I thought I was drowning.

Remembering

Mother signs off the Net with Father and crosses the kitchen to where I sit. She has been talking to him privately for fifteen minutes about the small cut on my knee. She tried to get Lily to treat it, but Lily balked, saying she hadn't practiced medicine in fifteen years and that she had never practiced that kind of medicine. "He said it should be fine," Mother says. "It should heal just like any other cut."

"It is just like any other cut."

"Not exactly," Lily mumbles as she sits in the chair opposite me.

Mother explodes. "I told you, Jenna! I told you! I said don't leave the house!"

"But I did."

Mother crumples into another chair at the table. She rubs one temple. "What happened?" she says more softly.

"I was crossing the creek. I stepped on the first stone. And hen ..." I try to remember exactly what happened next.

"Then what?" Mother says, her voice wrung tight.

I remember. More. "Did I almost drown?"

"The creek's only a few inches — "

Lily cuts her off. "Yes. A long time ago. She wasn't even two."

"But she couldn't possibly remember — "

"I remember."

I remember. I look at Mother and Lily, their expressions identical, like the air has been squeezed from their lungs. "I remember birds. White birds. I remember falling. I fell so far. And I screamed and water filled my mouth. ..."

Lily pushes back her chair and stands. "We were at the bay. I let go of Jenna's hand for only a second, just long enough to get money out of my purse for a snow cone. I was paying for it, and when I turned around, she was already at the end of the dock. She ran so fast. It was the gulls. There were gulls at the end of the dock and she didn't stop. She was so focused on those birds, she didn't hear me scream. I saw her go over and I ran. She was already sinking, and I jumped in after her."

Lily talks about me like she is talking about someone else.

Like I am not in the room.

"You bought me another snow cone. A week later when we went back. It was — "

"Cherry."

Mother begins to sob. She scoots her chair back and comes to me. Her arms wrap around my shoulders and she kisses my cheek, my hair. "You're remembering, Jenna. Just like your father said. This is just the beginning."

Remembering.

Jenna Fox is inside me after all. Just when I was ready to move on without her, she surfaces. Don't forget me, she says.

I don't think she'll let me.

Visitors

Kara.

And Locke, too.

They come to me. Mother and Father are right. Bits. Pieces. More. It comes back. These pieces wind through the night. Faces that wake me. I sit up, hot, afraid.

I bad friends. Kara and Locke. But I don't remember when. Or where. School? The neighborhood? I can't remember where we went or what we did. But I see their faces. Looming close in front of mine, breathless.

I knew them. I knew them deeply. Where are they now?

I sit in my bed, in the dark, listening to the midnight creaks of our house, trying to conjure more than their faces, trying to push them into rooms, desks, and voices that will trigger more. But only their faces, close, eye to eye, are revealed. They linger before me like they have found my scent.

Tell me. Tell me who you are.

Tell me who I am.

Timing

Lily slides the garage door up. It screeches and shudders from lack of use until it finally completes its noisy path. Inside the dark cavern is an old pink hybrid wedged between stacks of boxes.

"I'll back it out, and then you can get in." Her voice is sharp. "And don't tell your mother. I'll catch it if she finds out I took you out in public."

"I'd rather stay home."

"I'd rather you stayed home, too. But I have errands to run, and I'm not taking a chance on you gallivanting off again."

"I wouldn't." Gallivanting?

Lily grunts. She squeezes between stacks of boxes and backs the car out, and I get in beside her. "Are we going to take the T?"

Lily brakes. "You remember the T?"

I am annoyed with everyone asking what I do and don't remember. It's all a matter of degrees. Do I remember riding somewhere on the T? Having somewhere important to go? Riding with someone who mattered to me? No. Do I remember what it looks like and what it does? Yes. I give the best response I can. A shrug.

"Well, this isn't Boston, and there is no T. And the shuttle doesn't go where we need going so I'm driving the whole way. Problem with that?"

I don't answer.

She puts the car in gear and lurches forward, passing the houses on our lane. There are only five. The others are not Cotswold cottages. Each one is different. An English Tudor right next door, then a large Old Mission style estate, next a sprawling Craftsman, and last, the white house that Mr. Bender paired with the word careful. It is a massive Georgian with tall, white pillars at the entrance. I am amused that I know the styles. But I am sure in Mother's office there are volumes and volumes on architecture. Maybe the old Jenna read them.

Mr. Bender said the homes in this neighborhood cost a fortune. Looking at these, I believe him. We also still have the brownstone in Boston, which I am sure costs a fortune as well. "Are Mother and Father rich?" I ask.

"That's an odd question."

"I'm odd. Remember?"