Don, I Left as You Wished novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: His Mother's Pool

I drove to Todt Hill at eleven with my suit on under my clothes.

Joanie made me text her when I left, when I crossed the bridge, and when I got there.

"And when you leave," she texted. "And if he's weird."

"He's always weird."

"Weirder."

The house was dark except for the porch light.

My mother went to bed at ten, every night, with a crossword and a glass of milk.

Her window looked over the pool. Her light was off.

Santo was waiting by the gate in the dark.

He was already in trunks, black ones, plain, with a towel over his shoulder.

"No sharks?" I said.

"I bought my own."

"Pity. They suited you."

He opened the gate.

He didn't turn the pool lights on. Neither did I.

The moon was half full, and the water held it, flat and silver and quiet.

The pool house stood at the end.

Down in the deep end, on the drain, the ring caught the light every time the filter stirred the water.

Santo looked at it.

"Every morning," he said. "I've watched it every morning for two weeks."

"Nobody tried to get it?"

"The pool man asked. I told him to leave it."

"Why?"

He didn't answer. He walked down the steps of the shallow end.

He got in to his waist without stopping.

His breathing went fast and he made it slow again, on purpose. Blowing on soup.

I slid in beside him.

The water was warmer than the bathhouse and smelled different, cleaner, more expensive.

It smelled exactly like the day I went under.

"You okay?" he said.

I looked at him. He was asking me.

"I'm fine. Float."

He floated.

My hand went flat on his back and came away almost at once.

He stayed up. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.

His chest rose and fell in the moonlight.

"Kick," I said. "From the hips. Small. Don't fight it."

He kicked. He moved.

He went three body lengths across the shallow end on his back, staring at the sky.

He grabbed the wall at the end.

"Again."

He did it again.

We worked for an hour.

Floating. Kicking. Face in, blow bubbles, face out.

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