find out. Remember, if we start sinking, just float and wave.”
    I couldn’t bring myself to return his smile. Kneeling down like this, I could feel a knot in my leg — not pain, exactly, but a lingering tightness — and when I looked out at the water, my throat felt suddenly dry.
    I wasn’t quite ready to laugh about it yet.
    Liam tied off a length of string in a complicated knot. “So what do you think?”
    “Yeah, okay.”
    “Right. You take that end.”
    Together, we pushed and pulled the raft down the bank into the water. Liam climbed on, then shook his head when I tried to do the same.
    “Swim first.”
    “What?”
    “Your six, right?”
    “Yeah, but that’s much farther than —”
    “You made it yesterday. And I’ll stay close. If you want to stop, you can climb on.” He dug the paddle in and pushed off the bottom, and then, with a few quick strokes, was out and away.
    There was nothing I could do but kick off and follow.
    Liam did stay close, so close he