The Time Keepers

Chapter 56

CHAPTER 56

G RACE OPENED THE DOOR OF THE STATION WAGON AND B ?O and Molly slid into the back seat. Anh was seated in the front, her legs neatly folded in front of her, a straw bag lying flat on her lap. Molly had asked if B?o could join them at the swimming pool again.

It was already mid-August, and Grace could count on one hand how many days were left before school started again. It always amazed her how fast summer went by. Once they hit the Fourth of July weekend, it all seemed to race toward the finish line.

B?o stepped out of the car with Molly, both of their feet squishing in their flip-flops as they headed toward the pool area.

“Get us a few lounge chairs in the shade,” Grace hollered out to them as they ran ahead. She clutched a floppy pink hat between her fingers.

The two women walked through the short pathway that led from the parking lot to the pools. Already, Grace could see Katie on one of the tallest towers. Her blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail, her focus intense on the large and crowded pool below.

The air was filled with high-pitched squeals and laughter, along with the patter of wet feet on the hot concrete.

B?o and Molly were closer to the kiddie pool where mothers still hovered and wrapped their little ones in towels.

Grace paused over one of the lounge chairs Molly had secured and pulled off her cover-up. Looking down at her legs, she winced. They were as pale as they had been since summer began. Her thighs looked like bread dough, soft and plump, small dimples dotting the surface. She let out a deep sigh before spreading her towel on the chair and finding comfort in the warmth of the sun.

“It’s nice the children enjoy being together.…” she said, stretching out. But Anh didn’t seem to be listening to her. She stood rigid at the foot of the plastic lounge chair, watching as Molly was taking B?o toward the main pool that was already crowded with swimmers. Women in bright floral bathing caps were doing laps in the two roped off lanes and teenagers were clowning around in clusters by the pool’s edge.

She watched vigilantly as Molly led him toward the entrance of the shallow section. He took a step in, his ankles submerged in the pale blue water, his hand wrapped around the metal banister.

Molly, a few feet ahead of him, was already waist-deep in the water.

“Come a little deeper,” she beckoned toward him with a wave of her hand. “I want to teach you a few strokes.” She gestured the breaststroke with her two gangly arms.

B?o’s fingers gripped tighter around the railing at Molly’s words. He hesitated for a moment before his body became stiff and he stood on the steps.

Above them, in her lifeguard tower, Katie held her whistle between her teeth and signaled to a group of boys to stop splashing, warning them they’d be pulled out of the pool if they didn’t stop.

“You’re okay,” Molly encouraged B?o as she came back to the steps and tried to coax him to take a few more strides into the pool.

B?o stands frozen. He can see and hear the sounds of the other children enjoying the cool, refreshing comfort of the water. But for him, the idea of going more than ankle-deep, as he had done for many weeks in the kiddie pool, is terrifying.

The water is full of life. Children’s laughter. Beach balls with rainbow stripes being thrown into the air. Toddlers with inflatable wings kicking toward their mother’s open arms.

But to B?o, the water draws him to that night he stood in the reeds with his mother and father beside him. His mother’s hand in his own.

He feels the memory overtake him. It penetrates his skin and snakes into every coil of his mind. He no longer inhales the chlorine from the pool, but the swampy humidity of the Vietnamese shoreline. The marshy silt underneath his feet.

“B?o!” Molly laughs. “The water’s only up to here!” She gestures toward her waistline.

B?o takes another step, and the water comes up to his thigh.

He feels Anh’s eyes watching him, her own self-imposed patrol. Both of them know far too well the danger of water.

Finally, after several minutes of Molly’s coaxing, B?o manages to release his hand completely from the banister and treads into the pool. The cold water envelops his legs, and he feels his mind cleave into two sections. One half sees his mother beside him and the other half, a new friend. Molly’s arms are open, and she is smiling. Her braces catch the light as she opens up her mouth in a wide grin.

“You’re halfway there,” Molly encourages. Intuitively, she knows today is not the day to ask him to put his head into the water or to teach him how to turn his head and cup for breath.

Instead, she just splashes water at him. The two of them laugh as Katie shrieks her whistle and tells Molly she has been warned.