I'm Not Sam

than that it’s in remarkably good shape.

I buff the slide with SOS pads, hose it down to a shine and test it out myself. I land hard on my ass, which makes Lily laugh. I’ll have to get some sand. She lands gracefully of course on both feet and giggling, on a run.

Never mind the sand.

She’s happy to be out. Happy with the swing set in particular. Some days she wants me to push her so I do and it’s a curious feeling. It’s like I’m playing two roles here at the same time, parent or playmate to the kid who shouts higher, higher — but then in our quieter moments it’s almost romantic, like we’re a new pair of lovers again, doing the kinds of silly kid-things that lovers do.

I think of Sam and me at the amusement park in Kansas City years ago, before we were married, the way she kissed me from a bobbing horse when I managed to grab that brass ring.

Then there’s the river.

She wants to know if it’s okay to go swim in the river.

There are water moccasins and snapping turtles in there. Snappers are shy usually but water moccasins can be aggressive as hell. They’ll swim right at you. Sam knows enough to look out for them but would Lily? Lily would not. I figure I can be her eyes, though. She wants to swim. It’s hot. We’ve got a dock. Might as well use it.

I still haven’t gotten around to transferring Sam’s clothes to Lily’s room so I go into her drawer and pick out Sam’s favorite two-piece. Cobalt blue. When last seen wearing it she was making guys stumble into their wives at the bar at the Pelican Grove Palms.

While she’s putting it on in her bedroom I pack a cooler with a couple of cold Pepsis for her and three Coronas for me and slap together two bologna and cheese sandwiches. I’m not sure I’m all that hungry but I can always feed the crappie with mine when she’s finished swimming.

“Patrick?”

I’m wrapping sandwiches. “Uh-huh?”

“Could you do this?”

She’s standing with her back to me. She’s got her sandals and bottoms on but the halter’s hanging loose from her shoulders.

There’s that mole again.

Did I mention that her back comes complete with the Dimples of Venus? Two deep indents on either side of her backbone down low at her hips. I snap together her halter.

“There. You ready? Got the towels?”

“Yup.”

We make a stop at the tool shed. Against the possibility of water moccasins I select a rake with steel tines. You never know.

She’s all nervous excited energy. Practically jumping up and down. She runs ahead of me out to the dock and before I’ve even gotten there she’s cannonballed into the silty water. She surfaces smiling and wipes her face and sputters.

“How’s the water?”

“It’s freezing!” Maybe it is, but not enough to stop her.

The water on the river moves with a slow steady current here but she swims easily back to the dock, turns and swims out a bit further and then back again and holds onto the dock kicking her feet behind her and I realize that it’s Sam’s crawl I’ve been watching. She remembers perfectly how to swim.

I almost say something but I don’t. Every time I’ve spoken Sam’s name the reaction hasn’t been good.

So I shut up and watch my wife swim.

We do this nearly every day when the weather’s good. I’m not about to let her swim in a storm. I have to explain to her about lightening. I don’t go in myself, I just sit on the dock with my rake and my cooler and watch her and watch for snakes. I was raised around chlorine swimming pools, and natural water — lakes, rivers, oceans — just don’t seem right to me.

I do like to fish, though. And crappie are great eating.

I dig out the fishing rods and the tackle box. Besides crappie, my favorite, you can pull bass and perch from the river. Catfish, of course, if you’re bottom fishing. And gar, which look like fucking prehistoric monsters and are vicious on the line. Their bodies are heavily armored and their jaws are filled with long sharp teeth. You catch a gar, you don’t touch the damn thing, you cut away the hook, leave it to him as a souvenir. I’ve seen gar with three or four of them hanging from their jaws like some kind of Goth mouth-jewelry.

You can use practically anything as bait — chicken liver, frozen shad, dough balls — but I prefer nightcrawlers myself. There’s a ravine about a half mile from the house and at night after a heavy rain there are hundreds of pale fat bodies wriggling through the grass trying to keep from drowning. All you need is a flashlight and a jar with a perforated lid and some dirt inside and you’ll have your bait in no time.

So that’s what we do.

Sam never liked this part. I mostly did it alone. But Lily’s delighted at discovering this strange living world writhing under our flashlights at her feet. Even more so at finding some of them stuck together. I’m not going to try to explain to her about hermaphroditism.

She has no problem at all picking one up, examining up-close and then dropping in the jar.

The problem comes the following day when we start to fish.

She hates worming the hook. Won’t have any part of it. Hates to watch me doing it too.

She’s feeling the worm’s pain.

I always wondered exactly how much pain is really involved in this. It’s not as though a worm has much in the way of a nervous system. But it’s important to push the hook through the flesh of the worm several times so it doesn’t slip off in the water. Usually three will do. But after the first invasion of that flesh the writhing can get pretty intense. As though the worm were angry, indignant at this unwarranted piercing. You can look at the worm and imagine you’re seeing torture up close and personal.

Lily really can’t stand to watch. So our fishing expedition is a short one. We go home with a perch and two crappies.

I guess that’ll do.

When Doc calls I’m unprepared for it.

It’s past 10:00 a.m. I’ve just gotten up. I’ve slept late again. I’m on my first cup of coffee. Yesterday was our grocery delivery and some of the Frosted Flakes Lily requested are scattered across the kitchen table. Bowl’s in the sink, though, so I suppose that’s something.

“I just spoke with Trish Cacek,” he says.

Doctor Cacek. The shrink.

“She says you haven’t brought her in.”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“I want to wait and see, Doc. See if she comes back on her own.”

“I’d advise against that, Patrick. She needs to be in therapy. You seeing any improvement at all?”

“Sometimes a look, a gesture. She was yelling in her sleep a few nights ago and I could swear the voice was Sam’s. But you know, we don’t sleep in the same room anymore, in our room, and by the time I got there she was asleep again.”

He sighs. “Take her to Dr. Cacek, Patrick. You can’t do this alone. You’re too close to it. How are you holding up, anyway?”

“I’m fine.”

I’m staring at the Frosted Flakes.

“I’m really just fine. We’re doing stuff together. Things we used to do. We watched SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE