continued
"Carrie? What's wrong?" Mama asked me. I bit my cheek hard and shook my head.
"Nuffing," I was such a bad liar. But if I told her, she'd only be sadder.
"Carrie, come here, did you hurt yourself?" I went, but so slowly I thought I might be going backwards. I shook my head again. "What's wrong?" This time Mama's voice wanted an answer and I couldn't hold back any longer. I began to sob.
"I. . . I want Daddy!" Through the blurriness of my tears, I saw Mama start to cry and she pulled me back onto her lap with Jessie. She closed her eyes for a minute and took deep breaths.
"I have to tell you two something," she said. I knew I didn't want to hear, but Jessie said,
"What?" before I could run away.
"Daddy's not coming back." She tried to hold Jessie close, but it looked like she was going to crack up into tiny pieces like legos.
"Why?" Jessie asked, big tears of confusion were suddenly rolling down his face.
"Because. . . Daddy doesn't love me anymore." Jessie stopped crying,
"Doesn't he love us?" I listened harder. Mama wiped off her cheeks with the back of her hand.
"Of course he does, sweetie. But he couldn't stay with me any longer." I buried my face in her shirt and sobbed. After what felt like a few hours, Mama pulled us both up to where she could see our faces. We were all quiet, like the sky just after a huge lightning-storm. Mama's eyes were all red and puffy, but she talked in a normal voice.
"It's going to be okay," she told us, lifting a hand and pushing the hair out of my face.
"How do you know?" I asked, only because I couldn't help myself.
"Because," she answered, smiling, "we're like the Lake. It doesn't matter to us if one of us gets old or ugly," Jessie and I giggled, because Mama told us we were beautiful all the time, "because as long as we love each other, we'll stay afloat." I grinned,
"Even if I weighed a million pounds and was a zillion years old and as ugly as Jessie?"
Mama smiled.
"Even then."
"Hey!" Jessie yelled, and we all burst out laughing.
The laughter faded away after a while and Mama started singing. It was my favorite song. I joined her, and smiled at the sailboat on the Lake. It was going to be okay.