Give, a novel

by Erica Carpenter Witsell

  Emma was skeptical. “Where’s there a lake?”

  “Just hurry up, will you? Our ride’s gonna be here in a minute.”

  And soon enough there was the crunch and spit of gravel in the driveway and a red pickup pulled up beside the house. There were three teenagers in the cab, and more in the bed, but they shifted to make room when Candy pulled the girls up after her. Once they were settled, Candy immediately transformed. She was no longer their perpetually annoyed babysitter but a bona fide teenager, talking and laughing with her friends. Jessie watched her, mesmerized, but Emma could not take her eyes from the ground that whizzed beneath them, the trees blurring along the side of the road. She hunched down in the bed, one hand clinging to her sister, the other clenching the side of the truck.

  After more than an hour, they arrived at a large lake, and Emma scooted off the tailgate onto the ground, relieved. Looking toward the blue-grey water, she saw a small gravel beach, and, for the first time since they had left Baymont, she felt a thrill of anticipation. This water wasn’t the murky green of the pond, where her feet sank up to the ankles in slimy, gelatinous goo every time she touched the bottom. This water was clear and blue. Even the small, makeshift beach beckoned, with its hundreds of little stones just waiting to be skipped.

  Behind her, the teenagers were leaping out of the back of the pickup, pulling off their T-shirts and shorts and tossing them into the truck. But instead of lifting down the cooler and heading toward the water, they began climbing a steep embankment in the opposite direction. Jessie and Emma stood uncertainly by the truck.

  “Come on,” Candy called. “This way.” Dutifully, the girls fell in behind, clambering up the hill behind them.

  Where are we going? Emma wondered, but was too shy to ask. In any case, the answer was soon clear. As they gained altitude, she saw where they were headed: an enormous dam that formed one edge of the lake. For it was not a true lake, she realized now, but a reservoir, with a giant cement wall that held the water in. It was to the top of this dam that they were going, the group now almost in single file, led by a young man with dark hair whose bare back glistened in the sun.

  When they arrived at the dam, at last, he paused, turning to smile at the gaggle of teenagers that followed him.

  “Voilà,” he said.

  “Wow,” a girl marveled. “How high is it?”

  “Fucking high,” someone answered.

  “Fifty feet,” said the young man, fiddling with the drawstring on his red trunks. “And watch your language. There’s a couple of young ladies present.” He nodded toward Emma and Jessie at the back of the line.

  The group tittered.

  “Just jump out and you’ll be fine, I promise. It’s awesome.”

  “You’ve done this before?” another girl asked Candy.

  Candy shook her head. “No. But I’m going to.” Then she turned to Jessie and Emma.

  “Want to wait here? I’ll come back up and get you.”

  “You’re going to jump?” Jessie asked incredulously, and as she did, Emma’s stomach seemed to fall all fifty feet to the glimmering water below. For if Candy was going to jump, Emma had no doubt that Jessie would want to, too. Her sister was not one to be one-upped.

  “Jessie,” she said, her voice desperate. “You can’t.”

  Don’t leave me here alone, she thought.

  “Come on, Emma,” Jessie said. “You heard him. Just jump out and you’ll be fine.” In her voice was a new note of nonchalance. Emma was not reassured.

  She watched her sister pull her T-shirt over her head and fling it to the ground. Under it, her blue one piece stretched tight against her flat chest, her lean arms crisscrossed with scratches from picking blackberries.

  “Come on,” she said again, beckoning for Emma to follow. “It’ll be fine.”

  The dam was perhaps eight feet across, wide enough to walk along, wide enough that from Emma’s short height, she could not see clearly what lay below. On the left side, she knew, was the reservoir, but what about to the right? Carefully, she dropped to her knees and began to crawl toward the edge. Peering down, what she saw paralyzed her. For if the dam was fifty feet high on the reservoir side, it looked twice that on the other, the rocks and eddies so far below that her head swam with vertigo.

  “Jessie,” she called out, her voice high-pitched with fear. “Jessie.”

  Her sister glanced back at her. “Emma, what are you doing? Just stand up and come on.”

  But Emma could not stand. She crawled along on all fours instead, her fingers clinging to the concrete surface of the dam even as her mind held tight to the image of the river below and would not let it go. She was trapped. God, how she longed to be off that dam, to be down, and yet turning back on her own was inconceivable.

  “Jessie,” she tried again. But her voice was barely a whisper, and by now her sister was twenty feet ahead. The group had clustered there, the girls clinging to each other, giggling. Suddenly, as Emma watched, someone tore himself from the group and flung himself off the edge. Emma listened to him scream as he fell, her stomach in knots and her eyes clenched tight. His scream seemed to go on and on, until at last she heard a distant splash. There was a moment’s silence, and then a whoop, and then the nervous, tittering laughter of the girls.

  Emma did not rise from her knees to look, but instead lowered her body fully, so that she was now lying belly down on the dam, her cheek against the concrete, her eyes closed.

  One by one, they jumped, and screamed, and laughed, until it was just Emma and her sister left up on the dam, alone with the young man in the red trunks. He was encouraging; Jessie was hesitant. He was solicitous; her sister was coy.

  Just jump if you’re going to jump, Emma thought bitterly. She didn’t believe her sister could be scared; Jessie was never scared. More likely she was enjoying having his full attention, now that the bikini-clad girls had all jumped off the side of the dam like lemmings.

  “Come on down, Emma,” Candy yelled up, treading water in the lake below. “The water’s great.” But Emma would not budge.

  “You don’t have to jump, you know,” Candy yelled, the annoyance back in her voice. “Just walk down the way we went up.”

  But Emma couldn’t. She was paralyzed. “Somebody help,” she whispered, knowing no one would hear her. Her sister was yards away, only occasionally glancing back to where Emma lay. “Please help.”

  Emma wanted to cry but couldn’t let herself; her whole body was clenched against disaster.

  At last, Candy gave up and swam to the beach, then trudged again up the hill. She strode along the dam toward Emma as if it were any sidewalk in the world. Emma had no choice; she let Candy coax her back to all fours. Then ever so carefully, ever so slowly, while Candy dripped impatiently onto the hot concrete of the dam, she turned her body around.

  Emma crawled all the way back to the end of the dam like a cat, leaving her sister alone with the young man. She lost sight of her as she and Candy skidded down the dusty hillside, but when she reached the little beach and looked up, they were still there.

  Emma walked out into the lake until the water touched her chin. A few yards from her, the other swimmers were getting impatient.

  “Come on, Adam,” someone called up. “She’s not going to do it. Just jump. She can walk down like the other one.”

  But Emma knew her sister. Jessie would jump. Emma watched as she took a step back, gathering her momentum. And then there she was, launched into the air, her blue bathing suit falling, her tan limbs flailing, until she disappeared with a splash beneath the shimmering surface of the water.

  I am alone, Emma thought. An emptiness shot threw her, so piercing that she ducked her head under the water to hide her tears. When she came up, there was Jessie in the lake, her eyes wild, laughing. Emma raised her arm to catch her sister’s eye, but Jessie did not turn toward Emma or the little beach. She took a few quick strokes toward the dam.

  “Adam,” she yelled, gasping. “Adam, I di
d it!”

  Emma took a deep breath and let herself sink beneath the surface of the water. When she came up at last, Jessie was swimming toward her, grinning, but Emma found that she could not meet her eye.

  CHAPTER 23

  Two Years Later

  Emma

  By the time Jessie and Emma came in from the barn, Laurel was already showered and dressed and in the kitchen, pouring macaroni out of a white box into a pot on the stove. Jessie looked at her outfit skeptically.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Cactus is taking me out to dinner, remember?” Laurel said. “What took you two so long?”

  Jessie shrugged and headed for the fridge. “Nothing. We were just watching the horses.”

  She opened the fridge door and pulled out the plastic pitcher full of lemonade. “Want some?” she asked Emma.

  “Yes, please.”

  Laurel set a timer for the macaroni and then turned to Jessie.

  “Can you pour me some, too, Jess?” She reached into the cabinet beside the stove and pulled out a half-full bottle of vodka.

  Jessie hesitated, glass in hand.

  “You’re not going to put that in your lemonade, are you, Mom?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll ruin it. And Dad says you shouldn’t be drinking if you’re going to be driving.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Jessie. It’s one drink. And I’m not driving. Cactus is.” She took the glass of lemonade from Jessie and poured in vodka straight from the bottle. “You two going to be okay on your own tonight?”

  “Mom,” Jessie said, exasperated. “I babysit for Emma and Jay all the time at home. Dad even pays me.”

  “Oh really?” Laurel snorted. “Well, don’t expect that here.”

  The timer went off, and Laurel drained the macaroni over the sink with the lid, then returned the pan to the stove.

  “Can I put the cheese in?” Emma asked.

  “Sure.” She handed the packet to Emma. “Jessie, pass me the milk, would you? And put the lemonade away.”

  “I’m not done with it yet,” Jessie said, pouring herself another glass. “I was so thirsty on that ride I thought I was going to die.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s enough. Drink water after that. I can’t believe I just bought that and it’s almost gone already.”

  Laurel spooned macaroni and cheese into two bowls and set them on the kitchen table. “You girls want anything else?”

  Emma eyed the table, empty but for the two lonely bowls. “At home we have a vegetable with dinner,” she said quietly.

  Laurel rolled her eyes. She went to the refrigerator and looked inside. “What the hell happened to all the carrots?” she asked.

  Jessie grinned. “Summer likes them.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Well, Emma, there are no vegetables. But you’ll survive, I think. Get your own forks, okay? I’ve got to finish getting ready.” Laurel plopped some napkins on the table and went upstairs with her vodka and lemonade.

  Five minutes later she was down again. Emma could smell her perfume as she brushed past the table.

  “Can I have some more macaroni and cheese, please?” Emma asked.

  “When did your last slave die off?” Laurel said. “It’s on the stove.”

  She pulled the phone book from beneath a pile of clutter on the counter and flipped through the pages, squinting at the small print. Then she jotted down some numbers on a piece of paper and stuck it to the fridge with a magnet.

  Jessie watched her. “What’s that?”

  “It’s the number at the restaurant where we’ll be, if there’s an emergency,” Laurel said. “And the number for the Jacksons next door, too.”

  Jessie nodded importantly and Emma felt a flash of annoyance. Jessie was just two years older than her—why did she need a babysitter if Jessie didn’t? Now Jessie got to feel all high and mighty, when Emma could take care of herself just fine.

  “We should be back by nine,” Laurel said. “Ten at the latest. But you two should be in bed by then. No horses when I’m not here. And no swimming.”

  Jessie rolled her eyes. “We know, Mom,” she said. “Plus my butt’s so sore I don’t think I want to ride for a week.”

  Laurel smiled and emptied the rest of the macaroni into an empty bowl, put a saucer on top, and set it in the fridge. “The rest is in here if you want it,” she said.

  She was running water into the dirty pot when the screen door squealed. Emma watched as Laurel startled.

  “Geez, Cactus. You scared me.”

  “Should I have knocked?” Cactus strode into the room in black cowboy boots, and Jessie and Emma grinned at each other. Secretly they made fun of Cactus’ boots. What was the point of boots if he wouldn’t ride a horse?

  “Hey, girls.”

  “Hi,” Jessie and Emma said in unison. Cactus stopped by the table where the sisters sat, their uneaten macaroni congealing in their bowls.

  “That looks good,” he said, although Emma knew it didn’t, not now anyway, with all the sad little noodles uncurling in their chalky sauce. A wave of Cactus’ cologne broke over her, and the smell of it, mingling with the remnants of Laurel’s perfume that still hung in the air, stopped Emma’s throat. She gagged and pushed her bowl away.

  Jessie waved her hand in front of her nose. “Phew. You guys stink.”

  Laurel laughed. “Well, at least we don’t smell of horse like two girls I know.”

  “But horses smell good,” Jessie said.

  “Take a shower anyway,” Laurel said. “Both of you. Sure you’ll be okay?”

  Jessie groaned in mock annoyance. “Just go, why don’t you? We’re fine.”

  “Got a teenager on your hands now, I see,” Cactus said dryly, and Laurel rolled her eyes.

  “Alrighty then. Have a good night.” She headed out the door, Cactus behind her, his boots clomping loudly on the wooden floor.

  When the door had shut behind them, Jessie put her bowl in the sink and opened the fridge. She pulled out the pitcher of lemonade.

  “Want some more?”

  “But Laurel said . . .”

  “Oh, Emma, you don’t have to be such a goody-two-shoes all the time.”

  Emma felt her face turn red. “I’m not.”

  “Look, I’ll only have half, okay? Do you want some more?”

  Emma shook her head.

  “Want to play Scrabble?”

  “No. You always win.”

  “Monopoly?”

  “No.”

  “Uno?”

  “I guess.”

  They played Uno for half an hour, then turned on the TV. Jessie stood at the set, turning the knob, until Emma saw Arnold from Diff’rent Strokes and called out, “Stop.”

  Jessie flopped down beside her on the couch, but the next minute, she was up again, heading down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” Emma called.

  “Just to pee,” she said.

  Jessie was gone a long time. When she came back, something in her expression made Emma look twice.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, moving her feet on the couch so that Jessie could sit down.

  “I don’t know,” Jessie said. “I couldn’t pee.”

  “Maybe you didn’t have to.”

  “Well, I feel like I do,” Jessie said. She started to lean back on the couch but grimaced and moved to her side instead, curling her legs to her chest.

  They finished Diff’rent Strokes and started Three’s Company. Emma felt a little thrill when it started; at home her mother would be sending her to bed.

  But five minutes in, Jessie was up again. “Now I really have to pee,” she said. “It’s all that lemonade.”

  Emma had to pee, too, but she held it, waiting for the commercial. When it came, she walked down to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Jessie was sitting on the toilet, her face pale.

  “I still can’t pee,” she said. “And it hurts.”

  “Well, can you just
get up for a sec?” Emma asked. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Go upstairs in Laurel’s bathroom, will you? Oww . . .”

  Normally Emma would have argued. Why should she have to go upstairs? But the look on her sister’s face worried her.

  “Is it . . . Is it your period?” she asked. Jessie had started her period earlier that summer, and the fact of it was still a novelty for the girls.

  “No,” Jessie groaned. “I don’t think so.”

  Quickly, Emma went upstairs to the bathroom. When she came back down, the commercial was over but she checked on Jessie anyway.

  “Did you pee yet?”

  “No.” Jessie’s face was white; she had begun to sweat. “I can’t. And, oh God, I have to.”

  “Maybe if you took a shower?” Emma suggested. “Sometimes that makes me need to pee. Want me to start it?”

  “I guess.” Jessie’s face was twisted in pain.

  Emma reached past the shower curtain and turned on the tap.

  “Jessie, maybe we should call Laurel?”

  Jessie shook her head. “No, I’m . . . I’ll just try this.”

  Slowly, Jessie peeled off her clothes. Emma noticed how she didn’t straighten as she did so, but kept her body curled around her bladder.

  The shower curtain was clear plastic, streaked with mildew. Emma watched as Jessie stood hunched in the stream, not washing, just hunched there, moaning softly.

  “Oh please,” Jessie muttered. “Please.”

  Jessie stood in the shower until the water ran cool.

  She glanced at her pile of clothes on the floor, the jeans and T-shirt she had worn all day with the horses.

  “Em, do you think . . . Could you get me some clothes?”

  Emma passed her a towel, nodded, raced up the stairs, and yanked open Jessie’s drawers. Underwear, bra, T-shirt . . . She paused at the shorts, imagining her sister struggling to button the waistbands over her painful bladder. She dug through the drawer, tossing shorts on the floor. Finally, at the bottom of the stack was one she thought might do, a pair of polyester blue athletic shorts with a worn-out elastic waist. She grabbed the clothes and ran back down.

  “Jessie, I got these—”