FictionPress.com - let the words flow| FictionPress.com - let the words flow |
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
“Till taught by pain, men know not water's worth.” Byron
Prologue
Augusta, Georgia – April 14, 2004
Francesca “Fish” Odem squatted down beside the pool edge and dipped her long, spindly fingers into the clear water. She pushed against the warm liquid and smiled as the water swirled the soft hairs on her wrist and arm, leaving the rest of her body overwhelmed with goose bumps and anticipation. She had always loved the feel of the water against her skin. Her father, when alive, had once said that she was born of the water, via one of those warm-water birthing tubs. He happily gave her the nickname “Fish”, saying that it was fitting for a girl who took to water as if she had gills and fins. Sometimes she wished she did.
Cupping her hands together, she let the water cascade through her fingers before splashing a few handfuls against her face and three or four against the front of her black kneeskin body suit. The noise of the Clark High School Aquagym was starting to fizzle out; soon all Fish would hear was the silent hollow hum of the water pressing against her ear drums and the tinkling trickle of the stream of water that broke the surface beneath the diving towers. The sounds of the water always consumed her on race days—or any other day for that matter. There was nothing as pure sounding, nothing as calming.
She dipped her hands beneath the clear blue water again and then took a sip from the seeping collection between her fingers. Swishing the heavy chlorine-flavored water around in her mouth she spat it out into the grate along the pools edge and then splashed her face and chest one more time. She was more than ready to start this state championship meet—she was ready to win.
Straightening, Fish stepped away from the water and ran her hands over the front of her suit, carefully pulling and repositioning the shoulder straps of the Speedo. She snapped them against her shoulders and smiled as the girl in the lane beside hers jumped into the water only to resurface and push herself out quickly.
All swimmers had their own little things they did before the race, while Fish methodically stared at the water and watched the lane markers bob, her best friend listened to the most violent gangster rap she could get her hands on. Some kids meditated, some kids goofed around, but in five minutes time none of it would matter. In five minutes, Fish would be swimming the race of her life. In five minutes, she would be submersed in the warm seventy-degree water, cutting through its surface with firm kicks and hard pulling strokes. In five minutes, she would embrace the only thing she had ever loved passionately—the water.
She leaned forward to touch her toes, stretching the muscles in her lower back. And as she straightened up and began rotating her arms in forward and reverse circles, to loosen her tendons and muscles. Fish moved her blue eyes over the crowd of students and parents who were filling the stands to watch the important all-state finals swim meet at her alma mater, Clark High School, located in sunny Augusta, Georgia. And there in the front row with a big yellow poster board with the words “Swim Fishy” across them in black glitter, was Fish’s mother, Maggie Odem.
Maggie went to every one of Fish’s swim meets, no matter where they were. She always sat in the front and she always held that sign. And after Fish leapt off the starting block, her mother would repeat her father’s age old chant: “Swim my little Fishy!” over and over again. Those four little words had carried Fish through months and months of grief after her father, Charlie Odem passed away when she was sixteen. That was two years ago, and she could still hear his booming voice when she swam, as if he was there at her meets—watching from above.
“Swimming in lane six, a senior on the varsity swim team at Clark High School, Francesca “Fish” Odem!”
Fish trembled at the sound of her name on the loud speakers and then laughed as her fellow classmates in the stands began chanting “Go Hornets, bzzzzzzzz” loud enough to drowned out the next swimmer from Sci Tech High School. Fish waved to the crowd and smiled. She needed the cheers—she lived off them. And this was one of the most important meets of her life. Not only was this her senior year, but this was the state meet, and her one shot at nationals.
Fish had made it to the state championship after earning the best qualifying time in the individual 4x100 meter medley at regionals. The combination swim consisted of four laps and four strokes, and was her best event. She had mastered the four strokes as a small child and had only improved on them with age. She was a favorite to win, even as members of rival schools inched up on her, the water seemed to only obey Fish.
She wanted to make the 2008 Olympic swim team, and hadn’t stopped thinking about Beijing since it was announced that they would host the next summer games. She needed to be there—she had to be. In past years her times were just under average, but with a little help from Maddie and Coach Cooper, Fish had caught the right rhythm and had been plowing through records set by swimmers far more advanced that she.
The water never let her down.
Grabbing the ends of her black swim cap, she drew it down lower on her forehead and gave the back a little shake to make sure that it would hold back her blond hair. She gave the back of her head a few hard pats then scooped up her goggles off the ground by starting block six. She dunked them into the water, shook out the droplets, and then spat into each eye piece. She rubbed her saliva into every nook and cranny of the eyewear, which would keep the plastic from fogging up, and then hopped back and forth a few times to loosen her legs.
“You sure you’re not OCD, Fish?” Coach C smiled as he approached. He always asked the same thing when he caught Fish doing her pre-race routine. She shrugged her shoulder and smiled as he took her by the shoulders and stared down at her with his serious gray eyes. She had often wondered if she was a bit OCD when it came to swimming. It was hard to tell which actions were obsessive compulsive and which was purely swimming ritual. Maybe when it came to swimming she was a tad obsessive, but she never thought of those things as being compulsive acts that she had to do to function.
They were just rites of the water.
“Nervous?” Coach C asked.
Fish shook her head no, and smiled. Fish could see that her varsity swim coach was nervous enough for them both. His pale white skin was tinged green and he looked like he was struggling with his gag reflex. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with each rapid swallow. His nervous stomach was legendary; he was always blowing chunks before any big meet. Fish saw it happen once and took to staying away from him until after the race. She stepped back now and stared up at him with curiosity—she hoped he wouldn’t puke all over her starting block. Not that it would distract her any.
“Not nervous at all?” He asked as he rocked back and forth on his white running shoes. His big hand covered his belly and he let out a small belch that smelled like vomit. Fish’s nose wriggled in disgust and she rubbed her nostrils to get the smell out.
“Nope,” Fish answered. “I’m fine.”
“Good girl… stay calm.” He said as he looked at the cheering fans. “Just stay calm.”
Fish was rarely nervous in competition. She just did what she needed to do when she needed to do it. Nerves came later when she saw how close she might have come to losing the heat—watching the tapes showed swimmers inching up on her always made her heart skip a few beats. Coach C patted her shoulder and then moved on to talk with Jessica Spindle, Fish’s teammate, who was in one row over in lane four. Putting her goggles on and balancing them against her forehead, Fish headed to the lane occupied by her best friend, Madison Jones.
Maddie’s qualifying times had placed her in lane eight, one row from the wall. Not necessarily a good position, but Maddie could swim through murky sludge and still have an amazing race. Fish wasn’t worried about her.
Maddie was sitting on the side of the pool, her long brown legs dangling in the water. She stared out at the lane, probably visualizing her placement and break times just as Fish had. Maddie wasn’t listening to her gangster rap though, she was sitting quietly with her hands folded in her lap and her heels gently tapping against the side of the pool. She was wearing a yellow Hornets swimming suit with a matching hornets swim cap, which sat awkwardly on her head. The lumps beneath the cap were due to Maddie’s long micro braids. Fish told her friend time and time again that she should cut the braids out and wear it short, like Hally Berry, but Maddie refused saying that her head was misshapen and a short pixie cut would only accentuate her lumpy skull.
Recently, Fish had wondered if it was Maddie’s braids that had been making her times off, or maybe it was something else.
Sitting down on the edge of the pool beside her friend, Fish dunked her legs in and playfully kicked Maddie’s calf. Her friend’s smile, normally full of energy and happiness, was tired and small. She brought her hands to her head and splayed her brown fingers over the bright yellow cap.
“Frannie, I can’t keep this damn cap on over these damn braids!” she exclaimed. “I just want to quit.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Fish said as she reached up to straighten Maddie’s cap.
Maddie was the only person the planet that didn’t call Fish, Fish. She called her Frannie, because it “made more sense” and actually “went with Fish’s real name,” Francesca, better. Maddie was the first girl Fish had met after moving to Augusta seven years ago when her father was transferred for work. Fish was certain that she wouldn’t make any friends in this new home and new state so far way from her old home in Oregon. She and Maddie had enrolled the same advanced swimming class given by the city, and they took to each other like long lost sisters. Fish had been ecstatic to find a playmate that loved the water as much as she did and Maddie just liked new people. They had been inseparable since day one. It was Maddie who taught Fish the importance of respecting the water.
“And, I’ve got a damn headache, too,” Maddie whimpered and she pounded her palms against her temples. “I can’t swim with a damn headache.” Maddie touched her forehead lightly and then turned pleading eyes to her friend. “Can you fix me? You can always fix me, Frannie.” Smiling, Fish carefully adjusted Maddie’s swim cap over her tiny micro braids, making sure that the bright yellow cap fitted nicely on her friend’s head, and then began rubbing Maddie’s temples and nape.
“My head’s been hurtin’ all morning,” Maddie sighed. “I’m so tired.”
“Stress…” Fish said softly. “Just a four minute race, Mads,” Fish looked out at the water separated with red and white floating lane markers and took Maddie’s hand. The girls both leaned over to look into the water, which was more than twenty feet deep at this end of the pool. Fish’s eyes fell on the black lines crossed at the tips to signal that the lanes were ending painted on the bottom of the pool. Fish would stare at those lines while she was swimming the length of the Olympic-sized pool during her swim. She straightened up and put her arm around Maddie’s back.
“Four minutes and we’ll both be on the Olympic medley team, Mads.”
Maddie nodded and bent her head toward the water. She broke the surface with her nose and then straightened up wiping the water from her eyes. “Fish?”
“Yeah, Mads?”
Maddie stared at her a moment and then smiled and shook her head as if it were nothing. “Just kick ass today, okay? Swim nationals… even if I don’t make it.”
“Well, duh!” Fish cried. “But it’ll be even better if you’re there.”
“ODEM!” Coach C bellowed. “What in the hell are you doing down there, get over here now!”
Heart fluttering with excitement, Fish pulled her legs from the water and patted Maddie’s shoulder.
“This is it,” Fish whispered. “Second to last swim of the year Mads… kick hard, I want you at Nationals with me.” She helped Maddie get to her feet and then hugged her as hard as she could. “Swim hard, Mads.”
“Always,” Maddie laughed and continued to squeeze her friend. “Love you Frannie Fran Fran.”
“Love you too Mads, good luck.” The girls released one another and Fish hurried to her starting block and climbed up.
The moment she stepped onto the hard surface, Fish’s mind cleared and sounds of thunderous Hornet cheers disappeared. She had fallen into her zone, a purely blissful state that left her focused on one thing and one thing only: the water. She envisioned her race as she watched the unbroken stillness of the water stretched out before her.
“It’s all about the respect, Frannie,” the memory of Maddie’s first comments about respect and the water broke through Fish’s mind. “You respect it… it respects you. There are rules to this things, girl. Follow them.”
Fish could almost feel it—she could feel the water pressing against her belly as it moved around her in a gentle caress. She could feel it hugging her slender limbs and the slight swell of her hips as she pushed and pulled her way to victory. The moment that buzzer sounded, Fish would become one with the water. Nothing would stop her.
“Take your ready.”
Moving her toes to the edge of the block, Fish dropped down and curled her fingers around the end of the rough hard plastic. She stared at the cartoon hornet embossed under the grainy surface of the platform and touched the stinger with her finger.
I’ll do this for her fellow Hornets, she thought. I’ll win.
She pulled down her goggles into position and pressed them hard against her eye sockets. Wriggling her nose, she pressed down the loose corners of the goggles and readjusted the straps at the back of her head. She could feel her eyelashes brushing up against the hard plastic. She sniffed and brought her head down. Wiggling the balls of her feet for a good grip, Fish looked up at her lane. As she lifted her backside up and as she waited for the buzzer, the crowd fell silenced though she could see through her peripheral vision that everyone was jumping up and down cheering.
At the loud hum of the buzzer, Fish sailed through the air flying until her svelte body cut through the surface of the water.
She was home.
Some things in life always happened automatically. Some people’s minds become so full of other nonsense while driving that they would arrive home with no memories of how they got their in the first place. They wouldn’t remember the left and right turns they had taken. Stop signs and lights would vanish and the passing pedestrians and cycles would seem like only shadows. They simply drove, oblivious to it all, controlled by some lobe of their subconscious brain. Swimming brought such subconscious control for Fish. She thought about lots of things when under the water—and it was usually anything but the race she was swimming.
The race and her body were under subconscious mind control, and yet she remained attentive of what was happening around her. She could feel when her competitors were inching up, she knew when to push harder, and she knew just how and when to charge to the finish.
Nothing had changed the day of the state championship. The moment her body hit the water, Fish was on autopilot, moving gracefully through her strokes and turns with ease. First the butterfly, second the back stroke, third the breaststroke, and finally a stroke that Fish had mastered at birth—freestyle. She could hear the cheers of the crowd intermittent as her ears were covered and uncovered by the water. Crawling on her belly on the top of the water, blowing bubbles out of her nose and mouth, Fish felt her body prepare for the final haul. She took one last breath, deep and controlled, burning her lungs, and swam the last thirty feet with nothing but focus and power. All of her energy went to her kick and pull of the water.
Slamming her fingers against the touch pad, Fish surfaced and pulled back her goggles.
She blinked rapidly as water sloshed down her forehead from her swim cap. She turned her attention to the score board and waited while trying to catch her breath. It would take only a second or two for the results to be electronically tabulated. They would flash on the score board from last place to first. Breathing hard, Fish waited for the scores. Her fingers gripped the side of the pool until her knuckles hurt. The names flashed up quickly, and her name was at the top flashing with the letters “NR” beside it. She had just beaten the national individual medley record!
Throwing a fist into the air, Fish laughed and hugged the side of the pool. She could barely believe it! As her placement in the finals hit her, so did the noise and atmosphere of her surroundings. Bit by bit noise trickled in while the waves caused by their swimming splashed up against her chest and neck.
Frannie.
“Mads…” Fish whispered as she turned her attention back to the score board to see where Maddie had placed. She hoped that it was the number two spot, guaranteeing a position at Nationals, but the second place winner was listed as Elizabeth Shoehorn from Sci Tech. Fish scanned the rest of the results and felt her heart catch when she saw her friend’s name in ninth position, with the abbreviation DNF beside it.
“Didn’t finish?” Fish pushed off the wall to look in Maddie’s lane, but it was empty. Maddie was probably in the locker room, devastated that she couldn’t finish. It was probably her headache, or maybe a muscle cramp—she sometimes got those in her calves. Pushing water from her face, Fish turned to the crowd to find her mother, but she too was gone. She looked around the stands for her or for Maddie’s mom, and noticed that something was really wrong.
No one was cheering. In fact, people looked absolutely horrified. One girl pointed across the pool and turned to hide her face against her boyfriend’s chest. Fish followed their gazes to the opposite side of the pool and gasped as Coach C and another coach from a rival school, pulled Maddie’s lifeless body from the water.
With a scream that Fish wouldn’t remember later, she swam frantically across the lanes of the pool, pushed herself out of the water, and crawled on her hands and knees to her friend’s side.
Coach Dan Cooper pressed his trembling fingers against his athlete’s carotid artery and searched desperately for her pulse. He cursed when he couldn’t find it and then nodded to Stan Beckman, varsity coach from Sci Tech, who leaned over Madison Jones’ body and began pressing quick pumps against her chest. Brushing his fingers over Madison’s eyelids to close them, Cooper titled her head back and started mouth to mouth. He focused on breathing for her, praying that she’d gasp for air and come out of it, praying that it wasn’t too late. But he was uncertain of how long she had been under the water. He just pulled her up from the bottom of the 25-foot pool. His level of optimism was fading fast.
“Come on, Jones,” he whispered as he patted her cheek before blowing two more hard breaths into her lungs.
“Maddie!” Fish Odem grabbed her friend’s hand and pressed it against her cheek. “Maddie, please breathe!” Fish’s wails of worry and sorrow weren’t as bad as Madison’s mother, who was screaming bloody murder as she fought to get to her daughter. Soon the two women were both screaming and crying beside him and Cooper couldn’t handle it. He was having a hard time filling his own lungs to breath for the girl. He didn’t hesitate when Fish pushed him away and took over, blowing breath after breath into her friend’s mouth.
The paramedic’s came moments later and took over. Cooper took it upon himself to grab Madison’s mother, while his assistant coach Tom Andrews, grabbed Fish and hauled her off the deck of the pool.
“LET ME GO!” Fish screamed. Cooper locked Madison’s mother in his arms and kept her head tucked against his chest so she wouldn’t have to see the paramedics trying to shock the young girl back to life. When he couldn’t stand watching the paramedics work, he turned his eyes to Tom who was struggling to get Fish to the locker rooms. The teenager was screaming and sobbing and slapping at him to free her. Cooper didn’t envy Tom in the slightest.
Tom Andrews cursed as Odem pummeled his back with her fists while she screamed to be let free. She had struggled so hard, he had resorted to using the fireman’s carry to get the girl into the locker room. When he finally set her down by the showers, he had to physically hold her so she couldn’t get free.
“Let me go!”
“No, Odem, you don’t need to see this.” Tom said held the senior championship swimmer by the shoulders, grunting when she plowed against his chest in effort to get passed him. She was shockingly strong for someone to tall and willowy, but he wasn’t that surprised. He’d seen her in the gym lifting weight to prepare for her swim meets; her physical strength was masked in her skinny body. She was a powerhouse. While he could control her physically, her sobs of agony completely did him in; several times he nearly let her go to her friend. But Jones had been under the water for more than two minutes, maybe even more than that. It would be a miracle they were able to revive her. She was most likely dead at this point. And a teenage girl didn’t need to see the dead body of her friend.
“Fish!”
Maggie Odem pushed her way into the girl’s locker room and ran to her daughter, who was still struggling against Tom’s hold, into her arms. The assistant coach happily relinquished the girl to her mother’s arms, and stepped back as Odem’s shouts to be released turned into unyielding sobs. He couldn’t handle such emotions and left the locker room relieved that he didn’t have any daughters.
Maggie clutched her daughter’s damp body to her chest and rubbed Fish’s back as she sobbed and begged with undistinguishable words for her friend. With gasps of air mixed with cries of sorrow, Fish demanded to see Maddie, but her mother couldn’t allow it.
“Baby, Maddie’s going to the hospital now,” Maggie whispered softly. “The paramedics are going to take her away. You can’t go to her now. It’s going to be okay, we’re going to be just fine.” She released her daughter and reached up to pull off Fish’s black swim cap. Damp, blond ringlets fell around her girl’s beautiful face. Maggie bit her lip as she cupped Fish’s cheeks and used her thumbs to wipe away tears.
Maggie’s voice broke as she whispered, “Go change into your clothes—okay? We’ll go to the hospital.” Fish crawled to the nearest bench and pushed herself up, she was trying to catch her breath when several girls rushed the locker room some talking in hushed tones while students from Clark High cried.
Jessica Spindle, a lanky red-head, threw herself into Fish’s arms with a cry of despair, “I can’t believe she’s gone! They said there was nothing they could do—she wouldn’t come back, she wouldn’t breathe!”
Maggie winced at the look of confusion and pain on her daughter’s face. Covering her mouth with her hands, she watched helplessly as Fish set Jessica away from her and stood, dumbstruck and lost, shifting helplessly from foot to foot. Maggie went to her daughter’s side and gently touched her arm.
“You said she was okay,” Fish whispered, tears filling her eyes, making their aqua depth much bluer. Her grief was apparent, etched into every inch of her face. “You said that it was going to be okay! It’s not okay, Mom! It’s not okay!”
Maggie was speechless and motionless as she watched her daughter crumble to the locker room floor, her screams and sobs echoing off the hollow walls and metal lockers. Maggie knew how to handle grief and death, having buried a husband only two years ago, but she didn’t know how she would begin to heal her daughter’s pain over her friend’s untimely and shocking death. There was no explanation she could give at that very moment that would make anything okay. Wiping away her own tears, Maggie took a deep breath and bent down to take her daughter into her arms. She sat on the floor, rocking Fish back and forth while the other swimmers sat around them, shedding their own sorrowful tears.
---------------------------------------
Tragic death of Clark High School Swimming Shocks Augusta
Teens try to move on after sudden loss of friend
Brain aneurysm likely caused of swimmer death
Clark High School senior breaks world record in 4x100 medley at National Championships; honors the memory of a lost friend.
Champion Georgia Swimmer turns down Olympic dream; never to swim again
Fish ran her fingers over the newspaper clippings in her scrapbook and blinked away tears. She had filled the pages with everything she could to preserve Maddie’s memory—both good and bad. Fish never expected to lose her friend so early in life. She had expected to fill the pages of her book with eighty years of memories. It wasn’t fair that Maddie’s life had ended so quickly. She didn’t even get to enjoy the benefits of adulthood, though Fish’s mother insisted that there weren’t any. She couldn’t make sense of her friend’s death, and was coping with it the only way she knew how—avoidance.
Maddie’s life wasn’t the only thing that ended in Clark High’s swimming pool. That day, Fish decided that she’d never swim again. Not for leisure and certainly not for championships. She went to Nationals, but only to win for Maddie, after that she wouldn’t set foot in another body of water again. The one thing she had loved most had stolen something precious to her. The water broke the rules; broke the mutual respect that they had both had for one another.
It had been easy for Fish to decide not to swim any more. It had been easy to send away the USA Team coaches who came to offer her a position on the 2008 Olympic swim team. It was easy to walk away from the pool at Nationals and not look back. She didn’t care how many people questioned her sanity in turning down a first-class ticket to Beijing and a full-ride to Clemson University. She didn’t want to swim anymore, and was content with her decision. Sometimes her fingers betrayed her, itching with the desire to touch the water, but she refused herself the pleasure.
“Fish?”
Glancing at her bedroom door, Fish closed her scrapbook and set it on the top of the box she had been packing. Her mother pushed open the door and stuck her head in. Maggie’s blond hair was pulled back in one of those poofy scrunchies that she insisted on wearing even though they were out of style. She was wearing Fish’s father’s old work coveralls which were spattered with engine oil and paint from her mother’s numerous projects. Maggie looked around Fish’s half-packed room with sad eyes and then stepped inside.
“Coach Cooper is here again,” Maggie said as she sat down on the corner of the twin bed. She touched the scruffy leg of Mr. Pinkerton, the teddy bear Fish had had since she was five and smiled. “He wants to talk to you a little bit about swimming… just for a few minutes, he said.”
“I’m not interested,” Fish pushed herself up off the floor and returned to her bookcase to pack up novels that she had never had time to read while swimming. “I have to pack.”
“Packing can wait, Fish,” Maggie stood and toyed with the torn pocket on the front of her coveralls. Fish knew she wanted to say more, maybe some soliloquies about death and life. Maybe she’d suggest counseling again, which Fish was more than willing to take up once they moved back to Oregon. Now, she just wanted out of Augusta, and far away from all that she had left behind after graduating from Clark High.
“We have movers coming tomorrow to help us,” Maggie reminded Fish, who shrugged her shoulder indifferently. Maggie’s lower lip worried as she stared at her daughter helplessly. Fish had distanced herself from everyone and everything since Maddie’s funeral. Giving up swimming was like a cry for help, according to her mother and coaches. It was just a phase. It was just the grief. No one understood how she could just give up on her God given talent, but it made perfect sense to Fish.
“What would it hurt to talk to him a little bit, Honey?” Maggie asked as she gently combed her fingers through Fish’s wavy blond hair. Fish allowed the caress for only a moment and then walked across the room. Maggie sighed, “You could spend a few minutes talking about something that you love so dearly with a man who really taught you everything he knew.”
Fish felt slightly guilty about giving up on the Olympics, mostly because going was Coach C’s dream too. It was hard to think about that, about disappointing him, but she managed—somehow. There was nothing anyone could say that would make her change her mind about the water.
“I don’t love it anymore,” Fish murmured, though her eyes were slightly hesitant as she thought about her coach. “I talked to Coach C about it all at Nationals. There’s nothing more to say.”
“Are you sure you’re not making a big mistake here, Fish?” Maggie approached her daughter again and placed her hand between Fish’s shoulder blades. Stepped away, quietly rebuffing her mother’s caring touch in the process, Fish stuffed more books into a box. Maggie bit her lip and hugged herself as she watched her daughter move back and forth from the bookcase to the cardboard boxes. “Maybe you should take some time—a month, maybe? The USA coaches and your college will wait, Fish. They understand what you’re going through—what you’ve lost.”
“How?” Fish turned to face her mother, tears filled and rolled down her cheeks. “How could they possibly understand what I’m going though, Mom?”
Maggie’s mouth fell open a moment before she snapped it closed and brought her hands together. “Fish….”
“They couldn’t possibly know what I feel, Mom,” she said firmly. “No one will ever know what I’m going through. You know, because you lost Daddy… we both lost him. But this is different. I don’t want to swim anymore and I’ve told Coach C that, and Clemson said that they’ll hold my spot until next year. Now, I’m moving to Oregon with you, I‘m gong to work at the refuge this summer, and then maybe I’ll go to school next year. But I’m not swimming again,” she looked over her shoulder and caught her mother’s eyes, “I’m never swimming again.”
Maggie stared at her for a moment and then nodded sadly. “You don’t have to pack everything, Fish. Just what you want in the car with us,” Fish nodded but didn’t stop rearranging her books in the box. She needed something to do with her hands, which were used to swim practice at this time. They itched for the water.
When her mother was gone, Fish shook the betraying tremble off her fingers and bit the inside of her lip to keep it from trembling. She could almost feel the sensation of the water against her palms and under her fingernails. Rubbing her hands against the back of her jeans, she shook her head to clear the uncertainty about her decision away, and grabbed more books. Her hands still itched for the water, which would grow annoying with time. If she were to succeed in her proclamation never to swim again, she would have to teach her hands to enjoy something new, a texture unlike water, but equally pleasing.
They would learn something new and would be content, she thought to herself, because no matter what anyone said or did, and Fish was serious—she was never going to swim again.
