Amy and I go to the park on Sundays, and Lucy sometimes. It is small and the swings creak. Once I thought I might fall off them, but with Amy flying wild-haired beside me, I was okay. Let's go, Amy will whine, and wake me up before it's even really day. We will go down the street in the dark. We get there before anyone, before the little kids who shove and scream. We will be the only ones.
I will swing, and Amy makes sand castles in the dirt. She will run and run and climb on everything. Even when I just sit, or chase after her a few times, I am tired by the afternoon. I will want to go home but Amy cries and makes me stay. We unwrap lunches that have gone cold, taking small bites like birds, and watch the other children run.
Amy makes friends with them. Some she already knows- Amy knows too many people- but others are strangers. Hello, she will say. Her voice is like laughter. Her blue eyes melt for them and right away they like her. But me, I only watch the people. I make up stories for them. I say That old lady was a movie star Amy, didn't you know? Amy is smart- or thinks she is. She doesn't believe me.
There's a little girl here sometimes. She is thin, with the longest blonde hair in curls all down her back. Lucy says stay away, can't you see she's sick? But it's not that kind of sick, the one that catches. Her cheeks are all hollow and from far away, all the shadows in her face make her look sad. I try to talk to her. But what could I say? I only smile.
When I first saw her, when she could walk on her own, she was wearing a white dress too big for her. It swallowed her up. On the bottom it got dirty, dragging the ground until it was the same color as the sidewalk. I couldn't see her feet. It looked like empty space, like air. The little girl looked like flying, and Amy Amy! I yelled. Look! I turned back to see my sister and she hadn't heard. Everyone kept on behind me.
The little one was stepping up stairs, showing me pieces of powder-blue shoes, but I still stared. She had been like air. She had been floating.