She squeezes her eyes shut. All of Paul’s boxes, gone. His memory, gone. They’ve been sitting in her living room for months and now they literally went up in flames.

Agitated, Crystal pushes off the edge of the pool and plummets to the bottom. She doesn’t want to think about Paul. She has to move on.

After a minute, Crystal resurfaces and begins swimming laps. Her breath is choppy and unpracticed, but she doesn’t care. She keeps swimming—five laps, then ten, then fifteen. Her shoulders burn, her lungs scream. Her thighs quiver from the exertion.

At twenty laps, she hoists herself up on the pool’s edge, her heart rate dangerously high. Her chest shudders, but she wants to capture this feeling of being so very alive and wet.

“Mama?”

She turns, suddenly embarrassed to be caught in her bra and underwear. Savi hasn’t called her Mama in years. “Yeah, baby?”

“What are you doing?” Savi rubs her swollen eyes. Apparently, she’s not the only one who’s been crying.

“Swimming.” She laughs. She’s still breathless and is afraid she might burst into tears again. “I was hot.”

Savi looks at the water and back at her mother, gauging if she’s still in trouble or if the storm has temporarily passed. “Can I?”

Crystal thinks about saying no, that they need to talk, but honestly, she doesn’t feel like talking. And isn’t this why they have the privacy fence? “Sure.”

Savi excitedly strips down to just her flower underwear. “Can I jump in?”

“Wait.” Crystal stands, legs aching, and trots over to join her at the deep end. She grabs her daughter’s small hand. “On the count of three.”

Savi’s face lights up in a way she hasn’t seen in months. In that single look is the little girl whose spirit could never be diminished. Not by death. Not by crushing disappointment. Not by anything.

“One,” Crystal counts.

“Two,” Savi says.

“Three!” They jump into the pool together, their hands clasped.

They plummet down and then break to the surface, spewing, treading, and giggling.

“Can we do it again?” she asks. She slices her arms in a sloppy freestyle toward the edge. She’s already pulling her light body to the surface and waiting for her mother. A real smile overrides the incident from earlier.

She joins her daughter and doesn’t let go of her hand.

15

BEC

This is not my child.

The truth sizzles inside my skull. I lean over the crib again. My fingers reach for him, but the baby shrieks and his entire body arches backward, as if he’s been poked in the spine. I travel his small body again, double-checking for differences. His skin flushes under my touch. He wails and bucks against me like an agitated bull. I edge a few steps away. The recent fears … they weren’t paranoia.

They were warnings.