“What can we do in this town to kill a few hours?” I asked him.
Which is how we ended up playing soccer with a bunch of fourth graders.
At seven o’clock—early enough that the sun hadn’t set yet, late enough to be sure the last tour had ended—we found ourselves back at the Glass House. We snuck up, Sam carrying the blanket and me carrying a flashlight he’d had in his backseat (“Be prepared,” he said, handing it to me). Everything was quiet at the house. The lights were off, and we were completely alone. Sam laid the blanket out near the pond, and I skipped rocks and then taught him how to skip rocks. The hardest part is finding the right kind of stone: flat, round, smooth. The next hardest part is wrapping your fingers around it. The next hardest part is how you let go.
The second Alvin Hatter book,Alvin Hatter and the Overcoat Man, opens with Margo trying to teach Alvin how to skip rocks. She is a natural at it, getting six or seven or eight skips a rock. Alvin is hopeless, eventually giving up and trying for the biggest splash. That was kind of like Sam.
With Sam, I didn’t feel pressured to maintain a steady stream of conversation topics. Being with Em was usually the exact opposite; she interpreted silence as an indicator that something had gone terribly wrong. She pulled words out of me with both hands, her heels dug into the ground for leverage. Even when I was exhausted, even when there was nothing else to say.
I had the feeling that if I didn’t say anything to Sam, he wouldn’t say anything to me, and we would continue inthat cycle of silence until all that was left was the chirping of crickets and the chirping of frogs. The pond had both of those things. For the first time, it felt like summer.
“Tell me about the saddest you’ve ever been,” I said. Because I didn’t want that silence to stretch on forever. Finding a balance: that was the key.
“A lot of people I knew have died,” he said after a minute. “It never gets any easier.”
He didn’t offer any specifics. I wondered if that was the sad smile I so often saw on his face. Was Aunt Helen’s death reminding him of all the losses he’d already experienced? “I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s just life,” he said. “A part of life.”
I sensed him pulling away, withdrawing into himself, letting that sadness overwhelm him. I took his hand and squeezed. “Tell me the happiest you’ve ever been,” I said.
He leaned back on the blanket, propping himself up with his elbows. “I like meeting new people,” he said finally. “I like seeing new things.”
“But thehappiest,” I said.
“The driftwood tower. When we jumped. That was happy.”
“But that’s not the happiest.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t police my happy.”
“You need a really good happy memory. Hold on—I’m feeling inspiration hit.” I stepped off the blanket and kicked my shoes off into the grass.
Aunt Helen had said to break the rules, and I suddenly didn’t think skipping a few rocks into a pond was quite good enough for that.
“Lottie? What are you doing?” Sam asked.
I was wearing shorts and a tank top. Good enough. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and winked at him.
“Chasing some happiness,” I said, and then ran full speed at the lake.
It was colder than I expected—an iciness that took my breath away. But I didn’t stop; I didn’t hesitate. I pushed myself farther, and once I reached waist-deep water I dove forward, shrieking when the water hit my face. I kept swimming underwater, paddling fiercely toward the middle of the lake. Finally I resurfaced and turned around. I could just make out the shadow of Sam standing by the edge of the lake.
“Don’t overthink it!” I said.
“We probably wouldn’t have been arrested for skipping rocks, but for actually swimming... ,” he said, trailing off, looking behind him.
“Oh, who’s going to arrest us? Do you see many cops around here?”
“Who knew you had this rebellious streak, Lottie Reaves?” Sam said, but I could see him slipping out of his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head.
I watched him take a deep breath and then wade carefully into the water.
“Oh, come on,” I said.
He looked up at me and rolled his eyes, then mimicked my dive. He was much more graceful than I; he hardly made a ripple as he disappeared into the water.
He surfaced a few feet from me and shook the water out of his hair.
