Shark Facts My Grandma Told Me

Grandma stares at me. I'm wearing my purple swimsuit, the one with the ruffles at the waist kind of like a ballerina costume. She stubs out her cigarette on the wet concrete and gestures to the pool. "You wanted to go swimming so much, go ahead."

There's a shark in the pool. Not a Jaws-size shark. A shark with a real fin and real teeth and real eyes that are staring at me. Grandma sits on the pool lounger in her Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt that says "Orlando" with a drawing of a sunset on it. She doesn't move. I don't move either. I feel like the rabbits Daddy hunts, how they hunker down on the edges of our backyard, like the green of the lawn is gonna camouflage their bright white fur. Like their shaking ears aren't gonna give them away.

Grandma shoots words from her bullet-mouth. "Get. In. The. Pool."

I asked Mama once why Grandma is so mean to me. Mama took me upstairs to my room and sat me on the bed. She knelt in front of me and whispered in my ear, "Don't ask about Grandma. Not where Daddy can hear," and I wondered for the first time if she was mean to Daddy too when he was growing up in this same house.

I wonder if that's what made Daddy the kind of person who shoots a rabbit and then just leaves it there. Doesn't even eat it. Just lets it rot out there, at the edge of the backyard.

***

The kid's scared—what kid wouldn't be? It's a shark, for Christ's sake.

I light another cigarette. "You gonna sit there all day?"

Her father did. Every single time I slipped his water wings on, he curled up into a ball. Lay there trembling and wheezing, like roadkill taking its last breath. Never so much as dipped a toe.

I sigh, pluming purple smoke. If he'd gotten in the pool, the shark would have killed him. It's not just blood they can smell, but fear. And Esme keeps saying to me, you tried your best, Nancy, and what more can anybody ask of a mother? Easy for her to say when three outta four of her kids made it.

The sunshine drags sizzling fingers over the back of my neck. "Come on. They say you're so smart. Figure it out."

To my surprise, she uncurls. Stands up, balanced on the balls of her feet. I tense; if she runs, I have to throw her in. Them's the rules.

But she doesn't run. She approaches the pool, stares down at the shark, who regards her with increasing interest. Four hundred million years of pure focus behind those beady eyes. Sharks existed long before the dinosaurs, outlived them by plenty. They'll outlive us, too, generally speaking. As for this mako, it's a real challenge. None of that namby-pamby broadnose sevengill shit. If she wins, nobody's gonna say boo to her in this neighborhood.

If she wins.

I toss the spear towards her and she jumps as it clatters onto the ground at her feet. "Get in," I repeat, but with less rancor.

***

I pee myself a little when Grandma throws the spear. The way she wrinkles her nose, I think she can tell. She smiles and I wonder if sometimes people are born with too many teeth.

Do rabbits always freeze? Or what if you were gonna eat their babies, wouldn't they fight you with their claws and their teeth? Mama dropped me off this morning and said she would be back tomorrow to pick me up and I could see her nose twitching, her whiskers trembling like she knew it was bad but the thing is, she still dropped me off. She still drove away.

Grandma taps her Casio watch so I pick up the spear. Up close I can see that the end is sharp and there's something dark red on it. For a second I hope it's shark blood but when I scratch a little I can tell it's only rust. The shark keeps swimming around the pool, but slow. Like it's watching me no matter where it is.

Before I say anything I close my eyes for a second and pretend I'm a shark too, with too many teeth, who would eat a little girl just because. I do that so my voice is big and strong. "What happened when you went in the pool?" I ask.

***

Huh. Nobody asked me that in a long time. Her voice doesn't shake, and for the first time, I'm intrigued. I sit forward on the lounger, cigarette poised between my fingers; a vulture, ready to take flight. "I won."

I let the silence drag out but she waits. "My daddy had a big pool," I add. "Olympic-sized, he used to say, like the ones you see on TV. He picked a great white shark, too."

"Like a Jaws?" Her left eye cracks open like a broken eggshell, revealing a glint of pale blue.

"Yeah, like a Jaws."

She squints at the pool, gaze flickering from side to side. Measuring the length, the breadth. Trying to picture what I fought; what kind of monster shredded the flesh of my left leg into a pulpy, grapefruit-looking mess. The beast might've left me scarred but it also left me untouchable in these streets. Round here, I'm damn near a king. Or at least I used to be.

I heave myself off the lounger. "See, there's lots of interesting things about sharks. They can smell blood from a quarter-mile away. They got the same kind of eyes as us, but they can see about ten times better." I bend down and whisper into her ear. "They can't swim backwards, and they always attack from underneath. Got it?"

Up close she smells like piss and No Tears shampoo and something ugly, metallic, and inherited. Buried treasure, maybe—but buried how deep?

She nods. "Yeah, uh, that's really—"

I push her in.

***

The pool is filled with salt water and it fills my open mouth and I want to cough but I'm still sinking and the shark is just turning to see me and part of me wants to get down lower because if they attack from underneath, won't that be safer? And what if that's just a lie—a stupid horrible lie?

The other part of me is made of wanting to breathe and the shark is coming faster and then I fumble the spear and it falls, right into the deepest part of the pool by the drain and maybe this is how I die—is this how I die?—and I can see Grandma's monster body above the water, her head too big and wavery, and she's still smoking and I make my legs work, I swim down and down and grab the spear and the shark is still coming and I jab it but the spear isn't even pointing the right way, so I jab it as hard as I can with the wrong end and the shark veers off, back to the deep end, and I swim my very very hardest to the shallow end and the stairs and I make it, I make it out of the pool and and fall on the cement and scoot backwards as fast as I can, coughing and coughing and I didn't die.

I didn't.

***

The kid lies splayed on the side of the pool, spluttering and retching; the purple swimsuit makes her look like a skinny, half-evolved caterpillar. In the house next door, an upstairs curtain twitches.

"Okay, not bad." I stub my cigarette out and quash the urge to immediately light a new one. "Now get back in and finish the job."

"What?"

I lower my voice so the neighbors can't hear. "It's kill or be killed, kiddo. And this time, try using the sharp end of the spear."

I don't add what I'm really thinking, which is somewhere between goddamn, she can swim like the devil and if it hadn't been for that split-second distraction when a pebble hit the water, she'd be nothing more than a couple of buckets of chum right now. Maybe I should have got her a bigger shark—they look worse but it would have had more trouble turning in the pool—but I figured my son had never bothered to talk to her about What We Do and How We Do It Is Just How It Is And Don't Ask Me No Questions, Boy. The mako seemed like a good compromise on size but as I watch it slide through the water, curve left whip-fast and snap at a leaf bobbing on the surface of the pool, dragging it under, a sliver of doubt works its way into my chest.

It's a good specimen. Maybe too perfect.

The kid clambers to her feet and raises her chin. I pause in the act of reaching for another cigarette; the blaze in her eyes looks like an old church set aflame.

***

I shot a rabbit once.

I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to! Daddy was at work and Mama was at the grocery store and Daddy's rifle was on the living room wall like always and the rabbit was there and it was so weak and all of a sudden I hated it for not knowing I was there and not knowing I could hurt it and so I aimed like I saw Daddy aim and pulled the trigger. It didn't die. Not right then, not even with all the blood. I ran outside and made myself grab its foot and drag it into the woods. I don't know what happened to it after.

The spear is on the cement and I lean over and pick it up. I make sure it's pointing the right way, and I aim like I saw Daddy aim.

***

The spear hits me low and hard, just above my right hip, puncturing my skin. Blood sprays out as I stumble backwards, tripping over the sun lounger. Scarlet droplets hit the pool. The mako lunges wildly, thrashing, and sprays me in turn with pool water. The plastic slats of the lounger crack as I collapse onto it, pain crackling up my spine like lightning, spidering white-hot fingers of agony into each of my limbs. I grab the shaft of the spear and pull, but the head is wedged in. I grit my teeth, pull again. It doesn't budge. Wheezing, I gather a fistful of T-shirt and press it against the side of the wound where blood seeps, dark and inexorable.

"You little shit," I say, but I can't help how it comes out, tinged with admiration.

***

Grandma is turning red, the pool is turning red, the shark is thrashing and I am shouting, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and Grandma isn't even crying like how I would be, and is she going to die? Is this how Grandma dies?

She says through gritted teeth, "Sorry don't fix nothing, call 911 for Christ's sake," and I turn to open the sliding glass door so I can call from the kitchen but Mama is there and she's looking at Grandma with such naked hate I feel like I'm at the bottom of the pool again. I can't breathe.

Grandma laughs and a little bit of blood comes out of her mouth. "Well now Lisa, how'd a fragile little thing like you produce a spitfire like this?"

Mama grabs me and holds me so tight. She says, in a low voice, "Don't look back." I can hear Grandma coughing behind us. Mama takes my hand but we don't go into the house. She leads me around, to the side.

"Hey! Goddamn it, the phone's in the ki— " Grandma starts coughing so hard I try to stop but Mama doesn't let go of me and I hate that I'm glad but I'm glad.

Her brown Toyota is in the driveway. She opens the door and the car seat is hot on my bare legs. She squats down and holds my face in her shaking hands. Grandma is still coughing by the pool. Mama is crying and she says, "Baby. I'm gonna go around and get in the driver's seat. I need you to stay in the car. Okay? I need you to stay with me."

"But where are we going?"

"Away. Far away."

And I don't think I ever heard words that good in my whole life. I pull the seat belt over me and latch it. Mama kisses me on my forehead and closes my door and runs around the car and gets in and we drive away from all of it.

***

Esme hops the fence—still spry, probably from all those stupid geriatric yoga classes I've refused to attend—and jogs across the patio. "I called the ambulance. Should be here any minute." She halts a few feet away, eyeing the damage. "Jesus, woman."

"No kidding." I hoist myself onto one elbow, then relapse back onto the lounger. The spear throbs with every beat of my heart. Might be my imagination, but it ain't moving as much as it was a couple of minutes ago. "Did you see?" I rasp.

"Yeah. Good arm." She's too smart to pretend she wasn't spying. "Funny, 'cause your Robert could never throw worth a damn. She get that from her momma?"

I shrug, then grimace. "Maybe it skipped a generation. Shows promise, don't you think?"

"Nancy, she tried to kill you," she points out, eyebrows raised, as a siren howls in the distance.

"I know," I say, unable to repress a proud grin. "Ain't that something to talk about."

The siren fades. I crane my neck round. "Hey, where the hell's it going?"

Now Esme's the one smiling. "Whoops," she says, examining one turquoise nail. "Guess I gave them the wrong address. Panicked, see?"

The implication dawns on me. I press my handful of fabric harder against my skin, and suck in a shallow breath. "You wouldn't dare."

"You been running this place long enough, queen. Crown needs a fresh head, I reckon." Behind her, a curly-haired girl in an Elsa dress peeps over the fence. She's got Esme's eyes—coal black buttons, set deep. "Besides, you gotta cut more than the head off a snake to stop it moving." She crouches down, holds my gaze as the world begins to shimmer and gray. "Ain't it funny how sharks always attack from underneath?"