Red Rain

Mark stood up and released her shoulders. “Lea, what is this? Dead Buddhists in Tibet? Sky burial?”

She turned and raised her face to him. The light from the laptop monitor bathed her in gray. “Death rituals,” she said, just above a whisper. “I’ve been doing some research.”

She hadn’t said anything funny. Why did she have that strange, guilty smile on her face?

“Your blog,” he said. “You’re not going to write your travel blog?”

She shook her head. The strange smile remained. “I’ve kind of lost interest in that.”

“But. . you’ve put so much time and effort-”

She shrugged and turned her face away. “I can’t write it anymore. It’s just not interesting to me. You know. I have to write what I’m interested in. I’ve always been that way.”

He blinked at the screen. “But, sweetheart-death rituals? Why death rituals?”

“It’s all so fascinating. Did you know there’s a province in Madagascar where people pull the dead out from their graves and dance with them? Every seven years, Mark. They dig up their relatives and dance with them. Isn’t that sweet?”

Sweet?

He took a step back. He watched her type. She leaned toward the screen as if she wanted to dive in. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration.

As if I’m not here.

“Sky burials? Dancing with the dead? Lea? Should I be worried about you?”

38

“Hey, how’d you get here?” Ira raised his head from the fat blue inner tube and squinted at the twins as they pulled back the gate and stepped onto the deck.

“Walked,” Daniel answered.

Samuel had never seen anything as beautiful as this pool. It was long and wide, nearly the length of the house. The pool walls were a light blue. Sky blue. The water sparkled with little patches of sunlight. As if little chunks of the sun had fallen into the pool, he thought. He wanted to dive in and scoop them up.

He just wanted to sink into the water, immerse himself in the clear, clean cold. Be clear and clean himself. But he knew Daniel had other plans.

“You guys know how to swim?” Ethan sat on the edge of the deep end, blond hair as bright as the sunlight, leaning down to fill a yellow-and-red plastic water blaster.

“We swim,” Daniel said. “We lived on an island, remember, lad? Sammy and I swam before we could walk.”

“That’s cool,” Ethan replied. Samuel had never seen a boy so pale, nearly as white as the fence surrounding the pool deck. He could see Ethan’s rib cage poking out from his chest.

He’s puny for twelve. The boy needs to pump up.

Maybe we can help him. If Daniel doesn’t drown the lad today.

Ethan dipped the blaster under the water. Then he raised it and shot a lazy spray of water across the pool to Ira. Floating drowsily on his tube, luxuriating with his eyes closed, Ira didn’t even notice.

“Is the water warm?” Samuel dropped to his knees and ran a hand through it. Under the surface, he could feel the spray of cold water shooting into the pool. “Nice.”

Ethan aimed carefully and sent a long spray of water into Ira’s face. Ira spluttered and dove off the tube. Ethan laughed. He had a dry cackle of a laugh. Like an old witch, Samuel thought.

Ira floated beneath the surface. He rose up in front of Ethan and spit a long stream of water onto his legs.

Daniel grabbed the chrome ladder and lowered himself into the water. He pushed himself away from the wall and paddled toward Ira. “How long can you stay underwater?” he asked, bobbing in a spill of gold sunlight.

Ira’s head sank into the water again. He rose up and spit another mouthful onto Ethan’s legs. Ethan gave him a blast between the eyes with the plastic squirt blaster.

“How long?” Daniel insisted, following Ira across the pool.

Samuel’s body felt sticky and drenched with sweat from the walk to Ethan’s house. He held his breath and leaped into the deep end. The shock of the cold water made him gasp, and he came up to the surface spluttering.

“Ira can stay underwater for a whole minute,” he heard Ethan tell Daniel. “I’ve seen him.”

Daniel eyed Ira. “A whole minute?”

Ira shrugged his skinny shoulders. “Yeah. I guess.”

Samuel didn’t want to listen. He knew the routine. He ducked underwater and swam the length of the pool. It felt so fresh and cold, and made his body tingle. Alive. I feel alive.

When he resurfaced, Daniel was continuing his act. “Do you have a timer?” he called to Ethan.

Ethan set down the water blaster. “There’s a stopwatch on my dad’s iPhone.”

“Go get it,” Daniel ordered. “You can time Ira and me.” Ethan started to the house. His swimsuit hung on him, down to his knees. “Wait. Ethan, you want to be in the contest?” Daniel’s voice made a ringing sound over the water.

Ethan turned back. “I don’t want to swim. I have a scrape on my arm. From the cat. And the chlorine makes it hurt.”

Ethan is not a superhero, Samuel thought, snickering. He made himself heavy and sank to the pool bottom, then kicked back up. I could live in the water. Only place I feel alive.

The kitchen door slammed behind Ethan. Samuel slid onto his back and floated, gazing up at the sun-streaked sky.

“I think I can stay under longer than a minute,” Daniel told Ira. The two of them held sides of the tube, bobbing with it. Samuel spotted another inflated float leaning against a green chaise longue. Shaped like a big, gray whale.

That would be fun to ride. But Daniel has his own fun in mind.

“I can maybe do longer than a minute,” Ira said without much conviction.

“Want to go first?”

Ira shook his head. “Why don’t you go first?”

“Why don’t you both go under at the same time?” Ethan said, reappearing on the deck with iPhone in hand.

Daniel slipped off the tube and swung himself around to face Ethan. “No. I want the Ira lad to hold me under.”

Ira made a kind of squawking sound. “What?”

“Hold my hair,” Daniel instructed. “Push me under. Hold me down, okay? You have to hold me or I’ll float to the top, and you’ll win.”

Ira slid off the tube and pushed it toward the side of the pool. “You really want me to hold you under?”

Daniel nodded. “Just grab my hair and push down on my head.”

“But how will I know when you want to come up?”

“No worries,” Daniel told him. “I’ll give a signal.”

“You sure?”

Daniel grinned at him, dimples flashing. “Yes, I’m sure. Sure I’ll win.”

Samuel sighed. He dove under again. Peaceful down below. Daniel should have been an actor. Samuel surfaced, shaking water from his thick blond hair.

“Go!” Ethan cried from the deck, eyes on the phone in his hand.

Daniel let Ira push him under the surface. Ira gripped Daniel’s hair and held his head down.

“Hold on tight,” Samuel said, bobbing closer. “Don’t let him come up.”

“He. . said he’d signal,” Ira said, obviously not sure about this contest.