The Great Wide Sea by M.H. Herlong Page A

sugar in the crook of his arm.
    Dad turned to us smiling. “Coffee?” he said, and the perfect day began.
    What was so perfect about it? Just that it was. Dylan and I spent the morning in the dinghy, puttering around the end of one of our sheltering islands. Dylan was watching the bottom, looking for conch. After lunch, we took Gerry with us, and he leaned over to look too.
    We rounded the end of one of the islands in the circle. Out there was the great wide sea, green and glittering and calm. To our right was a sudden crescent of sand no more than ten feet long. We beached the dinghy and sat there, the three of us, alone, looking out to sea.
    In that moment, I imagined we were the only ones on earth. From where we sat on our miniature temporary beach, it was an easy thing to imagine. Except for the dinghy and the tiny whiff of exhaust and gas, there was no sign of human life. Before us lay the ocean, behind and around us the little scrub island. No Dad. No Chrysalis . No nothing. Just us and the waves and the fiddler crabs and the conch. I lay down and looked at the sky, and something in me felt light enough to rise right on up with the clouds and go spinning off in some kind of crazy, wild dance.
    I jumped up. “Let’s swim. Come on, Gerry. We’ll teach you.”
    â€œJust a little, Ben,” he said cautiously.
    I felt so soft inside. “Okay, buddy. Bare butts, everyone.”
    So we stripped, laughing and poking. My brothers’ skinny white butts looked like little rabbit behinds as they hopped into the water.
    Gerry reached out for Dylan’s hand and Dylan took it. They didn’t look at each other. It was just electricity, I guess. I remembered Mom doing that. She could be looking 180 degrees away, and Gerry’s hand would go out and hers would be right there—like she had some kind of radar or something. When I saw her in my mind like that, it wasn’t sadness I felt. It was joy. This sudden bolt of joy.
    So I ran into the water and tackled Dylan and splashed Gerry. I yelled and they started screaming and splashing. Gerry’s head got wet before he thought about it and he was pushing himself on the bottom with his hands and kicking his feet.
    â€œYou’re swimming,” we yelled like wild hyenas, and launched ourselves backwards into the water. I picked up Dylan like a baby and pitched him thrashing and howling back into the water. He came up laughing and wanting more.
    Gerry carefully tried coming deeper.
    â€œYou want me to throw you?” I asked.
    â€œNo.”
    So I didn’t—just like that. Because he said no. “Okay, I’ll hold you up to practice swimming.” But I could see he didn’t trust me.
    So Dylan held him. I watched and played cheerleader. “Do your arms like this. Now kick. Try floating on your back. It’s just like sleeping. Hold your arms out. Stick up your chin.”
    Before too long, Gerry was ready for Dylan to let go.
    But he sank. I snatched him up and he came up with his eyes big and round and scared, wiping water off his face with his palms. Blowing and puffing, but not crying.
    â€œI think he beat Mom’s record for the fastest sinking ever,” Dylan said, and we laughed.
    â€œWant to try again?” I asked.
    He shook his head.
    And I almost remembered something. Like when you catch a whiff of something and your brain starts clicking like a motor trying to start. But it can’t. You click and click and then it’s lost. This time it felt like a cool breeze in the summer heat or a touch of shade in the summer sun. Something in it felt like closing my eyes and just drifting in cool calm. But I lost it, and as it floated away, I thought something in it was about Mom.
    I waded back out of the water and sat on the beach, propping my arms on my knees, watching Dylan and Gerry play until I found myself staring at the sand between my knees and felt Dylan’s fingers on my head.
    They sat on