Ursula and Harry’s light blue Lincoln Continental turned lazily into our driveway, the wheels making crackling noises over the residues of sand. I stood awkwardly, looking at my own reflection in the tinted window instead of opening the door. How thin I looked, and dark beneath the eyes. The electric window descended, swallowing me and simultaneously giving birth to Harry’s bald head and white suit. The air coming out of their car was a mixed blessing, wonderfully cold yet saturated with stale cigarette smoke and aftershave.

“Hi there, baby doll,” Harry greeted me with amused eyes and a wink, absentmindedly inaugurating his emergency brake.

“Cut it out, Harry!” Ursula shot Harry a discontented glance and squeezed his knee. There were white marks around her fingers where she’d removed her rings.

“Don’ run in my driveway! You get black oil on you feet, you drag all ’cross my house!” my mother warned Tommy and Timmy, “I do not wan’. Be care, my cactus!”

“Boys will be boys,” laughed Harry and handed my mother the red suitcase Ursula had brought over last time, and a shopping bag full of sandy flip-flops and a greasy tube of sun block without a cap.

“My guard, my guard, wha’ I get myself talk-ked into!” my mother joked, but there was something sad and weary in her eyes, usually sharp and accusing, that made me go and put my arm around her shoulders protectively. Melancholic people can go through life with bloodhound eyes, they receive little compassion, but bad-tempered people need only look discouraged one minute, and they get whatever they want. Ursula and Harry waved to us as they pulled out of the driveway. I rested my chin affectionately on her head. “Aya! Don’ do dat. You stringbean! You hurt my neck!” was the thanks I got.

“Now you stay outside an’ play! I don’ wan’ no one in my house, in an’ out, wit you dirty feet!”

The others ran down to the canal. I staggered slowly after them. I didn’t feel like a child any more. I felt that the revelation my mother had made to me, of losing for some unknown reason quantities of my own blood and having to dress the wound all by myself made playing impossible. I foresaw a dismal life in that mature weirdness where play was undesirable to every adult.

Cecilia watched with amazement as Timmy and Tommy pulled up the dripping crab trap. They found a host of pig tails inside, caught here and there among the rusty grilles like waterlogged carrots. A stench rose, similar to the fish that float down the canal, swollen and upside down. Along the bottom of the trap, scrambled the multitude of armoured legs belonging to a forlorn navy of stone crabs. They faced us heroically, each holding out a single overgrown pincer.

Timmy forced a kumquat branch into the trap. When he tilted it, three crabs hung on stubbornly.

“Stop it! I’m going to tell! That one’s just a baby!” The tension in me sought release.