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Show peace at the bottom of the pool. What follows next happens so quickly: the knowledge that I cannot swim deep enough to save my brother; the fear I do not know how to save him; tires bumping against the edges of the pool; Scott still in the water and screaming. Maybe I am the one whose voice cries out. Or maybe there is silence, that last silence before the cry begins. I run toward the house to get my mother, feet toughened by barefoot days in Hawaii, not even registering the rose thorns, the sticks, the gravel my father hauled to level the pool. My mother works her way down the deck stairs, stiHin the moment before the world ends, still in the moment when contemplating dinner or the failing hydrangeas or how to pay the dentist bill seems reasonable. When she sees my flight, hears my scream, the sputter of words, and the knowledge that her baby lies on the bottom of the pool, she runs in a way only the mother of a dying child can run, without meeting the ground, a body in motion, a body that will never rest again. Her shoes are off in seconds, before she reaches the stairs, and I trail behind, my mouth already full of apology and excuse, already explaining my failure. She races up the stairs to the deck, scratching herself on the unfinished wood of the railing, and jumps into the pool, only four feet deep, reaching down for my brother, not getting her head wet, her arm sweeping the bottom as if looking for a mine. All I can think is why she doesn't dive. The next scene fashions itself into an indelible moment, the kind that will lay as a wax paper filter over everything that happens to me for the rest of my life. I am standing on the ground, below my mother, and near the large pile of earth that was removed earlier in the summer to make a level place for the pool; my mother remains on the deck. She is standing with my brother held against her body and up to god. Water rushes from her 70 |