The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

47





WITHOUT WARNING, ISABEL STANDS UP AND walks away. I follow her down the beach, scanning the sands warily as the others yell after her but let her go. This is not a safe time or place for a stroll. Her feet drag and stumble across the chilly sand. She hugs herself and scratches at her shoulders. I can’t make out her thoughts. They’re jumbled and muted, nonsensical. She’s thinking about Mina, Kendra and me, but in a repetitive fashion as if she’s banging her head against a wall.



I dance around her, as though I can stop her slow procession to the water. I’m in front of her, then behind, then racing along the beach looking for help, then back at her side. But of course I’m not there. Not in any way that can save my friend. It’s like putting out your hands to stop a rainstorm. And I don’t even have hands.

Isabel’s mind finally settles on a memory, and grabs hold of it to steady her courage for her first steps into the water. The memory is beautiful—it’s the dock, the lake house that summer we were eleven. It’s the same as Mina’s world, but complete and alive. The clouds cast shadows across the trees full of twittering birds, and the swaying grasses reveal scampering squirrels. I get swept up into it, too, lost in the details of a happier day.

Isabel remembers herself linking arms with Kendra to walk up to the house. She finds her mother on the porch laughing with Lynette, who pours them fresh glasses of pink lemonade. Isabel smiles, remembering how the ice sounded in the glasses; how the grass tickled her ankles as they walked back down the hill.

She sees Mina and me in the water in front of the dock, talking solemnly. Then Mina points and waves and Isabel feels the cold lemonade splash her toes when she waves back. Kendra scolds her, but they both laugh. Isabel is blissfully, simply, happy in a world that is whole and makes perfect sense.

At the instant Isabel’s head dips beneath the surface, a set of waves rolls in fast, knocking her off her feet. She thrashes about, tossing and turning as if having a nightmare. But she doesn’t have enough air in her lungs to keep up the fight.

In her mind’s eye, Isabel continues to approach the dock, but there is a shift, like a photograph catching fire. Suddenly it is just Mina on the dock, an adult Mina, standing in her yellow sundress.

I can hear Isabel whimpering aloud in the water. The water looks red, like blood filtering through an aquarium.

But it isn’t Isabel that’s whimpering.