Water, Dance With Me

Excerpt From Water, Dance With Me: Cora knew what her father expected. Her sister stood under the boy’s arm in front of the van, smiling on command. The dusty bumper was warm behind her sister’s knees and the remnants of the plumber’s name and phone number framed her in the photograph. The lighting and composition could certainly be better. But this is the picture her father deserved, ambushing these two unwilling subjects as they rushed from their house. Her sister was small and dark haired like her mother. But she had her grandmother’s large eyes and quick smile. She wore shorts, flips flops, and a faded gray hoodie. Her smile was perfect - slightly annoyed but still fetching. The boy, he didn’t matter. A friend, a lover perhaps, but the relationship was of little consequence – on and off, irrelevant. None of them will see her again. Her face will be frozen in time, framed by years of smiles, birthdays, and milestones that have been stored neatly on the family computer, classified by year and by event. Thumbnail pictures of a once living girl. In two nights, she will disappear, a few hairs left behind inside that van, and this is the final photograph that her father will take of her.