While I was momentarily distracted by this mortification, my arms spasmed and Abby tumbled off my shoulders and into the river.
“Abby!”
I scanned the water, trying to pinpoint where she was so I would only have to dive once. My arms felt like overcooked spaghetti. I spotted her trying to stand in a shallow rocky spot near the bank, slipping and sliding as the current rushed around her ankles. I took a deep breath and then paused when I heard someone shouting my name.
“Rachel, stay there! Get in your tube.”
A few yards away, Christopher whipped off his white T-shirt. Before I could process what I was seeing, he dived in, his arms slicing through the water as he swam straight across, as though the current didn’t exist.
He had a perfect freestyle stroke. He turned his head to take a breath and caught sight of me, still submerged and clutching the side of my tube.
“Get in!” he shouted before plunging his face back in the water.
It took all the strength I had left to hoist myself up. Jane reached over to squeeze my hand as we watched Christopher swim over to Abby.
“Climb on my back,” he called to her. She was on her knees in the shallows, her skin red and mottled from the cold water.
“I can’t!” she wailed.
“Get on!” I shouted, as Jane yelled, “You can do it, Abby!”
Christopher helped maneuver her onto his back, her arms wrapping around his neck. I stared, feeling my mouth drop open, as his biceps bulged with the strain. Where had those been hiding? He swam slowly and carefully now, but the current was on his side, and they reached us in a matter of seconds.
Christopher put one elbow on my tube as he helped Abby slither off his back; I merely gaped at his slick skin and defined pecs, inches away from me. I was too exhausted to pretend not to notice. Abby clutched Ollie, both of them sobbing. Jane and Owen thanked Christopher profusely. I think I nodded. He was panting and clearly freezing, so he wasted no time before giving a wave and going to catch up with his family. They had stopped to wait for him at a sandy alcove up ahead. They looked scandalized, as did the other people floating nearby. I was too drained, too cold, and too confused to care that my family had become the laughingstock of the Wenatchee River.
None of us spoke on the car ride back to the cabin.
I was huddled in an old college sweatshirt with a towel around my waist, shivering uncontrollably despite the heat blasting in the car. My arms, shoulders, and pecs were so tired and aching, I could barely lift my water bottle. Jane, pale with cold, rested her head against the passenger side window and hadn’t looked at any of us since we’d gotten in the car. I’d never seen her so angry. The twins had fallen into a shivering stupor, and I wondered vaguely if they had hypothermia (honestly, they would deserve it). I think Owen was just afraid to break the silence.
Finally, as we pulled up to the house, Abby spoke.
“Rachel…,” she began slowly, her voice hoarse. I sat up straighter, prepared to accept her apology with grace. “Your hair… the sun turned it bright orange. I mean, more orange than it was before.”
“Get out. Get out of the car!”
They didn’t need telling twice. The twins scampered off into the house, Jane and Owen following them without a word. I crawled into the front seat and flipped down the visor mirror. It was true: where yesterday my highlights might have been brassy with possibly ahintof orange, now they glowed bright, like I’d painted my hair with Cheeto dust.
While a part of me wanted to break down and cry right there in the car, I was so numb that I knew I had to go inside and get warm.
Mom was on the front porch talking to Jane, her expression stricken. As I approached, Jane slipped inside, leaving me on the porch with Mom.
“You let them drink?” Mom’s voice was shrill. “They almost drowned!”
“Um…” I stopped, clutching the towel around my waist. Was she really going to do this right now? “I didn’t give them the alcohol. They did that all by themselves.”
“Is this funny to you?” Mom’s voice rose higher. She folded her arms over her pristine cardigan, her face pinched with distress. I hated that she was warm and dry and clean while I was standing there wet and colder than death, and I hated that she was so upset at me when it was the twins who had put themselves in danger.
“Oh no.” I backed away from her. “I wouldn’t dare make a joke about your precious twins. I know that’s all you care about. Helping them when they screw up. Making sure they’re successful even though they don’t do shit to deserve it.”
She followed me down the steps and onto the lawn.
“You have no idea what it’s like, do you?” She was serious and forbidding, almost vulnerable without her usual aura of hysteria. “Raising four girls. I worry about you, all of you, all the time.”
“All of us?” A breeze rushed through the trees and caught at my wet and tangled hair. “Funny, I don’t remember you helping me get internships or”—I lowered my voice to a hiss, even though there was no one around to hear us—“cheating to help me get into college.”
“You can’t honestly tell me that you’ve forgotten everything I did to help push you in the right direction. I would do anything—anything—to help my children succeed. Do you think I don’t know the girls are silly?” She spoke quickly, the words streaming together. “You’re all silly, you’re all like me, except Jane, thank God for Jane. Maybe I wouldn’t worry about your futures as much if you were boys, maybe then you’d be more focused, less like me.”
“Mom! That’s a horribly misogynistic thing to say.”
