The Float Test

George was already drunk, out by the pool, rum in hand, when Fred left with the gun. Everyone pretended that they didn’t notice that Fred left early, that it wasn’t rude that she hadn’t said goodbye or told anybody where she was going, hadn’t even talked to Dad. She’d known well enough at least to avoid me, who hadn’t spoken to her, answered any of her texts or phone calls in almost nine months.

Nobody knew yet that George’s wife had left him. We had all, over the years, told him she would leave him, which was probably why he hadn’t told us yet. He’d brought the Lhasa Apso, not a shih-tzu, he and his almost ex-wife Allie were both quick to remind us when they got her. Her name was Libby, as in, George explained, Leveraged buyouts. (George traded oil and gas equities; Fred hated George’s job, called it sad and shameful, craven, when he wasn’t in the room.) Fred had winced at me, eyebrows raised, four years before at Christmas when he’d introduced the dog.

He’s tall, George is, which Mom would say made it even more offensive, how fat, in recent years, he’d let himself become. All us girls, also Mom, are almost a foot shorter, and we still managed to stay thin. Though, I had, the past year, begun to allow myself more often to indulge. My face and body were both lusher, fuller; for the first time in my grownup life, I managed, at least once a week, to not hate the way I looked.

Out by the pool, Libby cradled in his arm against his chest, George moved from group to group, made bad jokes, grabbed hold of women’s wrists. Something rustled in the mangroves by the dock and Libby leapt out of his arms. He watched her run and sidled up close next to Cass and Jenn’s older kids and tried to make them laugh.

“Not a good look Uncle Georgie,” Anelise said, when he asked them if they TikTokked. They left him there alone.

George got a second plate of food, a third drink; he went outside to entice Libby back with a piece of chicken tender. When he found her he scooped her up and went into the largest upstairs guest room with his food. He’d checked his texts all night—hopeful, maybe, that Mom’s dying might compel Allie to call, to beg him to forgive her—but he had none.

“Where’s George?” Jenn asked, as we cleaned up.

“I think he’s sleeping,” Anelise said.

“Of course he is,” Jenn said.

Jenn had organized and hired the caterers, checked in with them, scolded them when we were too long without passed food out by the pool. She had then tipped them (not well) before they left, taking everything they came with just as Jenn had asked. Dad couldn’t stand disorder, any sign of mess or other people’s presence, so Jenn and I vacuumed, mopped, wiped the furniture with the special spray cloths Mom kept in the second pantry. We loaded, ran, and emptied both the dishwashers, cleaned the guest bathroom sinks and toilets, made sure Dad had breakfast foods.

Dad sat on the couch with CNBC on, staring blankly past it to the pool.

Jenn called in her kids to go.

“Your mom died,” Cass said, as she stood next to me by the dessert tray I’d kept hidden from Jenn’s cleaning. The sun was setting. Jenn and her kids had just left.

I broke the brownie I’d picked up and handed her half, looked past her to the river and watched a heron glide a foot above the slate grey surface of the water.

“You should talk to Fred,” Cass said.

The year after Cass was born was the closest Fred and I ever were. 23 and terrified, I’d just finished law school and both Fred and I lived in New York. Brian was still working weekends—he was, he is, a horse trainer (briefly, in my twenties, he’d been mine)—and had to be at a show in Topsfield, Massachusetts twelve hours after Cass was born. 30 hours of labor and then a frantic scary c-section. Cass’s heart rate had dropped briefly. The OB had had to use her elbow to help dislodge her, a big splotchy blue and purple bruise had already begun to spread across my abdomen, the stitches angry, oozing, the skin around them red. Fred had driven our car from Brooklyn with Mom to bring Cass and me home from Columbia-Presbyterian. Mom and Fred weren’t really talking though so Fred had left not long after they got there.

At the hospital, Fred had held Cass, kissed her, her eyes welling, then left so Mom could change Cass into the pink and white striped Ralph Lauren outfit she’d brought to change her into, so Mom could take a thousand pictures, drive us home. My stitches stung each time I sat or stood and nursing wasn’t working. I don’t know why you’re doing that, Mom said, making a face, when I began to cry again, trying to get Cass to latch before we loaded her into the car. Mom had never driven in the city, any city, and on the West Side Highway she began to panic. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she started yelling. Cars around us honking. Cass cried, her face scrunched. I sat in the backseat with her and tried to angle my bare breast into her mouth. It’s okay. It’s okay, I said to both of them. Mom continued to disassemble, ran two red lights and had to cross three lanes at the last minute to make the turn for the tunnel. Cass finally passed out. I held Mom’s shoulders briefly, thumbs kneading the knots on either side of her neck. Jude don’t, she said. I sat back again and stared at Cass. By the time we got to Brooklyn, Mom was desperate for a drink and Dad, who’d stayed at the hotel to work while Mom came to the hospital, had made a reservation at a restaurant in Manhattan Mom had read about online. Mom pulled over close to our apartment and I took over the driving, even though, technically, I was not supposed to be driving. She ordered herself a car as I searched for a parking spot. Alone, I took Cass up to our apartment, whispering it’s okay, it’s okay, again though she was still passed out. Twenty minutes later, Fred showed up with Thai food and my favorite gummi candies. I had a feeling, she said. She walked Cass up and down the long hall of our apartment while I stood under the shower a long time and sobbed.

“I know, Mouse,” I said, turning toward Cass now. Her face was still the face I’d stared at that day, more angular, less mottled. I’d thought when she was born—I was so young and dumb—that we’d be better, different. I didn’t think so much as hope and want and then time passed. I’d gotten too much of it wrong.

I brushed a brownie crumb off Cass’s chin, and she stiffened. “I will,” I said. “For you, Mouse, I’ll talk to her.”