I count. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. I wonder how long Jeremy can hold his breath. My head feels like it might explode.
Four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi.
Air and sound push past my tight throat to make a weird garbled scream. It lands in the quiet room like a crack of thunder. It’s the only noise I make. It’s the only noise I can make.
I watch Jeremy’s hands, beating against my dad’s wrist. Dad never budges, though, never lets up. His arm is straight and ruthless, holding my only brother under the water.
Mom’s arms squeeze me tighter. It’s getting even harder to breathe.
Seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi.
I count, even though time stopped moving. When I get to twenty Mississippi, I start over at one, start over for Jeremy, to give him more breath. To give him another chance. But he doesn’t use it. He can’t. His time already ran out. Like his breath did. I know it when I see his hands drop away. They fall into the water and float, like there’s nobody attached to them. Like my brother just . . . left.
Dad lets him go. Sort of pushes him out into the deeper water. Jeremy just drifts there, like he’s playing dead. Like he used to do when Mom took us swimming on summer afternoons when our father was at work.
I don’t watch Dad walk out of the lake. I don’t watch him walk across the yard. I don’t even look up when he walks through the back door. I just watch Jeremy, waiting for him to move, waiting for him to wake up.
“Get your purse. We’re going out to eat. The boys can have a sandwich here.”
Boys? Does that mean Jeremy’s okay?
I start toward the door, but Mom grabs me. “Jasper, be a good boy and get my purse for me, sweetie. It’s beside the front door.”
Her eyes are different. They look scared and they make me scared, so I just go get her purse and bring it to her like she asked. When I hand it to her, she takes it and pulls me against her. I feel her arms shaking and when she lets me go, she’s crying. But she’s smiling, too, like she’s not supposed to cry. None of us are supposed to cry.
“You sit right there in front of the television, okay? Don’t you move a muscle.” Her voice is warning me about something. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m afraid. She’s afraid, too.
“Okay.”
I turn on cartoons and sit on the couch until I hear Dad’s truck start. When I do, I get up and run as fast as I can, through the kitchen, out the back door and across the yard toward the lake.
It’s raining now and the grass is slick. I fall twice before I can get to the edge of the water. When I do, I holler at my brother.
“Jeremy!” He doesn’t move. He just floats on the surface like my green turtle raft does. “Jeremy!”
I look back at the house and then back to my brother. I know nobody can help me. Nobody will stand up to my dad. Not even my mom. If I don’t help Jeremy, he’ll die.
My hands are shaking and my knees feel funny when I step into the water. It’s so cold it stings my skin, like when I fell off my sled last winter and snow went up my pants leg. I couldn’t get it out fast enough. It was so cold it almost burned. But this time, I keep going no matter how much it hurts.
When the water is up to my chin and my teeth are chattering so hard I bite my lip, I think about turning back. Jeremy is so far away, I can barely see him and I can’t catch my breath enough to holler for him.
“J-J-Jer—” I try again.
I paddle out farther. My arms and legs weigh so much I can hardly move them through the water. It’s like trying to run in cold, thick soup. I fight to keep my chin up, gulping down the water that laps into my mouth.
I swim and swim and swim, watching the back of Jeremy’s head until he’s close enough for me to touch. It’s raining harder now. Big, fat drops are splattering on the back of my brother’s neck, and it’s running down my forehead and into my eyes.
I grab a handful of his dark hair and raise Jeremy’s face out of the water. His eyes are open, but they aren’t looking at me. They’re looking at something else, something I can’t see. I take his arm. It’s cold and feels kind of like that fish Dad brought home and made Jeremy skin.
My stomach hurts and my eyes burn. I feel like somebody’s squeezing me around the middle, squeezing me so hard I can’t even cry.
I take my big brother’s hand and I pull him toward me, toward shore. He floats pretty easy, so I swim a little and tug, swim a little and tug.
After a while, it gets harder and harder to move, harder and harder to keep my face above the water. The shore, the grass, the back door of my house . . . they’re all getting farther away, not closer. I’m scareder than I’ve ever been before. Even scareder than that time Jeremy made me watch The Evil Dead.
Jeremy seems heavy now, like he’s trying to drag me down every time I pull on him. “Swim, Jer, swim,” I mumble through a mouthful of water. “Please.”