A Matter of Heart (26 page)

T
he parking lot at the community pool is nearly empty. I park under the drooping branches of a mesquite tree and carry my swim bag to the locker room. The air is moist in here, the smell antiseptic. Someone has left a pair of black Teva sandals by the shower stall. I'm still wound up too tightly
—thank you, Alec
—and I concentrate on my breath. I visualize myself shutting down sections of my mind, quieting inner voices, until I'm left with pinpoint focus. It's something we were taught a few years ago when Coach hired a sports psychologist to do a session with the team.

Unfortunately, some days it works better than others. Alec is still in my head as I kick off my clothes into an angry heap. So maybe he's gotten in deeper than I realized, but not as deep as this dream of mine. Slowly, I pull on my suit and I start to relax.
I give in to the ritual and let it take over. There's peace in this, in doing what I know so well—what I'm so good at doing. I twist my hair up into my favorite silver cap and fit goggles to my forehead. By the time I slip my feet into my flip-flops, I'm calm.

Swimming, in one way or another, is the antidote for everything. Even, it seems, Alec.

The pool is empty and I'm glad. I don't want J.D. for an audience right now. I leave my towel on a picnic table and step out of my shoes at the edge of the water.

The lane stretches out ahead of me and the water is so beautiful. Sunlight, even weakened by a layer of clouds, warms the blue. When it's still like this, the water is a perfect reflection of the sky. When I was little, I loved to stand on the diving board and look into the watery vision of heaven. And feel as if I were jumping into the clouds.

A whisper of voice—my mother's, maybe?—wonders if I should go slow, go careful. Which is why I fit my goggles over my eyes, not even bothering to wet them first, and dive in.

The water parts for me with an explosion of sound and movement. Cool blue kisses every inch of me and I stretch into a streamline and kick as if I'm a dolphin. If I could have one wish, one magical wish, then I would want to be an actual dolphin for a day, just to feel what it's like to swim that fast. I'm a freak, I know. Other kids want to swim with dolphins; I want to be one.

I come up for air and start an easy stroke. I'm five hundred yards into a warm-up before I even realize it. I feel good. No,
great
. I sure as heck don't feel like I'm dying. Like I'm ever going to die, in fact. I pick up my pace, reaching longer, pulling harder, kicking faster.

Bmm bmm bmm bmm

What would it be like, death? I've never seen a dead person before. My grandparents are all still alive. Aunts and uncles. I grab a quick breath, then curl myself into a tight flip turn and push off the wall.

Is being dead different than never being alive?

Bmm bmm bmm bmm

I try to picture myself dead. I pull up a hazy image of me, lying in a coffin, arms crossed over my heart. But it's still not like I'm dead because I'm looking down on myself. Maybe that's how it is. Maybe it's like in books and movies where you hover above the scene as everyone sobs. Maybe death is just a different kind of life.

I flip again and push off into a faster rhythm. Do soldiers think about death when they go off to fight? Do police officers and firefighters? Or do they just feel alive the way I feel right now?

Bmm bmm bmm bmm

I can swim like this because I
am
alive. Death doesn't scare me.

When I reach the wall, I pull up. Something white flashes off to the right. My heart jumps and I cry out. I grab my chest.

Bmm bmm bmm bmm

It's okay. I'm okay. My vision clears. It's only my dad—he's standing there at the fence. Watching.

Watching
.

Oh no. There are shiny patches on his cheeks, glinting in the filtered light. He's been crying—my dad who never cries.
He knows
. He's been watching me and he knows. I struggle to calm down as I wonder how to explain.

Then he rattles the fence and smiles. “You're so damn beautiful
to watch.” He wipes his cheeks. “I'm sorry. Just got lost in the moment, I guess.” The tears are
happy
. He's happy.

He has no idea.

Dad wears an Arizona Diamondbacks sweatshirt and his grubby weekend jeans. He's got on his bulldog ball cap. It's blue with a pudgy white bulldog. The brim says
NEVER GIVE IN
. He got that cap after one of my regional wins.
The bulldog is a fighter, like us, right, Ab?
Everything has always been about swimming. Even a ball cap.

“What are you doing here?” I say.

“I saw the car when I drove by. Surprised me so much I had to stop. Since when did you start swimming here?”

I shrug. “It's empty in the afternoons and I like having the pool to myself.”

“Well, you look smooth,” he says. “Your rhythm was great. How you feel?”

“Great.” I pull off my cap. “Perfect,” I add. I look down the lane again. Clear, blue water. My favorite color.

I hear his footsteps and then the clanging of the gate. A second later, he's at the pool edge holding up my towel. He used to do this when I was little. Seven, eight years old. I smile. “I'm okay. Really.”

I step out of the pool, and I'm surprised that he's crying again. He wraps the towel around me, folding me into the thickness and into his arms. “What's happened to you…it's brought everything back to me, my own accident, the broken collarbone. The disappointment.” He's quiet a second as he swallows and gets control of his emotions. “I couldn't stand to watch you go through the same thing.”

He rubs my arms through the towel. His hands are jerky and frantic, almost like his words. “But you're swimming. You're competing. I don't know how you're doing it on the meds but you're doing it.” He shakes his head. “You're a fighter, Abby. You make me so proud.”

I let him squeeze me tight and I feel how happy I've made him. He doesn't suspect anything and I know it's because he doesn't want to. He's seen what he wants to see—that his daughter is swimming. I realize it's what he
needs
to see. And I'm more determined than ever to swim my hardest. To win it all. For me and for Dad. Because now I know exactly what it means to die.

Death is what happens when your dream ends.

F
riday morning is clear and cool. A perfect day for the state swim championships and sanctioned Olympic trials. I open my bedroom window and breathe in the dawn. There's a splash of red across the sky, a deep color lit from behind and nearly glowing. Horizon red.

Blood red.

I blink slowly. My eyes are tired and achy. I didn't sleep much, as expected, but I'm ready. No regrets.

A few minutes tick by and the gray lifts as if a curtain is rising and the world is coming into focus. Another day.

The
day.

I lay my hand over my heart. It feels fine. Regular. Rhythmic. Strong. I've taken my vitamins and swallowed quarts of Gatorade and water. I've been to the pool every afternoon this week,
not pushing hard, but holding on to my feel of the water. I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

Now it's just a matter of getting myself onto the starting blocks.

Alec rises to my mind. He threatened to stop me, but he hasn't said a thing to anyone all week. I don't think he'll risk his future. He's no different than I am, whether he wants to admit it or not.

It takes only a few minutes to get ready and slide on my team suit. My swim bag is already packed. Jen will be by to pick me up soon. The meet officially starts at nine, but the team bus will leave from Horizon at 7:30. Dad always volunteers as a line judge, but today he also agreed to help set up, so he and Mom must have left a few minutes ago.

I walk into the dark kitchen. I pull my small cooler from the pantry and drop in a PowerBar, a banana, a bagel, an orange, and a handful of fruit leathers. I zip up the cooler. I open the fridge, squinting at the door light, and reach for my water jug. There. That should be all.

“Aren't you forgetting something?”

I jump and cry out in surprise. My heart rockets against my ribs. “Mom?” I peer toward the chair in the corner of the family room.

Her shape is nothing more than a shadow. She sits in the chair, dressed in a shirt and sweatpants as dark as the fabric. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you.”

I set my things on the counter. “You scared me.”

“Sorry. Aren't you going to take your pill?”

“Of course.” My heart thumps again, but this time it's a different
kind of fear. I reach for the pill bottle, shake out a pill, and swallow it with a mouthful of water from my jug.

Mom walks toward the kitchen, moving from shadow into light. Her face is pale and strangely blank. “They say one baby aspirin a day is good for your heart.”

I freeze.

She pulls out a barstool and sits. “I remember when you were about two years old,” she starts, as if we're just having a chat. “You were acting strange—fussy for no reason. I would have called Laney but she was out of town.” Mom adjusts herself on the seat, crossing one leg over the other. “Your dad said I was worrying over nothing. You didn't have a fever but I just
knew
. So I took you to Urgent Care and turned out you had a raging ear infection.”

She shrugs. Her calmness is freaking me out. “It's been exactly like that this week. I could feel that something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what. Then I checked out the pills in that bottle this morning and discovered they're all aspirin.” She folds her hands on the counter and waits.

I look at her and then back at the pills and around to the fridge and the door. I'm looking everywhere, but there's no escape. “I have to go. Jen will be here any minute.”

“I called Jen and she's not coming. You're not going.”

“What?” I reach for the counter to steady myself. “You have no right.”

“Where are the beta-blockers?”

Her voice is so smooth and mine is shaking. I'm shaking. “I flushed them.”

“When?”

“Monday night.”

“You were going to swim today without them? Knowing everything you know?”

“I'll be fine, Mom. I've been swimming all week.”

“Oh my God,” she murmurs, her face suddenly white.

“Where's Dad?” I ask.

“He already left for the pool.”

“He understands. He wants me to swim.”

“Because he doesn't know you stopped taking the pills.”

“I had to,” I choke out. “They were making me slow.”

“They were keeping you alive!” She stands up so quickly, the barstool crashes to the floor behind her. Sudden fury pours off her hot enough that I step back. “Do you know how lucky you are? Do you have any idea how many other parents are grieving the loss of their children from this disease? And you stand there ready to throw it all away for a swim meet?”

“That's not all it is.”

“Yes, Abby. That's all it is. A title and a stupid medal.”

“It's not stupid!”

I see her gather herself, tamp down her anger. She's slipping into counselor mode. Counselors do not call their patients' dreams stupid.

“It was Dad's dream too,” I cry.

“And it's over. You hear me?” she bites out. “Over! You are done. You are not going to kill yourself in that pool.”

“I'm not killing myself. I'm living! LIVING!” I scream. “And I'm going to do this—I can do this.”

She's crying and shaking her head and I hate her. I hate her so much. As if she sees it in my eyes, she turns away. She reaches for her purse and brushes past me at the counter.

At the garage door, she turns. “Pick your fight, Abby,” she says. “Because you have one hell of a tough battle ahead of you, and it's not in the pool.”

I don't know what she's talking about, but it doesn't matter because she's turned away and grabbed the van keys. “Your father isn't answering his cell, so I'm going to the pool,” she says. “I'll explain things to Coach and bring your father home. We'll talk this through. The three of us.”

I grab my pack. “I'm coming too.”

“No. You're not.” She pushes open the door.

“You can't do this!” I cry.

Tears trickle down her cheeks. “It's already done.”