Swimming by Nicola Keegan Page A

don’t.
    We are seated under the Stations of the Cross. I’m sitting under … and Jesus fell hard for the third time that day . He’s struggling on the ground, wounded and gentle, but determined and strong, his face as white as milk.
    Everyone thinks the funeral lovely. They shake Leonard’s hand and peer through Mom’s veil a moment before looking away. I stand behind them like a lurking tin hulk, breathing shallowly in my tight dress.
    The ride to the cemetery is silent. Some guy is pulling his dog on a walk. It begins to snow, the invisible wet kind you can’t see. Father Timothy’s cheeks turn pink; his fine hair stratifies. He looks like a kid dressed up as a priest. Faces stall like old cars. It’s cold. I look at the tip of Leonard’s shoes, black with black stitching. I study the middle of Leonard’s shoes, black with black shoelace. I study the back of Leonard’s shoes, black with black heel. I find an edge of sock, black. Pants, black. Jacket, black; shirt cuffs a bright, blinding white. My feet follow his blackness, thus I am absorbed when we leave her there in the cold dirt, stiff hands folded up the way dead people are supposed to sleep.
    Eventually everyone freezes up; freezes in different ways, at different times, for different reasons. Some people live through war, then freeze in a checkout lane that lasts one minute too long; some people freeze when they see themselves for the first time and thaw only when they’re dying; some people freeze and don’t know it, wonder what’s wrong; some people freeze, thaw out, freeze again; some people freeze once and remain frozen forever. Being human is awful.
    Only the nuns with the lowest voices can sing the O Loneliness song. O —low— Lone— low— li —lower— ness —lowest. It starts in the lower abdomen and travels up along the spine. It is a song whose strength reposes in repetition and simplicity—two words, four notes—nuns in dress black, wimpled and cowled, a cappella.

We Fall Because That’s What We Do
    I do not like having Leonard out of my sight. I sit next to him as he pretends to read. We do not speak. Sometimes we play checkers. Dot does not like having Leonard out of her sight either. She sits next to him as he pretends to read. We have mini-wars as to who will find him first. Problems arise over the checkerboard, but we have to be extremely careful; Leonard will send us away if it gets out of hand, or worse, say: You two play and leave.
    Mother is making us go to mass every Sunday. She pinches our arms with slow, strong claws if we aren’t ready on time. I have auditory hallucinations, hear moans and groans, ohhhs and ahhhhs , creepy humming. I confess, am absolved, confess again. I keep a stash of mint whips deep in the pockets of my coat just in case. I no longer care which priest I get in the confessional, don’t bother checking the shoes before opening the small wooden door, folding myself in. Father Tod’s wintery frog breath suffocates the dusty grill. I’m aggressive, confessing to his bunched-up black and gray shadow that I hate school, that I don’t care, that I am a liar. He sternly ordains me to pray to Mary twenty times in one sitting. I won’t, kneel into the pew, bow my head, think about random selfish things.
    Before, Leonard would go to church to be a good sport or for special occasions, but those days are over. We come home from church to find him in the yard with a mucky shovel or in the garage banging things. We find him on the roof cleaning gutters, fixing light switches with pliers, pruning trees—an activity he particularly dislikes. Sometimes I can’t find him in the regular places so I walk around calling Dad … Dad … we’re home , crossing Dot, who’s calling Dad, Dad, we’re home . Once, I find him standing at the bottom of the garden touching a tree as though it were covered in braille, but sometimes when we get home he’s gone and there’s a note on the counter: I’ve gone for a fly