Three days in, and my foot below the fish line has turned the color of deep water. I lie in a trench of cool sand under the swings, wiggling my fingers into the earth, seeking moisture, seeking home.

Andrew comes over, kicking sand up behind his heels. His cheeks are pink from the sun. He slips his legs over the swing and kicks away from the ground.

His dry-eyed mother stands in the shade of a tree, tapping at a phone.

“Do you really not have parents, Hiss?” Andrew’s voice whips across me as he swings past.

“Well, I did once, I guess. Not now, though. I’m looking for a mom. But she has to be a sad one.”

“Why sad?”

“Genny says they’re stronger.”

“Who’s Genny?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“You sound like my mom.” He leaps from the swing as it arcs forward and lands in a splash of sand. I squeeze my eyes shut as the grains rain down on me.

He looks to his mother, grinning, but she’s still staring at the phone, the glowing screen broadcasted in the reflection on her glasses. Some brightly colored game.

“Do you live here at the park?” He bends to re-tie his shoe.

“No. Maybe, for now.”

“Is it cold?”

“Not as cold as the water.” I pull the long linen strip around my neck closer, tuck it into my collar.

“Ya know, Kyle’s mother is sad.”

I lift my chin from the stained linen wrap and pull my fingers from the sand. “You know a sad mom?”

“I guess she’s not a mom anymore.”

“You can’t ever be not a mom anymore. No matter how hard you try. That’s what Genny says.”

“Well, she cries a lot.”

I rise from the sand and walk to Andrew. The line at my ankle tugs. Andrew backs up a step. Leaves his shoe undone.

“Where is she?”

“The red house. On 5th. The one with the new tire swing out front.”

“Which way is that?”

Andrew points past his mother, out across an overgrown soccer field.

“Tire’s still got all the white paint on it. Never been used. Mom won’t let me on it.”

“You should ride it anyway,” I say.

Andrew’s mother looks up at me as I pass her. Could be she hears the hiss of Genny’s line. Maybe she smells the fen. But her phone beeps and she turns back to it. Lights are seductive, in the bog and in the hand.

***

Kyle’s mother’s house is only mostly red, and partly the grey of old wood where red used to be. The swing hangs from the tree, limp as Spanish moss. Wasps hover around it, darting in and out of the dark hollow of the tube.