The first time it hit me that day was when I was in the bathroom, washing the sugar off my face. There was no towel hanging up, so I opened the linen closet, and on the row below the beach towels, there was Susannah’s big floppy hat. The one she wore every time she sat on the beach. She was careful with her skin. Was.
Not thinking about Susannah, consciously not thinking about her, made it easier. Because then she wasn’t really gone. She was just off someplace else. That was what I’d been doing since she died. Not thinking about her. It was easier to do at home. But here, at the summer house, she was everywhere.
I picked her hat up, held it for a second, and then put it back on the shelf. I closed the door, and my chest hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe. It was too hard. Being there, in this house, was too hard.
I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. I took off Conrad’s necklace and I changed out of my clothes and into Taylor’s bikini. I didn’t care how stupid I looked in it. I just wanted to be in the water. I wanted to be where I didn’t have to think about anything, where nothing else existed. I would swim, and float, and breathe in and out, and just be.
My old Ralph Lauren teddy bear towel was in the linen closet just like always. I put it around my shoulders like a blanket and headed outside. Jeremiah was eating an egg sandwich and swigging from a carton of milk. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey. I’m going to swim.” I didn’t ask where Conrad was, and I didn’t invite Jeremiah to join me. I needed a moment just by myself.
I pushed the sliding door open and closed it without waiting for him to answer me. I threw my towel onto a chair and swan-dived in. I didn’t come up for air right away. I stayed down under; I held my breath until the very last second.
When I came up, I felt like I could breathe again, like my muscles were relaxing. I swam back and forth, back and forth. Here, nothing else existed. Here, I didn’t have to think. Each time I went under, I held my breath for as long as I could.
Under water, I heard Jeremiah call my name. Reluctantly I came up to the surface, and he was crouching by the side of the pool. “I’m gonna go out for a while. Maybe I’ll pick up a pizza at Nello’s,” he said, standing up.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “But you just ate a sandwich. And you had all those dirt bombs.”
“I’m a growing boy. And that was an hour and a half ago.”
An hour and a half ago? Had I been swimming for an hour and a half? It felt like minutes. “Oh,” I said. I examined my fingers. They were totally pruned.
“Carry on,” Jeremiah said, saluting me.
Kicking off the side of the pool, I said, “See ya.” Then I swam as quick as I could to the other side and flip-turned, just in case he was still watching. He’d always admired my flip turns.
I stayed in the pool for another hour. When I came up for air after my last lap, I saw that Conrad was sitting in the chair where I’d left my towel. He held it out to me silently.
I climbed out of the pool. Suddenly I was shivering. I took the towel from him and wrapped it around my body. He did not look at me. “Do you still pretend you’re at the Olympics?” he asked me.
I started, and then I shook my head and sat down next to him. “No,” I said, and the word hung in the air. I hugged my knees to my chest. “Not anymore.”
“When you swim,” he started to say. I thought he wasn’t going to continue, but then he said, “You wouldn’t notice if the house was on fire. You’re so into what you’re doing, it’s like you’re someplace else.”
He said it with grudging respect. Like he’d been watching me for a long time, like he’d been watching me for years. Which I guess he had.
I opened my mouth to respond, but he was already standing up, going back into the house. As he closed the sliding door, I called out, “That’s why I like it.”
