That was where my father found him. At first he watched Max in silence, unwilling to break the spell on the openmouthed boy. But then a drop of water that had trembled for several minutes in the cracked ceiling made its swift descent. Max shut his eyes as the drop hit the back of his tongue. He closed his mouth and swallowed, savoring the taste of rain and wood and plaster. My father moved forward to speak to him, but the water had taken advantage of his delay to launch its invasion. It started pouring through the ceiling. Five leaks sprouted in the hallway, three more in Max’s room, four in my parents’ bedroom, and one in the guest room where my mother was nursing me.
From that day on, my mother blamed Max for inviting the water into our house. She blamed him for leaky bathtubs, burst radiators, broken pipes, and most of all for the occasional surging of the river. Each winter, she would count down the days until it would be cold enough for the river to freeze and the rain to turn to snow. Snow was her elixir. And more important, snow made things match. It smoothed rough edges and harsh contours. It erased the garish paint jobs on new cars and undermined families who had trimmed their houses in a Caribbean palette. It masked badly pruned hedges and covered lawn ornaments. Snow, according to my mother, brought tranquillity and beauty to a mismatched world. As she saw it, a good snowstorm would be better than a baptism.
When I was seven and Max was eleven, the remnants of a tropical storm moving up the coast raged against the house for three days. My mother insisted Max stay indoors. He stomped his foot with the agitation the storm was whipping up inside him. Our mother shrugged her shoulders and turned back to the stove, where she was fixing steak and fries.
But that night, even the prospect of all-you-can-eat fries and cake for dessert couldn’t calm the frustration that was consuming my brother. As my mother cooked, Max rattled his fist against the window, trying, it seemed to my mother, to add to the force of the furious storm. Thunder cracked in the distance. Max beat his fist against the window again, causing more droplets to slip onto the sill, and then he marched up the stairs.
He did not come down at dinnertime. His plate of food cooled. My mother wavered between distress at her son’s unhappiness and a desire to show him the dangers of the storm. After dinner, I helped her load the plates into the dishwasher. She called to Max, “If you’re going to wash your face before bed, do it quickly.” Unsupervised, Max often plugged the bathroom sink, filled it with water, and practiced holding his breath.
“One day, he’ll forget what he’s doing and simply pass out under there,” I heard my mother whisper in my father’s ear. So my father volunteered to be a lifeguard during his son’s bathroom aquatics. But Max complained that our father’s presence prevented him from reaching the underwater peace he sought. And late at night, when my parents were asleep, he would return, fill the sink, and dunk his head.
That night, on my way to bed, I pressed my ear against the bathroom door, listening for gurgling. But there was only silence. I got into bed, and my mother wrapped the covers around me. When I closed my eyes, I imagined the gnashing teeth of the hungry river. That was the first night the water teased me in my dreams.
Until then, I’d always dreamed of dry land. That night I was dreaming of the botanical gardens, with their lanes of cherry trees winding away and doubling back, making room for busy traffic that shouldn’t have been there. As I wandered, a distant note like a muffled trumpet began to slither among the trees. Then the mute was removed, and my ears filled with an orchestral roar. I heard the water before I saw it. It spoke a foreign language, filled with sibilant sounds. I tried to cover my ears. But my hands slid to my sides, as if they, too, wanted to listen to the unfamiliar music, to touch it, to let it slip between their fingers. And when my hands fell, I heard the water call my name as it licked the bark with its wide tongue—the soft M’s rising and falling among the invisible ripples, the M’s that I imagined looked like waves. I felt the water before I saw it—the smooth tickle of its lips on my ankles, a buttery touch that made me want to fall into its embrace. I started to shake when the water, now visible, began to rise, bringing with it a carpet of fallen cherry blossoms. It reached my ears and began to repeat my name, a velvet calling, an invitation. And ignorant of how to behave underwater, I opened my mouth to reply, and the water flowed in, cascading down my throat, bubbling in my lungs. I sputtered, coughed, and woke up.
I bolted up in bed, forcing the water that wasn’t there out of my lungs. I could still hear my name, as sung by the water, hovering in the room. My window had blown open in the storm, and my cheeks were splattered with rain. I could hear
