Water Steps (3 page)

My bedroom had two bay windows. One faced west to look over a small stone courtyard between the driveway and an old stone shed. The other window faced north to a ring of shrubby trees not even big enough to hold a birdhouse, let alone a tree fort like mine. At least I couldn't see the lake. But the echoey bigness of the room made me kind of thin inside.

Even the closet was big enough for a bed. Big old houses with wood floors and echoey rooms had long histories. And histories hid ghosts. I didn't like it one bit. I had half a mind to dig out our tent and sleep outside in the woods to the east. I had my Camping Badge. Why not put it good use? I even started searching the boxes for my tent until I realized camping outside would probably mean I could hear
the waves lapping at the shore, threatening to flood. Scratch that plan.

Instead, I left Kippers to roam the house and Mem and Pep to unpack. I headed for the road we came in on, thinking I might find a mountain path I could map out for our Get With the Land project. Besides, heading for high ground sounded like a nice, dry way to spend the summer.

F
ire is the enemy of water. Flames can turn drowning waves into steam. I love fire. The quick flash and turn of the flames, the warming heat, and the way it burns the outer edge of marshmallows to a crunchy crust while warming the middles to a creamy mush, just perfect for s'mores. I love fire.

The fireplace in what Mem and Pep called “our lake home” had to be big enough to roast an elephant. So sitting there in front of the rumbling flames on our first night there, I felt safe. I loved the warmth on my tuckered-out toesies, the way the flames made the pine needles stuck in my clothes
smell up the room like a tree at Christmas, and the light patterns that flickered over the walls. Even Mem opening the lakeside windows to let out the heat and let in the cool night air didn't touch my cozy mood. And the sweet goo of s'mores made me feel even better.

Then Mem wrapped me up in a bed of knitted blankets by the fire. I nestled down to sleep with the taste of chocolaty marshmallows on my lips, which helped me keep my mind on the sooty logs crumbling, the ashes hissing. But the water started creeping in, lapping and rolling against rocks, raking at my nerves. I closed my eyes against the sound, hoping the crackle and pop of the flames would drown out the ugly sound of waves. But another sound broke in with a squawky kind of rhythm. Was it music from a beach house down the way?

No, it sounded like chirping or an animal kind of chortle. A dolphin? Was Mem playing another “sounds of the sea” CD to get me used to the sound of waves? I sat up to listen.

Nothing but the twittering of a mockingbird starting off its nightly songs in the tree at the corner of the house. Those waves sure played tricks with
sound. I burrowed down into my little nest of blankets and focused on the flames, hoping they could keep my mind off the water.

But fires die. And waves go on forever. They washed into my early morning dreams, spilling over the side of the tub in my mind's eye . . .
The shower is on too high. I sputter for air as I struggle to find the knobs to turn the water off. Waves keep crashing in, spraying me with water, pooling at my feet, then my ankles, then my knees. I fumble with the knobs, my hands wet and slippery. I can't get a grip to turn them.

“Kyna! Kyna!” Pep called to me from above like a voice from the clouds.

Turning my head, I could see him, his face wet, his mouth twisted up in fear.

“You're safe, sweet. It's all a dream. Just a dream.”

Feeling his legs along my sides, his arms around my chest, hugging me, I felt safe. “The tub was at
sea. The shower wouldn't turn off. The waves kept coming in!”

Pep nodded, rubbing my back. “It's all gone now. You're dry and safe here in the living room.”

“But you're wet.” I reached up and touched his spiky wet hair.

He sniffled. “Sorry, sweet. We went for a morning swim. Shouldn't have left you alone.”

I wanted to melt. Mem and Pep loved water more than I loved fire, even more than I loved s'mores. Sometimes, I wondered if they loved it more than me. That's why they made me take water steps. Made me spend the whole summer by a lake. So they could go swimming any time they wanted. My melting feeling turned to flaming anger.

I spun around to get on all fours. “Is that why we're here?” I shoved my blankets aside. “So you can swim? No more scaly skin from too much chlorine. No need to pack up and head to the Y. You can just dive on in!”

Pep held his breath for a second, then folded his arms and legs in front of him. “And what if that were so?”

“You know I hate the water. You know I do!” I shook from the inside.

“And your mem and I love it.”

“More than me?” I whispered.

He closed his eyes, then got to his knees in front of me. “Kyna, no man can love a thing as he loves his daughter.” He put his hand over my heart. “I just wish you and I could love the same things.”

“I won't go swimming with you, Pep. Never.”

“
Never
's an ugly word that closes the mind to wonderful things.” He kissed me on the forehead, then stood up. As he headed toward the kitchen, he changed the subject as fast as he switched rooms. “They've got a farmer's market in town. Shall we buy enough vegetables to make the rabbits jealous?”

“And enough fruit to make the monkeys fall from the trees,” I added, knowing what he'd say next. Pep was trying to cheer me up. But I felt stuck. Mem and Pep wanted me to change. Become someone else. Someone who could swim. Wasn't plain old me enough?

I heard a door open and close on the lake side of the house. Pep headed in that direction as Mem called out, “The air's full of bees making the
flowers spread! Who's up and ready to admire their handiwork?”

Pep spoke, but I couldn't hear him. Mem let out a mournful, “Oh.”

I snuck closer to listen in.

M
em and Pep spoke Irish in quick chirpy bursts like birds fighting over the same feeder. I could've sat in their mouths and still not understood what they said. Mem and Pep wouldn't teach me Irish, asking what half-sane parent would give up a secret language? And I've never found a library or a bookstore with Irish language tapes. So their language stays a secret, just like their past.

When I ask to hear about her Irish childhood, Mem says, “Weren't nothing in my childhood but a bunch of swimming and we all know how you love to hear about swimming.” She'll bug out her eyes and blow out her cheeks to make a fish face.
And I laugh. But I still want to know. Did she have brothers and sisters? Live in a little town with cobblestone streets and wandering sheep like you see in the movies?

Once, I asked if they had childhood pictures I could see and Pep said, “Do you like feet? How about sky? Lots of sky? Or maybe you favor bits of mashed up colors? Those are the kinds of pictures my family took. You'd think they'd never touched a camera in their lives.”

Mem sputtered out a laugh, saying, “Our family pictures got dropped in a pond.”

And when I tried to ask who dropped them or who took those sky-feet pictures, Mem and Pep would change the subject like they always did. Just like that day at the lake house, we went from me wondering who they loved better, me or the water, to plans for a trip to the farmer's market in town.

Mem and Pep did their quick change act, then showed up in shorts and sun hats. “Ready for a trip into town?” Mem asked, setting her hat straight.

A trip to town might not be bad. I could see if they had a good camera store. Might find a new camera bag fit for hiking in the mountains. “How far's this town from the lake then?”

“Oh, a good few feet.” Pep squinted in thought.

“Even the town's on the lake?”

“It's a big lake.”

Mem added, “Governor of Vermont tried to get it declared a Great Lake,” as she herded me out the door.

“Can't we go to the mountains for the day? A good hike to give our lungs a stretch?”

“After you learn the backstroke.”

I skidded to a stop in the gravel drive. “Never!”

“Just remember, that's what they said about people learning to fly,” Pep said as he opened the car door.

Why did I always get the feeling my parents had learned a thing or two from the Pied Piper about luring children into doing things they didn't want to do?

Not only was Plattsburgh on the lake, but Pep said the farmer's market was only feet from the shore. I waited on the hood of the car and shouted my orders in. “Buy some watermelon! And cherries. Do they have cherries?” Everyone stared at me. But not Mem and Pep. No, they just kept shopping, picking up melons and smelling them like the out-of-towners they were. Who smells fruit?

But I had to admit that the way the lake played with the sun and sent raindrops of light onto the fruit
made me wish I could sneak a little closer and take a picture. The drops of light, the bright fruity colors of green, yellow, and red—it'd make a great picture for the fair. Why didn't they get me a zoom lens for Christmas like I'd asked?

“What, and have you tip over?” Pep had teased. “Those things weigh half as much as you do.”

Pep had what I called the diversion tactic approach to parenting. First he tried to distract me with his sense of humor. Making me laugh so I didn't realize I'd gotten a knitted jumper (that's Irish for sweater) for Christmas, again. Then he'd try tricky little trades to make me take another water step. If I'd actually washed my hair in the shower by the first of December, he'd have bought me that zoom lens I asked for.

He was a real trickster all right. But he wouldn't trick me into liking that stupid lake. But that didn't keep him from trying. He turned to me with bananas for ears, but I didn't laugh. I wouldn't laugh no matter what kind of fruit he put on his head.

“Taking pictures of the shoppers?” some kid asked me, his hair looking like he used a clam shell to comb it.

“No.”

He looked to the market, then to me. “Then why are you sitting over here?”

Thinking of Pep and his feet-sky pictures, I took a snap of the sky. “Better view of the clouds over here.”

The kid pulled himself up on the hood of the car like it was nothing more than a neighborhood fence, then said, “The townies treat me like I've got cooties.” He hung his head, then sat up real quick, shouting,

“But I don't!”

Hey, he didn't have to tell me about feeling like an outsider. The kids in my class think I'm a total camera geek. Not to mention my whole water problem.

He nodded to the camera and pulled me out of my little self-pity party. “You pretty good with that thing?”

“Good enough.” I shrugged. Call me kooky, but I get all nervous around other kids in the summer. They always want to go swimming and stuff. If they ask me to go, then they find out I'm nothing but a big sissy. It's like being the only kid at a slumber party who's still afraid of the monsters under the bed.

“Can you take pictures at night with it?” He leaned in to have a look, like he could see if the camera might be able to do such a thing.

“Maybe. But it takes special film.” I didn't like the
can-I-borrow-that?
look on his face. Nobody used my
camera. It's as important to me as swimming is to Mem and Pep. Like breathing.

I pulled my camera away, but he just leaned back on the hood and changed the subject. “Yeah, I was all excited about having a lake house until I got a load of the beaches here—more rocks than sand. Going barefoot's out. You've got to wear boat shoes. Or should I say, ‘rock shoes'?”

He smiled at me to wait for a laugh. When none came, he said, “Was it a long drive for you? We live near Pittsburgh, so it takes a day to get here.”

He had that fishing-for-a-friend kind of stubbornness. Maybe if he didn't like the beaches, he wouldn't ask me to go swimming. I decided to see what he had in mind. “We live in a small town called Perryville, near Scranton.”

“My grandparents live here. Our lake house is on their land.”

I imagined that the boy and his family lived in a cozy cabin by the water and his grandparents lived in a nice big place on the hill among the trees, where they just had to look at the water. They'd have warm log walls and a big fireplace. They'd cuddle together on the couches at night with afghans the grandmother knitted and they'd tell stories by the fire. I'd like to do
that myself if we could leave out anything that can fly, guide ships, or grant wishes.

“Can I meet your grandparents?”

“Sure.” The boy nodded, his cowlick waving at me. “They're over there picking out veggies for a stew.” He pointed to the other end of the market, just feet from the water.

Just the idea of being that close to the lake chilled my bones. I turned away. “Maybe later.”

“We're neighbors, you know.”

“Really?” Might not be a bad thing, especially if he was keen on hanging out in the woods around our place. I might be able to get some good shots of forest critters, especially if I got some night film—raccoons, possums, maybe even a fox. Or better yet, an owl in flight. We could build a camera post in the trees and I could get an owl spread-wing with its great yellow eyes all aglow. Beat that, Gaylen Parker.