“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 tosay, 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.
How could you?
And I understood, in those blurry seconds, that there are no secrets from the dead.
chaptertwo
Ethel O’Shay Monroe
June 8, 1929
Lanesborough, New Hampshire
