Later, when Anouk got home, Nora was in the backyard, snoozing in a lawn chair with the newspaper laid across her stomach. Anouk watched her, for a moment, from the kitchen door. A pot of spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove and the whole house smelled of hot tomato and beef and garlic. Anouk went to the bathroom and peeled off her suit and emptied into the toilet the pale, pebbly sand that had collected in the gusset. She ran a hot bath and looked at herself in the mirror until it was obscured with steam. She looked through the window and could see that Nora was no longer asleep in the backyard, and then there was a soft knock on the door.

‘You having a bath? Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where’ve you been? Today was my early, I thought we could do something fun.’

‘The pool.’

‘Oh, again? I’m glad.’

‘Why?’

‘Yesterday you said it was awful. I didn’t think you liked pools.’

Anouk imagined her mother on the other side of the door, one hand flat against the wood panel. Guilt in her voice, in her face.

‘Was it okay? Was it fun?’

‘It was fine.’

‘Did you swim with other kids?’

‘Yep.’

That evening, a movie on TV and Nora cupping Anouk’s back up and down. There was hardly any mucus and Anouk was convinced this was because of her swim in open water. Her body was happy. The heavy night air circulated freely about the house through open windows and from somewhere, the sweet smell of jasmine. Somewhere there was honeysuckle, and somewhere a lawn had been cut. They drank cola out of chilled beer mugs and shared a bowl of dill-pickle-flavoured chips.

Halfway through the movie, thunder grumbled from far away and deeply.

‘Come,’ Nora said, her hand on Anouk’s knee. ‘Come on.’

Anouk’s mother leapt from the couch, and then she was out of the front door and Anouk followed. They sat on the porch and watched the people on Queen Street pick up the pace, go for cover. That feeling of the sky about to open up and plummet, a drop in pressure, a sincerity to the quietness of the world, and the whole world waiting felt like a guitar string being wound too tightly. On the trees, the pale undersides of leaves had turned belly-up, desperate for a drink.

‘This is the best thing. It’s just the best,’ said Nora. This was a new Nora, happier away from the river, from Red and from her. ‘This reminds me of my mother,’ Nora said.

‘Rain?’

‘Ya. The porch, the rain. Can you smell it?’

Anouk sniffed. Storm smell, similar to blood. Goosebumps on her arms.

First, wind. In the movement of the trees they could see it coming up the street from the lake. The temperature dropped instantly and the khaki sky rushed with sound. A few fat drops of rain appeared on the sidewalk and on the parked cars, and then the deluge. Spray off the porch steps kissed their feet, the fronts of their legs. On the other side of Queen Street, a cat darted out from under a car and clawed manically up a tree. Lightning cracked the sky copper.