There she is in a sea of bodies floating down the Lazy River, but the name is a lie. There is nothing lazy about this tangle of limbs and inner tubes squirming below me. I hike up and down its concrete banks holding everyone’s shoes, including hers. I let her go with the rest of her troop and the perky young moms who think this god forsaken place is fun. I wait with the old moms, the tired moms, hungry for shade.

Finally she returns but she’s off again, barefoot and refusing to hold anyone’s hand. She’s gone to find the biggest ride she can muster at her height so I wait some more, shifting to the agreed-upon meeting pool and she’s not there. She doesn’t come and doesn’t come and I don’t even know where she is or who she’s with and I have left my cell phone in a locker and my bathing suit in the trunk. I have paid a lot of money and come a long way for this nightmare in broad daylight. I remind myself to breathe.

She comes finally, her brown bangs flopping over her eyes. She flits next to me then disappears again into the scaffolding of a water slide. She eats donuts and ice cream, drinks red soda. A crash is imminent, brewing like a storm and it pours down at 8:35 p.m. in the gift shop. She has to spend the money Nana gave her for a souvenir, but she melts on the floor by the Tweety bird t-shirts and squalls, “I hate everything in this store!”

I buy her the only toy she will accept, a red stuffed heart with claws and a grimace. Somehow it fits this moment, this day — a fierce, ugly, monster heart. An hour later she uses it as a pillow as she collapses on my lap. We wait for the perky young moms to close down the park, but at least now I can breathe.