Page 86 of The Wild Beneath

“I know you won’t go to the beach,” Evan says as they stand together on deck, “but do you want to try it?”

She does.

Annie leans into him. How does he still smell like home?

She visits the pool a dozen times that month. Each time, she stands on the edge, fully clothed and with shoes on.

The memory of Walker’s sweet sound will not let go.

It is mostly the vacant, middle-of-the-night hours when she cannot rid herself of it. He visits in nearly every dream, carrying the backdrop of never-ending sea. They are not peaceful dreams, for there are currents she cannot not pass, eddies and whirlpools and boulders in the way, then silence like a graveyard. Every night the same.

It’s too much.

Annie conjures a cement box in her mind. She imagines every single corner, each crack. She crafts a snug lid to seal it off. Every time she thinks of that sound, she stops herself. She imagines putting a lid on the box, walking away from it.

She dumps the jam jar of seawater down the toilet.

It’s the only way to inch forward. It’s easier to pretend it never existed. Any of it—not just the spell that Walker seemedto cast, but also her childhood on the sea, a longing for that life that feels so chasmic it makes her weepy. It’s easier to put it behind her, start this new thing.

This new life.

When she finally gets the nerve, she tucks her clothes into a metal locker with a combination lock. She dangles her toe in the water, before lowering herself into the deep end. The water creeps up her torso, toward her neck.

She freezes.

She needs to get out. Right now. Her mind wrestles back and forth—­yes or no? Go or stay? She must try; she’s here in the water, and she’s okay so far. Isn’t she? This moment is okay. She wants to try.

“I can do this.” She says it out loud, to make it real. She clings to the edge of the pool, her knuckles white. Closing her eyes, she takes a hesitant gulp of air and submerges.

It’s been months since she was underwater. A clarity rushes up. Her skin feelsalive, like it’s waking from a long nap. She doesn’t have to work to quiet anything. The hushed silence.

She releases her hold on the edge and floats across the narrow swimming lane.

By the end of March, Annie adheres to the rhythm of days like a metronome. If she got offbeat, she’s not sure she could find the pace again. Each morning, she wakes to the painfully loud beeping and red light of the alarm clock.

Swimming is now the only thing she desires. After the pool, before a crammed day of schoolwork, she visits Ruth. Despite a brief stint out of hospital and into the temporary housing, she’s been admitted again with another bout of pneumonia.

Today, Ruth is sitting up on the edge of the bed. Her blue eyes are clear and bright. As a child, Annie would look into the pools of Ruth’s eyes and think she could see the future, as if she were a fortune teller.

“What are you learning this week?” Ruth asks. Her voice does sound stronger, doesn’t it? Annie smiles, relaxing her belly muscles.

“Anatomy.”

“Oh. I loved that. If only we’d brought myNetter Atlasalong.” There’s lightness in her voice; she almost seems like her old self.

One year, when Annie was about fifteen, her dad brought Ruth’s anatomy atlas with them when they sailed south. Annie was fascinated by the nervous system; the way the nerves looked like tree branches, a narrowing infinity of channels, an invisible internal mapping. She didn’t realize it at the time, but so much of what her dad taught her was related to his medical training.

“You seem better today,” Annie says.

“My vitals are normal. Bloodwork is better.” Ruth coughs lightly. “I’ll be able to come home soon.”

Except it won’t be home. It will be this city, its metallic odour and crosshatch of roads, the dull pallor of concrete.

“I miss being home-home.” Annie’s voice quivers. “Our real home.”

“Maybe you’re thinking too much about it,” Ruth says.

“I’ve tried to stop thinking about it.” Annie’s eyes brim with tears. She shouldn’t start down this road, remembering things. It’s risky and it only leads to more crying.