Between Water and Sky by Elizabeth Erbeznik
We’re too old to catch crawfish with chicken bones and string. And the shore is too crowded for paddle ball. There’s only one raft and Dad says we have to share.
The lake is big, carved into mountains, but the beach is just a small strip of sand bordered by rocks. My brother and I have nothing to do, so we take turns blowing up the raft. Andy goes first and, when his breath comes in gasps, he passes the raft to me. I wipe the clear plastic tube with my towel before putting it into my mouth. Then new shapes appear with my breath.
Andy’s arms and shoulders are streaked with white where the sunscreen wasn’t rubbed in. The raft, my brother, the sand that sticks to my thighs: everything is embarrassing. That’s because you’re thirteen, Mom would say. But she’s not here to say it.
The sky is too bright for bare eyes; it hurts when I look up. Sunlight bounces off the lake and the mountains glow where the snow doesn’t melt. Dad reads under an umbrella and tries to make me wear his hat. But he knows that I don’t like baseball.
My head spins when I stand up from my towel. There’s too much light and not enough air. My throat stings with a dryness that smells like pine sap and bark. It’s the altitude, Dad says. Mountain air can only be sipped.
“I had no time to be young,” Mom said when she left us at Dad’s for the summer. She wants a fresh start with her new husband. This time, she promised, things will be different. Andy thinks this means she’ll make breakfast on weekends and drive us to soccer. He thinks she’ll act like other moms.
I wade into the lake and cold water burns my skin. Climbing onto a raft is embarrassing, so I keep my eyes closed until the swaying stops. My face and arms are baked by the sun, but my back sinks into snowmelt. My hair only looks good when it’s dry. I’m careful not to let it slip off the raft.
Our mom, we both know, will never be like other moms. She dropped us off and didn’t say when she’d come back to get us. She calls, sometimes, but only on Sundays.
The lake is deep and cold and it might be full of bodies. It was our new stepdad who told us about the mobsters who used to run the casinos. Somewhere, in the deep water, there could be hundreds of dead bodies, perfectly preserved and frozen in time. Dad snorts when we tell him. He says that by now these bodies would be bones, eaten by fish.
I adjust the straps of my bathing suit, then wait for the raft to still. Water laps against my legs and pools in the creases between plastic and skin. California is running out of water. Dad yells when we take long showers. He reminds us that there’s a drought and points to patches of dirt that used to be green. But it’s easy to forget the dried up lawns while floating on the lake.
Dad rubs more sunscreen onto Andy’s back. The shore is crowded, covered with bodies. Some are sunbathing. Some are hidden under hats or umbrellas. Everyone sits facing the lake, but almost no one goes in it. The water is too cold for swimming.
At the edge of the beach, kids lift up rocks to look for crawfish. Just past where they play, the beach ends in a pile of boulders. Perched on top, boys survey the water. They are browned by the sun but speckled with gold where sand catches light. They look old enough to be at the lake without parents. I’ve watched them watch me all day.
Andy waves from the shore. Sand sprays on my towel as he jumps up and down. He wants his turn on the raft.
The mountains are covered with trees and lots of the trees are dead. “Drought?” I had asked. “Beetles,” said Dad. Then he tried to make me put on a hat. Even though he knows I don’t like baseball.
The sun bites my skin, bronzed beyond the borders of my bathing suit. Tan lines, Mom would say. But she’s not here to say it.
The boys on the rocks look like they’re waiting. Their eyes circle the shore and land on my body like vultures.
There is snow on the mountains, above the tree-line. The lake is fed by snow, not rivers. The water hangs onto the memory of cold.
“That’s my sister.” My brother is talking to the boys on the rocks.
“She’s thirteen.” His voice is loud, embarrassing.
The vultures fly away. The burnished parts of me are almost red. I slip off the raft and into the water even though it’s too cold. It doesn’t matter if my hair gets wet, but someday it will. Right now, I’m only thirteen.
The raft weighs nothing as I float it to shore.
Elizabeth Erbeznik is an educator with a PhD in Comparative Literature. Her fiction has appeared in Best Small Fictions, Split Lip Magazine, EcoTheo Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Fiction Southeast, and Artwife. Originally from Northern California, she lives with her family in Austin, TX.
18 August 2023
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