Floating

Mom says, "Now this is how it's supposed to be." She smiles her sparkly smile and looks around the breakfast table at all of us while the breeze off the lake comes through the screens and the red squirrels chitter in the oak trees. Our living and dining room are one big square with golden knotty-pine paneling and a high-beamed ceiling. Dad built it that way. Then he nailed deer heads and rifle racks to the walls and named it Jack's Hunting Lodge. But Mom put a sign out by the road with just our name next to a mallard hen: ANDERSON.

Randy always sits next to me. I kick his bare foot and nod at Dad who's jabbing his sliced bananas with his fork, click-click, click-click against the Melmac bowl. Randy raises his sun-bleached eyebrows at me, which means just let it go, but Mitzy jumps to her feet, points her skinny finger in Dad's face and says, "Mom says it sets her teeth on edge when you do that." I'll be eight this month, Mitzy's nearly ten and Randy's twelve. Mom looks at Dad. She's biting the tip of her tongue with her tiny white teeth. Dad pokes his bananas faster, like some mad guy knocking on our door, so she goes back to peeling her orange in one long strip using just her thumbnail. Without looking up, she laughs once, and says real loud, "Sure do love all of you."

Randy says, "Love you, Mom."

Mitzy says, "Love you."

I say, "Love you."

Dad rattles his coffee cup on the saucer for a refill, not saying a word even though we're all looking at him. When his upper lip flattens out, we stop looking. Then Mom stands up so fast her chair falls over backward. Her head's turning this way and that, when our black Lab, Happy, howls from the end of the dock with a sound that lifts the rest of us out of our chairs and sets us on our feet. Randy runs fastest, down the lawn. By the time I reach the end of the dock I have to squeeze between Mom and Dad and shove Mitzy aside to see Randy standing waist-high in the lake, holding Davey facedown over his shoulder like a sack of flour, pounding his back while Davey screams like he's being born again, but this time he's nearly two. Randy looks up at Mom and Dad, all huge eyes and big ears, wondering what he's supposed to do now.

When Davey gives a watery gasp it's as if Mom, Dad and Mitzy wake up and jump into the water. Davey's so slippery wet they almost drop him trying to flip him right side up. Then Mom has him tight against her chest. "My baby, my baby." Like My Baby is his real name. She's rubbing her cheek against his even though he threw up and now it's on both of them. Dad says, "For Chrissake, Marion," as if she's done something else wrong. "The kid'll be fine," he says. She looks at him like she can't remember who he is.

Davey is screaming again, shaking his little fists, when I realize I'm the only human being still standing on the dock with the dog. I jump in, hoping no one noticed. I can't stand babies, but I'm picking weeds off Davey now, shivering, just glad he's alive.

Later that morning the four of us kids and Happy are sitting on the floor of our pontoon boat, passing around a saucepan of chicken noodle soup Randy heated. The boat's a big red floating version of Davey's playpen--just a flat wooden deck with side railings, a steering column in the middle, and a little motor on the back. The whole thing sits on two giant aluminum floats called pontoons. We keep it tied to our dock. I let Happy lick soup from my hand, laughing when her tongue tickles my palm. She's a hero.

Davey stands up slowly, looking confused and kind of green from almost drowning. When the wake from a big inboard hits, his arms shoot up like he's surrendering, Randy snags him, hauls him onto his lap, and rearranges his fat baby legs to make him comfortable while we ride it out together, up and down, waiting for Mom.

Excerpted from A Brief History of the Flood by Jean Harfenist Copyright© 2002 by Jean Harfenist. Excerpted by permission of Vintage, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.