“Well, something has changed, so a visit today would not be a bad idea if you have the time.”
“She seemed really together, honestly… she made me lemonade with fresh mint she’d picked. All the family albums were out. She had lots of questions about your grandmother, your mother, and Rita. She’s doing research, working on a family tree. Maybe that’s what she was calling you about?”
I was not going to debate Lexie’s mental state with Diane. “Just talk her into getting back on the meds again. If she gives you any shit, remind her how much she hates hospitals and that going down this no-meds path always lands her in one.”
“Will do.”
After we said our goodbyes, I pulled out my laptop to get caught up on my client notes for the week. I couldn’t focus. I kept thinking about Lexie learning the butterfly when she was ten years old and already an exquisite swimmer. That was what Gram said: Alexia, you are an exquisite swimmer.
When we were kids, Lexie was one of those people who excelled at whatever she tried. She made everything look easy: math, science, knitting, any sport or game she tried. She’d cook something, and it would turn out perfectly and our family would ooh and ahh and say how delicious it was even though she hadn’t followed the recipe at all. “You’re a natural,” our father would say, and my stomach would clench into a hard knot because Lexie was a natural at everything, while I struggled just to get by, to get passing grades, just to get noticed. My sister was everyone’s favorite: teachers, our parents, Gram, even our friend Ryan, who made no attempt to hide the fact that he’d been totally in love with her since he was eight years old. It was easy to love Lexie. To be caught up in her radiance.
Lexie mastered the butterfly like she mastered everything: by throwing herself into it and closing everything else off. She was in the pool, windmilling her arms, dunking her face, coming up for a breath, then going back down again. Gram had given her a Speedo swimming cap because that’s what swimmers in the Olympics wore, and Lexie claimed it made her faster. She had blue-tinted goggles on, too. I sat perched on the edge of the pool, watching. When she was in the water, she wasn’t like my sister at all. The Lexie on land was like a real butterfly, flitting from one thing to the next, staying focused only long enough to briefly excel, then growing bored and moving on. But when she swam, she was pure grace and focus. She’d lost track of time and had been in way over Gram’s thirty-minute limit. She didn’t seem to feel the cold. She didn’t seem to get tired.
My legs turned to pins and needles, but I sat with my eyes on my sister, transfixed.
Her face, arms, and chest rose out of the water, her legs working in perfect dolphin kicks. Her body moved like a wave, undulating. And I thought, watching her, that my sister wasn’t moving through the water, but that she was a part of it. And I was terrified—that she could slip away so easily, choosing the water instead of me, never looking back.
* * *
The phone rang a little after five o’clock.
“Hello?”
“Jackie?” It was Aunt Diane, and her voice sounded shaky.
I already knew it was about Lexie. She must have done something really stupid. When she was in college, she’d gone off her meds and then lined her dorm room with plastic and piped in water from the girls’ shower with a garden hose, doing twenty-thousand dollars’ worth of damage. Then, there was the time she went missing for three weeks and called from Albuquerque—
“Lexie’s gone.”
“Oh shit, did she leave any clues about where? Remember the time she—”
“Jackie… she’s dead.” Diane’s voice broke. “Lexie is dead.”
I’d misheard. That was it. Some wires in my brain got crossed and delivered the wrong message. I leaned back against the kitchen wall.
“I found her in the swimming pool.” Diane was sobbing, the words barely understandable. “I pulled her out, called 911. Terri and Ryan just got here.”
Terri was one of Diane’s oldest friends. Her mother, Shirley, had been Gram’s best friend. And Terri’s son, Ryan, was the only kid Lexie and I played with during our summers at Sparrow Crest. He was my first crush. I thought he was living down in South Carolina.
The room came in and out of focus. I felt like I was going to be sick.
“Can you come, Jackie?” Diane asked. “Right away?” More crying. “She was so cold. Naked. Her lips were blue. The paramedics couldn’t do anything. They said it looked like she’d been dead for hours. It was just like all those years ago with Rita. Oh, Jackie. Oh God!” she wailed.
I made my living hearing terrible things and always knew what to say, what needed to happen next. But now the floor seemed to ripple like water, and I slid down the wall, my legs giving out beneath me.
I closed my eyes and was back at the pool, watching Lexie practice the butterfly in her blue goggles and cap, watching her become her very own wave, the dark water swallowing her up.
I hung up, hands shaking, and ran for the toilet, throwing up until there was nothing left, then sank to the cold tiled bathroom floor and curled up, sobbing.
Behind me, the bathtub dripped, slowly and methodically, its own rusty metronome.
I tried to steady my breathing, control the short, jagged breaths.
Lexie couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.
Denial. Kübler-Ross’s first stage of grief.
I took in a breath, stood up, and looked in the mirror. My face was patchy, my eyes red and puffy. “Lexie is dead,” I said, trying to make the words seem more real. The tears came, blurring my reflection until my nine-year-old face looked back at me, reflected in the dark mirror of the pool.
What now? I asked Lexie.
Gram says the pool will give you wishes.
It was well past midnight, and she’d woken me up, dragged me down to the pool, breaking Gram’s rule. The night air was cool. I got goose bumps under my thin nightgown. The water was black as ever, chilling the air, smelling vaguely poisonous.
When did she tell you that? I scoffed, even as I imagined little Rita sneaking down to this same pool at night years ago.
Tonight, when she was having sherry. You were in the bath.
Gram was always sharing secrets with Lexie. Telling her things she would never tell me. Adults were often confiding in her—like Aunt Diane telling her about Gram’s agoraphobia. Treating her like she was so much older than she was. And Ryan loved to whisper secrets to her, too. I’d even caught him handing her little notes. Notes she just stuck in her pocket and never even read. It wasn’t fair.
Lexie put her face right against the water and started whispering. Her words were fast, determined, and sure. It sounded like she was chanting; repeating the same phrase over and over. I had no doubt that whatever she was asking for, she’d get it, because that’s how things always worked with Lexie.
I leaned down, too, so close that my breath left ripples on my reflection. I whispered: I wish that Lexie wasn’t always the special one. That she wasn’t the best at everything. That things were hard for her instead of always being so easy. I wish something bad would happen to her.
I blinked, and my adult face appeared again in the mirror. And there, just behind me, I was sure I saw my sister, her eyes sad and furious.