The Summer of Letting Go

by Gae Polisner

  I glance at the cabanas.

  Nothing.

  Which means my work here at the Hamlet Dunes Country Club pool is done.

  I head back to my chair to gather my things to leave, but change my mind and walk decisively to the pool’s edge and sit, knees bent to my chest. What do I have to rush home to?

  I dunk one leg in, then the other.

  Breathe.

  I move my feet in small circles, making the water spin inward like liquid tornados. I could get caught in them, let them suck me under. One more chance to disappear.

  I lean forward and sink my arms in, nearly up to my elbows. At least a third of me is technically in the water. I close my eyes and hold them there, letting the goose bumps prickle and the memories of my baby brother slip in.

  eight

  It’s the beginning of summer, the middle of June. Mom calls a beach day, and we load all the stuff into the car.

  Simon and I sing in the car. “The Wheels on the Bus,” “Five Little Speckled Frogs,” and “Bunny Foo Foo,” which cracks him up.

  Even though the air is bright and warm, when we reach the beach, the wind blows up hard and I shiver. Simon and I both have sweatshirts on. My hair whips my face, strands sticking to my lips and my eyelashes. The sand stings my ankles and calves. Simon runs ahead, nearly tripping in his not-yet-broken-in sandals.

  “Let’s stay back here for a bit,” Mom says when we reach the soft, hot part of the sand. The ocean glistens before us.

  We stop and shake the blanket out. Simon sits in the center to hold it in place, and I run back toward the dunes to collect the large rocks we use to keep the corners pinned down. By the time I get back, Simon has wandered off, desperate to get digging already.

  “Simon, give me one minute, for Pete’s sake!” Mom is exasperated because Simon always has the patience of a flea. She’s rifling through her giant straw beach bag, the one with the colorful woven flowers. She retrieves suntan lotion, arm floaties, books, and the plastic container she prepared full of watermelon balls, cut strawberries, and green grapes, like a magician pulling scarves from a hat.

  “But Fwankie and me are making sand castles!” Simon calls out. He stops a few feet away and waits for me to catch up.

  “It’s okay, I’ll take him.” I grab hold of his small, chubby hand and walk where he pulls me.

  I’m good like this—always eager to help with Simon, to keep him from breaking into tears. He’s a big fat baby, my brother, but I adore him. It took Simon so many years to get here, way longer than Mom wanted, so she calls him her “gift” when she talks to her friends about him.

  “Watch him, Frankie!” Mom says. “I’ll come when I get us set up over here.”

  “Okay!” I call back, but I don’t need her help, which is good, because by the time Simon and I pick a spot to dig, she’s lying next to Dad, face-planted, sleeping.

  Simon and I park ourselves close enough to the water that, on his side, the ground is damp and easily packed, but far away enough that, across from him, my feet wiggle in hot dry sand.

  I start the castle by dragging sand from the base up, pressing and patting with my hands. Simon works on carving out the moat. As we work, the sun gets stronger and the breeze from the water quiets down. I unzip my sweatshirt and toss it in the sand. Simon copies me, tossing his navy blue one with the green, rubbery iron-on of Kermit the Frog next to mine. The kid is obsessed with frogs.

  “Don’t need Kuhmit now, wight?” He pronounces Kermit and stuff weird like that because he still can’t pronounce his R’s. Mom corrects him, but I secretly love how it sounds.

  “Right,” I say, and he gives me one of his giant, proud smiles.

  We go back to piling and packing and digging. I’ve already got a pretty cool castle going, and Simon has a reasonable start to the moat, although on my side, where the sand is drier, the walls keep collapsing.

  “We need some wetter sand, Pie Man,” I say, because sometimes I call him Pie Man the way Dad calls me Beans. “If I put wet sand on it, it won’t fall down so much.”

  I lean across and shovel some of the brown sugar sand from his side into my bucket, then drag it around to use at the base. Simon walks over and watches. I show him how to pack it tight with our hands to keep the castle walls from sliding down.

  “ ’Kay, I do it,” he says, and copies me.

  Soon the moat goes all the way around our castle. Simon sticks his arm in to measure, and it disappears up to his elbow. He smiles at me again, and I see a lightbulb go on in his eyes. He pulls his arm out and holds his pail to me.

  “Want to fill it with water, Fwankie?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  He takes my hand and we walk together to the water’s edge. The waves crash up and freeze our ankles and shins. Simon shrieks and lets go and runs up the shore, but I like how the water feels on my feet, so cold that it nearly numbs my toes.

  Simon comes back. We fill his pail and head up the beach, and he dumps the water into the moat. It fills momentarily, then bubbles back down into the sand.

  “Hey!” He knits his brow, annoyed. “We need more now, Beans, see?”

  I try to explain that the sand probably won’t let it stay filled long because it has holes in it and the water will keep sinking away. But Simon doesn’t believe me, or doesn’t understand, so I keep going back for more with him.

  After three more trips, and three more buckets of water that absorb quickly back into the sand, he finally seems to get it and agrees to give up on the plan. “It’s okay without it. Really,” I tell him. “We can just pretend.”

  We dig and build some more, but I’m getting hungry now. I glance over to the blanket where Mom and Dad are asleep on their stomachs, Mom’s arm draped across Dad’s back. I don’t want to wake them, but my stomach’s growling.

  “Wanna get shells with me, Pie Man?”

  “No.” He grunts with effort, his arms buried down in the sand. “Finishing this moat.”

  “Okay, you want grapes? I’m going to go get some.”

  “Yes, gwapes, want some, Beans.”

  I walk backward for a while, watching him, making sure he stays put, head down, blond curls shining in the sun. Finally, I turn and walk toward my parents, stopping periodically to pick up shells that catch my eye.

  My favorites are the reddish-pink ones that look like pleated fans, or the shimmery yellow or peach jingles, or the mini spiral whelks, when you can find them. Once I found a starfish, which was rare. But what I really want to find is a sand dollar, the flat white shells with the five-pointed star-flower made from teardrop holes.

  Mom says that sand dollars are magic because the star stands for the Star of Bethlehem, the flower for the Easter Lily, and the five petals for God’s fingerprints. If I find one, I’ll give it to her as a present.

  I kick at the sand because I know the best ones get buried, and I sing a song that Mom taught me, which pops into my head:

  There’s a lovely little legend

  That I would like to tell,

  Of the birth and death of Jesus

  Found in this lowly shell.

  On one side the Easter Lily,

  Its center is the star

  That appeared unto the shepherd

  And led them from afar.

  I can’t come up with the rest of the verses, so I just sing those two, wishing I could remember my favorite part about the peaceful five white doves.

  When I reach the blanket, I step over Mom’s legs and grab the plastic container from her bag that holds the fruit we cut up this morning. She rolls over, looks up at me groggily, squinting in the sun, then rolls back, slinging her arm across Dad again. I quickly search her bag to see if there’s anything else good hidden, a surprise she didn’t tell us about earlier, like Goldfish or homemade cookies. When I don’t find anything, I start back with the fruit toward Simon.

  Except Simon isn’t there.

  He’s not at our castle where I left him.

  First, I think
maybe I got turned in the wrong direction, so I look the other way down the beach, but that’s not right, so I turn back, my eyes darting frantically toward the water.

  Which is where he is, bending to scoop water with his pail.

  “No, Simon!” I yell as he dodges a large wave that crashes along the shore.

  Except, of course, he can’t hear me. I stand frozen another second because I’m mad, but then I don’t have time to be mad, because the next thing I know, another wave comes in, and Simon is down, and his body disappears under the water.

  I break into a run, watching for the next wave to cough him up, deliver him back onto land, but that one and the next one smash in empty-handed.

  “Siiiimonnnn!”

  I drop the fruit and dash into the surf as fast as I can. The coldness shocks me, but there he is! His small head pops up against the inky backdrop of another rising swell.

  I fight the tug of the current, the vicious waves that trip me up and pull me flailing into the water after him.

  His head surfaces again—thank God!—and I try to push toward it, but he disappears quickly under. I struggle and wait, getting my footing back before the next wave crashes in. I watch for his head to resurface so I know where to go, but it doesn’t, he doesn’t, and then there’s nothing but roiling water.

  • • •

  I open my eyes and stare at the empty lifeguard stand where Peter Pintero still hasn’t returned, and keep them open to stop the rest of the images from coming. It’s the last part that’s the most unbearable, the part I’d like to erase most. But then, as always, I close my eyes again and let it come, because I deserve it.

  And there’s really no stopping it, anyway.

  • • •

  I wait, blinking, wondering where to move forward, to swim, but I can’t see Simon, and the waves fight me, knocking me back to shore.

  Something clamps around my arm, my waist, dragging me away. I kick at it because I need to go get Simon. But it’s my father who has me, and his voice is screaming, “Stop, Frankie, stop! Let me go!”

  He’s stronger than the water, and he pulls out of reach of the biggest waves and shoves me toward shore. Toward where my mother is collapsed in the surf.

  I sit next to her, silent except for her sobs, and stare at the water that’s taken my brother away.

  It seems like forever that my father is out there, but I don’t want him to come back, not until he’s got Simon. But I do want him to come back, because all I can hear are my mother’s wails, and I’m scared to be left alone with her.

  Finally, Dad swims back empty-handed. Mom rushes toward him, throws her body into the water, pounds her fists against the waves. She’s screaming, “No, no, no!” and for a split second, I think the water will envelop her and take her away from me, too.

  But it doesn’t have to. Trust me, she’s already gone.

  • • •

  “Hey, Schnell, you deaf?”

  I whip my head around. Peter Pintero’s at the back door of the club, motioning wildly for me to come. Still, I point to myself in question.

  “Yes, you, who else? I’ve been calling you for ten minutes!”

  It’s hard to resurface from the memories, but slowly everything comes back into focus. I walk toward Peter at the door. Did he rat on me?

  Peter yells again. “Seriously, Schnell, I don’t have all day! You’re wanted inside, pronto!”

  “I’m coming. I’m coming,” I say.

  I pass Mrs. Merrill’s cabana, second-to-last, the end closest to the rear entrance of the club. Cabana #2. There’s no sign of life in there. Either I missed her coming out or she’s napping, or dead, inside.

  When I reach Peter, I don’t like the look on his face. Smug, like he’s happy to see me get hanged. Then again, he’s the one who let me in here. I could take him down, too, if I wanted.

  “What’s up?” I try not to sound guilty or scared.

  “Search me. I don’t ask questions. You’re wanted inside, is all. Mr. Habberstaad’s office. First door over there, left corner.” He waves me through. I walk quickly, not looking back, trying to keep my mind from freaking.

  “That’s it,” he calls when I stop at the dark wooden door, gold nameplate, black engraved letters: H. HABBERSTAAD. “Just knock. He asked for you. And good luck. Dude owns this place, you know.”

  nine

  “Ah, young lady, come in. I’d like to have a word with you.”

  My knees shake, but I manage to propel myself forward to where Mr. Habberstaad sits behind a dark, ornate wooden desk. He’s a big man, in his sixties maybe, balding, red-faced, jowly neck, bulbous chin. He points for me to sit down.

  On his desk is a lunch tray—not an ugly, plastic, school cafeteria one, but a fancy, black, lacquered one with a silver dome that keeps stuff warm set off to the side. On the tray are a triple-decker sandwich (half eaten), a paper cone of French fries in a spiraled wire stand, and a glass of what looks like pink lemonade with a blue paper umbrella poking out the top. A second orange umbrella lies mangled in the corner of the tray.

  He pulls the blue umbrella out of the lemonade and shakes it at me as he sips, then says, “I hate these damned things, don’t you?”

  I nod my head, even though I don’t know if I mind them at all.

  He narrows his eyes at me, and mine shift to the large picture window behind him that looks out over the pool area and cabanas. He must have seen me sitting there. My mind scrambles for information, specifically, whether I’ve ever learned the penalty for trespassing on private property. Will he call my parents or just the cops? Because, seriously, my parents are the far worse option. I cannot explain to my mother why I am here.

  I race through my alibi—Michelle Greenhut . . . stomachache . . . just waiting for my mother to come pick me up—and start to stammer it, but Mr. Habberstaad waves a thick hand telling me to stop.

  He takes a bite of sandwich, holds a finger up as he chews, and slides his desk drawer open. “You’ll forgive me,” he says, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “for doing this during my lunch. But I just happened to notice you there by the pool as it was being delivered.” He sips at the pink liquid to wash the bite down. “So I sent the dashing Mr. Pintero out to fetch you. Anyway”—he pulls a small folded piece of stationery from the drawer—“you are Francesca Schnell, correct?”

  “Yessir. I’m a friend of Michelle Greenhut’s, and—” But he waves me off again, like he’s totally uninterested in the details.

  “No matter.” He leans his heft across the desk with some effort and holds the paper out to me, nods. I take it but don’t open it. “Mrs. Schyler asked me to inquire about you. She asked if I were to see you again, would I pass on this note, which I have done.” He raises his brows as if waiting for me to say something, but then swivels his chair so that he’s facing away from me, out the window. “You know this Mrs. Schyler I speak of?”

  My brain tries to reverse and refocus now, because, yes, of course I know who he’s talking about, but more importantly, it doesn’t sound like I’m in trouble, let alone being arrested. My parents aren’t being called. Mr. Habberstaad doesn’t seem to care that I’m here at his club. He’s merely summoned me because he was asked to by Mrs. Schyler.

  “The mother of Frankie Sky, right?” He swings his chair back around, a confused look on his face, and I realize I’ve called him Frankie Sky. “I mean, Schyler.” I add quickly, “The little boy who dived the other day.” He knits his brow deeper, and it occurs to me that he doesn’t actually know about that part. “What I mean is the little boy who comes here. With his mother. Mrs. Schyler. Yes, I do. I know who he is.” I shut up and look down at the paper in my hands.

  Mr. Habberstaad coughs a little, or maybe chokes on a bit of food. “Yes, that would be the very one. Excellent. Well, it appears that she, that Mrs. Schyler, is interested in hiring you to look after the child, which is a very good idea, indeed.” He nods at the paper I hold, indicating I should open it. “A mother’s-helper-
type thing, is what she called it, I believe.”

  I unfold the note. At the top is printed in fancy script: From the Desk of Brooke Schyler.

  “Lord knows,” Mr. Habberstaad is saying, “we would all benefit. The poor dear could use all the help she can get.”

  I nod to let him know that I’m listening, but all I keep thinking is that I’m the last person to ever help anyone, especially to be watching someone’s kid. I should crumple the note and burn it so there’s no temptation or hope, but instead, I let my eyes scroll down the rest of Mrs. Schyler’s scrawled words. There’s her telephone number and my name, like this: Francesca or Frankie??? Snail? Small? Snell? And below that, it says, Skinny girl. Pretty. Thirteen? Brown hair. Long. Don’t think she’s a club member. Thanks, Henry.

  I sigh, glad for the pretty part, but not so thrilled about the thirteen.

  “I’m almost sixteen,” I say to Mr. Habberstaad, but I doubt he cares much anyway.

  “Well, according to Mrs. Schyler,” he says, “the boy remembered you and liked you and asked for you by name. Apparently, he was fairly adamant.” He chuckles at this. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look friendly. “Anyway, do us all a favor and give the dear woman a call. Today, if you can. Before that child gets himself killed.”

  “Okay, sir, I will. And thank you.” I stand to leave.

  “Oh, Miss Schnell, one more thing.”

  My heart lurches. Is this the part where he calls my parents? “Yes?”

  “Your family used to belong here, isn’t that right?”

  “Yessir?”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “I thought so. I thought I recognized the name. Well, good. Very good. Happy to see you here again. Go make that call, then, will you?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” I stand up and start to walk out before he can ask anything about my parents or why we’re no longer members.

  “Hold on a second.” I freeze, waiting for the trouble part now, but he only slides open the drawer and retrieves another square of paper. “I almost forgot. I believe this is yours, too.”