Page 13 of Breathing Under Water

“Sonny, I think it’s perfect. You’ll knock out your hours in no time. Take her up on it.”

“Coach—” I start to argue, but he cuts me off.

“Nope, this is too good to pass up.”

“Yeah,Sonny,” Vanessa says, having finally looked up from her phone. “You should listen to your coach.” Her inflection changes again on the wordcoach, but I can’t read her meaning.

Even so, her words do hit home.

I will listen to my coach, just as I’ve listened to every coach I’ve had since I started swimming a million years ago. That’s one thing my mom drilled into me over and over: If you want to be successful, don’t argue. Always listen to your coach.

“So it’s settled then?” Coach says.

“Yup.” I paste a smile on my face and then notice my next student arriving with his mom. “See you guys.”

After the lesson, I’m making my way out of the clubhouse when I see a blond woman sitting on the upholstered sofa in the lobby. She’s got a hot-pink purse resting at her feet with the nameRollinsstitched into the side. I realize she must be the mother of the boy Parker doesn’t want at his pool party.

There’s an iced coffee on the table beside her and a Kindle open in her hand. I’ve noticed her around the club before—not only because she’s always dressed in graphic tees and cute summer skirts that are a little less stuffy than the usual golf and tennis gear millennial parents favor at Hollyhock, but also because she’s always alone. A country club is a social place by its very nature, so I’ve wondered about her.

I head her way, hoping she won’t find my questions intrusive.

“Hi, Mrs. Rollins?” I ask, and she looks up from her book.

“Yes?”

“I’m McKenna, the swim director,” I say, and she nods, waiting to see what I want. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I heard that your son, Elias, doesn’t swim, and I wondered if you might want to change that?”

Understanding settles on her face, as though this is something she’s been asked many times before.

“Oh, you’re sweet,” she says, lowering her e-reader. “We’ve tried already, so many times, but it seems Elias is happier on dry land. We haven’t had much luck with a teacher, and we don’t feel we should force it.”

“I get that,” I say, “but maybe he’d actually want to give it a chance if he were in a group lesson, watching other kids doing what he’s afraid to try?”

“No, hon,” she says, reaching for her iced coffee beside her. “But thank you. Elias has autism, and he’s already developedsome insecurities. He knows that many of the other children would progress faster than him in a group setting, and he’d hate being so far behind everyone else. It happens enough in other situations as it is.”

My heart sinks. Even though I wasn’t enthusiastic about taking on this responsibility, hearing the sadness in the woman’s voice suddenly wakes something in me. The thought of a kid feeling held back, weighed down by his differences, strikes some sort of a chord.

“Not to overstep,” I say, “but it’d be free, if that makes a difference.”

“You’re so sweet,” she says again. “The truth is, the hour I’m here at the club each day is the only time I get for myself. Bringing him along with me, even for a class, would sort of defeat the purpose. Elias is a lovely boy, but he’s a handful. You understand.” She smiles regretfully at me.

She’s lying. I don’t know how I know, but I can tell. She’s not trying to get more quiet time for herself. She just doesn’t think Elias will like it. As much as I resisted when Kathleen suggested these lessons, the way Mrs. Rollins dismisses the idea wakes my competitive spirit. Now that I see an obstacle, I’m hell-bent on getting over it.

“You don’t even want to ask him?” I guess I’m being kind of pushy, but I’m thinking of the way my mother always grabbed every opportunity for me as soon as it was offered. She wouldn’t dare let me miss any chances. It’s hard for me to understand a mom who behaves differently.

“I appreciate you taking an interest,” she says, “but I don’t think this is for us.” Then she turns her attention back to the Kindle.

As I head out to Glory’s car in the lot, a new plan starts tocrystallize in my head. I slide into the front seat and take my phone from my bag.

I have two texts from Rae, one complaining that the local GNC stopped carrying her favorite protein powder and the other wanting to know if I can meet her for a run and dryland workout when I finish at the club for the day.

I tap out a quick response agreeing to meet. There’s just one thing I have to take care of first.

When I push open the doors of the YMCA, I feel absolutely no nostalgia. Despite having spent much of my childhood inside this building, I almost don’t recognize the place. This fresh, state-of-the-art facility feels like an entirely different universe from the run-down community center where I learned to swim.

The building is so changed that I’m spared the visceral memories of how much I hated getting into the pool when my swim career started. Back then, I couldn’t bear the feeling of having my head under the water, that pressure against my sinuses, the muting of the outside world as if someone was stealing my senses away from me. But my mom had saved up all winter so I could join the group lessons at the Y, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. Instead, I swam faster and faster at each lesson, thinking that the sooner I finished my laps, the sooner I could get out and dry off.

But my efforts had the opposite effect. My swim teacher couldn’t get over how quickly I was progressing, what talent I was displaying, what a “little fish” I was. He suggested I join the Y’s competitive team. When Mom said we couldn’t afford the dues, the teacher made one quick call and then told me Iwas being invited to join the team for free. I understood what it meant, even at that young age, to be invited to join an elite group, to be given things I didn’t have to pay for. That was when I first started to realize there are times in life when passion just isn’t the point.