And here it is again: the steady glug and then the bittersweet. I want to be alone and this is something I can say to her without pause or shame, and I do say it, and she does leave, and now it’s just me, filling my throat and blinking to make the beach once more. I can see her running down the sand, fearless Dora, long hair opened like a sail into the wind. I’m waiting behind, holding Lucy’s hand, clutching. Lucy is pointing: Look at that girl. Not a single thing stopping her. Lucy is squeezing my fingers. You’re my girl too. I see the dark spots of crab holes and then I see them melting back into the sand. Dora runs like her whole body wants it. She comes back with her shirt gathered into a satchel. And where have you been? Lucy asks. Dora’s purple bathing suit is wet and shows her ribs. Getting these. She shows me her barnacles in splendid rows. And you, she says, what do you have to show for yourself?

Being pregnant gave me the steadiest sickness of my life but now I miss the bitch of it, the worst parts most: throwing up in the trailer living room, hair getting caught on my wet lips. The sight of Fiona struggling slowly up from her big chair, trying to help, making me feel even sadder, sad for both of us.

I miss Lucy in the deepest hours of the night. She always knew what I’d be scared of before I was scared of it. She took the books with the scariest pictures into the hallway before I went to bed. I couldn’t stand their drawn figures watching when I slept—witches and goblins, bad guys from fairy tales. Lucy was a lot of things but she was always my mother. I never had another one. I knew she would’ve had advice about being pregnant but I never got to hear it. Don’t mess this up, she might have said. She would have told me all the good vitamins. She would have known the best positions for sleeping.

I thought those were the loneliest days, carrying the little sack of him when I didn’t have anyone. But how could I have been lonely? Scared maybe, and broke, but I had the bulk of him wherever I went, the slippery clutch of his skull, shoulders, everything. It wasn’t loneliness. I could feel our pulse with my fingertips whenever I wanted.

Now it’s just one tick-tock muscle under my ribs. It gets so loud sometimes I can hear it in the quiet of the night, muttering like an old man trying to remember a tune: ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. Just my one heart, only one I ever had. Still beating no matter what I do.

STELLA

We heard in the middle of the night. A woman called Abe and Abe called me. The woman’s name was Winnie and she was very direct. She said, “Your mother killed herself.”