“Willa and June”

When she was nearly three years old June waded into the saltwater on a beach south of Glen Cove and took off her clothes. Willa and her old friend Oliver sat on the rocks, just beyond the shadow of fir trees, watching. June's clothes washed up miles down shore at the feet of a lone seagull. She never got dressed again. Willa allowed June’s nakedness because their house stood alone at the end of a long, wooded driveway on their skinny peninsula in the Puget Sound. And she allowed it because June never asked her permission. Before Willa's mother and father embarked on their world tour leaving Willa and June alone in the house indefinitely, Grandma would laugh as June ran through the kitchen with her chin tucked and her stomach leading the way. Grandpa would lean forward from his easy chair to swat June's soft bottom, or to poke her belly, to which June would reply with a short grunted "hey." Willa watched how they both loved to hold June on their laps, their freckled hands cupped beneath her warm thighs. She didn't join in the laughter, in the poking and squeezing of her daughter's body.