1.20

The springwater flowed, smooth and even, over the canoe, which cupped the river and held it. The weight of the water rushed into the craft, wedging it down, farther, into the riverbed, against the oppressive bulk of the tree. The sky was clear and the air was hot. Philip couldn't hear anything against the rushing of the blood in his ears. The stillness was unbroken.
Beneath the surface, Katy thrashed silent, hips held down against a gravelly grave, air quickly running out. Afraid to scream, aching to cry out, she scrambled for purchase. The air was so clear she could see the bulk of my brother bend and disappear, and suddenly, there was a lifting. The pressure of the boat lessened, somewhat, then, altogether disappeared. The river sucked her out from the pinch and she bobbed, anticlimactically, to the surface, to hear an altogether new sound: Philip. Primal fear lifted that canoe, and he dropped it against the weight of the current. They both tried to free it. It took the two of them, a log for leverage, and even then my father to pry it loose and set it upright again.
I don't know who lifted that canoe. I hope it was Philip, but I fear it was God. I'm terrified that God had to intervene in my own sister's life because I don't want to admit how close I am to death every day. Each time I hear the whirr of my father's nighttime breathing apparatus, or when I see my mother's gouge in the neighbor's ditch, whenever I think about scraping my face off on the concrete of a humid Florida subdivision, I twitch. We're all living the width of a sheet of paper from crashing thrashing crawling death on the other side, and all he has to do is apply the slightest pressure from a knife and he can cut through to us without even leaving his ghastly haunt. I wish it were Philip who saved my sister, but I fear it was God.