“Ipokedyou in the chest. Withonefinger.”
“You shoved me. You said, ‘Stay away from me’, and then you shoved me.”
Fia stared at her. “You’re unbelievable.” She shook her head and walked away.
“You see that?” Dolly said. “She doesn’t care. She pushes me and then…” She gave in to a series of wet, hacking coughs. “She just takes off.”
“Let’s get you inside, Dolly,” Rachel Auntie said. “Joseph, help me get her to her room.”
Rachel Auntie and Joseph Uncle were still on the outs, but they were a team. When push came to shove, they worked together.
As everyone followed them inside, I noticed Alex. He’d been standing there the whole time, and not once offered to help. He picked up his buckets, the corded muscles of his forearms straining under their weight. He must’ve caught the question in my eyes, because he shrugged before hauling the pails inside.
“Why didn’t you help Dolly when she fell in the water?” I was in the middle of my second swimming lesson with Alex. The water came up to my chest—the deepest I dared to venture into the pool without freaking out.
“Why do you call your mother Dolly?” Alex leaned against the side of the pool, his wet hair glinting in the moonlight.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t answer mine either, but fair enough.” He grinned. “I didn’t help Dolly because she didn’t need saving. No one pushed her into the water. I helped Fia off, turned around to get your mother, and saw her jump into the water. Eddie was busy securing the boat, and Fia was nowhere near her. So, when she started screaming and hollering, I didn’t care to engage.”
I sighed. “Dolly can be a bit of a—”
“A drama queen? An attention seeker?”
Normally, I was all about labels. Sorting, tagging, and organizing appealed to the accountant part of my brain, but I was also fiercely protective. I didn’t care for anyone else sticking labels on my family.
“Dolly has her reasons,” I said. I’d never been able to fully decode her, but I knew aging was not my mother’s forte. She refused to fade away or go unnoticed. She attacked things that made her feel she was being swept under the rug. One time she stole a shoe with a security tag attached to it—one shoe, two sizes too big for her. The alarms went off as we exited the store. Security was called and we found ourselves in the manager’s office. All the while, Dolly acted frail, confused, and apologetic.
“My memory isn’t what it used to be,” she said, clinging to me as if they were about to drag her away to the death chamber.
“What was that about?” I asked, when they let us go.
“I didn’t like the way the saleslady ignored me.”
“When?”
“She asked if you wanted to have a closer look at the watch. Why you? Why not me?”
I didn’t dwell on it. I was just relieved no one had asked to seemybag. We were both flawed in curious, inexplicable ways.
“Ready for more?” Alex waded closer.
So far, I’d learned that flutter kicks were another name for making splashing noises with your feet while clinging tightly to the edge of the pool. And that if you pushed off the wall with your feet, you could glide through the water in a pseudo-stroke. Also, if I had to do it over again, I’d never choose Alex for a swim instructor. Trying to breathe, swim, and coordinate my movements was a challenge in itself. It didn’t help when my brain kept taking a detour over his slick skin and thinking about how it would feel—
“Moti? Are you listening?”
“Of course, I’m listening.”
Alex crossed his arms. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“The back float. Remember what we were practicing last night? Shoulders back, head up, looking at the sky.” He demonstrated, then gave me a nod. “Your turn.”
Doing the back float on a swim mattress was completely different from doing it in the water, but I followed Alex’s instructions and did spectacularly well. I shot him a proud look.
“Uh, yeah, that’s great.” Alex’s face loomed between me and the stars. “Let’s try it with your feetoffthe floor. It’s a back float. You’re not doing the limbo or dodging bullets inThe Matrix.”
