Jake (9 page)

Visiting hours at the hospital wouldn’t even start
until two o’clock. We didn’t have the excuse of Mom being in surgery so we could show up earlier. I didn’t know what Granddad and I would do with each other all morning.

Still, it was sort of cool to miss school on a Monday, even if it was the day of the Christmas party. I fed the fish. They were always hungry.

“Well, that’s taken care of,” Granddad said, hanging up the phone. “It’s early yet. I saw a YMCA in town. What say we go for a swim?”

“I can use the trampoline or something,” I said, putting down the fish food. “Run a few laps, maybe.”

“A swim,” Granddad said as if I hadn’t heard him. “Heated pool. Warm, rough towels.”

I had skipped the shower. Now that I thought about it, I guess I’d skipped the shower since Friday.

I said, “I don’t go in the pool, usually.” Ever. I was sort of floundering here. I wanted him to know I wanted to do things together, just not the pool. “I’ll shower if you’re worried about it.”

“Why won’t you go into the pool?”

“I’ll go in,” I said. “Nobody drowns in the shallow end.”

“You don’t swim?”

“I
can’t
swim,” I said, getting annoyed with the way he made me sound uncooperative or something. Suzie offered to teach me to swim, and when I said no, that was the end of it.

Well, she asks again every so often, but she doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

Granddad said, “Even nonswimmers can get some benefit from a pool. Exercise. I’ve got an extra cap.”

I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Who would do jumping jacks or push-ups in a pool, especially if they didn’t swim? And those caps, pressing on my head until it felt like an overfilled balloon.

“I get embarrassed,” I said. Granddad didn’t seem to get it. He looked like he had half an idea I could swim but didn’t want to.

The thing is, for the first time in my life, I really
wished
I could swim. It was plain to me that Granddad thought very highly of swimming. He might not care about tennis, and he didn’t care one way or the other about karate. Swimming mattered.

“Try this on,” he said. “It might be a little big for you.”

When he offered me the cap, I took it. It looked
pretty cool, black with a blue zigzag like lightning. I pulled it on. It was a little big, which meant I didn’t feel like my head would explode.

“Fine,” I said. “If it’ll make you happy, I’ll come flap around in the shallow end.”

“You can’t learn to swim in the shallow end.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. I didn’t believe it either. Where else would somebody learn? Or what was the shallow end for?

But he wasn’t saying this like it was true. He was saying it like he’d be embarrassed if I stayed at the shallow end.

“You don’t swim,” he said, almost to himself. Then he looked straight at me. “That’s why you don’t go into the pool?”

“That’s why a lot of people don’t go into pools,” I said. Okay, I yelled. A little. “I wouldn’t want to learn in the deep end, that’s for sure.”

He looked at me as if I was one of Mrs. Buttermark’s jigsaw puzzles. “Let’s go,” he said, and put out his arms for the dog to jump into them.

“You’re not going to do one of those stupid throw-me-in-the-pool things, are you?” I asked him. “I don’t have to go with you.” It had been a rough weekend. I didn’t want to top it all off by drowning.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said. For a moment I thought maybe I hurt his feelings. He made his voice real hearty to say, “You don’t have to get in the pool. Good thing about not being a swimmer, you’ll never be a navy man.”

I guess that was a joke.

We brought in
the frozen groceries. Some of it went into the freezer. Lettuce and bananas had to be thrown away. A cracked jar of applesauce, that had to go too. Otherwise, everything could be eaten.

I took the cookies with us. I figured it was like the things we left in the sink, they’d defrost.

The dog stayed with Mrs. Buttermark. She’d suggested it and Granddad agreed. This would be easier on Max than being alone for hours at a time.

We also put most of her sandwiches in my backpack. Frankly, after four pancakes, I didn’t think I’d ever eat again. Mrs. Buttermark had eaten three. And Granddad ate the rest. It surprised me he could think about sandwiches. If he got in the pool, he might not even float.

When we got to the Y, Granddad checked his watch
against the clock on the wall. “I’m going swimming,” he said, in the tone of,
if you want to change your mind …

I didn’t say a word. The rubber swim cap was in my jacket pocket, stiff from the cold. I didn’t even look at Granddad, so maybe he’d think my eardrums were frozen.

He said, “Want to meet back here in ninety minutes?”

I nodded.

“Just so I don’t have to worry, you won’t leave the building?”

“I’ll go jump on the trampoline,” I said, trying to sound like I had regular stuff I did at the Y. Instead of coming to a birthday party here once.

The party would’ve been great except there was always a long line at the trampoline. Nobody could jump for more than one minute at a time, in case they’d eaten too much cake and ice cream. And after cake and ice cream there was nothing else they’d let us do.

Granddad and I nodded little nods at each other like we were each going out on separate missions. Then we climbed the stairs together.

It was probably two minutes before we got to a place to turn in different directions. We didn’t say a
word the whole time, like we were already in different hallways.

It turned out the trampoline room is locked if there aren’t a few kids around. I was the only kid. The guy wouldn’t unlock the door.

I wandered around for a while. Some old guys were taking a yoga class. Some other people were studying or something, all sitting quietly in a classroom, reading. Nothing too interesting.

There were plenty of guys using the gym. Kids weren’t allowed in there. I put on my shorts and ran around the track twice, until I found out kids weren’t allowed in there either. At least not by themselves.

I didn’t mind. I hadn’t paced myself, like the rest of them were doing. I was getting ragged by that time. This last guy who chased me off said, “Why don’t you go down to the pool?”

So I headed for the pool.

Granddad was not the only swimmer. He
was
the only one who swam like he was cutting through the water, using his arms for scissors. He went from one end of the pool to the other three times while I watched and didn’t look like he’d be stopping anytime soon.

He was too busy to notice me.

I pulled the swim cap on and took my sneakers off.

A swimmer heaved himself up on the edge of the pool, a little breathless. “Can I go in to swim in my track shorts?”

“Sure. Leave your other stuff in one of the lockers.”

So I flapped around in the shallow end for a while. I noticed there’s a bar running along the side of the pool. I held on to the bar and pulled myself along to the deep end.

Not to the deepest part of the deep end, but definitely where I could’ve drowned if I lost hold of the bar. Well, except that there was a lifeguard watching.

I didn’t feel like I was in danger, just that I didn’t want to embarrass myself by needing to be rescued, or even helped. I didn’t want to embarrass Granddad either.

After he swam the pool about nine more times, he slowed down and swam over to me. “That’s it,” he said. “Get comfortable with it.”

“I don’t need to learn to swim,” I said, pulling myself along. I was headed back for the shallow end.

“Nah, nobody falls out of boats much anymore. Or into rivers. That sort of thing used to happen more often in the old days,” he said. Then he laughed and said, “When I was a boy.”

“I know those aren’t the old days.”

“Oh, they are,” he said. “Don’t kid yourself. The way things are going, you won’t get as old as me before people will be calling today ‘the old days.’ ”

That didn’t sound too good.

He’d moved around in front of me and then stopped. I stopped pulling so I wouldn’t bump into him. I flapped my feet around a little, like a swimmer does. I kept a tight grip on the bar. “Why didn’t you ever come visit us?”

Granddad looked around the pool for a minute.

“At first I missed your father too much. And even before that, I’d forgotten how good it feels to be needed,” he said. “Not that your mother ever needed me.”

He looked embarrassed, same as when he was talking to his dog through a door. “I know that doesn’t sound like much of a reason.”

I got this feeling, like when his dog didn’t want to stay in the apartment alone. Like I had to say
something
. “Our cat died last year,” I said. “Mom and I miss her too much to get another one.”

“Well. Probably you ought to give another cat a chance.”

“We do. About every month we go to the pound
and look, especially at the kittens.” Looking at the kittens was Mom’s idea. It made me miss our cat more. “We don’t feel like getting one.”

“You
will
want one someday,” he said. “It will just come over you.”

“I guess.”

What came over me at the pound, though, was wanting my old cat. I didn’t want some new cat doing the things my cat didn’t get to do anymore, like stick her paw in the fish tank. Or lie in the sun behind Mom’s plants. Or curl up on my pillow. Even if it did make me sneeze.

The feeling I had, and really I knew it was thinking about my cat that did it, I wanted some peace and quiet while I messed around in the pool. I didn’t want to miss my cat. Or Mom, even for a little while. Not that I was going to say so. It feels rotten, missing them.

“It’s different with me, though,” Granddad said after we’d had maybe a minute of peace and quiet. “You’re not a kitten. You’re my grandson. I’m your only grandparent.”

I didn’t mean to make him feel rotten too. I tried to let him off the hook. “It’s not all your fault. We could have visited you, I guess.”

“It’s not your mother’s fault,” he said.

I didn’t think so either. “She works long hours,” I said. Because I wanted him to feel good, I added, “Probably she did need you, now and again.” I realized then that might be the wrong thing to say. “Not that you should feel bad. Aunt Ginny and Suzie are usually around. There’s Mrs. Buttermark too.”

Granddad was kind of standing in the water, not even treading, staring into space across the pool. Then I realized, he
was
standing in the water. I wasn’t in what could technically be called the deep end anymore.

But I didn’t like that staring.

I mean, there’s times when my mom is translating and she stares off, trying out different words in her head. Then there’s times when she thinks about my dad who died seven years ago, or her parents who died before that, and she stares in a different way. Granddad was staring in that different way.

I pulled myself past him for shallower water.

“I don’t like the way the water feels heavy on my chest,” I told him. “It makes me nervous.”

He stopped staring. “It makes you stronger, fighting that,” he said, following me. “Once you can swim, it doesn’t scare you so much. You always notice it, though. That’s a good thing. It keeps you careful.”

“Because even people who can swim can drown?”

“It happens.”

“Well, I’m going to pull myself along to the deep end again,” I said, “unless you’re ready to go.” I was tired of hanging around in the same spot.

“Try this,” Granddad said. “Take a deep breath and hold it here where you can touch bottom. Do a deep knee bend, and when you come up, come up fast. We used to call them cannonballs. That fast.”

I didn’t really want to do it, but he was right, I could stand up now too. I didn’t really have a good excuse to say no.

I didn’t like it when the water closed over my head. The weight on my chest was worse. I didn’t like water in my eyes normally. But I needed to open them now. It was weird how that was true.

Once I was squatting on the bottom I pushed off hard.

It was like pressing up against a heavy blanket. More work than I expected. And then I broke through the surface with a rush of water skimming off me and the weight was gone. I think I yelled or laughed, I’m not sure. My feet left the bottom and it felt fine to be practically flying out of the water.

It only lasted a second but it was good. Great.

I shook my head and water flew. My eyelashes were wet and stuck to my cheeks for a second, but it didn’t bother me this time. “Cannonball!”

Granddad nodded, looking like he was having fun too. “That’s what your dad called them.”

We had a moment there. I could feel the space where my dad would’ve been once. Usually I felt like Mom was holding that space for me. Now Granddad was holding it and it was as if I had stepped in, something I’d never been able to do before.

“I’ll do a few more laps,” Granddad said, and the moment was over. “The warm water feels good. Then we’ll head over to the hospital.”

I did have a little feeling like a sigh. Part of me was still ready to leave. But another part wouldn’t mind doing a few more cannonballs. “Okay,” I said. “Visiting hours won’t start till later.”

“Visiting hours?” He looked like he’d never heard of them. “We’re going to sneak some sandwiches in to your mom long before that. Hospital food is the worst. They can throw us out in the snow if they want, but we’re feeding her first.”

I’d heard about hospital food from Aunt Ginny. Even worse than the school cafeteria.

Granddad swam a few more laps. I did cannonballs. And then I pulled myself all the way to where the diving board is. The weight on my chest didn’t bother me that much anymore. The warm water felt good to my tailbone.

This wasn’t so much bravery as it was that I’d started to like Granddad. He talked like a guy who was used to getting thrown out of places. Thrown out, and not bothered by it in the least.

They didn’t throw
us out. It was almost a disappointment, how easy it was to see Mom and hang around in her room. We found somebody to give her TV service for when we weren’t there.