Breathing Underwater by Lu Vickers

Author:Lu Vickers [Vickers, Lu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Lesbian, General, Lesbians, Literary, Humorous, Psychological Fiction, Florida, Mothers and Daughters, Mentally Ill
ISBN: 1555839649
Google: 0eBlAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: B007MXMVS2
Publisher: Alyson
Published: 2007-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I wanted us to be the way we used to be back when Mama was happy, but I wasn't sure when that was.

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L U V I C K E RS

Heat rose off the pavement in dizzy waves of light. I looked over Mama's bony shoulders at the road narrowing in the distance. Way ahead, the pavement looked black and wet, but when we came to that part of the road, the slick black strip would disappear and the road would be dry. When we'd been on the road for about an hour, James fell against me asleep, his mouth open, his brown eyes visible behind tiny slits in his eyelids.

For the next fifteen miles we were quiet, just listening to

the wind and the radio. Then I saw the sign: Snake-a-torium, 5 miles.

Maisey leaned forward and tapped Daddy on the shoulder. "Let's stop at the Snake-a-torium."

Mama said it was too expensive, even though she didn't know how much it cost. I wondered how she ever expected to go to Cypress Gardens or Weeki Wachee. Did she think they'd let her in free? Maybe if she'd gotten the Miss Florida title they would've. But she didn't. This was her chance to see some real tourist attractions. Daddy was trying to give her something; this was better than the monkey by the river.

We passed another sign. Snake-a-torium, Right Ahead.

Maisey tapped Daddy on the shoulder again. I leaned forward, looking out the window. James woke up. "Stop, Daddy," Maisey said.

Daddy slowed down.

"Dwayne," Mama said. But Daddy was as bad as us.

Once you put an idea into his head, he couldn't shake it. He coasted to the driveway, then swung the car into the gravel parking lot. The Snake-a-torium was a short white building. All along the front was a concrete-block wall with holes cut in it for decoration. Behind the wall were glass windows

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B R E A T H I N G U N D E R W A T ER

and behind those must have been cages filled with snakes. Daddy cut the car off and looked at Mama. "Let me just see how much it is."

When Daddy got out of the car, Mama turned around to look at us. She sighed loudly, then threw her arm over the back of her seat and patted my knee. "It wasn't any fun at first," she said, "you know, being in the hospital." She smiled and lowered her voice. "I felt like Frankenstein." She made a googly face to go with what she was saying. "After they zapped me a few times I felt better, almost like another person, except for feeling like I'd been kicked half to death by a mule. After that, though, we started having fun."

"You had fun?" I said, thinking of how it had been to see her at the hospital, to know that she didn't even recognize us.

"We went on field trips. Places children would go," Mama said, laughing. "They even took us to the Junior Museum. I hadn't been there since before Maisey was born.

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