What I Thought Was True(59)

“Just getting him used to me, and the water,” he says over his shoulder. “It’s okay. This is what I did at camp. I know this.”

Em looks skinny and pale next to his wide shoulder, tanned skin.

I follow him, unsure. Am I supposed to hang back and let Cass do his thing, or look out for Emory? In the end, habit triumphs and I stick close.

There are only a few people on the beach, some of the Hoblitzell family, people I don’t know who must be renters. As usual, I can see a few eyes flick to Emory and then skip away with that something’s not right with him expression. It doesn’t happen often . . . he’s a little boy and people are mostly kind.

But the saleslady at T.J.’s yesterday kept talking to me or Grandpa when Emory was touching stuff. “Get him to understand that he’s not allowed to do that.” I wanted to slap her.





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At the tideline, Cass halts and Em echoes him, digging his toes into the wet sand. For about five minutes, Cass does nothing, just lets the waves wash over their feet. Then he reaches forward, placing one of the cars a little way out in the water.

“Can you get down now on all fours and reach this?” All his attention is on the little boy, as though he’s forgotten I’m there.

It reminds me of the way he is at swim meets, turned inward, concentrating completely on the task at hand.

Maybe that’s it. It’s not weird between us. He’s concentrating.

Which is what I want. It’s not as though I’d like Cass focused on me while Em sinks below the waves. Exactly the way I did with him.

For forty-five minutes the game continues. Each car is a little farther out in the water. Cass lies on his stomach. “Can you do like me?”

Emory obeys without question or hesitation. I’m worry-ing because the slight waves are slapping closer to his face and Em hates that—always yells when we scrub his face in the bathtub.

“Okay now. Last rescue. You do it one-handed. You hold your nose like this to keep the water out and reach far. If you get a little wet, just squeeze your nose tighter and keep reaching. But you have to close your eyes while I put out the last thing.”

Em’s eyelashes flutter shut, his fingers pinching his nose.

Cass drops something into the water about ten inches out and smack, a wave slaps right across my brother’s lowered face. I jump up from where I’d been sitting, wait for the howl of outrage and terror. But all I see is a flash of red and blue





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clutched tightly in Emory’s hand, held aloft triumphantly, and the smile on his face.

“Way to go, buddy. You saved Superman.” Cass straightens up, then raises his hand for a high five. Em knows those from Nic, so he presses his hand against Cass’s, then scrambles over to me, waving his treasure.

It’s one of those plastic Superman action figures with a red cape and the blue tights, a little worn, some of the paint scraped off the manly square features. But Em doesn’t care. He carefully traces the S on the chest, his lips parted in awe, as though this is a miniaturized live version of his hero.

“How ’bout another try in a few days? Maybe we could do this twice a week. It’s better if the gap between lessons isn’t too big,” Cass tells me, putting an elbow behind his head and stretching, like he’s getting the kinks out.

Em has extended Superman’s arms and is flying him through the air, his face lit with joy.

“That’d be great! Fantastic.”

I sound way too enthusiastic. “I mean . . . Fine. It would be fine. Emory would like that.”

It’s all about Emory, after all.

Silence.

More silence.

Cass bends down and starts carefully restoring the Matchbox cars to his backpack, drying them first with the (yes, pink-ish) towel around his neck “Okay then,” I say. “I should get him home. He’s probably tired.”

Cass makes one of those noises like “Mmmph.”





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“Thanks for the lesson, Cass.”

“No problem.”

“?”

“—”

“It’s really hot today.”

“Yep.” Sound of bag zipping.

“How was the water?”

“Ask Emory.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Subjective question,” Cass says, standing up, one-shouldering the backpack, and finally venturing beyond monosyllables.

“Mom and Jake are like me. We can swim in anything, no matter how cold. Bill and my dad are wimps. They wait till, like, the beginning of June.” He says this last with complete disgust.

“No Polar Bear Plunges for them, huh?”

Ack, shouldn’t have mentioned that. But . . . jackpot. Eye contact. Completely untranslatable eye contact, but hey.

I do the elbow-behind-head stretch thing he did earlier. Two can play at the “I-just-need-to stretch-my-muscles” game. But Cass is not looking at me, plowing his foot through the sand.

Emory pulls on the bottom of my shirt. “Cookieth,” he sug-gests. “Cookie. Then Dora Explora. Then bath. Then story. More story. Pooh Song. Then bed.”