In the second lesson, he gathered his courage, as the little girls did not, striking out on his own across the length of the shallow end, his feet kicking hard, his clear water wings flapping, his brown curls flattened against his small wet skull. He had looked like a lacewing, those slender, delicate insects with large and clear membranous wings that had discovered the roses she and Fancy planted at the front of the house, feeding, they learned, on the aphids that had taken up residence, distorting the flowers, leaving behind pale green secretions like mini-honeydews in a patch. Daniel could destroy nothing, that grin on his face, looking as if he could lift himself out of the water and fly away, so pleased with himself when his fingers grasped the concrete ledge on the other side.
Joan finished her wine and went inside. She brushed her teeth and washed her face. She was tan from the summer, her cheeks pinkly glowing from the day. She found the jar in the medicine cabinet and moisturized as she did not always remember to do. Clean T-shirt and pajama bottoms, she climbed into the empty bed, and the memory of those swim classes with Daniel gave rise to a viable plan.
*
She was dreaming that she was in a field, grass, enormous sunflowers, hundreds of beautiful people stretched out, languorous and laughing, on blankets and sheets, dancing to the sound of chimes and tambourines and acoustic guitars, others were handing out tiaras and crowns, crystal glasses filled with blushing wine that sparkled in the sun. They were young and old, and those like her, neither young nor old, in ball gowns, dashikis, loincloths, bathing suits, fringed jackets, and naked bodies too, in all shades, a thousand languages being spoken all at once, a chorus of sounds lifting up into the atmosphere. Hanging down from the clouds in the sky were paintings of stars, the moon, the sun. Wild horses ran in the distance, sinews caught in the sun. Over the glorious cacophony, the stampede of those hooves was fading away, the horses disappearing, racing down into a canyon she could not see.
A noise woke her. She leaned over to Martin’s empty side of the bed, her eyes were barely open, she was the tiniest bit bleary from the wine. She tried reading the hands on his dead father’s clock. It was four, or maybe five, in the morning, the hour and minute hands were too similar to discern which. The creak of wood under bare feet, nearing their bedroom, then Martin was slipping into the bed behind her, naked, running his hands under her T-shirt, cool against her warm skin, pulling down her pajama pants. He was deep inside of her when he whispered, “Do you ever think of having another child?” She did not turn her head when she said, “I never thought of having the ones we did.”
12
Martin was gone before she woke on Monday morning, a note left for her on his pillow. I loved you this morning, in his doctor’s scrawl. He used to leave notes for her all of the time, now less often, but as typically cryptic as this one. Did he mean that this morning when he came in, he felt love for her, as perhaps he had not felt earlier in the day, or that he loved her this morning as he always did, or that, this morning, they had made love. She blew out her breath and stuck the note in a box she had kept for years, a big blue box with a black ribbon in which something she could not recall had been given. It was filled with all of Martin’s notes and letters since his first letter to her after that holiday weekend when they met in Annapolis. Only some of them were love letters.
The children were still asleep, Fancy’s summer hours started at ten. Joan made a fresh pot of coffee, called the Rhome Community Center, and was informed that a children’s introductory swim class was starting on Wednesday, an August special, a one-hour class held five days a week until Labor Day.
“Yes,” the woman said, “your older child can swim then too, we only cordon off a section of the pool for the class, the rest is open to everyone. And we’ve got floats, inner tubes, noodles, and after the class, the teacher sets up fun relay races for everyone who wants to join.”
It was nearly an Olympic-sized pool, the retractable roof open during the hot summer months, lounge chairs for the towel-wrapped kids to rest on, a snack shop that sold milkshakes, sodas, juices, and sandwiches, and Joan thought she might count on three hours alone in the house, every single weekday. She would set the hours for Fancy, tell her to take the kids to the pool from noon until three. One hundred and eighty jeweled minutes each day that she would not waste.
She signed Eric up for the class, and when Fancy arrived, Joan drove to the new Target outside of Rhome, bought everyone new bathing suits and huge beach towels, caps and goggles for the boys, fins and a snorkel for Daniel. She wanted to make it special for him, so that he did not feel banished, did not imagine himself unfairly lumped in with younger children. He was sensitive these days, and until he saw all the kids at the pool, he would not take anyone’s word for it. There would be lots, of course; the pool was a huge draw in the summer for families all over Rhome.
“Who wants to go to the pool at the community center every single day for the rest of the month?” Joan said when Fancy and the boys were just back from the park, flushed and sweaty from running around in the heat. There were cheers and she added to the excitement by tossing two of the new towels onto the kitchen table, saying, “Choose your favorite,” then, before the boys could tussle, handing around the presents she had hastily wrapped, no neat corners, no hidden tape, bows that drooped just a little.
Eric immediately pulled the red swim cap onto his head, the goggles over his eyes. Daniel stuck the snorkel in his mouth and ran his hands down the kitchen walls, saying, “Look at this neat coral, and those fishes, do you see those fishes, Eric, glowing like they’ve got lightbulbs inside?” Eric lifted up his goggles and said, “I don’t see anything at all. It’s got to be real, Daniel, to be seen.”
She handed Fancy her gift, a swimsuit in the florals she was still wearing, the modest cut something she might find comfortable, suitable. There had always been something Mennonite in how Fancy dressed, covered from shoulders to calves. Joan used to wonder what Fancy was hiding beneath all that fabric, but she was always sunny and cheery, open about everything—her plans when she was not at the Mannings, the young men Trudy fell in and out of love with—she could not be hiding scars on her body, self-inflicted or otherwise, and if she was, then she was the most talented of liars.
Fancy lifted away the silver tissue paper Joan had found in a drawer. “Thank you so much, I just love it,” and Joan was glad she had selected well, Fancy’s smile could not be faked.
“You don’t want to take Eric for his lessons yourself?” Fancy asked. “You had such a hoot doing it with Daniel.”
“I thought you might like to do it this time. It really is a lot of fun.”