Mom on a Float

Date: 5/31/2022

I am with a friend, watching the family on the beach from a cliff edge above, a moving painting full of colours: surf boards, beach balls, picnic blanket with bowls and plates, kids in trunks. I spot my mother lying on a blow-up, plastic, lounging raft, all by herself, floating out towards the middle of the lake. "Figures," I tell my friend. "The only one who can't swim is by herself in the middle of the lake." I am thinking she might fall off and I will not be able to save her.