I pushed my cousin Angelica off the loft at our summer cabin. Uncle Frank says her head missed the woodstove by four inches.

I Told Miriam

Every August, we opened up the lake cabin together—me, Dad, Uncle Frank and Aunt Ess, and my cousins: James, Angelica, and Jojo. There was a smell that always rushed at me when we shoved the door open: wet bathing suit plus bug spray. But it was a good smell.

The sleeping loft was just a high-up platform, barely big enough for three sleeping bags. We slept with our feet pointing toward the edge so that no one rolled off: Jojo’s place was right at the top of the ladder, I was in the middle, and Angelica was against the far wall. If she came up last, she could either step over us to get to her sleeping bag or she could go along the little bit of space between our feet and the edge. That’s what she was doing when I pushed her.

Everyone thinks it would be natural for me and Angelica to be close. But nothing between me and Angelica ever felt too natural.

I Told Miriam

That summer, Mom and Dad had been divorced for two years already, but Dad never invited Jesse to Minnesota. And nobody ever talked about my mom.

We were all sprawled on the tiny beach next to our dock one afternoon—me, Angelica, James, Jojo, a boy from cabin 5, and two sisters from cabin 11. We had spent the morning in the water, swamping the boats and then putting them right side up again, until we were tired. Now we were stretched out on our towels, sharing suntan lotion and gum.

James stood up and threw one of our beach balls into the water, where we watched it float past the end of our dock and head toward the middle of the lake. Usually if you threw a ball into the lake, it would float straight back to the beach, but there must have been a wind blowing the other way, because it kept moving away from us.

“You’re gonna have to go get that,” I told James.

“I am not,” James said.

“I’ll tell your dad,” I said.

He ignored me. The sisters from cabin 11 had been teaching us a game where we had to clap out a rhythm and take turns singing rhymes. If someone missed a beat, they lost, and the round was over. So far, Jojo had lost twice.

One cabin 11 girl clapped and sang, “Hey, hey, my name is Joe, and my butt is bigger than Mexico.”

Picking it up, Angelica clapped and sang, “Hey, hey, my name is Bill, and my butt is bigger than Hamburger Hill.”

Jojo’s turn. “Hey, hey, my name is Paul, and my butt is bigger than St. Paul.” She was a syllable short, but everyone let it go.

Then it was my turn. “Hey, hey, my name is May—”