The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

Attire. What a handsome boy he was.
    "This is Kit," Miranda said when they had run into the house and shaken the rain off like two big colorful dogs. "I almost drowned in that thing." She pointed to the kayak on top of the little car. "Kit pulled me out of the water. And took me to his aunt's boathouse. He's visiting her and staying in the boathouse. It's adorable. He was fishing, and he happened to see me go under . . ." She opened her eyes as wide as they would go, threw her arms out in one of her characteristic dramatic gestures, and said, breathlessly, "Kit Maybank saved my life!"
    "Isn't that nice," Betty heard herself say as she realized that the silly clothes belonged to the handsome boy. It began to dawn on her, in a dull sickening rush, that not only had Something Happened but it had been something of a threatening, dangerous nature. The blood began pounding in her ears, and she could no longer hear what Miranda was prattling on about. All she could understand was that Miranda had been in danger and now Miranda was safe. She was vaguely aware of her arms around her daughter, of holding Miranda in a tight embrace, of Miranda's wet, cold cheeks beneath her lips. She understood, next, that she was hugging Kit, the handsome boy with tiny whales on his pants. She realized, after she had done it, that she had already run to the linen closet upstairs for towels, that she had put the kettle on, that she had poured brandy into an orange juice glass, slopping some on the floor, all the while listening to the pounding in her ears and feeling she was far away, as if she were invisible and weighed nothing at all. Once before she had been invisible and weightless and meaningless in this way, when the girls were very young and had disappeared at Bonwit Teller. Betty had turned around and around, as if the next time she turned they would spin back into view. It was Joseph who found them, both staring at miniature blown-glass animals--giraffes and dachshunds, a rooster and a pig within a pig, all in swirling unnatural colors--lined up in a glass case. Betty found herself now on the floor with a paper towel dabbing at the spilled brandy. She thought of Joseph and the whiskey glass she had thrown at him. But Joseph at that moment did not matter. Only one thing mattered. Her daughter had been in danger, and now she was safe.
    When she got home and heard what had happened and saw her sister, now in a nightgown, huddled on the couch under a cotton blanket, Annie was tempted to deliver a lecture. She had, after all, warned Miranda not to take the kayak out until she had taken lessons, and just last night she had pointed out that the Sound had been unusually rough lately. "Small craft warnings," she had said. "And your craft is minute." But looking at Miranda now, so fragile and vulnerable in her flowered nightgown and striped socks, Annie could not bear to say a word that might hurt her. Instead, she sat beside her on the sofa and put her arms out. Miranda came to her and snuggled in like a little girl.
    Annie said, "It all sounds very dramatic." She kissed Miranda on the forehead. Did it feel warm? She laid her cheek against Miranda's forehead. "You have a fever."
    "You don't catch cold from being in the cold," said Miranda irritably. "They proved that."
    "You still have a fever."
    Betty began to bustle in earnest now, throwing another blanket over Miranda and attempting to spoon chicken soup into her mouth. "I read that they did an experiment in Scotland with students. They put their feet in buckets of cold water and exposed them to germs."
    "What happened?" Annie asked.
    "Well, I really can't remember. But it sounds so unpleasant. I've never liked Scotland. Here," she said, putting a thermometer in Miranda's mouth.
    "You just gave me soup." Miranda tried to hand the thermometer back to her mother. "My temperature will be 110 after soup."
    "All the more reason," Betty said firmly. And she replaced the thermometer in her daughter's mouth,