Amy Anderson poured two ounces of vodka into her glass of Diet Pepsi. She screwed the cap on the vodka bottle and set it back into the cooler, in two inches of ice water that had melted in the oppressive, muggy heat that defined August in Maine.

She glanced up to see whether Jacob and Zack had seen her pouring the vodka. They stood waist deep in the pond, and were dunking their faces into the water and making motor boat noises.

“That water must be disgusting,” she said.

Zack waggled his face in the water, then pulled his head up and said, “Yum! I love bloodsucker soup!”

Two years ago the area had been nothing more than a swamp, a marsh sloppy nuisance on the edge of the hay field.

Then Frank had had an idea to turn it into a pond. He hired Joey, a kid from the farm next to the Anderson’s, to bulldoze layers and layers of muck out of the swamp. Joey had been only too eager to help. He had just started his excavating business, and jumped at any opportunity to plow his new bulldozer, backhoe, and tractor through the ground.

Frank had negotiated a good deal with Joey. Too good, Amy thought. Frank had taken advantage of Joey. Not that that was hard to do. As Joey himself put it, “I ain’t too smart, but I can push dirt around!”

And that he could. In two weeks Joey had hollowed out an acre of mushy topsoil, which he had sold for too little money to local farmers and gardeners as prime loam.

The three or four small springs that had fed the swamp slowly filled the empty acre to form a kidney shaped pond.

Early int he summer Frank had somehow convinced the State of Maine to stock the pond with bass. The fish were too small to catch, but the boys liked to row out from the beach in an old rowboat–which was now mired in swamp grass just off the shore about forty yards from the beach–to cast their Sears fishing poles with childish hope. They hooked themselves or each other more than they hooked fish. They didn’t seem to mind catching fishhooks in the hand or arm or back. They healed.

Frank had bought three dump truck loads of beach sand from somewhere. Joey had spread some around the shallow edge of the pond and plowed he rest as far out into the water as he could.

The resulting beach was pleasant, if small. Frank had finished the landscaping with a small weeping willow tree. It didn’t throw enough shade to block the late afternoon sun, but it was pleasant to look at as its long drooping branches swayed in the meager breeze. And in time it would grow.

Amy’s boys splashed in the water.

She took a sip of her vodka and Pepsi. It was already warm, and gave no relief from the heat.

“I want you guys to get out of the water soon. It’s almost time for dinner.”

She picked up her People magazine and lay back onto the lounge chair. Next time she would have to bring a parasol. And more ice.

She opened the magazine. Some young actress–or maybe every young actress–was in trouble with the law and battling a soon-to-be ex-husband for custody of the kids or the dog or the potbellied pig.

“Mom,” Jacob said, “He’s out too far.”

Amy looked up. Zack was in water up to his lower lip, shouting, “Hey, look how high I am!”

“Zack, come in toward the shore, sweetie.”

Zack’s body rose up until the water reached only to the middle of his ribs. He jumped up and down. “Hah, had you both fooled.”

Then he sunk down again, chin deep.

“Zack, stop that. You should get ready to come out now. We have to go soon.”

Zack jumped up, then sunk down again. “Look how high I am!”

Jacob said, “Stop it, bug spit. Mom says we have to go.”

“It’s over my head!” Zack said, and disappeared below the water. A minute later his head bobbed up and he laughed.

“Five more minutes,” Amy said. “And don’t go out over your head.”

She turned back to her magazine. Jennifer somebody had adopted a teenager from Chicago.

Zack spashed in the water.

“Mom, he keeps doing it.”

“Well then, just keep an eye on him.”

Zack’s head bobbed out of the water. “Double,” he said, and went back down.

Double? Amy looked at Jacob, who was halfway between her aind Zack, waist deep in the water.

“What did he say?”

“I don’t know.”

Zack popped up again, this time his face barely breaking the surface of the water. “Double,” he said again, and went back down.

Amy jumped up out of the lounge chair. “Jacob, I don’t think he’s kidding.”

As Amy started toward the water, Jacob turned and looked stupidly at her.

“Jacob, go and get him!”

Jacob turned and pushed through the water toward where Zack had last surfaced.

Just for an instant hand poked out of the water. Then the top of Zack’s head.

Amy had reached the water now, but she was still fifty feet from Zack. She dove and began to swim.

Jacob was ten feet away from Zack, pushing through water, now shoulder-deep. Suddenly Jacob dropped below the water.

Amy swam faster.

Jacob was under the water for maybe ten seconds, and then he reappeared, panic on his face as he slowly pulled his head above water.

“Mom, there’s a dropoff! It goes way down! I think he’s a long way down! I couldn’t get him!”

Amy passed where Jacob was standing. The water below darkened as the beach sand sloped steeply downward.

She pivoted her hips and angled downward.

The water was murky and Amy could not see her drowning son. She pulled her arms through the water, driving her downward.

There he was! Zack twisted wildly in the water, neither sinking further nor rising.

Just another few feet.

Her hand touched Zack on the shoulder. She reached for his hand and tried to move next to him to put her arms around his waist.

Suddenly Zack grabbed her arms with his. He pulled himself forward and wrapped his arms around her. He squeezed, pinning her arms to her sides.

Amy tried to break free. Zack gripped his wrists tightly and pulled, locking his arms around her.

Zack, no! Amy thought. Her lungs felt heavy and she wanted desperately to breathe. She kicked her legs, trying to swim upward, but she did not move.

She tried to twist out of Zack’s grip, but he held too tightly, his strength amplified by panic.

Amy blew out a gush of breath. She needed air. She tried to focus on swimming, on kicking toward the surface, but she could think only of her tightening lungs.

I need air. I need air. Oh God, Oh Zachary, oh honey, I need air.

Amy inhaled, and water filler her lungs. Her body spasmed and she coughed out the water, then inhaled more.

Amy’s mind filled with a cold, still image. A matching pair of caskets, one small and one large, sat side by side at the front of the viewing room at Tanguay’s Funeral Home.

Oh my baby. Oh my boy. My boy.

Amy spasmed again, expelling water. She began to retch in the water, her body convulsing uncontrollably as she struggled to take in air and cough out water.

Zack’s grip loosened and he went limp.

Amy spun and reached one arm around his chest. She pumped her free arm and kicked with both legs.

Almost immediatly she broke the surface of the water. She gasped and rolled onto her back.

Someone was screaming, screaming. Jacob, screaming, shrieking. Words. She heard words. “Don’t drown, Zack, don’t drown!” Over and over. “Don’t drown, Zack!”

Amy pumped with both legs toward the shore. She rolled Zack so that his face was out of the water. He wasn’t breathing, wasn’t trying to breathe, wasn’t gasping for air.

In her mind, Amy saw a single casket.

“Don’t drown, Zack!” Jacob screamed. “Please don’t drown!”

Amy stopped kicking and righted herself in the water. She dropped down, reaching with her toes until… There. Gritty beach sand.

She put one arm around Zack’s back and the other behind his knees, and lifted. She waded toward the shore.

Zack’s body cleared the water, then Amy’s knees cleared the water. In a few more steps she reached the shore.

She tied to drop gently to her knees to set Zack down, but her legs buckled and she collapsed on top of him. She pulled herself up onto her knees. Zack’s face was a terrible shade of white, his lips blue.

“Mom, is he okay?”

“Just stay there, honey,” Amy said. She arranged Zack with his feet toward dry land and his head toward the water, so that the slope of the beach would help to empty his lungs.

She tilted his head to the side. Water drained out of his mouth and nose. His belly was stretched taught. She pressed gently and a gush of water spurted out of his mouth and nose.

“Come on, honey,” Amy said. “Come back to us now.”

Zack opened his eyes. He started to say something, but only gurgled. He caughed, gasped, and caughed again. He inhaled and the sound was sloppy and stuttering.

He began to cry, a hitching, halting, wet, slushy wail.

He propped himself up on his elbows, turned onto one side and vomited a huge gout of water and undigested hot dog chunks onto the beach sand.

Zack began to shift onto his back.

“Stay on your side,” Amy said. “If there’s anything left it will come out easier.”

Zack was quiet for a minute, then said, “You saved my life. Thank you, Mommy.”

Zack reached out, took Amy’s hand, and shook it.

Amy laughed. She couldn’t help it. Then the tears came.

“Oh, Zack, we thought we’d lost you.”

Suddenly Zack looked alarmed. “Where’s Jacob?” he said, and quickly looked over his shoulder.

Jacob was there, covering his mouth with his hands.

Zack said, “And thank you, too, Jacob. You saved my life.”

Jacob’s face turned red. “No I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t reach you.”

Zack said, “I saw you try. You went over the edge, too.” He coughed, and more water trickled out of his.

Amy said, “Zack, honey, just relax. Do you need to cough any more?”

Zack shook his head. His eyes narrowed and he looked at Amy. “Why didn’t you get the boat? I kept yelling for you to get the boat.”

That’s what he had been saying. Not double, but the boat.

“The boat,” Amy said. “Not ‘double.’”

“What?”

“It was hard to hear you in the water like that. I thought you were saying ‘double.’”

“Why would I say ‘double?’”

Jacob said, “I thought you were just kidding around and saying ‘blub blub.’”

“You thought I was kidding?”

“Well you had been faking how high you had been.”

Zack said, “What an idiot.”

“And you,” Jacob said, “are a stink pipe.”

“Hey,” Amy said. “It’s good that things are back to normal. But we should go now.”

Zack unsteadily to his feet, holding Amy’s arm for support.

Amy said, “How are you doing? Okay?”

Zack nodded. “I think so. What’s for dinner?”

“Mac and cheese.”

“No, it’s not macaroni and cheese” Zack said, “it’s Kraft Cheese and Macaroni!”

Jacob looked at the mess at Zack’s feet. “Thank God we’re not having hot dogs.”