Page 57 of The Last Five Yards

Maren forces herself to turn away from the pool before she lingers any longer. She walks back over towards the bleachers to gather the stragglers, clipboard tucked under her arm. As she walks, a flicker of movement catches her eye from across the pool. Someone stands at the far end of the bleachers, leaning back against the blue tile, half in shadow from the overhead lights, watching the pool with a stillness that doesn’t belong to the kids. It takes Maren a full second to realize who it is. Reese. Hands in her pockets, hair pulled back in a high ponytail, and gaze fixed on the water. Like she is trying to memorize every ripple. Maren stops mid-step. Breath catching in a way that she hopes no one else notices. She looks away fast, but the damage is done. Reese Callahan is here, in her pool, again. And she is watching.

Maren forces her attention back to the deck and the handful of kids still sitting and chatting on the benches. “Alright, let’s go—warm-up time,” she calls, clapping her hand against the back of her clipboard. The stragglers scramble to their feet, grabbing goggles and caps as they make their way to their lanes. Maren walks alongside them, silently counting how many kids are in each lane and making sure she doesn’t need to make any adjustments. She glances over at lane two, seeing Rowan is already engaging two of her lane mates in a heated discussion about whether it would be better to be an otter or a dolphin. Rowan explains to them how an otter would be superior because they can float on their backs while they sleep. Maren blows her whistle once and points at the whiteboard where she has already written up today’s workout. The pool erupts into motion. Still, even over the splashes, there is the echo of voices. Maren can feel it. Reese’s steady gaze from across the deck is quiet and unshakable.

Maren starts her usual walk along the deck, the one that keeps her moving and keeps her mind where it needs to be. She checks strokes, calls out a couple of corrections, and watches breathing patterns. The humidity settles across her shoulders like a familiar weight. When she reaches the far end of the pool, one of the older boys pops up coughing, his goggles shoved halfway off his face. Maren kneels in the gutter, adjusting the strap of his goggles, reminding him to breathe out through his nose on his turns. It should be a simple correction, the kind she can make without thinking, but the air shifts behind her in a way she feels more than she hears. She doesn’t have to turn to know Reese is sitting just a few feet behind her now, on the bleachers. The awareness presses between her shoulder blades, warm and steady, and Maren must force her focus back to the boy in front of her. “Try it again,” she says, giving the goggles a final tug. When she stands, she keeps her eyes on the water. She is not looking at Reese. She is not.

Warm-ups begin to wrap up, and the pool quiets into that brief, slippery pause where every kid is trying to decide what mischief they can get away with before the next set. Maren opens her mouth to call the group’s attention back to the deck, but lane two beats her to it. Rowan and her two new teammates have started a handstand contest at the end of their lane. Kicking their legs in wild, uncontrolled bursts that send water slapping against the lane lines. One of them topples sideways with a snort of laughter, splashing everyone in lane three. Maren just watches half a second before she brings her whistle to her lips and gives one short, sharp tweet. “Feet off the bottom of the pool, please,” she calls, pointing at lane two.

Rowan pops upright instantly, pushing her goggles up so far, they almost flip inside out. “Sorry, Coach!” she says, grinning like she already knows she’s forgiven. It’s a tiny disruption, the kind every first practice has, but it’s enough. It lets Maren shift her focus back to what she knows, what she can control, and away from the gaze she still feels warming the space between her and the bleachers.

Maren waits patiently until the giggles from lane two settle before she taps her clipboard again and points back to the whiteboard. “Alright, everyone back to the wall. We’re starting with two fifties, easy peasy. One with a kickboard and one without.” A few of the older swimmers nod and push off to reset, already knowing the drill. Rowan, however, pops straight up in lane two, water dripping off her chin, one arm hooked over the lane line like she is bracing for some life-changing news.

“Coach?” she calls, entirely too loud for someone who is 8 feet away. “How many laps is a 50?” A couple of kids snort and giggle, but Maren bites back a smile. She steps closer to the edge of the pool.

“Two lengths, kiddo. Down and back.”

Rowan nods with the seriousness of someone receiving sacred knowledge, then immediately turns to repeat it to her lane like she is the lane captain.

Maren walks the deck as practice settles into its steady rhythm, the one she could follow blindfolded. She calls out the next sets in a clear, even voice and pauses every few laps to yell, “Feet off the bottom.” It’s not at anyone—the whole group still needs the reminder. The younger swimmers are trying with all their heart just to make it to the other side without stopping, tiny arms windmilling, kicks splashing more than they push. Lane two is the loudest of them all, a tangle of determination and enthusiasm. Rowan fights her way through her first full fifty, breathing on every stroke, legs kicking like she’s trying to out-swim gravity. She stops only once at the halfway mark, hanging on the wall for three big breaths before pushing off again with a grunt of effort. Maren can’t help the small swell of pride that rises in her chest as she watches. She glances toward the bleachers without meaning to and catches the faintest shift in Reese’s posture, like she is holding her breath with every stroke Rowan takes.

Maren starts to move down the deck again, eyes tracking lane two as Rowan fights through the last few strokes of her fifty. The kid is all effort and no rhythm, but she makes it, slapping the wall with a triumphant little grunt before sucking in air like she just defeated the entire Pacific Ocean. Maren feels her mouth tip into a smile and giggle, she tries to hide behind the edge of her clipboard. When she glances toward the bleachers, just for a second, she sees it. Reese isn’t leaning back anymore. She’s forward on her elbows, hands clasped loosely between her knees, watching Rowan with a focus that borders on awe. Her eyebrows lift, barely, but enough for Maren to see the pride hit her all at once. It softens her face in a way Maren remembers too well. Reese exhales, slow and almost shaky, and one corner of her mouth pulls upward as Rowan waves at her across the water. It’s not dramatic. Just a tiny shift. But it lands in Maren’s chest like a pebble dropped into still water, sending out ripples she is not prepared to feel.

Maren blows the final whistle of the afternoon, one long, easy note that echoes off the tiles and signals the end of the day. A wave of cheers rolls down the lanes, followed by the familiar scramble of kids pushing themselves out of the pool and taking off their caps and goggles.

“Nice work today, guys,” Maren calls, walking the length of the pool as the last few climb out. “Don’t forget anything on deck, or it becomes mine. You know the rules.”

Rowan pops out of lane two like a launched torpedo, water streaming off her as she sprints towards the locker room. She waves widely at Maren before disappearing; Maren can barely get the word “WALK” out of her mouth before the girl disappears. Maren watches her go into the locker room, heart doing something warm and traitorous in her chest, then she turns back to start collecting stray kick boards and pulling buoys out of the gutter.

She crouches down to grab a few stray buoys when she feels it again, that shift in the air. Not loud, not sharp, just a presence settling into the space around her. Maren stands up slowly, wiping her damp hands on the sides of her shorts before turning back towards her office.

Reese stands just inside the doorway to the office, her hands stuck into the pockets of her jacket, her expression careful in a way that makes Maren’s pulse stumble. The locker room hum continues next to them, but out here it is just the two of them and the faint smell of chlorine curling between them like something familiar.

Reese nods towards the empty office.

“Can we talk?” she asks, voice quiet and almost too steady.

Maren swallows hard, shifts her clipboard under her arm, and joins Reese in the office.

Maren pulls the chair out from behind her desk and offers it to Reese, then slides back to sit on the edge of the desk herself. Reese shakes her head and stays standing, leaning against the cabinet like she needs extra support. Maren glances down at her fingernails, picking at a cuticle as she forces herself to look up again. “So…what’s up?”

“I didn’t think you’d still be coaching age group,” Reese says, and there’s a tinge of regret in her voice she doesn’t manage to hide.

“I didn’t think you would come back,” Maren replies softly, eyes dropping to her feet as they kick lightly in the air where she sits on the edge of her desk.

Reese lets out a breath, the kind that sounds like it has been held for years. “Rowan’s mom passed away three years ago,” she says. Eyes fixed on a scuff mark on the tile. “And then last year, my mom got sick. I didn’t think I would ever need to come home again.” She swallows, the words catching just slightly before she forces them out. “But here we are.”

Maren breathes in one, two, three, four. “I am sorry,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know.”

Reese shifts her weight against the cabinet, her eyes fixed on the floor. “I didn’t think you’d want to know,” she says, soft and almost embarrassed, like the admission costs her something.

Maren’s fingers pause against her cuticle. She looks up just long enough to meet Reese’s eyes, then down again, grounding herself against the edge of the desk. “I would have wanted to know,” she says quietly. Not sharp. Not accusing. Just true.

Rowan’s laughter hits the pool area before she does, a bright, echoing sound that slams straight into the fragile air between them. A second later, she bursts out of the locker room at full speed, hair half-dry, backpack hanging open, towel dragging behind her like a comet’s tail.

“Coach!” she yells, spotting Maren instantly. “Coach, guess what! I did two fifties, and I didn’t stop the second time, and Emma says otters hold hands in the water, so we were both kinda right!”

Maren startles upright from the desk, the spell between her and Reese fracturing cleanly. “Rowan,” she says, trying not to laugh, “walk.”

Rowan immediately slows to the world’s most exaggerated not running walk, arms swinging wildly as if that somehow proves her innocence. She skids to a stop just outside the office door, grinning up at both of them like she hasn’t shattered something delicate.