Liana

Front tooth missing and dark brown hair in hopeless confusion, Liana squirmed over the side of the battered canoe and clomped up the beach in saggy socks and yellow boots to tell me that the water was full of green sea serpents.   Moments before, with her head hung over the side of the boat, with her dad paddling in the back, she saw the creatures swirling among the seaweed.  She was sure I was the one who would want to know, and just in case I missed the importance, she sputtered her story a second time.

Reaching for my hand and steering me to water’s edge she let me in on her other secret, which was that the sand holes that squirted salty water when your boots got too close were alive and your little finger would be sucked right off if you put it in there.

Curled in a blanket on the couch that evening and staring at the flames in the fireplace, Liana alternately described all she had seen that day and sucked her thumb.  The thumb, a holdover from early childhood, would persist for years.  It was comfort when awakened by reoccurring nightmares, and prior to bedtime, the mouth was sometimes just a good holding place.  The stories exhausted, she hugged her bedraggled lion with its stuffing poked through failed seams and leaned into my shoulder, the monster dreams held at bay at least for awhile.