Absorbed

Chapter Twenty-Three

S aturday was the first day of the Plunge Olympics and the forecast was for temperatures in the high nineties: a perfect day for families to spend at the pool.

Stacey picked up Jessie on her way into work, since they both had to be there at eight and work through lap swim. “I told my mom not to worry if I wasn’t home for a few hours,” she said as she turned out of his apartment complex onto the main road. “I’m not sure how long our tests will take at Planned Parenthood. It could be busier on weekends.”

“Why do we have to go to that place? Can’t you just take a test from Thrifty or something to see if you’re knocked up?” Jessie asked.

“I mean, yeah, but the clinic’s pregnancy tests are more accurate, I think. And what about you getting tested for STDs?” Stacey yawned. She’d been awake for hours in the middle of the night, worrying about what might happen.

Jessie pulled out his wallet. “I really don’t think STDs are anything you need to worry about anyway.” He put a twenty dollar bill in the cup holder. “Is that enough?”

“You promised me you would get tested. You’re acting really weird. Like you’re scared of Planned Parenthood or something.”

“It’s just, after you dropped me off last night, I thought more about it. What if someone we know is there?” He rubbed his wrist where the WWJD bracelet used to be. He hadn’t worn it in a while.

At the stoplight, Stacey flicked on her blinker and thought about the Planned Parenthood waiting room. How the women didn’t make eye contact with one another. How other women stood outside holding signs and spewing judgments.

“You’re worried someone from Christian Club or church will be outside, like part of the protest?”

“No!” He paused, looking out the passenger side window. “Maybe. Aren’t you? Don’t you think if someone recognizes us they’ll assume you’re only there to have an…” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “…an a-bor-tion?”

Flashes of conversations whirled through Stacey’s mind: Stephanie shaking her head at the party, disgusted, when Stacey talked about having sex with Jessie. Mary Jo warning Stacey about Jessie. Both girls were friends with a lot of the same people that Jessie and Stacey knew from Christian Club.

Ugh! Everyone is probably talking about Jessie and I having sex.

“You have a point.” Stacey pulled into The Plunge parking lot and parked in the shade. “I’ll go buy a test during my break this morning.”

Jessie nodded. “Cool. Thanks.” He reached for the door handle.

“Jessie,” Stacey stopped him. “You know, if I am pregnant, I’m NOT having a baby. It would ruin my life to have a kid this young. You get that, right?”

Jessie nodded again, sucking in his cheeks. He wouldn’t make eye-contact.

“There’s no way I’m going through that alone. You would have to go with me.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said. He grabbed his skateboard and towel, climbed out, and walked ahead of Stacey to the pool entrance.

Bob had put a schedule of Plunge Olympics events up in the pay window and hung American flag bunting over the front door.

“Everyone ready for Games Day? Hopefully we’ll get a good turnout. Sun News will be here to take pictures, so you all need to act professional. Get this place so spotless you can eat off the floor and do it within one hour,” Bob reminded them. “Only use the megaphones for safety purposes and keep the chit chat to a minimum. Focus on your job.”

Jessie looked at Stacey, his eyebrows high.

She puffed out her cheeks and exhaled slowly.

If Bob only knew how hard THAT will be.

Melissa rolled her eyes. She picked up a bucket and trash grabber and headed out to the deck without slamming her locker or saying anything to anyone.

Stacey offered to clean the girls' bathroom while Jessie cleaned the boys’ bathroom and Melissa hosed the deck. Jessie cleaned the pool drain, and they got all the lane lines in place for the races. They were wiping down the picnic tables and bleacher seats as the first swimmers began lining up outside along the fence.

By the time the pool opened at nine, Melissa and Stacey were in their lifeguard stands, and Jessie was holding a clipboard at the end of the pool where families could sign up for the relay race.

Within half an hour, the entire facility was packed with swimmers. They were required to have three guards watching the water at all times for anything over a hundred people, and by rough estimate it appeared they were pushing their max capacity of two hundred and fifty. Bob was giddy over the enthusiasm the community was showing for The Plunge Olympics and put a sign in the pay window that said “MORNING SWIM SOLD OUT.” He called Mark to come in so he could remain available to officiate the races.

As the first race started at ten, twenty families had signed up to compete. With only six lanes total, Bob decided they would need to have four initial races of five relay teams each, then a final race between the four winning teams to place for gold, silver, and bronze. Then they could keep the last lane open for shallow-end swimming during the races and the deep end and diving board would remain open the entire time.

Stacey was blowing her whistle constantly. Dozens of people would turn at the sound while the kid running or throwing something into the water appeared oblivious. Despite using the megaphone, her voice was becoming hoarse. She stood in her tower to get a clearer view of the water, but it didn’t help much. There were way too many bodies.

That morning Stacey’d had no appetite for breakfast, but as the mayhem around the pool increased, her hands began to shake. She’d forgotten to bring a snack.

“This Olympics thing is insane,” Stacey told Jessie as he took over her tower during rotation. “There’s no way I can leave during my break.”

“Yeah. I hope it’s not like this for the full two weeks,” he agreed, looking around at the crowd. “Let’s just go to the pharmacy after work, ‘kay? On our way home?”

Stacey nodded, then made her way around the deep end to take over Melissa’s position in the shallow-end tower.

Melissa climbed down the ladder, scowling. “What the fuck is going on with you two?” she hissed into Stacey’s ear.

“Me and Jessie?” Stacey tried to keep her eye on the pool, but felt dizzy and nauseous. She gripped the ladder. “Nothing. I swear.”

Kids nearby in the water were splashing each other and shriek-laughing.

“It doesn’t seem like nothing. After what he said last night, I thought you would have been more loyal. Told him to go to hell. Instead, you gave him a ride home and a ride to work? Seriously?”

From across the pool, Bob eyed them as he directed the relay teams where they needed to line up for the next race. He held a stopwatch in one hand and gestured to Stacey with the other to wrap it up.

“Melissa, it’s really not like that, but can we–”

“Obviously you’re not as good of a friend as I thought.” Melissa spun around and weaved through the throng of spectators to the guard shack.

“Ugh….” Stacey climbed the ladder to the tower, feeling sick to her stomach. Once settled in the tower, Bob nodded his approval. Her head spun with Melissa’s words. She looked across the water at Jessie, then tried to push the thoughts from her mind and focus on the swimmers.

Bob was trying to clear the race lanes again, shouting to swimmers to shuffle over to the one free lane. Adults interested in watching the race stood in the water along the end lane-line, crammed so tight it was difficult to see around and beneath them. Toddlers were jumping into their parents’ arms from the edge of the deck. Small kids struggled to stay afloat, paddling around the mass of bodies in water too deep for them. Older kids were diving beneath the surface like dolphins, navigating around and between the feet of spectators.

Stacey’s chest tightened at the thought of even one child at the bottom, unnoticed, like the boy she’d rescued a few weeks earlier from the deep end. She waved Mark over.

With his megaphone in hand and a red buoy strapped to his back, Mark motioned for Bob to watch his section. He kept his eyes on the pool as he maneuvered close enough to the foot of Stacey’s tower that they could talk.

“What’s up?” Mark asked through the megaphone to be heard over the crowd.

Stacey leaned over the railing and shouted down to him, gesturing with her hand. “There’s a whole section of the pool in the four-to-six-foot-deep area that I can’t see during the races, because of everyone crowding by the lane line. If Bob is timing the races and judging the winner, he can’t watch it, either.”

“Yeah,” Mark yelled back. “We really should clear all the water except the diving board area during races. I’ll tell Bob.”

Stacey looked across at Bob. He was holding up his stopwatch and a few gold coin necklaces while a newspaper photographer snapped photos, the crowded pool as backdrop.

Jessie’s whistle blew. Stacey whipped around to see a kid narrowly miss landing on another in the deep end. She was about to jump when Jessie reprimanded them.

Sweat dripped down her back and under her arms. Stacey shielded her eyes and squinted, scanning her own section of the pool again.

The racers were lined up on their blocks. Bob’s starter pistol erupted with a loud crack. Stacey startled. Swimmers dove in. Cheering erupted around the water and pool deck.

Stacey eyed Mark standing on the deck by the section of the pool she was worried about, and he gave her a thumbs up that he had it covered. She surveyed the shallow end, saw kids running and blew her whistle, then shouted, “No running” into the megaphone.

The bathroom doors clanged shut, echoing across the concrete among the screams and claps and splashing. Stacey’s heart beat hard as she noticed the next leg of the racers diving in. They splashed across the pool and back. Then another group went.

Mark’s voice boomed from the megaphone across the water. A pair of middle schoolers sitting on the top railing at the back of the bleachers were told to climb down.

Suddenly, Bob sounded the bullhorn signaling that the race was over. Swimmers flooded into the open lanes again for a few minutes of free swim before the next race began.

Stacey was struggling to pay attention. She felt woozy. She inched forward, sitting on the edge of her seat, gripping the tower railings.

When Melissa exited the guard shack at 11:30 and took Mark’s place in the rotation, she was obviously fuming. Still queasy, Stacey was eager to head inside. Mark handed Melissa his red buoy and megaphone before moving to the deep end tower to take over for Jessie, who in turn made his way to take over for Stacey.

“You okay?” Jessie asked as she climbed unsteadily out of the tower.

“This is just too much. Especially with…EVERYTHING ELSE . My nerves are fried.” She dragged herself inside.

Stacey found a smushed Nutri-Grain bar in the back of her locker and ripped the wrapper open. Nibbling on the mealy snack, she filled her empty 44-ounce Del Taco cup with water and gulped half down, before slumping into the couch. Soaking in the coolness of the office and relative quiet, she closed her eyes.

A loud tap at the pay window interrupted her dozing. She blinked her eyes open and recognized one of the pool’s regulars at the window. The woman was about eighty, with a round, pale face and a lemon-yellow swim cap pulled over her hair, a strap secured beneath her double chin. Stacey stood and pulled open the pay window.

“Can I help you?” Stacey asked groggily.

“It’s so loud out there.” The woman’s voice was high pitched and shaky.” I was afraid you wouldn’t hear me.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. It’s a crazy day.”

“I saw in the paper about the Plunge Olympics. It’s happening for a couple of weeks, right? Will there still be lap swim?”

“Um, yeah… As far as I know.”

“Even today?” the woman asked, eyeing the crowd through the guard shack window.

Stacey leaned back and looked up at the clock on the wall above the window. It was five minutes to twelve. She looked over her shoulder, and could see the winning relay families’ silhouettes through the tinted glass, posing for their photos in front of the guard shack, their backs to her. Parents handed Bob their cameras and he juggled the collection while the newspaper photographer clicked pictures and directed the children to hold up their medals and smile.

“I think they’re just wrapping up,” Stacey said. “I’m sure the pool will be cleared in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Can I pay now?” She showed her three quarters, the senior discounted price for an hour of swimming laps.

“Sure.” Stacey held out her hand and the woman dropped the quarters in. She put the change in the cash box and pushed the window shut as the elderly woman pulled open the door to the girls locker room.

Stacey picked up her cup, gulping what was left of her water. The photo session had wrapped. She perched on the arm of the couch, watching as Mark and Jessie stood in the towers blowing their whistles, announcing the end of the morning swim session. Bob unlocked the gate, ushering patrons out.

Mark and Jessie climbed down, and along with Melissa, they paced the pool deck encouraging stragglers to climb out and collect their belongings.

Water pooled into a lake at the far end of the deck under the diving blocks, where the relay racers had waited their turns in dripping swimsuits. Bob, Mark, and Jessie trotted around the massive puddles on their way to the guard shack. Melissa took a seat in the tower, and the elderly lap swim woman sat on the edge of the bleachers, removing her orthopedic sandals and housecoat. The woman wore a saggy, faded purple swimsuit that was only a few shades darker than her almost transparent lavender skin.

“Okay!” Bob threw open the door, clapping excitedly, and headed straight for the desk. “That was a great start!”

“Are you kidding me?” Mark stopped in his tracks. “That was a fucking circus!”

Bob turned back, his smile ear to ear. “Come on, Mark! Sure, there are some kinks to iron out, but we haven’t had that kind of a turnout here in two decades!”

There was a metal clicking noise at the pay window. All four of them turned to see another regular: a shriveled bald man with leather skin and an arched back. He showed them his quarters, then set them on the counter.

The man was already headed in through the boys locker room when Bob waved at him. Bob grabbed the quarters and dropped them into the cash box. He turned back to Mark, whose arms were crossed and jaw was set. “This many people coming in for two weeks straight could convince the city this place is worthwhile,” Bob said. “They might even finally refurbish the pool.”

“There’s no safe way to run that many races twice a day and keep free swim open at the same time.” Mark pointed his thumb at Stacey over his shoulder. “Her rescue the other day was with good visuals on all the swimmers. I don’t even want to think about what could have happened today.”

“I agree. Safety first!” Bob said. “We will always have at least four guards on duty. We’ll shut down the shallow end for the second hour of open swim to conduct the races back-to-back. Jessie, Stacey, can you stay on this afternoon in case we need you?”

They both nodded, but gave one another knowing looks.

“Maybe we can get swim team to open the snack bar?” Jessie suggested.

“Great idea. Mark, can you give their director a call? Tell him they can recruit some new swimmers from the events! Let’s get some posters made. List the races and top three swimmers’ names with gold, silver, or red stars next to their times.”

“I can run to Thrifty and grab the poster supplies,” Stacey offered, eyeing Jessie. “I’ll get back before Melissa’s thirty minutes are even up.”

“Yes! Great! Thank you. Jessie, order some pizzas for all of the crew, too. Here,” Bob took his wallet from his back pocket and handed them a few twenties. “Get a bunch. I’m going to run to city hall, see if the mayor can be here for our two hundred freestyle this afternoon!”

Stacey slipped into her Birkenstocks, grabbed her keys, and ran out the door behind Bob with just her towel around her waist. They turned out of the parking lot in tandem. As they waited at the first stop light on the boulevard, she peered through Bob’s passenger window. He was still beaming.

For a split second, she considered Jessie’s concerns, and what the person at Thrifty’s checkout counter would think about her buying pregnancy tests. Mesa Valley was a small town, and the only people who would wear a solid red swimsuit were lifeguards at The Plunge. It wouldn’t take long to put two and two together and for the rumors to fly. But Stacey needed to know if her symptoms were what she feared, and she needed to know now.

Stacey turned her shoulders sideways to run between the pharmacy’s slow moving sliding glass doors, and headed straight for the school supplies. She grabbed three poster boards, a pack of star stickers, extra-large poster letters, and a box of Crayola markers. In the aisle with the pregnancy tests, she grabbed two different brands of double kits and hid them under her arm beneath the supplies.

She piled everything on the front counter and held Bob’s and Jessie’s cash in her hand.

The cashier was in her late twenties, chewing a huge wad of bubble gum. She scanned the items at a glacial pace, dropping them in a plastic bag while staring at Stacey. “You work at The Plunge? This stuff for that Olympics thing?”

“Um hmm.” Stacey bounced on her heels, avoiding eye contact.

“Want these in the bag, too?” the cashier asked, holding up the poster board.

“No. That’s okay.” Stacey grabbed them, shoving the boards back under her arm, and held the two twenties across the counter.

The last two items–both boxes of pregnancy tests–sat on the counter exposed, and the cashier paused as if intentionally dragging out the process. Stacey’s heart raced. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one she knew was coming up behind her.

“These yours, too?” the cashier asked.

Stacey gawked at her. “Just ring them up and tell me what I owe you.”

The cashier made a spectacle of rolling her eyes and dropping each kit in the bag. “$34.45,” she said, the gum smacking while she held out her palm.

Stacey handed her the twenties, then strummed her fingers impatiently on the counter as the cashier counted out her change. She gripped the money in her palm as she ran back out to her car. She turned the Silver Bullet onto the boulevard, grateful only ten minutes had passed since she’d left the pool.

In The Plunge parking lot, she wrapped the pregnancy kits in her towel and carried the bundle with her keys and wallet in her left hand, the plastic Thrifty bag and poster boards in her right.

She ran in the main pool entrance and pulled open the guard shack door, quickly dropping the bag and poster boards inside. “I’ve REALLY gotta pee,” she said, staring at Jessie and backing out toward the bathroom.

“Don’t need to know,” Mark groaned from the desk chair, rubbing his temples, his feet up and head leaned back.

Jessie nodded his understanding. “I’ll take over for Melissa. Come out whenever you’re ready.”

Stacey slammed the bathroom stall door shut and swung her towel over the narrow opening. She quickly peeled open the boxes and unwrapped all four sticks. She pulled her bathing suit aside and squatted over the toilet, careful to pee on each of the test strips.

She rested the sticks on squares of toilet paper on top of the toilet paper dispenser, then exited the stall. She shoved the boxes deep into the trash can, then washed her hands.

Stacey saw herself in the mirror, but barely recognized the person staring back. Her face was thin, her eyes tired. She ran her damp fingers along the sides of her head, pulling the loose hairs across her forehead and tucking them behind her ears.

“In a few minutes this will all be over,” she mumbled to herself, then froze. “Shit!” How did I not think to bring a watch?

She scrambled back into the stall to see if anything had happened. Biting the nail of her middle finger, she decided to just wait however long it took until something happened in all four indicator windows. Jessie will understand.

She locked the stall door and readjusted the towel over the gap in case anyone came in. If I count to nine hundred, that would be fifteen minutes. But, it’s already been like four minutes, right? So, like 650 would be good? One, two, three, four, five, six….

A whistle sounded out by the pool. There was a loud splash. A shiver ran up Stacey’s spine.

Before she was out of the stall, she heard Mark shouting. She pulled open the heavy exterior bathroom door and ran out. Melissa stood in the doorway of the lifeguard office, her hands over her mouth. Stacey followed Melissa’s gaze.

Jessie!

He was face down in the pool in the fifth lane. The water around him was turning red.

BLOOD!

Mark was running to the edge of the pool with the backboard. “Call 9-1-1, NOW!” he shouted.

“Melissa!” Stacey screamed. “Call for an ambulance, Melissa!”

Melissa snapped to attention and turned toward the phone in the guard shack.

Stacey ran out of her Birkenstocks, stopping at the pool’s edge at the shallow end, and quickly glanced around the pool, getting her bearings.

The old lady was climbing out at the side ladder. The weathered old man was in the third lane in the deep end of the pool, holding onto the metal rung of the diving block with one hand. His back was turned to Stacey, but his other arm was wrapped around something.

No. Someone. Another swimmer? Is he hurt, too?

Mark entered the water in the deep end where Jessie floated and rushed the backboard to him. “Stacey! I need you.”

She dropped into the water at the shallow end and made her way to Mark’s side. By the time she got to them, Mark had Jessie face up, and was trying to maneuver the board under him. Blood was rushing from a gash on Jessie’s forehead and a split across the top of his nose.

Stacey grabbed the Velcro straps to help Mark attach Jessie to the backboard.

Gripping the handles of the backboard, they rushed to get the board with Jessie’s limp body to the edge of the pool in the shallow end.

Melissa was there, waiting.

Mark shouted, “Once he’s out, apply pressure to the wound on his head, without putting any on his neck. No pressure on his neck!”

Melissa grabbed a folded yellow striped towel from the deck. Flip-flops and keys fell out of the towel, and landed on the wet concrete.

Mark quickly jumped out of the pool and lifted the head of the backboard. Stacey positioned herself to push it from the water. The muscles in her arms and stomach burned as she tried to keep the board stable while lifting Jessie out.

“Are paramedics coming?” Mark asked, lowering the head of the board to the ground, and getting onto his knees beside Jessie.

“They’re on their way.” Melissa placed the towel on Jessie’s forehead and held it steady with both hands.

Stacey climbed out of the water and knelt opposite Mark.

Mark placed one hand over the other just above Jessie’s sternum. He locked his elbows and pushed down. Nothing. He pressed again, harder.

On the third chest compression, Jessie heaved and he coughed up water. Mark and Stacey tilted the board to the side to help Jessie clear the water out.

Jessie’s skin had paled. Eyes barely open, his face was covered in blood.

“He’s breathing. I’ve got this,” Mark said. “Go check on them.”

Stacey ran toward the two men on the other side of the pool.

The bald, elderly man held the other swimmer’s face out of the water in the crook of his arm.

Oh my God. NO! Is he…

The body was lifeless. The face was bloated, like an anchored buoy tethered to the body beneath. The eyes were open, unblinking. The lips, visibly blue.

Stacey recognized the drowned man as another regular lap swimmer. “Mark!” she yelled as she reached down and gripped under the bloated man’s armpit. The old man let go and moved aside. The blue, swollen face started slipping beneath the water again, and Stacey put a knee down to stop herself from being pulled down along with the dead weight.

Mark swam across the pool at lightning speed.

Within seconds, he was out of the pool at her side. Mark and Stacey each gripped the man’s wrists with both hands, trying to pull his bloated body onto the deck between the diving blocks. Stacey grunted as her lower back spasmed. The man’s body hung limp and heavy against the side of the pool gutter.

“You take under his arms,” Mark told Stacey. “And I’ll grab hold of his shorts. Pull back on the count of three. One, two, thre-uuuhhh.” Stacey and Mark muscled the body barely up, onto the edge of the deck. “Again. One, two, THREE!” They dragged him back further. Stacey lost her grip, and the man’s upper body and head landed with a thump by her feet.

Mark knelt in the deep puddle beside the motionless body. “I’ll give compressions. You check for pulse and breathing,” he told Stacey.

Stacey fell onto her knees beside him.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

Mark started chest compressions. “One, two, three, four, five…”

Water oozed from the pot-bellied man’s dark lips. There was no movement in his body. He didn’t cough or flinch. His eyes were vacant.

“Eight, nine, ten…” Mark called out.

Stacey probed the cold, wet neck with her fingers, searching for a pulse. She hovered her cheek over the man’s open mouth, listening for breath.

“Anything?” Mark asked, still pressing hard into the man’s chest.

Stacey shook her head.

“Breathe!” Mark yelled at her, never ceasing his pumping.

Stacey clamped her fingers over the man’s nostrils with her left hand, tilted his chin up with her right. She blew as hard as she could into the man’s mouth. It was like blowing against a glass window; the air had nowhere to go.

Stacey tried clearing his windpipe with her finger. Nothing came out.

She blew three more times. “It’s not going in!”

Mark took over, trying to blow into the man’s mouth. “Fuck!” Mark returned to pressing the man’s chest.

Paramedics ran up beside them.

“There’s no pulse. We can’t get any air in,” Stacey said as she scurried out of the way.

“Let’s intubate,” one paramedic said to the other. While Mark continued pumping the chest, the medics opened their kit and slid a metal device into the man’s mouth. They pushed a tube through the device and down his throat.

Stacey stood, frozen in place. The pot-bellied man’s body lay completely still as paramedics squeezed the ball pump attached to the tube. His empty eyes stared straight up at the sun.

“We need to move him out of these puddles,” a paramedic shouted. “AED STAT!”

Mark continued chest compressions until a third medic arrived with the gurney. The squeaking wheels rushed toward Stacey, and she startled, backing out of the way. The four men lifted the body onto the gurney and rolled it to a dry part of the deck.

Unsure what else to do, Stacey trailed them until they stopped in front of the bleachers.

She looked past the gurney, Mark, and the paramedics, to where the little old lady in the purple suit sat in the bleachers, weeping and watching.

The head paramedic held the AED paddles to the man’s chest. The limp body jolted with each shock. There was still no response in his eyes.

They squeezed the ball pump again. The man’s bloated face was blue-gray.

Stacey turned away, her hand over her mouth.

Two medics wheeled Jessie across the deck to the open gate and a waiting ambulance.

A large red fire truck pulled away from the curb. It cleared the way to the pool entrance for a second ambulance, its sirens blaring.

Police cars arrived, the lights flashing, and blocked the parking lot entrance.

One officer rushed to stand at the exit.

The ambulance transporting Jessie turned on its lights and siren and rushed out of the parking lot, the officer in the street waving him past oncoming traffic.

Another officer ran up to Melissa, who was standing by the gate.

Melissa talked to the officer, pointing and gesturing. Her hands and forearm were smeared with blood. Jessie’s blood.

A pizza delivery guy appeared by the gate.

A car screeched to a stop by the police cars. Bob jumped out and ran to the pool gate, abandoning his car in the street.

Stacey turned back to the paramedics. The body.

The medic with the defibrillator paddles stepped back. “That’s ten shocks. I’m calling it.” He looked at his watch. “Time of death 12:47 p.m.”

Mark dropped to sit on the ground beside the gurney, defeated. He anchored his elbows to his knees and held his head in his hands.

Stacey looked away.

Bob put his hand on Melissa’s shoulder. She turned into his chest, crying. The officer took notes on a small pad of paper he pulled from his pocket.

On the bottom bench of the bleachers, wrapped in her housecoat, the old woman was crying, her yellow swim cap bobbing up and down. The paramedic pulled a sheet over the drowned swimmer’s body.

The remaining ambulance turned off its lights.

The old man with the curved back stood beside the lifeguard tower, giving a statement to a firefighter with a clipboard.

An officer wearing gloves dropped the bloodied yellow striped towel into a plastic bag. He picked up the flip-flops and a set of keys and dropped them in a second bag.

The fireman with the clipboard crouched beside Mark.

The doors of the second ambulance closed, but there were no lights or sirens. It didn’t race off.

The police officer with the bags of belongings from beside the pool approached Stacey. “Miss, do you know who these keys belong to?”

Stacey shook her head slowly.

“They were his,” a high, shaky voice called out.

Stacey and the officer turned toward the bleachers.

The old woman was standing, holding the railing. “The man who drowned. He always folded his shoes and keys into his towel at the end of his lane.”

“Thank you,” the officer called over to her. “May I ask you a few questions?”

The elderly woman nodded and sat on the bench.

The officer waved over a firefighter with a first aid kit. “Let him help you get cleaned up,” he said to Stacey, “then I’d like to get your statement as well.”

Confused, Stacey looked at her hands. They were shaking, but she didn’t see blood.

Then she looked down. Blood trickled down her thigh.

Stacey waved off the approaching firefighter and turned toward the bathroom. The door screeched open and closed with a heavy thud behind her. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She walked into the stall, staring at the four pregnancy tests resting atop the toilet paper dispenser. They were all positive.

She felt dizzy and caught herself against the stall wall.

Tests scattered to the floor.

She heaved the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

Her abdomen cramped.

With each retch, rivers of blood poured down her inner thighs.

She took a wad of toilet paper and wiped the blood from her legs. She dropped it in the toilet, flushed, then slid down the partition onto the wet concrete floor, and hugged her knees. She started shaking uncontrollably. She gripped her elbows tighter and erupted with tears.

Suddenly, Melissa was kneeling by her side, her arms around Stacey.

Stacey looked into Melissa’s blotchy red face. The thought of discussing everything that had just happened made her afraid she would vomit again. She slid her legs out in front of her, and put her arms around Melissa. They sobbed into one another’s necks.

As they caught their breath and Melissa pulled away, she noticed the tests on the ground.

“What’s—?” Melissa’s voice caught as she picked one of the tests up. And another. “Stacey?” She searched Stacey’s face for an explanation.