Praying for Sleep

moment she was actually swimming on her own. Then the crest passed and lowered her once more. But when she drifted back down, she’d moved forward a foot or so and she came to rest with her groin on his fingers. For a tense moment neither father nor daughter moved and—compelled by an urge she understood no better today than then—Lis pressed her legs together, capturing his hand in that spot.
    And then she smiled.
    Lisbonne L’Auberget looked at her father and gave him a slight smile—not one of seduction or power or pride. Least of all physical pleasure. No, just a smile that sprang spontaneously to her cold, blue lips.
    And it was for this transgression, Lis later speculated, rather than the fluke contact of bodies, that she was so ruthlessly punished. The next thing she recalled was being dragged from the water, her arm almost popping from its socket, and being flung to the hard ground, where she lay on her belly, as her father’s hand—the same hand that had moments before cradled the most enigmatic part of her body—now rose and fell viciously upon another.
    “Don’t you ever!” he roared, unwilling to give a name to the offense. “Don’t you ever! Don’t you ever!” The raw words kept time with the loud slap of his palm upon her wet buttocks. She felt little sting from the powerful blows—her skin was numb from the cold—but the greater pain was in her soul anyway. She cried of course and she cried hardest when she saw her mother start toward her then hesitate. The woman refused to look then turned away, leading her sister from the shore. Portia looked back once with an expression of cold curiosity. They disappeared toward the house.
    Nearly thirty years ago. Lis remembered those few minutes perfectly. This very spot. Except for the level of the water and the height of the trees, the place was unchanged. Even the darkness of night was somehow reminiscent of that June. For though the picnic had been at lunchtime, she had no memory of sunlight; she recalled the whole beach being shrouded, as murky as the water in which her father had dunked her.
    Tonight, Lis finally managed to push the memory aside and walked forward slowly over the gray sand of the beach to the dam. The lake was already pouring over a low portion of it—a cracked corner on the side nearest the house. Some of this spillage made its way into the runoff and the creek beyond but much of it was gathering in the culvert that led to the house. She leapt over this flood and walked to the wheel, set into the middle of the dam.
    It was a piece of iron two feet in diameter, its spokes in graceful curves like wisteria vines, the foundry name prominently forged in some Gothic typeface. The wheel operated a gate, two by three feet, now closed, over which flowed the water that gushed into the spillway. Opening it all the way would presumably lower the lake by several feet.
    Lis took the wheel in both hands and tried to twist it. Rose breeders develop good muscles—from twenty-five-pound bags of loam and manure if not the plants themselves—and Lis strained hard. But the whole mechanism was frozen solid with rust.
    She found a rock and pounded on the shaft dully, chipping paint and sending a few sparks flying like miniature meteorites. She tried the wheel again without success then drew back and hammered the mechanism once more, hard. But the rock dipped into the spume of water and was ripped from her hand. It bent back her fingers as it catapulted deep into the culvert. She cried out in pain.
    “Lis, you all right?”
    She turned and saw Portia climbing cautiously over the slippery limestone rocks. The young woman walked up to the gate.
    “The old dam. Still here.”
    “Yup,” Lis said, pressing her stinging fingers. She laughed. “But then where would a dam go? Give me some muscle here, would you?”
    They tried the wheel together but it didn’t move a millimeter. For five minutes the sisters hammered at the worn gears and the wheel’s shaft but were unable to budge the mechanism.
    “Been years since anybody opened it, looks like.” Portia studied the gate and shook her head. She then gazed at the lake. It stretched away, a huge plain of opaque water at their feet.
    “You remember this place?” Lis asked.
    “Sure.”
    “That’s where we were going to launch the boat.” Lis nodded at the beach.
    “Right. Oh, is this it? The same boat?” Portia touched the gunwale of the rowboat.
    “That? Of course not. It was that old