Chapter 9
I thought about my night with Jack the rest of the weekend. I held it with me deep inside, my own little treasure. Even when Ali asked why it had taken me so long to come back to the room, I never told.
Jack Blane.
I rolled his name around on my tongue like candy, tucking it in the corner of my mouth to preserve its sticky sweetness. His name left a taste in my cheek, a whisper on my lips, a thin thread floating around my head and then evaporating into the air.
Jack Blane.
The mere thought of what his name could do unnerved me.
The name of a boy I would’ve never had the guts to talk to at my old school. A boy other girls laid claim to, his name on their strawberry-glossed lips as they flirted with him. A boy a town cheered for and hung their hopes for victory upon. A boy who might never know anything more about me than my name and status: Kate Franklin, the coach’s daughter.
But I would change that. I would find a way to make sure Jack Blane never forgot my name.
Chapter 10
When Dad and I got home from the scrimmage, I waited until he was lost in work in his office before I pulled open the sliding door. It was cool out—too cool, some might argue, to be swimming—but this was the one place I could go and forget about everything. The place where I could let the inky water cover my head, surrounding me so I couldn’t see or hear the outside world.
I kept the lights off and dove in, feeling the water rush past me as I pushed deeper. The pool was heated, but the air whispered cold across my face when I surfaced. I was the only one who used the pool anymore, and I liked to swim at night, as Mom had.
Back when she was alive, Dad had teased her: “You won’t get any use out of a pool in the Midwest. Most of the year it’s winter. You’ll be lucky to get three months straight of warm weather. The other nine months, it’ll be a big eyesore reminding us how cold it is.”
He and Mom loved retelling the story of her insistence on finding a house with a pool. They joked about it with us when we’d sit outside during the lazy days of September as the heat lingered and it seemed too hot to do normal things like homework, housecleaning, and cooking. Mom always said, “I guess you were wrong, Bob. It looks like you can use this thing well over three months.”
“True, true. That’s why it was my idea to get a pool. Can you imagine how miserable these days would be without one? We’d all be running through the sprinklers or walking around naked.”
“Disgusting,” Brett would yell.
I’d plug my ears and make a show of singing loud enough to block out all noise and images created by Dad’s comment.
Mom would splash water at Dad. “Yeah, yeah, it was your idea. It’s always your idea until the cold sets in and you can tease me again.”
On days like that I’d lie next to them, one hand dipped in the water, listening with my eyes closed, the bulb of the orange sun impressed on my eyelids. We wouldn’t head inside until it had sunk low and pulled down some of the heat with it.
Mom was officially diagnosed in early March when the days were warm in the teasing way that
encouraged you to wear short sleeves or flip-flops. A day when you opened all the windows in your house and wanted to submerge your feet in the pool but the bare branches and muddy brown earth made you think otherwise. The water would be cold and biting when you peeled back the cover, not yet warmed by a summer sun. It was the time of year when you were taunted by hot days that could easily roll into freezing ones.
Life around us continued the year Mom was diagnosed: the seasons progressed, the weather warmed, but that year the pool remained hidden under its thick plastic shell, a reminder.
Mom retreated into a shell of her own.
Outside, she seemed to be trying to stay the same. She joked and laughed.
There were days she didn’t have to try hard.
Days she had to try really hard.
And days she didn’t seem to want to try at all.
We all continued to do normal things, even though they seemed anything but normal because Mom was dying. Stuff like shopping at the mall, game nights, and trips to restaurants where we didn’t have to order because the staff knew our usual dishes.
There were things we did that we hadn’t done before: firsts Mom wanted to experience, such as visits to museums, nights watching classic movies, and family photos in funny poses with Dad and Brett as James Bond and Mom and me as Bond girls. Firsts we knew would also be lasts for Mom, lasts for us as a family.
We tried to make memories and cram it all in. We tried to pretend time wasn’t running out. We tried to be a family, but there were some family
traditions that stopped.
Like the swimming pool.
For months, late into the summer, the cover stayed on, the water still. Until one night when, in the late hours, something woke me. It was that time between the night and the morning. The time when light inched up in the sky and you could almost call it dawn. The air was calm, the house quiet, the world still.
I moved my curtains to the side, turned the metal knob along my window, and cranked the screen open to watch the neighborhood, lights off, houses slumbering.
Then I heard a noise. It was slight. If I had been sleeping, talking, or even moving, I wouldn’t have noticed it. If I hadn’t stopped to catch it again, I might have dismissed it as the creaking of the house, someone rustling in bed—the usual sounds.
I looked outside at the pool where the noise had come from.
The lights outside were off, but the cover was folded to one side.
I saw the water moving before I saw Mom. There were dark ripples, disappearing in the areas the moon’s light didn’t touch.
Mom swam laps soundlessly, back and forth, turning her head slightly to draw in breaths, making small gasping noises.
She swam from end to end, in what seemed a continuous line of movement to nowhere.
I watched, far away, until she climbed out and wrapped her frail, thin body with a towel.
I looked the next night, and she was there.
Each night I watched her as she navigated the same path, and each night the tears fell, leaving their own slippery tracks down my face.
She was always there when I woke and went to the curtains. It was an automatic response, and after the first few nights, my body didn’t need an alarm clock.
She swam constantly, urgently. She swam on rainy nights when lightning crackled through the sky and lit her up for brief intervals. She swam on nights when the air was thick with heat and you could hardly breathe. She swam on nights when the wind shrieked so loud you didn’t know if it really was the wind or yourself, calling out for someone to hear you.
She swam all through the summer, her path shorter and shorter.
She swam until she had to stop sometimes, clinging to the side of the pool in a short respite.
She swam until, instead of the length of the pool, she swam the width.
She swam until she could only sit on the edge of the steps and stare into the water.
She swam until she was too weak to make it outside and only saw the pool through the large guest room windows that faced it.
She swam until she could no longer stay in her own house and we had to move her to a hospice and it was not her body swimming but her mind, her body slowly pulling her down into the choking waters of her illness.
Now that she was gone, I swam to find her. It was my way of coping. I moved through the water, remembering moments I spent with my mom: the ice cream sundaes she bought for Brett and me when it rained because we needed something happy on a gloomy day, the nights we pitched a tent in the living room and curled up in sleeping bags, the movie marathons with popcorn and root beer floats. I remembered it all as I swam and vowed I wouldn’t forget any of it.
But as I slid through the water that night, after we got home from the scrimmage, I didn’t think of my mom. Instead, I thought of Jack.
I replayed our conversation outside the
hotel over and over again. I held on to the words he had said, the feel of his hands on my back, and the warmth of the sweatshirt he offered. I held tight to all of this and let myself believe Jack could be something.
www.allmytruths.com
Today’s Truth:
If you don’t learn to survive, you will drown.
The day after Mom died
.survive to laps swimming started I
I swim toward the deep end, dropping the days that follow into a dark abyss.
.was once Mom what feel to, past the touch to end shallow the toward swim I
I swim through the water
.strokes strong, strong strokes
I swim back and forth,
.forth and back
I swim until I am exhausted
.more some swim to myself push and
I swim to feel the pain in my arms, my legs, my thighs.
.being my, heart my, head my in pain the numb to swim I
I swim toward the shallow end to reach for images of Mom and me.
.death of, loss of feeling the away kicking, end deep the toward swim I
I swim back and forth,
.forth and back
The day after Mom died
.survive to laps swimming started I
Posted By: Your Present Self
[Saturday, September 14, 10:13 PM]
Chapter 11
The Monday morning after the scrimmage began two hours before my alarm usually went off. I had set my cell phone on vibrate to wake me, afraid Brett would hear my regular alarm and wonder why I was up so early. I’d never live it down if he knew I was trying to impress a guy.
My sleep had been fitful. I woke off and on to make sure my phone hadn’t fallen out of my hand, slipping into my covers so I’d miss the alarm and wake at the regular time or, worse, late and I’d have to rush to school, bypassing a shower and the hair dryer. I sweated under my sheets, tossing with strange dreams that evaporated as soon as I woke and tried to remember them.
It turned out the alarm wasn’t necessary. I got up before it went off. I was anxious to see Jack at school. I had watched him play Saturday in the scrimmage, but he was with the team and I never had the chance, or the nerve, to say anything more to him. Today I would see him at school, and I planned to talk to him.
I needed to prepare. Usually, sleep overruled my morning beauty routine, but today, and maybe for the rest of the days this year, it was more important to look good. No matter how long that took.
I grabbed a towel and my shower caddy and crept past Dad’s room and then Brett’s to get to the stairs. Dad had installed an extra shower in the basement shortly after my parents had bought the house, and while I usually didn’t shower there, it was perfect for me today. I took my time shaving my legs, covering myself with fruit-smelling lotions and leaving the deep conditioning mask in my hair long enough to hopefully make it smooth and shiny. The extra two hours gave me enough time to blow-dry and straighten my hair and try to make my makeup look good. I couldn’t do much with my school uniform, but there were enough other parts of me that could use a little work, and I wanted to make sure they were perfect or at least decent before I saw Jack.
Once I was convinced my hair was as straight as it would get, I headed into the kitchen.
Brett waved a hand around his nose. “Whoa. If you think I’m letting you in my car smelling like you bathed in a gallon of perfume, you’re delusional.”
“Shut up.” I grabbed one of the bagels from the bag he’d left open.
“Seriously, we’re driving with the windows open.” Brett tossed his plate in the sink, even though the dishwasher was right next to him.
I finished my bagel, brushed my teeth again, and headed to the garage, where Brett sat honking the horn.
Thankfully, he didn’t make me ride with the
windows open.
The morning sped by. I weaved through the halls on adrenaline, half-excited and half-terrified of running into Jack until it was time for lunch, when running into him wasn’t a fear but a certainty. He had the same lunch block, and I knew exactly where he and a bunch of basketball players sat.
I pretended to listen to everyone at my table, nodding once in a while to look interested, but I was really watching Jack. I planned to follow him out of the cafeteria, and I hoped he wouldn’t leave in a group.
Luck must have been on my side because he got up when there were about five minutes left.
I jumped out of my seat and grabbed my stuff. “I gotta go,” I told everyone.
“What? We still have a bunch of time,” Ali said. “You haven’t even finished your lunch.”
“I forgot I had to print a paper for English.”
I rushed out before Jenna, who had English with me, could question the paper we didn’t have due. I threw my food in the trash and followed Jack. I must have looked like a crazy woman dodging tables and students. I probably took out two or three freshmen.
“Jack, wait,” I yelled when I’d nearly caught up to him.
He turned and stared at me blankly.
My stomach dropped. This was a mistake. He didn’t even remember me.
And then he did. “Kate, what’s up?” And everything was perfect in the world.
I grabbed his sweatshirt out of my bag. It killed me to give it back, but I needed a reason to talk to him. “Your sweatshirt. I thought you’d want it back.”
He took it and shrugged. “Thanks. I’d forgotten about it.”
“I wanted to give it to you . . .” Now that I’d used my excuse to talk to him, I couldn’t think of anything more to say. “Well, okay. I gotta go to class.”
He nodded and turned to walk away.
I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath. I’d blown my chance.
But I was wrong. When I opened my eyes again, Jack was facing me. “Are you going to Joe’s on Friday?”
I shrugged and pretended to act casual, as if I
obviously knew who Joe was and had been planning for weeks to go to his party. The bell rang, and
students spilled into the hallway.
“Maybe I’ll see you there,” he said before he turned to catch up with another sophomore I
recognized because he always walked around with a basketball in his hand.
“If you’re lucky.” The words slipped out, and I was surprised at how natural it felt to flirt with Jack.
“I hope I am,” he said over his shoulder.
Chapter 12
Somehow, by some divine miracle, I did come to know about Joe’s party.
I finally told Ali and Jenna about my conversation with Jack outside the hotel, and they didn’t protest when I told them I wanted to start watching practices.
“You should totally hook up with him. He has a legit sensitive side. I remember when we were in third grade, he smuggled his new puppy into school. He hid the dog in his book bag. Who can resist that?”
I laughed and agreed.
The three of us started attending practices after school each day, sitting in the bleachers, joining parents and girls who were dating team members. One of the girls was with the now infamous Joe Radcowski and started to talk about the party he was throwing while his parents visited his brother in college.
“It’s going to be crazy,” she gushed. “Have you been to a Beacon party yet?”
I shook my head. There was no way for me to lie. It had only been a few weeks. I didn’t know which past parties to even pretend to have attended.
She didn’t seem to mind. “You have to come to this one. What’s your number? I’ll text you the address. You’ll love it. Joe’s parties are always a good time.”
I gave her my number and wondered what I’d gotten myself into. I’d never been to a high school party. After Mom died, high school things didn’t seem important, especially parties full of people I didn’t talk to anymore. My version of what went on at these parties came from the images I’d seen on TV or in movies. The ones where everyone dances like a mania
c, the alcohol flows, and you either throw up, pass out, have sex, or get arrested. None of these options appealed to me, but I agreed out of curiosity.
There was also the little fact that Jack would be there.
Who was I kidding? Jack being at the party was the reason I agreed.
The next day, when Ali and I were sitting in my kitchen making plans, Brett walked in and stood with the refrigerator door wide open. He pretended to search for something, but I wasn’t stupid. He was listening to the two of us. After Ali left, he tried to get me to change my mind.
“Why would you want to go to a party with people like that? Why don’t you hang out with your old friends anymore?”
I shrugged. I tried not to think about my old friends, about how easy it was to forget people I’d gone to school with for nine years. Friends I had
declared besties forever. The people who ditched me when Mom got sick.
“These are my friends now.”
Brett frowned. “I’d be careful calling some of those people friends.”
“You’d find out they’re not so bad if you gave them a chance.”
“Just make sure you keep things in control when you’re at the party. Don’t assume they’re watching out for you.”
“Geez, you act like something horrible is going to happen.”
“I know what can happen, and I don’t want it to happen to you.”
I kicked at the floor tiles and told myself to drop it. Brett was acting like this because he cared about me. Without Mom, he was the one who watched over me and worried. Dad was so busy with his basketball that I could probably hitchhike across the country before he realized I was gone. I wouldn’t admit it to Brett, but I didn’t mind him playing the big brother routine.
“Promise me you’ll watch out for yourself until you know you can trust these people.”
“I can trust them,” I said, but I wondered why I felt so sure. I really hadn’t known Ali or Jenna long.
Canary Page 5
