The barrel was slimy underneath with a dark green, slippery crust. Algae, I guessed. Like the green on the bottom rungs of the wooden raft’s ladder, the submerged ones.
A body at rest stays at rest, locked inside a wheelchair. But she could still use a walker; she still had good days. Mom had been sick so long now it was hard to remember her as healthy. Another tug in the nugget of my belly. A daughter can suck out mother energy, even through air. Day by day, her healthy body had seeped into mine. I was the sun-drenched barrel above the quarry’s surface; Mom, the guck-ridden part.
When I glanced back at the dock, I saw two women looking out at a seventeen-year-old girl hanging on to a metal barrel, her body strong from daily swims, her black Speedo clinging to her never-thin-enough tors
