The Summer of Letting Go by Gae Polisner

the whole wide world, right, Frankie? We practically live here in the summer, when we’re not stuck at Grandpa Harris’s stuffy old club.”
    â€œRight!” Frankie answers. “When we’re not stuffed at the club.”
    Mrs. Schyler laughs. “Frankie sure loves the water. Well, look at me telling you things you already know. That’s half the reason we found you, isn’t it?” She winks when she says this last part, making me wonder vaguely what the other half of the reason is. “I try to be a good mother, spend the days with him when I can . . . When I have the right kind of energy for the job.” She looks at the water and sighs. “I used to have a lot more energy.”
    â€œShe needs lots of energy because I am a water rat!” Frankie says proudly.
    Mrs. Schyler looks at him. “You, my love, are a Tasmanian devil. Anyway, we were about to have a snack. Would you like to join us, Francesca?” She unzips a cooler and takes out a juice box and a bag of pretzels, revealing a narrow green bottle underneath. The label has a pretty drawing of a black swan. Her eyes dart to mine, then away.
    She rips open the pretzel bag and several brown knots go flying onto the sand. “Is okay, right?” Frankie says quickly, his eyes searching his mother’s to make sure. “Because we have much more pretzels than we need.” Frankie pushes the truck through the sand, using the digger to scoop the fallen pieces. “In the summer, we come here lots of days,” he says, “even before I was born. Lots and lots of days. Because I liked to come here even when I was still in Mommy’s tummy. Then I would kick so hard to come out so I could meet my daddy and swim.” He looks at Mrs. Schyler for approval.
    â€œIt’s true. He loves that story.” She pushes a pretzel closer to Frankie with her toe. He scoops it and drops it into the hole. “How, when my due date got close, I’d come here and walk and walk and walk, trying to make Frankie drop down.”
    â€œReally?” I ask, confused.
    â€œNot literally drop down, but into the birth canal, you understand? I was huge by then, and a few days overdue, and he would go crazy the minute we reached the salt air. As if he could feel it from all the way inside here.” She pats her stomach, and Frankie nods in agreement. “You could see him, like some strange alien, poking his elbows and knees out everywhere, big lumps protruding from my belly.” She’s smiling, but her voice turns sad. “Of course, his daddy was home on leave, and, boy, how my lumpy belly would keep him entertained.”
    Frankie drives his truck up onto my leg and parks it there. “Because they letted him come home to see me get born, right, Mama? Out on special distance station.”
    â€œDispensation.” Mrs. Schyler laughs. “Not distance station, Frankie. Anyway, yes, right.”
    â€œAnd so my daddy was here, and I liked how we all comed here to swim. Right on the day I was born! And both of you swimmed, and I was still in your belly, so I swimmed, too, so the water would help rush me out to my daddy before he had to go back to his work. And it did, right? Because that was the night I was born!” Frankie throws his arms in the air in a big finish.
    Mrs. Schyler says, “I swear, Francesca, he always remembers the details. He must really love the whole idea,” but I’m barely listening anymore, because I’m stuck on what Frankie said, about being on this beach, in this water, on the same exact day he was born. Which must have been right around the same time Simon died.
    Was Frankie born the day that Simon died? Were they both in the water together?
    Transmigrate. To be reborn at death in another body.
    Did Simon’s soul jump? Is his soul inside Frankie Sky?
    Has Simon somehow come back to me?
    I stand up, my whole body shaking, and mumble that I have to go, that