Page 55 of The Last Five Yards

Maren takes it carefully.

Her eyes land on the handwriting.

It is unmistakable.

Looping. Slanted just slightly right. Careful in a way that always betrayed nerves and perfectionism. The handwriting Maren once saw on the corner of her locker door. On pool schedules. On sticky notes she kept pressed between the pages of notebooks like they were something precious.

The sight of it hits her harder than the name did.

She swallows and tucks the check under the packet, so Rowan cannot see her reaction. “Looks like everything is in order,” she says, hoping her voice sounds steady.

Rowan beams. “Good. Because I want to know when I get to swim backstroke.”

“Soon,” Maren answers. “Very soon.”

Rowan nods, satisfied, and darts back toward the seating area, already distracted by a poster of last year’s team captains.

Maren watches her go, the packet clutched tighter than she means to hold it.

She tells herself she is fine.

She tells herself that this is just paperwork.

But the handwriting is still burned into her mind, clear as the day they first wrote their names on the whiteboard.

Rowan does not go far.

The moment she drops the packet off, she flits right back into motion, pulled toward the bleachers like a magnet. Maren watches her hop onto the first row and begin to work her way down the aisle. Every few steps, she stops trying something new. First, she stomps her left foot hard. The boom echoes down the bleachers, sending vibrations up her legs and through the woman sitting next to her. They look at each other and giggle. Next, she drags her finger along the cool metal rail. The hollow ringing that follows seems to delight her. She taps it again. Tap. Tap tap. Testing patterns. Testing sounds.

Other parents in the stands take note, amused, but Rowan is fully in her own world, taking in every new sensory detail like it is the first time she has ever stepped inside a pool.

Maren catches a smile crossing her own face as she watches.

Rowan pauses halfway down and presses her palms flat to the warm tile under the lowest row of seats. Then she pops back up and keeps going, sliding her hand along the railing again, tapping out a new rhythm.

Finally, she reaches the diving well.

Reese is there.

Standing a little back from the edge, watching Rowan with that soft, careful attention, Maren remembers. Her sunglasses are still perched on top of her head, and her coffee cup is empty now, held loosely by the lid. She is talking quietly to another parent, nodding along as they point toward an old Otters team photo hanging near the stairs.

Rowan bursts toward her.

“Mom, listen to this echo,” she says, clapping so the sound snaps through the deeper space of the diving well.

Reese laughs, startled in the gentlest way. The parent she was talking to smiles and mentions how some kids love the acoustics here. Reese responds, but her eyes drift over Rowan’s head for a moment, scanning the deck.

Looking for Maren.

Or making sure she is not looking back.

Hard to tell.

From across the pool, through the bleachers and the noise, Maren watches them. Not hiding, but not ready to be seen either.

Rowan starts to climb up on one of the diving boards, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she goes a step higher. Reese reaches for her automatically, steadying her with one hand, then says something Maren cannot hear. Rowan steps back down onto the deck.

The scene settles in Maren’s chest, the weight returning once again, a weight she cannot name.