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“Five points!”
“Huh?” I asked her, wiping my nose and eyes.
She didn’t look at me. She just floated on her back, looking up at the painted ceilings. “Five is half of ten. And you held your breath for half as long as you should have.”
I frowned. “I should get at least eight.”
“Why would you get an eight when you gave me a nine for swimming perfectly, but slow….in fact you deserve a two on that scale.” She made water angels with her arms.
“Mommy!”
She laughed at me, and because it was only us, her laugh echoed. I swam closer and copied her, floating on my back, too.
“Why do you like being in the water so much?” I asked her, looking at the painted sky.
“Hmm…,” she replied at first. “Because it can kill you.”
“What?” I moved too fast and started to sink. But I didn’t care. Standing up straight in the water, I looked at her again…and she was still floating. “You like being in the water because it kills you?”
“No. Not me. Nothing kills me, but me. I swim because water can kill other people.” She closed her eyes. “I remember my mother, grandmamma Aviela, and I were in an accident, and I got stuck in the ocean. For a little bit after that I was scared of the water. So my father, your grandpapa Orlando, would force me to swim
.”
“That’s bad! Why do something that you don’t like?”
She made another face. “Do you think it’s bad that I made you learn how to swim, Wyatt?”
“No, but…” I frowned, not sure how to explain it. “But every kid needs to learn how to swim.”
“Why?”
“Cause then they don’t get hurt if they fall in the water. But if you knew how to swim already, why did grandpapa still make you?”
“Because not swimming out of fear is worse than not swimming at all,” she whispered gently to me. I had to swim a little to keep near her. “People fear things they can’t control.”
“You can’t control the water, Mommy.”
She frowned, her eyes finally opening, but she still didn’t look at me. “Wyatt, don’t think like normal people think. Normal people are mediocre. Think like me, like your father, like a Callahan. You never have to control water. Water, air, fire, dirt. It’s all irrelevant. None of those things care about you. They do not change course for you. Normal people try avoid or fight those things. But I know, and now you know, you are above the water, the air, the fire, and the dirt. The most important element is you. If someone dragged me to the bottom of this pool, would you be scared?”
“No.”
“Why?”
I didn’t need to think about it. It was an easy question. “Because you can hold your breath for a really, really, really long time! You’d get down there and punch ‘em for grabbing you, then swim right back.”
She smiled wide. “Exactly. Normal people would fight the water, try to fight to get back up…why? Because they are scared people. Scared they aren’t strong enough or smart enough to make it out alive. But me? I know no matter what, no matter where I am, I will survive that moment. I like swimming because it reminds me that I don’t fear what kills others, because I am not like any other. I rise and thrive in anything and everything. Does that answer your question?”
I nodded, and she grinned. “Good. Now first person to reach the bottom and come back up gets homemade strawberry vanilla ice cream.”
“ME!” I dunked into the water.
I swam and swam, deeper and deeper…toward the darkness at the bottom.
WYATT – NOW
“You totally cheated!” I yelled at the toothless seven year old in front of me. Well, she wasn’t toothless. She was only missing her two front teeth, but the gap was so big that when she smiled, as the little cheater was doing now, I could see inside her mouth, which pretty much made her toothless.
“I’m not a cheater!” She giggled, as did the other girls around her.
