“Is it cold?” she asks.
“No,” we tell her. This is both true and false. Though the water doesn’t feel cold to us, we know it will to her. But I also believe she’ll like it once she gets over the initial jolt. So this is a half-truth, combined with a white lie, which doesn’t seem so bad.
“Is it safe?” she asks. “Are there sharks?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” we tell her. This, of course, is not an answer. We have no idea whether there are sharks. Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it until my mother asked, and now I’m a bit concerned myself.
But she’s convinced. She puts aside her magazine, hat, and sunglasses. She brushes the sand off her legs, which seems silly since she’s about to go in the water. From our towels, Dean and I cheer her on as she tiptoes across the hot sand and lets the water brush across her ankles. Her shoulders rise at the chill, but she doesn’t stop to chide us. She pushes on, steering between two sets of breaking waves, toward a bluer channel where the water is calmer. In a moment she is submerged past her shoulders and swimming.
“Wow, she’s really going for it,” says Dean.
We realize something is wrong. My mother’s head is barely above the surface, and her arms aren’t stroking but waving, then thrashing. She’s moving quickly out to sea through the narrow channel between the waves.
“What’s happening?” says Dean, his voice rising. “What’s she doing?”
At my silence, he runs off toward a lifeguard tower that seems impossibly far away. I stand alone, frozen, and watch in horror as my mother gets smaller. My mind goes utterly blank. Fear has swollen my heart near to bursting when suddenly a black shadow under the water approaches my mother from the side. I’m afraid it’s a shark, but when it bumps against her, she doesn’t react. The shadow stays with her, pushing her sideways until she’s out of the channel and among the waves. Her outward drift stops. Her head rises. Slowly, haltingly, the waves carry her back toward the shore. It was the monster, I realize. The shade from my bedroom. The monster saved my mother’s life.
By the time my father reaches us, my mother is sitting on the beach, wrapped in towels, shaking with cold and fear. She stares silently at the sand between her feet. She hasn’t spoken, not even to respond to our efforts to help. When my dad arrives, Dean and I talk over each other, trying to explain what happened. In my distress, I forget my vow.
“The monster saved her,” I say.
My father stiffens. Dean abruptly stops his jabber. My mother’s head jerks toward me, her eyes wide, almost baleful. My heart stutters, and I suddenly feel cold.
“That’s not funny, Elliot,” she snaps.
My voice is small. “But I saw it.”
Dean glares at me. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“You weren’t there!” I yell.
“Because I was going for help!”
“That’s enough,” says my father, instantly ending the argument. He draws me aside, away from Dean and my mother. “Elliot,” he says, “Mom was caught in a rip current. That’s what was pulling her out. It happens all the time. Okay?” When I don’t respond, he rubs my shoulders. “You know what?” he says. “When we get back home, we should work on your baseball. You like baseball. You’re looking forward to little league, aren’t you? You could be a great baseball player.”
I do like baseball. I am looking forward to little league. That my dad believes I could be a great player cheers me. That he wants to help me warms me even more.
“What do you think?” he asks.
My body begins to unclench. I nod.
“Good,” he says.
I look over at my mother. She is still shaking, still staring at the sand between her feet. “Mom’s so angry,” I say.
“She’s just scared,” says my father. “She’ll get over it.” His hands fall from my shoulders. “Still, if I were you, I’d keep this monster stuff to myself.”
After
After you die, you find yourself in a room with a single door—though, admittedly, the room is not a room, and the door is not a door, but, well . . . Anyway, there you are, in a room with a single door, waiting. You are not sure for what or whom, until the door opens and Jollis enters. Of course, you think—you were waiting for Jollis. He carries a pencil and clipboard, as well as a professional air that, when he sees you, melts into a warm smile. He collects himself quickly, however, regaining his businesslike demeanor before proceeding to the body.
You hadn’t noticed the body until now. It lies on a table in the center of the room. It is your body, the one from which you just departed, the one in which you lived your life. It is exactly as it was—or, rather, exactly as you last left it, since it started out much different, and kept changing along the way. Most of those transformations—good or bad—just happened. Bones lengthened, muscles expanded (later, bones contracted and muscles shrank). You remember outgrowing your clothes as a child, and years afterward when your hair started to thin. Other changes, of course, were self-inflicted. That bit at the end, for example.
Once beside the table, Jollis pauses. He gazes upon the body with a deep wistfulness that blends into admiration, even reverence. You find this odd. You yourself can’t recall ever looking at your body that way. Jollis must be half-blind, you think, or at least terribly nearsighted. He seems oblivious to those particular features of the body that caused you so much grief. The length, for one, wasn’t what you would have liked. And that nagging softness around the middle was hardly ideal. The teeth might have been straighter and whiter. You could go on, but somehow these things don’t provoke you the way they once did. It’s as if you can now view your body—your former body—through Jollis’s eyes, and you like what you see.
Jollis shakes himself from his reverie. He reaches toward the body’s head to gently tap the brain itself. At his touch, it begins to emit a stream of light that flows into the room and beyond.
“What’s that?” you ask.
“Your memories,” says Jollis.
You lean in for a closer look. You discover that this incandescent river is made up of individual filaments of light, innumerable and very fine. Various scenes play out along the fibers, full of faces and moments you recognize, but just as often including ones you don’t.
“Are you sure these are mine?” you ask. You point out specific strands. “I don’t think I did that. Or that. And I can’t believe I ever said that.”
“Whose else would they be?”
“But I don’t remember them.”
Jollis nods sympathetically. “You will.”
Satisfied that the memories are flowing smoothly, Jollis raises his clipboard and begins flipping through pages. Each page contains the same preprinted checklist—tiny lettering compressed into tight columns—but with a different name at the top. Beside each line item is a small checkbox. Though Jollis turns the pages quickly, you notice that a great many of the boxes have been marked—typically with an X or a check, but often with an exclamation point, or a smiley face, or some less evident notation. Finally, Jollis comes to a clean, unmarked page. Your name is at the top.