The Impossible Knife of Memory(82)

I closed my eyes and pictured him swimming right behind me. “The stars will work.”

He kicked his legs and we were underway again. “You’re comfortable now, right?”

“I’m less petrified of dying in the next minute, if that’s what you mean by ‘comfortable.’”

“Who do you think trains the Navy SEALs how to get through the water? Me,” he said modestly. “I also spent a month teaching Antarctic penguins to swim.” He took another stroke and we flew across the water. “You’re doing great, but you’d be even better if you relaxed a little.”

“I’m not screaming,” I said. “Give me some credit.”

“You need a distraction.” Two powerful strokes. “Tell me why you haven’t been in school.”

It tumbled out before I could stop myself, everything that had happened from my mall meltdown to Roy’s death to the sight of the ambulance leaving. Talking made being dragged around the pool slightly less terrifying. I even told him about the holes in the living room wall, and combing the glass out of the carpet. He listened without saying a word.

We paused once so Finn could move the kickboard up, away from my butt. After that, I had to kick my legs harder and push up my hips to stay on the surface. I wasn’t going to tell him but he was right, keeping my eyes closed made it easier to focus on the feeling of floating instead of the feeling of drowning.

He stopped again. “I’m taking the kickboard away now, but I’ll keep holding up your head.” The board started slipping away. “Move your arms.”

“How?”

“Pretend you’re a bird. Flap your wings.”

I smacked the water with my arms, making massive waves.

“Argh!” He pushed me, so I stood up and wiped water off his face.

“Wrong kind of flapping?” I asked innocently.

“Brilliant deduction. Ready to try again?”

I was, to my surprise. I kicked my legs and flapped my arms under the water and I kept my own head above the surface.

He put his lips close to my ears. “Close your eyes again.”

I did and we moved across the pool like I was a sailboat and he was the wind. “Trust the water,” he said. “It will hold you up as long as you try. Can I take my hand away?”

I bit my lip and nodded.

“Kick and flap, kick and flap,” he said. “Eyes closed, kick and flap.”

Without his support, my head dropped a little, enough so that his words melted back into the sound of the water, and the saxophone sounded like a faraway whale. I could hear my heartbeat and maybe his, too. I relaxed and found the balanced place between the water holding me up and me staying on top of it. Finn took the fingers of my left hand and pulled just a little until they touched the side of the pool.

“Open your eyes.”

I held on to the edge and stopped kicking so that my feet could drift to the bottom of the pool. Only there was no bottom. My eyes snapped open and I looked down. “You brought me to the deep end!”

“You brought yourself,” he said, swimming closer. “You did great.”

“I did great?”

He grinned and nodded, his head bouncing up and down like a bobblehead doll on a dashboard.

“What?”

He gritted his teeth and drew in a sharp breath. “I really want to kiss you. But you broke up with me.”

“Maybe we were just a little broken up,” I said. “A little broken is still broken,” he said.

“But fixable,” I said. “Right?”

He smoothed the hair off my forehead. “How do we fix it?” “I’m sorry,” I said. “Will that help?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, too.”

“We’re not going to be drama junkies like Gracie and Topher, right? I can’t do that.”

“Me neither.” He smoothed the hair off my forehead. “If I promise to always answer my phone, will you promise to call me?”

“Yes.” I let myself sink a little in the water then kicked hard. “If I promise to listen, will you promise to tell me when things are bad, without joking around or clamming up?”

“No joking?”

“Okay, just a little joking.”

“Deal.”

“I don’t want to shake on it,” I said.

Fifteen minutes later, three old ladies in rubber bathing caps decorated with plastic flowers shuffled out of the locker room and were scandalized by the sight of us fixing what was a little broken with an epic kiss in the deep, warm water.

I’d like to think that my grandmother would have understood.





_*_ 86 _*_

Trish brought Dad home around eleven that night. He went straight to bed without a word. She asked if she could come in for a while, long enough for a cup of tea. I made two cups and sat with her at the table. (I had no choice. It was the only way to find out what happened.)

The ambulance had taken him to the VA hospital in Albany. It took two units of saline solution to fix his dehydration. His blood work showed high cholesterol, sucky liver enzymes, and a lot of white blood cells, which meant he had an infection somewhere, plus his blood pressure was through the roof.

Trish filled out forms for him and waited and filled out more forms and waited longer until finally the nurse came with signed release papers and a note that he had an appointment in three months to see a doctor. The nurse was excited because the hospital had cut its backlog in half. Now it only took three months instead of six. But, she explained, “If you have a crisis, call your doctor’s office immediately and they’ll find a way to squeeze you in.”