She doesn't know why her mother walked barefoot to the neighbor's pond that day or why she set the rowboat adrift or why she lay in the bottom of it dressed in her blue terrycloth bathrobe with an anchor tied around her slim, white ankle like a string tethered to a runaway kite. She wonders how long she waited for the sun to rise or if she instead stared intently at a hawk floating in wide, lazy circles above her. She also wonders why her father didn't run after her, why he stayed behind to make pancakes while she and Lucie wailed along with Patsy Cline singing "Crazy" over the turquoise AM radio plugged into the wall beside the percolating coffee pot and two empty mugs sitting side by side with their handles pointed away from one another. She doesn't know why they didn't ask where their mother had gone so early on a Sunday morning or why they hadn't been told to change into their dresses and Mary Janes so they wouldn't be late for the 8:15 service at Old St. Joe's. She doesn't know why they didn't miss her. Maybe they were too caught up watching their father flip pancakes into the air, higher and higher, like a carnival performer. They ran around the kitchen, holding their plates, trying to keep the perfect cakes from hitting the tacky linoleum floor, where their father's mangy coonhound, Melchizedek, would surely ravage them whole. She and Lucie may only have been six and seven, but they knew how gravity worked.

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