What I Thought Was True

Chapter Thirty

“Okay, buddy. The big one. You ready?”

I’m not.

Em has his toes curled over the edge of the raft, poised to jump. He’s not wearing his life jacket, just has one of those overly bright, puffy foam swimming noodles looped under his armpits. His reflection looms over the water. Like me and Nic last night, swaying over the unknown.

But this is not me or Nic. This is Em.

Cass and I have already debated the wisdom of this three times during the walk down to the beach. Two more as we swam out to the raft, Emory’s slight arms looped around Cass’s neck, me pulling up the rear with the noodle and all my worries. We walked down the hill, debating, towing the wagon, Emory calm and collected, narrating the landmarks of the journey for Hideout, Fabio proudly aboard, head raised, like a dignitary at a motorcade.

Even when we hit the beach, I’m still arguing that Em’s not ready yet to make that big leap, not without something that’ll definitely, completely keep him above water—preferably something Coast Guard–approved. Cass saying he’ll have something to hold him up, but it’ll be in Em’s own hands, his control, that that’s important psychologically, repeating, “I know this stuff. Trust me, Gwen.”

“I’m not sure Em gets psychologically, Cass. He doesn’t think like that.”

Saying my brother’s limitations out loud feels like betraying him. We’ve always been careful not to, as if that story wasn’t ours to discuss either, what he can’t do, what he may never be able to do.

“Ready. Sssset,” Em says, his brow crinkled in concentration, poised on the edge of the float. I grab the end of the noodle. Clearly not the solution. Cass gives me a raised eyebrow, peels my fingers gently from the yellow foam.

I look down at the water. So flat and green and clear I can see the ripples of the sand far below, crabs scuttling around, eel grass. I sigh. And stand back. Emory takes a deep breath, flips his hair back exactly the way Cass does, studies the water with Cass’s focused frown. He’s been studying more than just Cass’s swim moves.

“Low tide. No surf,” Cass says, close to my ear. “If you trust the water, it holds you up. We’re both here. This’ll be fine.”

He counts down as Emory takes a deep breath, squints, concentrating hard on the water. “It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s . . .”

My little brother has the noodle clamped tightly under his arms, ends sticking out on either side like wings, his eyes serious, focused on the horizon. He turns and flashes me a grin, a broader one at Cass, then shouts, “It . . . I . . . Superman!” He launches himself, rockets into the world with a squeal.

And he is fine. Bobbing up a second later, shaking the water out of his hair.

Giggling. He throws his arms out in a Victory V, which sends him sinking below the surface again. Then pops back up, still laughing, and starts heading for us.

I make a move toward the edge of the float, Cass catches my elbow. “He can do it himself.”

He can. Em kicks in that overly splashy way little kids have, spiraling his arms back to the wooden ladder, anchoring it with his feet, clambering up. He splats the noodle onto the float, unself-conscious, confident. “I Superman,” he repeats, the S sound coming out perfect, beaming, showing every one of his teeth.

Em jumped off and swam back to the raft at age eight— just like Nic, Viv, Cass, and me. The only milestone he’s hit exactly on time.

Cass relaxes now, tension I didn’t even read before suddenly gone, tan legs hooked over the pier, dangling toward the water, slanting back on his elbows. Emory does the same, kicking his feet, splish, splash, smiling from ear to ear.

I take in a long deep breath, as though I’m about to jump into the water myself. But instead, I look at my brother, lying flat on the float now, little-boy straight, arms against his sides, still grinning. I look at Cass, eyes tipped closed, drinking in the sunlight. It glimmers off his hair and the drops of water on his shoulders. From here, if you look far to your right, you can make out the shadow of Whale Rock, the long grass that leads up to the Ellingtons’, the curve of Seashell around the bend of the island to where you can’t see anymore.

Where you look. When you leap.

More to life than mastodons.