Uncle Hersh and Aunt Marni had two children, too, also a boy and a girl. Shayna was three years older than Annamae and Gershom was seven years older. On the Fourth of July, they always went to Uncle Hersh’s house, which had a pool. Last year Shayna had taught Annamae how to play underwater tea party. You sat cross-legged on the bottom of the pool and the host poured “tea” in your “cup” and you had to stir it with your “spoon” and drink it before rising back up to the surface. It didn’t work for Annamae. She kept bobbing up before finishing her tea.
“You’re too light,” said Shayna.
This year, Annamae asked Shayna if she wanted to play, but Shayna said, “No thanks.” She wanted to lie on the float and work on her tan.
Shayna was already the color of a perfectly toasted marshmallow. She wore the thinnest gold chain around her wrist and the thinnest gold chain around her neck. Her dark straight hair gleamed like a vinyl record. She had started shaving her legs.
Gershom didn’t go in the pool. He lay on a chaise lounge with a book and wouldn’t take off his shirt, not even when Aunt Marni said, “At least take off your shirt. I’m hot just looking at you.”
Danny wouldn’t play tea party, either. “I can’t,” he said. He was working on his dive. Nana was coaching him. He was very intent. He kept diving in, getting out, and returning to stand, dripping, again at the side of the pool. “Toes over the edge,” Nana would say. “Tuck that chin.” Each time he did a belly flop, Nana said, “Oof!”
More people arrived and the grown-ups went through the house to greet them. Annamae could never keep straight who they were related to and who were just friends. “You shouldn’t say ‘just friends,’” said Danny. He was sitting on a chaise lounge now, wrapped in a towel, his eyes all red and puffy from chlorine.
They began to have the conversation they always had when they got together, about how, exactly, they were related.
Shayna always started it. “What is it again? Our father is your mother’s cousin …”
“So that makes us second cousins,” said Danny.
“I thought we were once removed.”
“Removed is for a different generation,” Gershom explained, closing his book over one finger. “We’re the same generation as Danny and Annamae.”
“So we’re first cousins?”
“No, look. Grandpa is Nana’s brother, okay?”
“I know, I know—wait. So Grandpa’s their third cousin!”
“No!” shouted Danny and Gershom together, cracking up.
Shayna gave a shriek and slapped at the water to splash them, but she was laughing, too.
It was always this way. At the beginning they were cool and stiff with one another, but they warmed up by the end, only after they’d been left to themselves, without any grown-ups, for a while.
Later, Annamae was sitting at the edge of the pool, a towel around her shoulders, when Uncle Hersh came out to start the grill. The boys had gone inside. Shayna rolled off the float, swam to the end of the pool, and lifted herself out. Her hair was slick and gleaming black.
Uncle Hersh stood beaming at her, his drink held low at his side, as if he’d forgotten it was there. He also had a gold chain, a thicker one, around his neck.
“What?” said Shayna, wringing out the end of her hair.
“I was just thinking,” said her father. Annamae felt almost sorry for him, the way he was grinning so helplessly, with so many teeth.
“What?” said Shayna again.
Uncle Hersh moved his wrist and the ice cubes clinked. His smile was like the front part of an expensive car. “I created you.”
Later, when they were driving home, Annamae leaned forward from the backseat and told her mother what Uncle Hersh had said. She was surprised and delighted when her mother made a farting sound with her mouth.