May 17th, 2007 was a traumatic day for Allison Booth. It was the day of her 13th birthday. It was the day of her first period. It was also the day she was eaten by a shark.

Allison had always dearly wished to go scuba diving off the coast of Mexico in the Laguna de Navidad. She was certified. She had bobbed in swimming pools in the local YMCA, stroked the shadowy gray hide of a stingray in a bay in South Florida, and now she was ready, as the saying went, to swim with the big fish. Her mother Judy had agreed to it, but then again, she thought there would only be sea turtles, parrotfish, and the like. She hadn’t known there would be sharks.

So the mother and daughter stepped off the plane in Mexico, struggled through customs in earnest Spanglish, and checked into their hotel room, and before even eating or brushing her hair, Allison changed into her wetsuit and custom-design flippers (her 12th birthday present.)

Before she had been allowed to enter the water, she had been checked, head to toe, for bleeding wounds. She had had none at all, or if she had, they were concealed beneath the thick wetsuit that squeaked against her skin and stretched over her budding breasts. No one would know what the fatal wound had been, from whence had come the blood that had drove the shark into a frenzy for what it had thought was a sea otter. It devoured her in two bites, so that nothing remained of her but a thick red puff of blood, as though she had been blown to smithereens.

“Well, ma’am, she died instantly,” said the coast guard to Judy. “One swift bite off her neck, and she was gone. That should make you feel better, knowing her head popped off like the cap on a bottle of Advil.”

“Thank you,” said Judy. “But how do you know? I thought she was alone when it happened.”

Allison’s scuba guide, a former Navy Seal, had run off frightened. He would be sued until he wished that it had been he who had been eaten by a shark. And though Judy wanted to believe that her daughter had died painlessly, she could not seem to banish the image of Allison with blood streaming out of her feet, kicking and flailing in agony as the gore accumulated in a cloud around her like a ghastly crimson organza skirt- (her 11th birthday present.)

The coastguard had muttered something disgruntled about wanting to make people feel better, and Judy went home and had the funeral, where everyone was comforted by how beautiful Allison had been and the fact that she had died doing what she loved. Still, it was very sad.

A year later, Judy lived alone, having divorced her alcoholic husband several years prior (Allison’s 10th birthday present.) He had come to the funeral completely plastered and sobbed so loudly that people could hardly hear the priest’s sermon. It wasn’t the first time he had behaved that way, but it was the first time Judy hadn’t minded.

Judy had adopted a cat to keep her company. It was named Sparky, which Judy hated, so she renamed her Milk and the two got along very nicely. They had had a cat before, named Phillip, but he had died of leukemia.

It took Judy several weeks to realize that the shock of losing her daughter had sent her into early menopause. Though she hated the sweats and the nausea, she was secretly grateful. Her infertility preserved Allison’s memory. Allison had been her one and only baby, the love of her life, and now that she was gone, it would have been horrid and bizarre for Judy to have another.

Judy’s grief was oceanic. It was a force dark and deep with its own bombastic tides. Judy was the continent that bordered the water and her grief was the sea that lapped against her shores and eroded her sands. Judy’s grief could have swallowed ships whole and burped up islands. It was unceasing, the way her grief splashed against her like milk against the sides of a carton. She felt like she was constantly on the verge of fainting. She wanted to rip out her soul and mail it off to some unwary stranger far away. She even checked the Fedex rates.

Years and years passed by, and she still couldn’t believe it. It was still impossible that her daughter was dead. Allison was hiding outside the landing, about to burst in dancing like the charms on her bracelet, the little painted cat, the small metal flip flops, the tiny shooting star, the itty bitty sea horse, the half heart that said ‘best friends,’ the ballet toe shoes, the Cinderella slipper, the emerald birthstone, and the one that said May 17th, 1994 (Allison’s ninth through first birthday presents, respectively.) Allison had died so terribly long before her time. Her death did not make sense.

Could it have ever made sense, though? Judy wondered. Maybe. There might have been one moment in which Allison’s death could have been plausible, poetic even.

The afternoon shined in Judy’s mind like a sunny diamond. She had been sitting on the porch, trying to coax out another sip of her sweating iced tea, but the glass had contained nothing but ice cubes and the disheveled remains of a lemon. Judy had been about to reenter the mercifully air-conditioned kitchen to refresh her drink, when out had toddled Allison.

Allison, miraculously plump in her pink denim jumper, sticky fingered and blonde. Dear God, Dear God, she was beautiful.

“Mama!” called Allison, stumbling up the step to the sunny porch. “Mama!” she said, her eyes shining like the word was a verdant island she had spotted off in the distance.

“Yes, Allison,” said Judy, leaning forward to kiss the stream of ambrosia that ran from Allison’s nose all the way to her Cherry pop lips.

“Mama!” said Allison, grinning like she had just invented sunlight. “I pooped!”

If Allison’s life had ended right there, like a roller coaster train flying straight off the tracks to disappear into the clouds, Judy could have understood. But things had transpired differently.

Judy would sit and cry with the cat in her lap, and Milk would lick the tears off of her mother’s face. And one time, Milk sunk her vampiric little fangs into Judy’s wilted cheek, and drew just a tiny bit of blood.

***

Phoebe Nir

Phoebe Nir is a high school student in New York City. She has been published most recently in Cicada and Trellis. She is currently nominated to be a Presidential Scholar of the Arts.