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wanted to run at him,
     stop thinking and push him down, fill his mouth with sand, push it up his nose until he stopped breathing. My whole body could
     be angry, mad as when Irene pushed the television over and the screen cracked and broke.
    Tom unzipped the tent and crawled inside, Irene staring after him. The wind blew smoke from the fire all around us. “Wait
     for me here,” she said, gently removing our hands. She crawled after Tom into the tent.
    We watched smoke from the fire drift above our campsite, no sounds from either them or us. Every sooften Joanne scratched at the dirt with her feet to say that we were still there. By the time Irene came out again, the trees
     were indistinguishable from the night. She poked at the fire with a branch, sending a gust of embers into the air.
    We paced the beach. With the tide out, it seemed possible to walk forever. Other kids played with plastic shovels, dumped
     out bucket after bucket, ran ocean water through the moats of their castles. We wandered circles around them, taking stock
     of their clothes and their toys. I wanted to go home, even if it meant more of the same, Irene picking up the dishes one by
     one and throwing them out onto the back porch. Our father read the paper at the kitchen table. Sometimes when Irene screamed
     and screamed, he looked at her with complete incomprehension, not knowing why her face changed like that, why she scratched
     welts on her arms and then slid down against the wall like she was falling. Coming home from school, one of our friends cried
     when she saw the spoons and knives all over the floor, the bottles and the cracked dishes.
    My sister Helen was the most pragmatic of us three. She said, “When we’re sixteen, we can go home again.”
    Joanne stared morosely at her feet. That afternoon, she lay down in her shorts and T-shirt and we slowly buried her in sand.
    During the days, my sisters and I avoided swimming in the ocean. Years ago, our father had taught us to swim. In a green lake,
     we floated on our backs, our bodies losing buoyancy. Our mother stood knee-deep keeping watch, pointing out to our father
     which one of us was going under, and he would pop us up as if we were weightless, keep us floating on the surface.
    On our second night at the beach, we heard strange animal noises. Helen said it was a bear, pawing at our tent with his paws.
     Joanne tried to wake Irene but she just rolled over and sighed in her sleep. I dreamed Tom was sitting in the bathtub and
     I pushed the electric radio into the water. His body slapped against the bathtub. I watched in disbelieving silence until
     he died, his chest gray and shiny, sliding slowly underwater.
    The next day, Irene forced us to go on a picnic. They took us to an outcrop of giant, black rocks where the tide came up in
     towering breakers. Tom said, “That’s a whale,” and pointed to where none of us could see. We sat at a nearby picnic table,
     chewing cold chicken and looking off into the distance.
    Tom said, “Shall we go out a little farther?” Hand in hand, he and Irene walked up to the rocks, then climbed out on their
     hands and knees. At rest, they looked like seagulls, perched and waiting.
    “Jerks,” Helen said, her eyebrows tensed.
    Behind us, Joanne walked silently through our picnic site. She was gathering things one by one — the glass bowl of potato
     salad, the two-liter bottle of orange pop, Irene’s sunglasses.
    “Are you making a run for it?” Helen asked.
    Joanne ignored her. She climbed up onto the rocks above a shallow pool. Turning her back to us, she held the glass bowl out.
     Irene had just bought it, along with our groceries. It shimmered in the air. Joanne turned to look at us and her hands opened.
     The bowl tumbled down, cracking hard on a rock. She let go of the pop bottle. It fell upright, bouncing as it went. Then Irene’s
     sunglasses.
    I turned and saw Tom running towards the picnic site.
    Joanne waved her empty hands.