What the Sea Brings
we go the pool?”
Usually a group of senior ladies does water aerobics in the pool in the
mornings, but with the sky so threatening Anna and the baby are the only ones there when Celia arrives. Anna looks up and smiles so her mother won’t think she’s angry at her for spending the last hour smoking at Aunt Elizabeth’s. She isn’t angry. In fact, she’s dreaming — with mounting anticipation — of actually being able to write today. It’s only fair. “This is the way the ladies ride,” she sings as Celia slips into the water. But it’s going to be tricky: the baby requires her full attention because if she cries she’ll need to nurse and then she’ll fall asleep and be up again in half an hour. “This is the way the gentlemen ride,” Anna sings, bouncing her, making her laugh.
Celia does one slow lap and then climbs out of the water. “I’m going home,”
she announces, “since you obviously don’t need me.”
“— early in the morning. Ooo-kaay!” So focused is Anna on her singing that
her response comes out in song. Taken by surprise, she says, “We’re coming too. Just as soon as we shower off this chlorine.”
Anna walks back to the condo on little puffs of air. It feels like an epiphany,
as if maybe that’s the trick of it, to sing like the seashells and keep singing, no matter what’s happening to you. When she opens the door Celia is freshly showered and talking on the phone. “I’m not going,” Anna hears her say. “I’m helping Anna with the baby.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” This is Lynn’s voice. Celia has her on speakerphone.
To Anna’s ear she is feigning dismay, and she must not know Anna is listening because she adds, “Anna doesn’t like to be alone with her baby, does she?”
It’s like she’s been struck by a stone. All of Anna’s buoyancy leaves her. “I
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