ONE
一
The rain comes down in waves, leaving a clear, translucent beaded curtain for the children to weave their way through. Canary yellow sunlight illuminates fat, transparent rain droplets in a dusting of warm white. The summer rain is hot, wet, and iridescent.
Three children wade through the woods towards the clearing half a mile from their house. Their feet are heavy against the muddy ground and their raincoats, which the oldest had fashioned out of black plastic trash bags, crinkle in protest. The littlest one, Rose, who is only five, is doing some protesting of her own. She drags her feet. She doesn’t want any part of this adventure.
“Shhh…the water monkeys will hear you!” Lily hisses.
Rose whimpers and burrows her head into her older sister’s shoulder. “Why are we even going to the river? Yeye told us not to! We’re going to get in trouble.”
Daniel feels irritation well up at his youngest sister. “Stop being a baby, Rose.” He snaps. “And Lily,” He uses his best big brother tone to admonish his other sister. “there’s no such thing as water monkeys. Only babies like Rose think water monkeys are real.”
“I’m not a baby.” Rose shouts, stamping her left foot. “I’m five!” She holds up four fingers. “Five!”
“That’s four.” Daniel points out smugly. He’s gloating despite being about five years older than Rose. And because he can’t resist, “You’re stupid.”
“I’m not stupid! I’m not!” Rose is screaming now. Her cheeks are bright red. “Tell him that, Lily! Tell him I’m not stupid. Tell hi-”
Lily slaps her hand over Rose’s mouth, muffling her tantrum. “Rose! Shhh! The water monkeys will hear you.” Lily’s dark brown eyes dart nervously around. “Remember what Yeye said? If the water monkeys hear us, they’ll drown us, Rose. Or they’ll make us sick!” Lily crouches down to Rose’s height, her hand still over her little sister’s mouth. “You don’t want to drown or get sick, right? What about your ballet recital next week?”
Rose shakes her head furiously and makes the motion of zipping her mouth shut, locking it, and then throwing away the key with her right hand. Lily smiles at her little sister and ruffles her head. All the while, Daniel is watching, a scowl pulling down the left side of his mouth. He’s so sick of having to take his sisters everywhere. He’s ten. He shouldn’t have to watch his two younger sisters as an adult. He’s so much more mature than them. He just wants to go and catch toads in peace. At least Lily is tolerable. Rose is just annoying.
He bites back a dig and motions the others to keep following him. If he lets them go back on their own, his grandparents will never let him hear the end of it. So he continues to press forward at his younger sisters’ excruciatingly slow pace.
Finally, the three break into the clearing.
The river is overflowing and muddy brown water lashes from one end of the river bank to the other. Daniel yips in excitement, ignoring the wide-eyed Lily who shushes him, and rushes to the edge of the river bank, his red plastic bucket tapping at his hip. He knows for a fact that water monkeys don’t exist. Two years ago, in third grade science class, everyone made fun of him when he wouldn’t go near the river bank in fear of being drowned by the water monkeys. Tommy and Mike, the two biggest guys in his grade, had pulled their eyes back and pretended to be his grandfather, his yeye, saying “Oohhhh Ooohhh, Daniel, don’t go near wa-ter. Don’t go near! Bad! Bad luck! Be careful; wat-er monkeys! Come back home! I make you dog soup instead!” They then proceeded to make monkey noises and dance around Daniel, cornering him until he slipped in the mud and ended up in the river. Daniel wasn’t sure if the teacher hadn’t noticed or just didn’t care. Either way, he hadn’t gotten sick from the water monkey’s sand and he hadn’t been drowned – just humiliated. (Tommy and Mike would go on to call him “Water Monkey Dan” for the rest of the year and Daniel would start taking the school bus instead of getting picked up by his yeye.) Either way, water monkeys aren’t real. End of story.
Daniel scans the river bank for a toad. He crouches down and starts flipping over the smooth rocks. From experience, he knows that the biggest ones hide under the largest rocks. He gets on his hands and knees, fingers skimming and dancing across the stones, searching for the perfect toad. Something honks and his hand wraps around the animal. He pulls it out from the rock. He’s triumphant. It is the largest, ugliest toad he has ever seen and it’s wailing. He turns around to show it to his sisters when a twig snaps. He feels his lungs shrink in the warm air. He sees Rose and Lily. Rose is crying and Lily is trembling. Then a fist. A crash. He’s on the ground. His vision is dotted with stars.
“你这个傻孩子!”
You stupid, stupid child!
Daniel raises his widened, almond-shaped eyes, following massive tree trunk legs to the torso of his yeye’s body to the granite-carved scowl that pulls at the corners of his yeye’s lips.
“How many times have I told you?” His yeye grabs him by the hair and jerks him away from the river, his army-printed crocs squelching in the mud. “I told you kids to never go to the river! There are water monkeys.” He deposits Daniel by his siblings. They’re all shivering but not from the rain. “They could kill you!” He grabs Rose by the shoulders and shakes her. “Do you want to die? Does life mean that little to you?” Rose is crying. Daniel can’t stop noticing how the spit from his yeye’s mouth spews upwards in an arch and joins the translucent beaded curtain of the rain.
Wham! Daniel’s ears are ringing from the impact. His head snaps back numbly. “你这个败家子!” You Bastard! “Listen when I’m speaking to you! You are the oldest!” Daniel’s face must be bright red now. “When I say don’t go to the river,” Wham! “I mean,” Wham! “Don’t.” Wham! “Go.” Wham! “To.” Wham! “The.” Wham! “River.”
Daniel can barely breathe. Has the rain always sounded like ringing? Or is that the toad he can’t seem to let go? Or is that the sound of Rose screaming? It can’t be that. Rose knows better than to scream around their yeye. Screaming would take the attention away from Daniel and focus the attention on the girls. That’s the deal the three of them have. Daniel was the oldest. Daniel could take it. This is Daniel’s job.
Lily is the one who eventually calms their enraged yeye down. They know from experience that their yeye could have hit Daniel for far longer; there’s enough rage in that man to beat Daniel to death and then some. She throws her small body in front of Daniel and on both knees begs for their forgiveness. Lily has always been good at that. She’s always been good at fitting the molds other people set in front of her. She’s the rubric of every overachieving kid, contorting herself into a series of checks and boxes, making herself just small enough to slip through. She knows what others expect from her and she knows how to deliver. That’s Lily’s job.
Once their yeye calms down, Lily helps Daniel up and has to pry the still screaming toad from his hands. Her fingers flit across his chest and check for broken ribs. There’s none this time. Under their yeye’s watchful eyes, she then runs to grab the red bucket he dropped earlier, but she falls on the way back, a wheeze escaping pursed lips. She crumples to the ground as if someone had thrown a ball at the small of her back. She looks pained. Daniel knows this is just because she hasn’t been hit enough to know how to hide it, but he reaches over to help her up. He’s concerned but barely so. Lily is fine; Lily is always fine.
The three children follow their yeye back home through the woods from the clearing half a mile from their home. Their feet are heavy against the muddy ground and their raincoats, which the oldest had fashioned out of black plastic trash bags, crinkle in protest. They are bruised, breathing heavily. No one protests on the way back. Rose slips her hand into Daniel’s and squeezes it. Daniel squeezes back. He knows the five-year-old is already rehearsing in her head the excuses she’ll tell her parents. They slipped. They forgot to tie their shoes. They accidentally tripped. This is Rose’s job.
Daniel bites the bottom of his lip so hard he draws blood. He thinks about telling his parents but remembers the last time he tried. The last time he tried he was Rose’s age and Rose wasn’t born yet. His dad had been on a work call and Daniel had tip-toed into his office. His dad had ruffled Daniel’s hair, picked up a pen and scribbled on a napkin. In ballpoint blue ink, his dad had asked Daniel to wait for him outside to talk once he was done with the meeting. Daniel had nodded, clutching the piece of napkin to his chest, stepped out of his office and into the hallway.
But Daniel’s yeye had been watching as if he had known Daniel was going to say something. And as soon as Daniel was outside of his father’s view in the hallway outside the office, his yeye grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the nearby bathroom. He had grabbed Daniel by the collar and in a hushed angry tone spit out, “You 败家子, I know what you’re up to. Do you want to ruin this family by telling your father? Do you know what happens to boys who tell their parents? They get sent away. They get taken by the government!” He had shaken Daniel hard. “Do you want to be taken by the government? Do you?”
His heart hammering against his throat, Daniel had shaken his head furiously no. He didn’t want to be taken by the government. He loved his family: his mom, his dad, his little sister Lily. He had felt a sob build in his throat and furiously tried to blink back tears.
“Good.” His yeye had released his collar and moved to leave the bathroom. On his way out he had paused to throw Daniel’s shivering body a look that Daniel couldn’t quite place. “I know you must think I’m a monster.” His yeye had said quietly, unable to meet Daniel’s eyes. “I’m not a monster. I’m just trying to protect this family. You’re too young to understand but one day you will.”
Five-year-old Daniel had made two promises that day. First, while washing his face with cold water and practicing his smile in the mirror, he had promised that he would never be the reason his family was broken apart. He loved his family, and even if he hated his grandfather, he could endure it. Family, like his dad said, was about making sacrifices. This would be Daniel’s sacrifice. Second, while climbing into his dad’s lap after his dad came looking for him once the work call had ended, with his dad’s heartbeat in his ear, he had promised himself that he would never ever let himself become old enough to understand what his grandfather was doing.
And even now, five years later, Daniel has kept this promise. He has taught Lily and Rose how to keep this promise. He has taught them what it means to be family: how to sacrifice for family. In a way, without even realizing it, Daniel has already broken the second promise he made to himself that day. In a way, five years ago, Daniel had been forced to grow up. In a way, Daniel was doing what his grandfather was doing: trying to protect this family.
Before the clearing disappears from view, Daniel chances a look back. There’s a prickling sensation at the back of his neck. He can’t shake the feeling that something is watching them. He scans the muddy waters of the river. He swears he sees something, something peering back at him. It looks like a pair of yellow eyes, peering from murky brown, but he blinks and it’s gone. Rose squeezes his hand, urging him to keep walking. It’s never good to keep Yeye waiting. Daniel tries to shake off the feeling of being watched. It’s probably all just in his head. What was the point of worrying about it anyways? What was the point of worrying about water monkeys when there was a very real monster a couple feet ahead of him?
Thank you for reading part 1 of Diving for Water Monkeys by Amanda Chen. Read more about her here. Stay tuned for future literary works by Amanda and our other writers.