Jason French.

Vietnam.

Prison.

A few eyes found me, but I ignored them. Becky Collins looked my way, but even that felt like the tail end of a nightmare. “He’s going to do it,” I said, and felt the moment as if I stood beside him. The same wind licked the stone, and the water, below, was cold, gray, and hard. The only difference was the silence as Jason spread his arms. No one spoke or called out, and I would swear, in years to come, that the wind stilled and even the birds fell quiet.

Please, God …

The prayer came in the instant of my certainty. I felt his breath as if it were my own, his toes as they took the weight. I knew the bend of his knees, the commitment, the moment his life was not his own.

“Sweet Jesus.”

Chance spoke the words as my brother rose, and lint-colored sky spread between his feet and the stone. He hung on invisible strings, and looked as our brother had looked: the light on one side, the bow of his chest and arms. For that moment, he was pinned and perfect, then the weight of his shoulders took him down; and like that, I was thirteen again and choking; and I heard the same words, somewhere deep.

One Mississippi.

Two …

I counted as I had for Robert, and feared that a second brother would die. He was waiting too long, arms still spread as Three Mississippi sounded in my mind, and brought with it a terrible certainty.

He would hit wrong.

He would shatter.

But in the last moment his hands came together and, like the tip of a knife, split the surface to let my brother pass. He disappeared in black water, and I didn’t breathe until I saw him again, his head above the surface, those long arms stroking for shore. Chance said something, but I was half-deaf from a sound like roaring wind.

It was blood in my ears, I thought.

Or maybe it was people cheering.

3

For the rest of the day I thought of my brother and his dive and the deal we’d struck. Saturday. The two of us. I didn’t tell my mother at dinner that night, even though we ate in awkward silence, and she opened the door as if to invite the conversation. “Did I see Ken in the driveway?”

She watched her food as she asked the question. I met my father’s eyes, but they offered no hint of his thoughts on the matter. “He came in behind me,” I said.