The Herd

The Herd appeared in Water~Stone Review, v16 and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

 

Suzie is sweating. As undressed as she is, she still can’t help it. The beads of perspiration form on her upper lip and cling there. She wipes at them frequently with her fingertips. There is a fold of flesh at her midriff whenever she sits up. The crease is lined with moisture and she can feel the sweat in her navel. She wishes the sun weren’t so hot, or that she could lie on a beach without getting bored. She has been reading a vampire romance novel, Love by Night. When she lies on her back, her stomach looks flatter, with only a small swell of belly, but then her arms get tired from holding the book overhead. Suzie has been coming to this small lake her entire life. The lake is connected to the St. Croix River by a thin vein of water, and is surrounded by state park. There is no lifeguard. Her friends—one is her cousin and the other is a girl she barely knows, but coming to the beach together makes them friends, at least for today—have been flipping through Lucky magazines, placing little stickers on all the clothing and accessories they wish they owned. They show each other pictures and critique the models. Suzie has yet to hear them say one of the models is too thin. Rey and Tegan look good in their bikinis. Suzie wishes she had worn a one-piece so that her folds of skin would be hidden behind a thin layer of spandex.

Rey, whose real name is Reynalda, wishes Suzie would make an effort. She’s so shy, she thinks. Rey remembers when they were girls and they played together, pretending that their garage-sale-banana-seat bicycles were horses and they were cowgirls who rescued Indian princesses from wranglers. They used to have fun. They used to be friends. Rey has decided that she is tired of Suzie. She is tired of listening to her mother plead with her to include Suzie, and all of her assurances that Suzie is only going through an awkward stage and will be fun again one day. Rey has decided vampire novels are stupid. 

“Oh God, I am so hot,” Tegan moans. “Let’s go cool off.”

Rey and Tegan stand up on their towels, tucking their magazines under their beach bags so they won’t blow away, then Tegan starts toward the water. She has a walk she has been working on. She drags the tips of her toes through the sand as she steps forward, making certain to cross one foot in front of the other. Also, one hand rests lightly, jauntily, upon her hip. She has taken some dance classes and watches models on the catwalk on YouTube. These are the sources of her new affectation. Rey has held back so that she can look down at her cousin. “Well?” she says. “Are you coming in with us?” Her hips are cocked, but this is not an affectation. This is a display of her impatience with and disapproval of Suzie.

Suzie shrugs. “Okay.” 

A man on the beach watches the girls enter the water. He watches Suzie especially. He likes her plumpness. This man does not understand why she is self-conscious, but he understands vulnerability. He watches Suzie enter the water. Her friends run in, squealing and splashing, but she steps in, hesitantly, testing her way. 

***

A little boy wearing water wings scoops sand into a pail at the edge of the water. Suzie comes dangerously close to stepping in the hole he is digging, to collapsing its sidewall. He looks up, but cannot see Suzie’s face because of the sun. It forces him to close his eyes completely and drop his head. Thomas is a serious boy, which is why his parents call him Thomas, not Tom and certainly not Tommy. His entire world is that hole in the sand. He hopes that if he digs deep enough he will find a crab, or perhaps a mermaid. He reminds himself that mermaids live in deep waters with the bass and walleye that his grandpa pulls out of the lake. He is, therefore, unlikely to find a mermaid in his hole. But, he thinks, I might find a mermaid’s skull! and he continues to dig. He will dig with perfect concentration until he gets bored, or until his mother calls him back to the blanket for a snack. 

 

 

***

Thomas’s mother does not enjoy sitting on the beach, watching her son dig holes. If his father was here, he would go in the water with him, toss him into the air and catch him with a splash, pretend to hunt sharks. But his father is at work and Thomas whined all morning until she agreed to take him. They don’t have air conditioning, which is fine ten months out of the year. The other two, Cathy walks around in a daze, sweat running behind her ears, sipping iced tea. It is all she can do to spread peanut butter on a piece of bread for Thomas, to let out the dog. The dog only wants back in as soon as he’s been out, felt the heat coming out of the ground. Poor thing, she thinks, can’t decide where it’s cooler, and neither can I. It is certainly no cooler at the beach. She will take Thomas in the water soon. It is her duty, and it might feel nice, all that liquid seeping through her suit to wet her skin. How could it not? But water that is not contained by a tub or a pool scares Cathy. She doesn’t like seaweed and she hates fish. Her father keeps several of his catches mounted in the den; Cathy’s childhood was marked by their staring glass eyes. The pike was as big as she was. The walleye held its mouth agape with all those needle teeth ready to bite off a toe. No, lakes were made for fish, not people. Not her son. She knows it is foolishness, but she cannot escape the sense of danger in the water, which is why she tries to only bring Thomas to the beach when his father is available. On their second date, Cathy asked Mike if he fished. He said no, not really. Sometimes he went with buddies, but he did it for the beer, not the fish. Had he answered differently, had he been the sort of man likely to stuff and mount his prized catch on her living room wall, Cathy would have ended it there.

“Excuse me,” a woman stands over Cathy, shading her eyes. She has a little girl by the hand and the girl has her knees pressed together, bouncing. “Can you keep an eye on our blanket? We have to run to the potty.”

Cathy agrees, naturally, and the woman and girl trudge uphill toward the facilities. Cathy notes their blanket, the small cooler, the tote bag, then turns her attention back to Thomas. The girl is about his age. Maybe they can play together. 

***

The little girl stops walking at the top of the hill, just yards away from the door to the restroom. Her mother tugs at her hand, but there is no going forward. The girl’s face has been set in an expression her mother knows: eyes closed, lips tightly sealed, cheeks and ears blushed with a certain loss of control. “Oh, Jessica!” her mother exclaims. A stream of urine runs down Jessica’s legs, dividing as it passes through the fabric of her swimsuit so that both legs are wet, but most of it goes to the left. Her shoes are wet as well, but they are only flip-flops. “I have told you to tell me you have to go before you have to go!” Mary is quietly yelling. She wants to impress upon her child the seriousness of this repeated failure, but she does not want to draw attention to herself. She is not thinking about how the looks of strangers might embarrass Jessica, she is afraid that people will think she is a bad mother, yelling at her child in public. But what would you do? she asks an imaginary audience. This isn’t the first time we’ve had an accident. She jerks Jessica’s hand and turns to lead her back down to the beach. She sighs heavily. “I guess we’ll go swimming now.”

Jessica has been waiting to get in the water all day, waiting for her mother to get off the phone, to pack the beach bag, to stop at the convenience store for a bottle of Diet Coke and a lotto ticket, and then, when they were finally on the sand, to wait for her sunscreen to soak into her skin before she could get wet. Jessica smiles to herself. It is not what she planned, but she is happy nonetheless.

“We’re back,” Mary announces as they pass Cathy. She does not slow down on her way to the water. 

***

Cathy watches them go, sees this other woman wash off her daughter’s legs with lake water before releasing her hand, and chuckles because she understands. Cathy decides it’s time to go in. She stands and adjusts her swimsuit, being certain to cover her rump before leaving the towel.

Standing up, she notices a man on the beach. He is here alone. He is very thin, middle-aged, with a few straggly wisps of hair on top of his head. He wears a visor, not a hat, which Cathy thinks is a mistake since he is essentially bald on top. He unsettles her. Perhaps it is because he has a thin, woven cotton towel printed with a map of Florida. She can see the bottom of the state wrapping around his knees. In the ocean is a leaping sailfish. On the land is a golfer mid-swing. She has seen postcards like this. He is standing in the middle of the beach, watching the people in the water, wearing his towel around his waist like a woman would wear a sarong. Cathy moves down the beach to the water’s edge, dividing her attention between Thomas and this man. 

She kneels next to Thomas and touches his shoulder blade, feels the smooth edge of it beneath his skin, and marvels that he will one day become a big strong man like his father. “What are you doing?”

“Digging.” He answers his mother without looking at her, but Cathy is used to this grim focus.

“What are you digging for?”

“Mermaid’s skull.”

Cathy leaves her son long enough to introduce herself to Mary. This requires she walk into the lake until the water is above her knees. She tells herself the fish like to hide in the weeds and would never come here, amongst all the noise and splashing. Yet, she can’t stop herself from picturing the sleek torpedo of a pike gliding through all these pale legs. She suggests the children play together and hopes the little girl will want to dig instead of swim.

Jessica agrees to haul buckets of water from the lake to the beach so that she and Thomas can fill the hole. The mothers stand over their children, talking about the weather, occasionally glancing at their towels, making certain their books and car keys do not disappear. It does not take long to exhaust the topic of the heat and the sun, so they talk about their husbands’ jobs and their children’s preschools.

***

Suzie watches Thomas and Jessica playing in the sand. She wishes that she could be little again. Or that growing up did not mean so much change. She would like to sit in the sand and not care that her suit got full of it, that it makes her skin itch. She would like to run around with her belly hanging over her bikini bottom. She would like to be instant friends with everyone, even if only for a few hours. It would be better to play with a stranger and never meet again than to feel lonely in the company of her so-called friends.

***

The man looks at Suzie, then follows the direction of her gaze to look at Thomas and Jessica. He watches them dig in the sand and fill the hole with water. They are so industrious and so pointless. He notes the way they take turns bossing each other. They are not careful of anybody’s feelings. They are also prone to tears. These children are of an age he cannot appreciate. They are not afraid of the world. They are not afraid of the world, but their mothers are. The mothers hover above the children, making idle chatter because they don’t actually care about each other. He has seen this behavior on the playground many times and knows it well. Sometimes women who despise each other will spend hours together just so their precious children have playmates.

What do they fear, these mothers? They fear their children coming to harm, of course. They also don’t believe their children will come to harm, not when they are so vigilant. They fear the things they seem helpless against: antisocial behavior, low intelligence, slow development, and germs. These mothers arrange play-dates, enroll the children in programs, hold up flashcards with colors, letters, numbers, ad nauseam. And when they can no longer stand the playmates, the lessons, the flashcards, they turn on Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer.

The man returns his gaze to Suzie. He imagines that she is thirteen. Maybe fourteen. This is because he ignores the obvious fullness of her young breasts and the curve of her hips.

Some teenaged boys in the water have become rowdy and their play splashes everyone nearby. Suzie scrunches up her shoulders and hugs her arms to her middle. There are three boys and three girls, so Rey calls Suzie into the game and she has no choice but to go. Keith wears glasses secured to his head by a foam strap. He is bookish and runs cross-country. While his friends, who play soccer and baseball and football are already broad through the chest and narrow through the hips, Keith is lanky. He doesn’t mind being thin because he can run. The brutes on the playing field have no idea what it feels like to run for twelve miles, or twenty. He runs until he disappears into his body, until he can no longer distinguish his legs from his lungs, until he is gliding on endorphins. When Keith introduces himself to Suzie, he holds out his hand and smiles. 

She hesitates, then shakes it and smiles in return. For the first time that day, her face looks pretty.

***

The man watches this and turns away. He can no longer pretend that she is thirteen. He reaches into his cooler and swishes his hand around in the ice water before taking hold of a can of Budweiser. He shakes the water from the can and slides it into a holder. Foam sprays when he opens it. The man looks around him before wiping the froth from his hairless chest. He stands carefully while he drinks, positioning himself so that his right leg is slightly bent, the calf flexed, the ball of the foot resting in the sand. When he raises the beer to his lips, he flexes his biceps unnecessarily. He turns to face the hill behind the beach and scans the people around him. He wears mirrored sunglasses and tries to be casual about his survey. He turns to face the water again. 

Suzie has lost his interest. He watches a father play with his children. He watches some young men whip a Nerf ball at each other just outside of the back rope. He sees the families, the youth, the children, and—at last—the kids. Yes, kids. Old enough to roam independently of their parents, but young enough to be sweet and willing. There are three kids in the far corner of the swim area, two girls and a boy. He takes a sip of his beer, then folds his arms across his thin chest. His skin is hot. He loves the sun and has worked every summer of his adult life to turn an even shade of bronze. Soon, he will remove his towel to avoid tan lines.

***

The three kids are almost siblings. They have been camping on the other side of the river, constantly near their parents without rooms to which they can escape. Only the thin walls of a tent offer any privacy, and they aren’t allowed to use the tent unless changing or sleeping. The kids, whether consciously or not, have moved themselves to the farthest corner of the swim area away from their parents.

Rachel and Mark don’t mind. Their shady corner of the beach is providing the most privacy they’ve had in three days. They can talk without worrying about who will hear or what might get reported back to the exes. They steal kisses because the kids are not watching them. 

***

Owen is thirteen. All boy. His sister, Cara, is petite. Though nine, she looks seven. They are dark. Natalie is blonde, the middle child, but a head taller than Owen. He tosses the ball over his sister’s head. Even though Owen and Natalie are closer in age, she and Cara have more in common—girl things. Still, she cannot resist a game of keep away. She tosses the ball back to Owen. Cara jumps for it. Owen waves the ball at her, fakes her out, and throws it over her head again. Natalie misses it, but quickly high-steps through the water before Cara can move two feet. 

“Hey, you guys,” Cara complains. Her voice has a whiney note that signals to Owen he has succeeded. He will press her buttons until she is about to cry and then pull back. 

Natalie is an only child and does not understand the pecking order. She tosses Cara the ball. They play nice, knowing that sooner or later their parents will call them back to the woods and bug spray and dirt and camp latrines. The kids can’t understand why their parents prefer the camp to the beach.

***

“Something’s wrong with that guy,” Rachel says. She has gone from watching their kids play to watching the man on the beach. He untucks his wrap and holds the ends up so the breeze catches the thin cotton and billows it out in front of him. He lays it down on the sand next to his cooler. He is wearing a white swim bottom that ties across both hips like a string bikini. Rachel has seen men in tight little Speedos. She has never seen a man in something that ties. He has a tattoo on his left pectoral and another one on his right thigh, near the groin. At this distance, she can’t make them out. “Look at the way he watches everyone. He’s staring at all of us. See? He’s watching that woman and her kids.” Rachel points them out to Mark. He agrees with her. 

“But he’s not actually doing anything wrong, is he? He’s just people watching…in a woman’s bikini.” Mark tries to be open-minded, tries to keep his judgmental side in check. Weirdo. Mark can’t help thinking it. 

Rachel chuckles, then considers for a moment. “Do we feel sorry for him?” 

Mark does not have an answer for her. He turns his attention back to their kids and watches them splash each other. He smiles at this forming of a new family, at how well it is all going.

Rachel keeps her gaze on the man. She watches him and then watches the woman and her children that he is watching. The woman is young. From this distance, Rachel can only tell that she looks good for a woman with two children, even a young one. She is gathering up their things, putting sippy cups and snack cups with flip-top lids into her beach bag. She pulls shirts over the children’s heads, then replaces their sun hats. Rachel marvels at how big heads are compared to bodies in the first five years. The little one doesn’t want his sandals on his feet. He kicks at the woman when she tries to put them on. Rachel imagines her telling the boy that he must wear them. Soon they will be off the beach and walking on a hot tar path. She smiles to herself because she would have said the same thing to her daughter, probably did say the same thing to Natalie, and she knows that reason has no place in the toddler’s mind. 

She reconsiders. Perhaps, if nothing else, grown-ups set an example for the children. The little neurons fire and some day they will make rational arguments with their own children.

The shoes go on and Rachel wonders what won the boy’s cooperation. A bribe. Surely, a bribe. She settles on ice cream. She would put on shoes, even the hiking boots sitting next to her towel, for ice cream. 

Finally, the woman is packed up. She has a tote bag over one shoulder, a folding beach chair over the other, and she walks hunched awkwardly so that she can balance her load while holding the children’s hands. The aluminum-framed chair slips from her shoulder and Rachel winces in anticipation of it clobbering the older child, but the woman lets go of the girl’s hand and raises her arm to catch the chair at the elbow. Rachel breathes in relief. She is reassured of this woman’s competence, watches as she has the two children link hands, freeing up one of her own. Rachel looks toward her own kids—or kid and almost step-kids. It is still awkward for her and Mark. If she thinks of Owen and Cara as separate from Natalie, she feels guilty that she is somehow damaging the foundation they are constructing. But if she thinks of them all as the kids, or worse, her kids, she feels guilty because they are not all her kids, not technically, not yet. 

These are the things Rachel is thinking as she turns her head to look back at their kids, when her attention is pulled away from its course. The man has set down his beer in his cooler and pulled on a pair of huaraches. Rachel watches him walk toward the restrooms at the top of the hill. She turns herself around to keep an eye on both the woman with the children and the man. The building has a hallway open on both sides. The man disappears into the shadows and does not reemerge. He could leave the building on the other side and walk up the hill to the parking lot. Rachel pokes Mark.

“Maybe he’s walking around the building, looking for a drinking fountain.”

Rachel wants to run up the hill after the woman and help her carry her folding chair. She wants to scoop the children into her arms and shield them.

But from what? 

She fights the urge to leave the beach and chase after a stranger. She would look crazy. And the park is busy. Between here and the parking lot the woman will encounter a lot of people, and maybe even a ranger. Rachel sits next to Mark, holds his hand, and watches their kids, because, she decides, that is all that is required of her.

Chloe has had enough of the beach for one day. For one week, even. She has done her duty as a good mother, bringing her children to splash in lake water and heap up piles of wet sand. She wonders what they see when they look at their sloppy mounds. Castles, she supposes. Fortunately, Frannie and Oliver are too young to have a sense of time. If they play for half an hour, it might as well be three hours to them. Besides, this way they’ll be home in time for Arthur. The beach and their favorite cartoon: a perfect day in their little minds. She struggles with the chair and bag and two little hands until she gets Frannie to hold onto Oliver. 

The hairs on the back of her neck prickle, and she has the urge to drop the chair and the beach bag, to snatch up her children, and run for it. She glances over her shoulder and sees no one. She checks over the other shoulder. “Hurry up,” she says, but she does not mean it. There is no hurrying a toddler short of picking him up, and Frannie is only five. She looks over her shoulder again and again sees no one. Still, she can’t shake the feeling she’s being pursued. There’s only one thing to do.

Chloe makes a slow U-turn, swinging herself with bag and chair around, Frannie and Oliver following in her wake like a string of tug boats. She stands at the top of the hill and looks over the beach and swim area. There is nothing amiss, as far as she can tell. The bathroom building is the only unknown, with its hallway and corners. She is not going to parade her children around the facilities to flush out…she does not want to think about it. She is not that brave after all. Chloe turns them back uphill and they begin again their slow procession. “Hurry up,” she says, and she does mean it, even though she knows they already move at full speed.

***

Keith has finally gotten Suzie to relax. They have moved into deeper water, separating themselves from their friends. The water is up to Suzie’s shoulders and it no longer feels cold on her skin. She left her sunglasses on the beach and has to squint to look at Keith. She knows this is screwing up her face and hurting her chances to look attractive. Keith sidesteps, adjusting his position until she has to turn her back to the sun in order to see him. Now he is squinting. When Suzie feels the muscles of her face relax, notices the tension sliding away from her eyes and brow, she is amazed by how much better she feels. She realizes what Keith has done and her smile expands. Her heart presses against her ribcage. This is the swelling Veronica felt when her eyes first connected with Damiel’s in Love by Night. Suzie is glad for the first time all day that she answered the phone when Rey called, glad she did not back out like she usually does. 

“What are you reading?” Keith asks.

“Oh.” Suzie does not know what to say. “Just something light. Dostoyevski. The Brothers Karamazov, you know.”

“Really?” Keith arches one eyebrow.

“No. It’s a stupid vampire story, okay? Really, it’s just for fun. Beach reading.”

“Hey, that’s cool.”

“It is?”

“I read comics.” 

Suzie recognizes that Keith has made a confession to make her feel comfortable, and falls in love with him in the sense that seventeen-year-olds who lead sheltered lives in small towns feel intensely and severely about the first person who discovers they are special.

Keith adds, “I’m into graphic novels. I’m writing and illustrating my own stuff.”

“I paint.” Suzie blushes as soon as the words escape her lips, because she does not mean to draw attention to herself. She is thinking of becoming an art major when she gets to college, something she has not told her parents or even her cousin. She tells Keith, and then asks to see his comics some time. It is the boldest thing she has ever said to a boy.

A spray of water comes over Keith’s shoulder and hits Suzie in the face. She squeaks and splutters water out of her nose and mouth, pushes her hair out of her eyes. When she can see again, Keith is smiling right at her.

“Sorry!” Natalie yells. “Sorry!” She turns back to Owen and Cara. They are laughing. They are noisy. They are oblivious to almost everything going on around them. They have always been safe in their world. 

The man returns to the beach and kicks off his sandals. He pulls his beer out of his cooler and slides the foam holder off the can. He dumps a pale stream of liquid into the sand, maybe half the can, and tosses the empty into the cooler. He pulls out a new Budweiser and slides it into the holder. He does not sit down, even though his Florida towel is lying under his feet, marking his territory. He turns this way and that, looking all around him from behind those mirrored glasses. The man sets the can on top of the cooler and with both hands reaches behind himself to tuck the back of his swimsuit between his buttocks. He has made a thong. This is not Rio. This is not even Florida. This is the Upper Midwest. He cocks his hips, posing again for whomever might be watching. 

Rachel is watching. Cathy and Mary are watching, too. So is Mark. So are other parents. It is their duty to take notice and to take exception. They do not need to speak to each other to understand their common interest. Their ears tingle and their backs itch. Mark notices Cathy and Mary standing in water barely above their ankles, their arms folded across their chests, hovering over their children. He watches Suzie and Keith and the other young people. They are still allowed to be unaware. He envies them a little, not having to protect anyone. Still, he thinks, that’s only a man on a beach, and there is nothing to be done. He lies down on his towel and shades his eyes with his hat. 

Rey and Tegan are laughing loudly. They are tossing a small football around with the guys. When the ball comes at them, they jump out of the water to catch it and their breasts rise and fall behind small triangles of brightly colored fabric. They are behaving like girls on television. They are doing everything they are supposed to do. Rey is aware of her cousin not playing as usual, and she is aware of her cousin having the full attention of a boy. She hopes she gets asked for her phone number. She does not like either of these boys enough to want them to actually call, but if asked, she will give out her number. Rey watches Suzie for a minute, wonders about the attraction, and misses the ball. She decides to impress the boys by raising her arms over her head, performing a standing dive, and gliding just under the surface of the lake. Her body is sleek. Her swimsuit is a flash of turquoise. She overshoots the ball, but the boy called Johnny is eyeing her with something like hunger.

Rachel has begun to think about food. After their hike and these hours in the sun, she is hungry. There is still an energy bar in her pack, which she digs out. When she peels back the packaging, the chocolate has gone soft and most of it is on the wrapper. Bare patches of puffed rice and caramel are revealed. She licks her fingers. Her snack will buy the kids more time in the water and Mark more time snoozing under his hat. Eating is a nurturing, selfless act.

The man has set his beer can inside his cooler and left his towel on the sand. He walks to the water’s edge and stands so his feet are wet. His arms are folded in, making him seem narrower than he is. He gazes through those mirrored sunglasses out at the water. He could be looking at the tree line on the opposite shore, contemplating God and nature. But he is not. He moves along the edge of the water toward the far side of the swimming area, toward the section least occupied. He moves a few steps and then stops. He looks around, scanning everywhere. Moves again. Stops. Moves. Stops.

Cathy and Mary stop talking when they see him leave his towel and move toward the water. Both women consider snatching up their children and leaving. Their muscles tense with the intention before the thought can be put into words. They do not act, however, because they stand together, galvanized against this threat. When the man moves away from them, toward the far end of the beach, they relax enough to talk, to agree that they have shared an instinct. They laugh because their discomfort makes them feel silly. 

He makes his careful progress along the water’s edge, stopping every few feet, scanning both the water and the beach. He is looking for someone, someone he cannot find. He stops when he is at the buoyed rope that marks the boundary of the swim area. He drops his hands to his sides and looks out over the water. He waits. He can be patient. He has been patient all day.

Owen, Natalie, and Cara are facing each other, jogging in place, pulling their knees up high and slapping the water with their palms. They want to see who can make the biggest splash and who will tire first. They are all determined, but Owen will win this game. 

The man walks into the lake. He moves forward purposely, without stopping, without looking. 

Rachel stands up and shields her eyes with her hand. She says something Mark does not catch and walks determinedly forward. She moves diagonally across the rectangle of the swim area. As she traverses the distance, the water gets deeper and pulls at her more with each step. She knows only one thing: her kids. She does not feel the intensity of the sun, or the sweat trickling down the small of her back, or the eyes of Cathy and Mary following her. She does not even see Suzie and Keith. 

The man has come too far to turn back. The water rises to the level of his swimsuit, wets it, and he feels his genitals retract from the cold. It excites him because it means he is close, that his patience has paid off. He touches his thigh, runs his fingers over the heart tattooed on his groin, the pale banner scrolling across it: Danny . The man finds the ties that hold his swimsuit together and his long fingers work the knot loose. 

Rachel yells their names and waves the children toward her. There are people in the water between them, shouting, splashing, tossing balls. The kids cannot hear her. They do not see her. Rachel sees the man drawing closer to them, his hands under water, invisible through the green. She suffers the distinct impression that he glides smoothly, while she hurtles through water like syrup. 

The man has entered their circle, but for their flailing and splashing he is close enough to touch them. He stands, facing them, smiling. They finally take notice, and are still. 

Rachel feels the sand and rocks under her bare feet, the water wrapping around her thighs. The sun is burning her shoulders as the breeze blows stray hairs across her cheek. Her heart pounds as the world contracts. 

 

—end—