Summary

The narrator, still remembering that summer, says that he and the girl began arguing frequently over the drowned woman. They argued about what happened to her, whether she died by suicide or murder, and what her appearance meant to them. But, the narrator says, their arguing went beyond the drowned woman and soon they were arguing over anything else that happened to come up: dogs vs. cats, tacos vs. egg rolls, etc. "It no longer required arguing or necking to summon the drowned woman," he says, "everywhere we went she surfaced by her own volition" (242). He notes that even when they didn't talk about her, she still seemed to have a presence between them. He compares the grotesque body of the drowned woman to the supple body of the girl.

Continuing to reflect, he says that though there was not a particular night when...