JULY 6, 1956
Water—
I take off my boots and socks and then pull my sister’s old dress up over my head. I don’t wear anything underneath, and I know I am mostly obscured by the darkness of this moonless night, but I also know the darkness isn’t complete. I hear Lex stumbling down the bank, and then I walk into the water. Its coolness shocks my shins, my thighs, my stomach, and then I leap in, my head fully submerged, and feel the current pulling me south and the pressure against my eyes and the pulse of the water inside my ears. When I pull my head up for air I can see Lex up to his waist in the river, looking my way.
“Whoo-hoo!” I call out. “Goddamn glorious!” My sister’s husband’s body is beautiful in this slivered light—slender, delicate, full of grace. I think for a moment of her loving him, but the scene dissolves. He dives under the water and I put my head under, too, and feel myself drifting downstream and let go of all resistance to that pull, so that I am floating on my back under those stars, anchored by nothing.
Soon he is there next to me, reaching for my hand. “Lena! We have to swim up,” he says. “Or we’ll never make it back to the car.”
I don’t want to swim. I don’t want to struggle against this current, but he is still holding on to my hand and he is paddling hard, so I join him. It’s more work than I imagined. I kick and push my hands through that dark force, and when we finally make it back to the bank near the car I am exhausted. I climb onto that sandy stretch on my belly like a seal, and then I am laughing. Lex lies down next to me on the sand and smiles at my laughter. “We made it,” he says, breathing hard.
“Yes,” I say, still laughing. I don’t know why. The air is warmer than the water, and it holds me. Then Lex reaches his hand over and runs his thumb down the bones of my spine.
“Lena,” he says. His face is serious and full of that sorrow again, and he is staring into my eyes. I roll over onto my side to face him. His eyes drift down my body.
“Lena,” he says again.
I often think I am the loneliest person alive. But that might not be true.
I take Lex’s hand where it lies in the sand and bring it to my breast. His fingers bend around the small curve, his thumb touches my nipple. “Lena,” he says again.
“Lex,” I say. I have never been touched by a man. I never imagined it would feel so much like earth and like water. Like lightning.
His hand reaches up around my shoulders and neck, touches my face. He runs the back of his hand down my body between my breasts, over my belly, settles between my legs and a wave of heat rises and a sound escapes my lips.
“Lena,” he says again, and it is a question and an apology and an expression all at once. I have been found in the dark.
“Lex,” I say again, and then I pull him to me, and only much later do we drive home.