Page 19 of The Summers of Us

And then the clouds split in two. It was too heavy to skate or see or even breathe. Maybe rain was actually applause? It certainly roared against the world like it. Maybe the sky was as proud of me as I was. My new friends sure were; I looked over and saw them cheering for me through the rain falling in sheets.

Because this was Piper Island, we lay on the sidewalk and let the rain melt us into one unit of friends old and new. I couldn’t make out the sky from the rest of the world, everything bright white. I opened my mouth for the rain droplets and attempted to keep my eyes open, but trying made me laugh, breathless from the cold air and rain. If it weren’t for my new friends laughing and yelling sweet nothings into the void, I wouldn’t have been so keen on being soaking wet. Instead, I would have thought about one of my mom’s tales of snotty noses after cold rain. Could my friends change other parts of me, too?

Before we headed home, I ran to the castle one last time through thick ribbons of water. The sand there was dark brown and flattened from the rain.

I found relief in my first hide and seek room. I wiped the sky’s happy tears from my eyes and found a rock in the sand. The drier sand in there stuck to my skin like bandages.

On a space mostly untouched by names, I carved my own name. I added a plus sign, then scratched out an empty line below it. I wrapped it all in a heart, jagged in a war against the wood grain.

I left it open for the name of a boy who would one day love me.

I hoped once he wrote it, it would never fade.

Age 12, July 4

The smell of a poolshould be bottled up and sold on cold days.

The last two summers, I had an amazing July Fourth with my friends, so part of me wished I was with them today, but mostly I was excited to spend the day with Blair and Hadley. Hadley’d been asking for days when we’d finally go to the water park. On the drive to Pirate’s Bounty, Hadley heard us talking about the kiddie pool and asked to swim in thecatpool instead. We laughed and Blair told her she could go with me if she kept her life jacket on.

The busy July Fourth crowd made it hard to find a spot around the pool. We weaved through parents with their eyes splitting time between phones, books, and their swimming children. We found three chaises farthest from the entrance and set our stuff down.

After Blair helped me put sunscreen wherever I couldn’t reach, I sat crisscrossed at the edge of the pool. I wanted to wait the recommended fifteen minutes for my sunscreen to soak in, but Hadley jumped right in.

“It’s so cold!” she screamed. Her life jacket pulled her to the surface.

“Does it feel good?” I tested the water with my toe.

“Come in!” Hadley held her arms out for me like I was the kid and she was the adult.

Blair insisted nothing bad would happen if I went in before time was up, and she would help me reapply when we dried off. So, I jumped in to join Hadley. Cold water shocked me with teasing pin pricks. I kicked for the air as soon as I went under. Hadley reached for me when I wiped my eyes. I was tall enough in the three feet to be the adult again. The water was like Jell-O with a four-year-old propped on my hip.

“Can we go on the cat slide?” Hadley asked. She looked at the kids walking their foam mats to the mouth of the racing slides. It was a forbidden journey only older pirates were allowed to embark on.

“You’re too little, I’m sorry.”

“Well, canyougo on the cat slide?”

“Yes.” Should I tell her that her almost teenaged cousin was afraid of a dumb water slide? Lying was worse, so I said, “But I’m too scared.”

“Oh, okay.” She shrugged. “That’s okay. We still have our pool.”

We found a mostly empty patch of water between the red, white, and blue blur of people. I waited for Blair to look up from her book before I sent Hadley paddling in front of me. She made it a couple feet out, flapping like a bumblebee fallen into water. When she swam back, I couldn’t resist scooping her back in my arms. She wrapped tightly around me until we were a pretzel, soggy from pool water.

We played I Spy, looking around at the kaleidoscope of color before us. Green dinosaur swim trunks, the American flag above the concession stand, the blue umbrella shading Blair. I couldn’t find her “something orange” because it was actually coral: the life raft hanging from the lifeguard stand. After that, Hadley kept assigning something-corals, mystified by this new color I taught her.

I spied the brown of her darkening freckles. She giggled and spied mine right back. We balanced on two pool noodles that floated our way. I stopped Hadley from taking a huge bite out of it, but then she pretended to because it amused her to see me freak out.

Blair made her way over with goggles and pool rings. I tightened goggles around Hadley’s head and felt my own snag at my wet, sticky hair. Blair threw the rings and I kicked off the wall for a hot pink one. Even in the shallow end, the water pushed hard against my ears. My goggles filled up in that slow way that I didn’t notice until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Tiny white bubbles stuck to my arm hairs. I wicked them off my skin, watched them disappear.

This was why I loved swimming so much. It was the only time I could truly be part of a world I didn’t belong in, at least until my lungs forced me back into the real world. I held up the pink ring ceremoniously, then gave it to Hadley who was tired of being trapped in her life jacket and scraping for the rings with her toes.

When we finished eating lunch,I told Hadley we had to wait thirty minutes before we swam again. Blairtold me that was an old wives’ tale, which, sure, my mom wasold, but she wasn’t a wife anymore.

I was ready to get back in, but Hadley was curled up sleepily in her towel, so I settled in for my own nap. The wet towel sent shivers across my body. I nodded off to the sound of Blair flipping through a book with a shirtless man on the cover. I couldn’t fall asleep, so I watched Blair read and relaxed in tune with the page flips and distant water splashes and palm tree shudders.

“How’s your mom doing?” Blair said without looking up.

I picked at some loose threads on my towel. I knew it was just a formality to fill the silence. Maybe she felt me staring at the new aging freckles burned on her shoulders. Or maybe she was just curious about her sister. She knew I talked to her on the back porch last night while she gave Hadley a bath.

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