The river was dark and cloudy and spread across the valley like a stain. But nothing could make us stay out of the water, keep us from letting the tadpoles feast on our bare toes as we squelched through shoreline mud with our inner tubes slung over our shoulders, the black rubber baked nearly too hot to touch. We shrieked and squished until we could throw ourselves onto our tubes and kick free of the muck and weeds into clear water.
“Not too far!” Mama yelled from the back deck when we floated out past the tip of the neighbor’s dock after we’d finished inspecting each other’s legs for leeches and moved on to push-fighting—whoever slipped off their tube first was out until there was only one sister remaining, then the six of us in the water would have to “give her a ride,” spinning her tube faster and faster while she reclined with her head thrown back and her eyes closed—a queen, a dragon, a sun goddess.
“A muskie will come bite your toe off!” Mama called from her lawn chair, where she was working the crossword and keeping an eye on us. That was the warning that would make us paddle in, slowly, until we touched the hot metal post of the neighbor’s dock. We disembarked and pressed our bellies against the wooden slats, letting the sun warm our shivering bodies after immersion. We cupped our hands around our eyes to block the light so we could see through the sun-stabbed water beneath the dock looking for toe-biters. Last summer we’d seen a monster muskie pass beneath, all flash and motion and razor teeth. We searched for him every day long into autumn, until a thin patch of ice rimed the river’s lip.
Every summer Mama put the river house up for sale to see what she could get, and every year dozens of city dwellers bored with their vacations would come for a looky-loo, snaking around piles of wet swimsuits, half-drunk cans of Barq’s root beer and mountains of popsicle wrappers piled on the counter because no one remembered whose turn it was to empty the over-full trash. We would line up on the deck, swinging our legs out into empty space in the spot where the railing had rotted away, and stare, our mouths stained blue by Bomb Pops, while the prospective buyers asked Mama about square footage, termite protection, and easements. They would look at us, the dry rot, the dark water, and never return. But this summer was different. This summer Mr. Pike came back.
Mr. Pike had a quivering, pendulous belly, a walking stick, and a lazy eye so you were never sure who he was addressing when he spoke. He appeared in the guise of a vacation-home buyer, but he came back again and again, bringing Mama presents. A handful of fresh-picked violets he stole from the neighbor’s place, a sun-warm melon he plucked from a farmer’s field. Mama cooed over these ordinary offerings as if they were finest treasure. Some evenings, Mr. Pike would be there at our kitchen table while we devoured ears of sweet corn and garden tomatoes, and he’d still be there in the morning when we turned up for our cereal. Mama fussed, fixing him pancakes even though it wasn’t a weekend, and he accepted her attentions as if it was his right. We, already dressed for the day in our swimsuits, bolted our food and rushed to the water without waiting an hour.
When Mama got the sickness, she moved from the deck to the green vinyl recliner facing the TV. Mr. Pike picked the shows, presiding over the remote control while Mama shaded her eyes and complained of the light pouring in the south window. We came to detest the crunch of his tires on the gravel drive, his extravagant unfurling from his vehicle, the way he made a show of collecting his walking stick, straightening his tie, gathering the bags of pills and potions and herbal remedies he plied our Mama with. She no longer saw us floating farther and farther out of our bay, into the river’s main channel. Our oldest sister tried to take on Mama’s abdicated role. “Not too far,” she’d say, “A muskie will come bite your toe off.” But she was not up on the deck in a lawn chair, not a commanding guardian angel, and she too wanted to float farther, past the reaching shadows of trees to where the water brightened and we could watch our light-refracted arms churning below the surface, catch the flash of a sister’s thigh or ankle as she came up to kick the tube out from under you.
When Mama moved from the recliner to the bed, Mr. Pike turned his walleye on our oldest sister, twisting his head to follow her movements, parking himself at the kitchen table and making her wait on him while we set about fixing the dinner Mama wouldn’t eat. One evening, Mr. Pike stood behind our oldest sister at the kitchen sink, trapping her with his big belly while she, her hands shaking, filled his water glass.
The next day there was a snapping turtle.
Through all her years of watchful warnings, Mama never mentioned snapping turtles. That day, trying to escape the feel, the smell, the idea of Mr. Pike in the house, we drifted far from the dock, the farthest ever. Our oldest sister went farthest of all, letting her body dangle through her inner tube, her face turned to the sun. She yelped and shouted, “Something touched me!” She started to laugh and haul herself back onto her tube. Then she began to scream. By the time we’d pulled her up, she was dripping blood from four slashes across the bottom her foot, her little toe dangling by a strip of gristle.
The sight of blood drove Mr. Pike from his place at the kitchen table into his car and down the driveway. Mama snapped into action. She cut through the gristle with a fingernail scissors while oldest sister bit down on a dry washcloth. A middle sister and the youngest were ready with needle and thread, ointment and bandages. Later, Mama made her way to our bedroom with a glass of whiskey and an expired Percocet from the medicine cabinet. She sat down on the oldest’s bed. She made sister take the pill, and with much protest, drink the whiskey. As oldest sister was falling into a fitful sleep, Mama said, “Here’s a secret,” and slid off her loafer, revealing four soft toes.
After the amputation, Mr. Pike stayed away for two days. Mama was stronger, rousing herself to fix a hard-boiled egg and bring it to sister who was set up on the couch with her wrapped foot on the coffee table. She kept Mama company and kept her foot out of the river, away from the wrigglers and spirochetes that favored the muddy water trapped along the bank.
We were sprawled on the dock, bellies down, hands cupped around eyes, watching for our monster muskie when we felt the ka-thump, ka-thump of uneven steps across the boards. We looked up, shielding our eyes against the brightness, as our eldest sister lowered herself onto her rump, her bandaged foot sticking out in front of her, her good foot dangling in the water. “Pike’s back,” she said.
We each took our turn.
We fastened golden bracelets around our sisters’ ankles, painted their finger and toenails with glittery polish that sparkled above and beneath the waves. Our second eldest also lost a toe, one of the middle sisters a chunk of thigh flesh. The youngest sacrificed her pinky finger, but just the tip. We assured her it wasn’t so bad. With each loss, Pike stayed away a bit longer—two days, three days, four. But never a whole week. Never forever.
Bandaged, hobbling, we took a drastic step. In the humid air, bats swooping low to skim the water at dusk, we lit a fire at the water’s edge and passed the scissors around. We sliced off our summer braids and cast them into the flames. They blazed for a brief moment, but the smell lingered. We offered our sheared-sheep heads to Mama, crowding into her bedroom, but she was too far gone to notice, clasping our hands against her breast and murmuring words we couldn’t make out. Her skin was hot to the touch. She never opened her eyes.
Pike returned the next day. We stood, seven in a line, our shorn hair upright and gleaming in the morning sunshine. He stared, his good eye cocked at us through the windshield, and we stared back unmoving. He circled the drive and pulled away. He didn’t trouble us the next day or the next. We made Mama a dandelion tea, fed her bits of fish we caught off the end of the rocky point with our bamboo poles and worms dug from the flower patch all overgrown with lily-of-the-valley. We stayed out of the water.
On the third day, eldest sister, her foot healed into its new forever shape, walked the long driveway to fetch the mail we’d let pile up since Mama took to her bed. She returned bearing flyers and bills and the news that she’d seen Pike’s car on the paved road. He slowed when he passed our drive, but didn’t turn in.
We examined each other. The lost braids. The missing toes, earlobes, fingertips. Some of us had healed into new shapes and some were still mending. We’d started scrawny and ended less than. We had nothing left to give.
The next time we heard Pike’s tires crunch gravel, we set youngest as a lookout, and converged in Mama’s room. Second eldest painted Mama’s nine toenails, a middle sister painted her left hand, and the eldest painted her right. “He’s parking the car,” youngest called. “Don’t worry, Mama,” we told her. We fastened our bracelets around her ankles and wrists, pushed her rings back onto her fingers. “He’s getting out of the car,” youngest announced. “Come on, Mama,” we said. We lifted her off the bed. She was light as a feather now. We carried her out the back door onto the deck and down the wooden steps. Youngest sister caught up to us, panting. “He’s knocking on the door.” We brought Mama to the dock, where the inner tubes we’d lashed together were already floating. Four of us slid into the water to help guide Mama’s burning body onto the rubbery raft. Our wounded bodies welcomed the shock of cold, the mud, even the unseen floaters. This is our realm, our true home. Our hands reach up. Our voices soften to whispers. “Come on in, Mama. The water’s fine.”
