“I’m fine, Maeve. Let’s go make sure that the lifeguard hasn’t seen the boys yet.” Claire started down the path ahead of me. She got a few steps and then stopped and turned around. “How do you know so much about Braxton Hicks?”
It was the same lifeguard, but this time he was busy chatting up a flock of bikinied teenage girls, lined up on beach towels, slick with tanning oil. I doubted he’d even noticed that Corbin and Owen were out on the dock by themselves. By all the gesturing and flailing I could tell that Corbin was impressing the other kids with his waterproof cast. Owen stood beside him, shivering, his nose looking beaky even from that distance, his nose plugs squishing it shut.
I set up Claire’s folding chair and a shade umbrella. She sat, digging her swollen feet into the cool sand, and guzzled the bottle of water. She let out an enormous belch after.
“God, the gas.” She winced again, hands on her belly.
“Still having them?” I offered her another bottle of water.
“No thanks.”
“We should go home.”
And if we did, I could be texting Salix in about half an hour. But it wasn’t about the text anymore. Not at all, really. It was about watching Claire wince and cringe and hold her belly.
“I’m fine,” Claire said. “I’m fine, Maeve. The baby is fine. I’m not going into labor today. Or tomorrow. Or even this week, or the next, or the next after that. And Salix will wait. I promise. You want to be with someone who won’t get upset if you take your time getting back to her. She’s that person, right?”
I nodded. Be with someone. Girlfriend. Claire was a lot more optimistic than I was. And way ahead of things too.
“There’s no need to worry. Now go swimming.”
“You’re sure?”
“Can you even imagine if I went into labor here? That lifeguard would be horrified.”
“So would those girls.”
“He’d come running over with his big red first-aid box and open it only to find there was nothing in there to help. But at least he has one,” Claire said. “The boys took the one from the van to Gnomenville. King Percival fell from a tower. It was quite gruesome, apparently. We have one under the sink in the bathroom, but I think most of its contents were used in the last big battle between the Wrens and the Percivals.”
“Then the first thing that I’m going to do when we get home is restock it.” I stripped down to my swimsuit.
“That’s Billy’s job.” Claire sighed. “He has a list of things to do before the baby comes. Updating the first-aid kits is on it.”
“What else? Maybe I can help.”
“But I don’t want you to. I want him to do it.”
“Maeve!” Corbin hollered from the dock. “Come out here!”
I glanced at Claire.
“I’m fine. Go ahead.”
The water was cold at first, but it felt good. It washed the dusty drive off, and it washed everything else off too. I dove down into the deep, where the water was colder. It was black and silent and cold, and I felt blissfully alone for the first time since stepping off the bus. I swam deeper still, and then my chest tightened and I ran out of breath. Four minutes for the brain to die without oxygen, yet this was where I wanted to be. I headed back up with my eyes open, watching Corbin and Owen from below, their skinny pale legs churning awkwardly, their small hands bright against the watery dark.
—
I didn’t drive the van down to the highway illegally. I didn’t walk down either. I stayed in the water until my fingers were prunes, diving under again and again. It felt perfect under there, and it was how I held off from panicking about texting Salix back. When we left, I didn’t get a good signal until Squamish.
“Told you so,” Claire said as I started to type.
“You said we shouldn’t say that,” Corbin said.
I was at Alice Lake with no service. Sorry!
Bad trumpet music! Mochas! Yes, please!
A moment later, she texted me back.
Teaching tonight. Is tomorrow morning good?
Very good.
Very good.
“All good?” Claire said. “Your cheeks are red.”
“All good,” I said. “Very good.”
I’d see her in the morning. I’d see her that soon. It wasn’t soon enough. Or was it too soon? It had to be just right, because that was how it was, unless something happened between now and then. I needed my dad to keep a holding pattern: come home, don’t come home, it didn’t really matter; I just needed him to not rock the boat for once. I needed all the interested parties to keep the status quo. I didn’t want anything to mess this up. My heart raced and my fingers tingled and I could feel my cheeks blazing. I was nervous already, but for all the good reasons.
A very small section of Maeve Glover’s neuroses drowned in Alice Lake today. Though it is survived by the bulk of her anxiety, which is kept alive by an infinite list of things to worry about, we are delighted to bury this one tiny piece. There is great hope that this death is permanent.
The dying goose wasn’t at the park, but Salix was, playing in front of the cenotaph with her violin case open, a few dollar coins tossed in.
“Not bad for so early in the day.”
“Those are my fakes.” Salix stopped playing. She took a step toward me, as if she was going to hug me, or maybe kiss me on the cheek, but she didn’t. I took a step forward, wondering if I should do either of those things. But I didn’t. Instead we ended up standing very close to each other but not touching. “I put them in there so people will think that other people have already given me money. No one wants to be the first. Linden taught me that.” She put her violin away and pocketed the coins. “Come on.”
—
We stood near the back of the crowded bus and held on to the bar over our heads. While I hoped that my armpits didn’t stink, Salix bumped into me playfully.
“How much time have you got today?”
“All day.”
“Excellent. Let’s go a little further.” We got off that bus and onto another, where we got two seats on the long bench in the middle. “I would drive us there, but my mom has the car today.”
“You drive?” I said. “Here? In the city?”
“Sure. You don’t?”
“I have my learner’s permit. I can drive with someone who has five years’ experience.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen and three-quarters, and not in a rush to drive by myself,” I said. “Or at all. Especially not in the city. How old are you?”
“Seventeen and getting rid of my N as soon as possible.”
“Your N?”
“You get your L here first, and then after a year you get your N—which stands for ‘novice’—and after two years with your N, you get your real license.”
“I don’t want any license, to be honest. Then maybe everyone would stop pestering me about driving.”
“But don’t you live in the country? Doesn’t every kid who lives in the country want their driver’s license right away?”
“All the more deer to hit,” I said. “All the more drunk drivers to avoid. All the more ditches and ravines and rock cliffs to crash into.”
“But just think, as soon as you have your license, you can go places by yourself. You don’t have to ask for rides. That’s worth it, isn’t it? To go where you want to go? To be free?”