Summary

"Silver Water" is a first-person narrative account of Violet's relationship with Rose, her mentally ill sister. At the story's opening, Violet recalls being with her sister after going to see La Traviata when they were teenagers. In the parking lot, Rose belts out a song with such a pristine voice that passersby stopped in the parking lot until she was finished and then applauded. It is a tale she shares with various psychiatrists over the years and it is the way she prefers to remember her sister. She remembers her as vibrant and lovely, not as a fat, sedated blob in sweatpants.

Rose had her first psychotic break at the age of fifteen after a long period of mood swings. She quit coming home after school, opting to go into the woods behind the house until Galen, her mother, would come...