Colin slept well enough, almost ten hours. For the first time in months, he also ate breakfast. The other house residents were busy with their morning routines, and Colin was tempted to have a glass of apple juice and depart. But Camila was there in the kitchen, and watched him prepare the bowl as she had instructed. She resumed her customary silence and merely pointed him to a chair at the kitchen’s central table. The flavors were strange, but not unpleasant. In fact, he liked how the different textures blended together. When he finished he carried his bowl and spoon and knife to the sink and washed them carefully. After he had dried them and replaced them in the cabinet, he started to leave, then turned back and said, “Thank you.”
“You see you hold to good habits now, you hear?” Camila addressed the wall by the stove. “Just because you’ve got yourself a good mind don’t mean you can ignore what your body is saying.”
He returned to his room, gathered his trunks and goggles and sandals and towel, then stood looking down at hislaptop. The fact that he wasn’t tied to the calculations left him weightless. He zipped his backpack closed and departed.
The walk to the pool for his Saturday morning class seemed to take forever. At some point during the previous weeks, the season had changed. North Carolina’s version of spring had ended. The day was already summertime hot. The flavors of magnolia and pine and dogwood were made stronger by the stillness and humidity. Colin’s legs felt leaden. His every step required conscious thought. When the club’s golf course finally came into view, he stopped and stared. Reveling in the sense of having taken a major step into his own future.
Before class started, Colin sat on the pool’s edge with his feet in the water. He felt utterly disconnected from the noise and laughter and people; it seemed almost natural for his mind to wander back to those early days. Colin wondered if this was what his mother felt, sitting by the ocean, staring out at what she had called the sapphire sea. Disconnected from everything that weighed down her life, able to breathe easy and find pleasure in this simple moment. She felt closer to Colin than she had in a long while. He could not actually see her smile. But he felt it.
Colin made it to the end of class, but barely. During his absence, the other children had spent the past weeks learning things his body simply could not handle. Thankfully, Mira was not working that day. The two instructors were new to him. They treated him like he was an invalid. They used a gentle voice. They were patient. They put him in his own lane. Colin spent much of the hour burning with shame.
Afterward he stretched out on the paving stones lining the pool’s side, his feet dangling in the water. He was exhausted, but the sun and the hot concrete felt good on his skin.
He heard Mira say, “Well, hey, stranger.”
Colin found it a struggle just to sit up. “I was terrible today.”
“Yeah, I heard your backstroke wouldn’t win any prizes.”
“I let the days slip past. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Not ever.” She was dressed in a relatively modest two-piece suit, just another teen coming to the pool for a day off. She looked wonderful. “My folks are doing backflips over how the investment has turned out.”
He waved feebly, swatting away any thoughts about the world beyond the pool. “I’m going to start swimming every day.”
“Try and get here early. The pool has lap time from seven to nine. After that we’re into the summer invasion.” She pointed to the kiddie pool. “We’re all over there, if you want to join us.”
He followed her across the patio area, greeted the two families, accepted their congratulations. Ethan pulled a chair under the umbrella where Gracie was playing and told Colin, “You need to be careful in this sun.”
“Come over here,” Alexi said, rummaging in her large case. “Let me put some cream on your shoulders.”
He did as he was instructed. Colin accepted their offer of raspberry tea served in a plastic cup, then took a slice of homemade egg salad on whole wheat. Discovered he was famished. Ate a second portion. And leaned back.
The peace and clarity that came from being here with these people was exactly what he needed. The fact that he had succeeded with the investment was very nice. But it did not define the feelings they had for him. At some level far deeper than his body’s fatigue, Colin felt replenished.
When he returned from the pool, Colin called Celeste and asked if they could meet. She was attending a weekend conference at the university’s college of health and human services and arranged to meet Sunday morning in the Child Services Department’s lobby. The questions were there inher tone, but she did not ask why he felt such an urgent need, and he did not volunteer anything. When he cut the connection he discovered his heart was racing.
He went to bed straight after dinner. The events were about to start unfolding. Everything he had kept so carefully hidden away. It was all happening. But this was not the same as during the interminable wait for the stock to begin its climb, or the endless hours searching for the time to pull out. This was all part of a situation and plans he had been working toward. He could see that now. As he undressed and brushed his teeth and climbed into bed, he felt as if he stood at the edge of a river. All the events that had shaped his recent years, all the people who had impacted him, they and their lives were joined in this twisting, tumbling series of events. When he lay down, he had the impression that he had settled onto a raft and pushed himself into the endless, powerful flow. The instant his head hit the pillow, he was gone.
Sunday Colin took an Uber straight from the pool to the university. He arrived an hour early for his appointment with Celeste, but there was a coffee shop on the ground floor, where he had lunch. When it was time, he followed the signs and the sound of voices up the central stairs. The paintings and murals lining the UNCW Child Services lobby and corridor walls were different, but similar. He sensed the same dark shadows lurking just out of view. Only now he was old enough to name at least some of them.
Celeste caught sight of him and stepped away from an animated conversation. She greeted him with an almost formal air. “I’ve arranged for us to have a quiet space.” As she led him down the central corridor, she observed, “You’ve lost weight.”
Colin followed her into an empty office with two narrow windows. “I’ve been busy.”
“With university classes.” She smiled at his surprise. “Ofcourse I keep tabs on you. What do you think, now that you’re all grown up I’d just drop you like a bent penny?”
The warm concern in that big dark face, the strength, the woman’s solidity, it left him suddenly ready to weep with joy.
“Child, what’s the matter?”
“I’m glad we can talk.”
“Well, of course we can. If you’ve got a problem, why didn’t you contact me sooner?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Well, we’re here now. The door’s closed. The world is out there. It’s just you and me in here. Tell me what’s wrong.”