by Niles, Naomi
Silence filled the kitchen, and for a few moments, there was nothing but the sound of clattering cutlery as it hit the plate. My thoughts whirled around in my head like loose balloons.
“What if I win this time around?” I asked abruptly, and both my parents looked at me in surprise.
“What do you mean, Jessica?” Dad asked, confused.
“I mean… what if I win this time?” I clarified. “What then?”
“What then?” Dad repeated again.
“What do I do then?” I asked.
Dad looked at me carefully. “Well then,” he said at last. “You keep training through the next four years until the next Olympic games.”
He said the words with enthusiasm, but somehow, I could not find the same kind of optimism. Was that going to be my entire life? Was I simply going to train and compete, train and compete, until age forced me to retire? Was I going to spend my youth working endlessly with no room left over to actually enjoy my life? It felt like a bleak picture to me, but I knew I could never admit it aloud.
“Right?” Dad asked, cutting through my thoughts.
“I… sure.” I nodded.
As soon as dinner was finished, Mom rose and took Dad’s plate, along with hers.
“Thank you for dinner, darling,” Dad said to Mom before he vanished back to his den.
I got up and proceeded to help Mom clean up. She was rinsing out the dishes before she stuck them in the dishwasher, so I spooned the leftovers into containers for the fridge.
“I am excited about practice starting up again,” I said as we worked side by side. “I just wish I was living at the facility with the rest of the girls.”
Mom glanced at me and then her eyes drifted instinctively to the door as though to make sure we were alone. “Your dad’s so protective of you,” she said in defense of him. “He just feels better knowing you’re under our roof.”
“I am twenty-three, Mom,” I pointed out. “Most kids are long gone by that time.”
“Well, you’re not a normal kid,” Mom replied. “You’re special.”
Somehow the word ‘special’ didn’t sound like a compliment to me. “Mom?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes, dear?”
“Do you ever get… tired of listening to Dad?” I forced myself to ask.
Mom looked at me with surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I just mean… his word is law around here,” I said gently. “Do you ever get tired of… having to listen?”
“No, of course not,” Mom replied as though she were uncomfortable with the question. “He’s my husband. And he’s a very intelligent man.”
I nodded distractedly. Once I had finished with the cleanup, I excused myself and went up to my room. I had just closed the door behind me when I heard my phone ring. I stumbled to answer the call when I realized it was Alana Hopkins, my coach, who was calling.
“Hi, Coach,” I said the moment I picked up.
“Hello, Jessica,” Coach Hopkins responded. “Are you ready to begin practice tomorrow?”
“Very ready,” I said emphatically.
“Excellent,” Coach replied. “I just finished the traditional meeting with all the girls in the house and, considering you were missing, I thought it would be a good idea to call you up so that we could have a little chat.”
“I… of course.” I already felt left out. “All the girls arrived?”
“They did,” Coach replied. “It was a shame you weren’t there.”
“I agree,” I said, suppressing a sigh.
“You’ll find a schedule with your name on it when you enter the house tomorrow,” Coach continued. “As well as a booklet that goes through the house rules. I know I won’t have to worry about any rule breaking from you.”
“You won’t,” I assured her.
“Excellent,” Coach replied. “I know you won’t be sleeping in the house, but I’ve assigned you a room anyway. It might come in handy over the next few months.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
“I’ll need you to be at the facility by six o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Noted,” I replied. “I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Coach said. “And Jessica?”
“Yes?”
“Remember this period is going to be crucial… it’s also going to be the greatest time of your life. Be in the moment and enjoy every part of it.”
“I will, Coach.” Her enthusiasm touched me. “Thank you.”
After she hung up, I sank onto my bed and picked up the book lying on my bedside table. Wuthering Heights. It was the fourth time I’d read it, but it was one of my favorite love stories. There was something incredibly pure about a love as strong and as timeless as Cathy and Heathcliff’s.
I wondered what it would be like to experience a love as powerful as theirs. I wondered what it would be like to feel that kind of love for someone and to have someone feel that kind of love for you. The more I thought about it, the emptier I felt. It was just another reminder about how limited my experiences were.
Forget all that, Jessica. This is not the time to dream of some great love affair. You have another kind of dream, and it’s no less important. You have to focus. You have to focus.
That night, as I slept, I dreamt about swimming in the Olympics as my parents watched. I came up for air and realized I wasn’t at the Olympics anymore. I was in the sea. My parents had disappeared and wild moors surrounded me. As I walked ashore, I looked up and saw Heathcliff watching me from a distance. I turned my back on the water and started to walk toward him.
Chapter Three
Alan
The alarm went off at precisely five o’clock AM. I turned around and shut it off with a groan as I willed my eyes open. It was still dark outside and as my eyes adjusted to the sparse amount of light, I realized that Langdon had snored right through the alarm. I lay flat on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, deciding to give him ten more minutes of sleep.
I had dreamt a lot last night, and it had the effect of leaving me tired and drained. Not the ideal way to start off my first official day of training, but I had to make it work. As I stared at the musky-gray ceiling, I started to see other images that formed a memory from long ago.
I could see the long, narrow pool that had been the scene of my very first triumph. Thin benches flanked the pool. My father, in his red t-shirt and beige pants, sat in the foremost bench, cheering emphatically. My beautiful mother wore her yellow sundress, covering her face from the glare. I could see everything so clearly that for a moment, I was eight years old again, swimming competitively for the very first time. I relived that memory all over again.
“Alan,” Dad called as he approached the pool. “Alan, my boy… how are you doing?”
I glanced over at Mom. “I’m scared.”
“What did you say, my boy?” Dad asked as he bent down and leaned in closer. “I didn’t catch that.”
“I… never mind,” I muttered, finding myself unable to say the words again.
Dad fixed his blue eyes on me. They were kind and made me feel as though I could tell him anything. “Come on, son,” he said in that gentle voice of his. “Go on.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted in a whisper.
“Good,” Dad replied unexpectedly.
“What?” I asked in surprise.
“Fear is good, Alan,” Dad continued. “It means you care. It means that you’ll try your hardest. It means that you’ll fight.”
“What if I don’t win?” I asked with wide eyes.
“Then you’ll work harder in the future,” Dad replied. “Failure is not a bad thing, Alan. It’s a learning experience. It’ll make you stronger and more resilient. Turn that fear of yours into focus.”
I didn’t quite know what that meant. “Is Mom coming to wish me luck?” I asked, glancing over at her in the hopes she would notice me staring and come over without having to be called.
Dad turned around and looked at her for a moment. She was
easily the most beautiful woman there. Tall and graceful, her brown hair hung loose around her shoulders and she wore large sunglasses that covered up her hazel eyes. She wasn’t looking at us. She was staring off in another direction, deep in thought.
“Your mother is a little tired, Alan,” Dad replied gently. “Talen had a fever, and she was up all night with him. Why don’t we let her sit there for now?”
I really wanted her to come over and kiss my forehead and wish me luck, but I didn’t want to upset her either. “Okay.”
“That’s my boy.” Dad nodded. “Now you go on and swim your little heart out… promise?”
“Promise.”
“Atta boy,” Dad said, running a hand through my hair before he went to join Mom on the benches.
As we were called to our starting points, I took a deep breath and tried to remember not to be scared of being scared. As my teacher started the countdown, I braced myself for the launch. It happened in the last three seconds before the race began. I was bent over in diving position ready to hurl myself into the water when I remembered something. I remembered that I loved swimming and that was the only thing I needed to focus on.
“Go!” someone shouted, and I dived.
The moment my body hit the water, everything else fell away and suddenly it was all painfully clear. All I had to do was swim, and that wasn’t so hard. When I came up for air, I could hear screaming and cheering and feel the splash of displaced water. I removed my goggles and pulled myself up and out of the pool.
“Well done, my boy,” my father said in an elated voice.
“Did I win?” I asked, turning to him.
Dad’s smile was as bright and bold as the sun. “Did you win?” he repeated. “Of course you won!” Then he leaned in a little closer and whispered to me, “You made it look like all the other kids were trout trying to swim upstream.”
I jumped in the air and hugged my dad. He didn’t seem to care that I’d gotten the front of his clothes all wet. After a moment, I glanced around. “Where’s Mom?”
Dad’s smile faltered slightly, but he managed to keep it in place. “She was feeling a little weak, my boy,” he said gently. “She went to sit in the car.”
The smile instantly dropped from my face. “You mean… she didn’t see me win?”
“Don’t you worry,” Dad said quickly. “I’ll tell her every little detail about that amazing lap you just swam. Trust me… it’ll be like she witnessed the whole thing herself.”
Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes. “Hey, hey,” Dad said quickly. “None of that, my boy. You just won your first swimming meet. That’s special right there.”
“But… but—”
“You listen to me,” Dad said fiercely. “This is your moment. You earned this. You should feel nothing but happiness; you hear me?”
I nodded half-heartedly.
“I am so unbelievably proud of you, and don’t you ever let yourself forget that.”
I blinked and the memory in front of my eyes faded. I was twenty-six years old again, and I was back in my room with Langdon snoring soundly in the bed opposite mine. I got to my feet and poked Langdon in the shoulder. He snorted and turned his back on me.
“Langdon!” I said, pushing at him with my hands. “Come on, man. It’s time to get going.”
His only response was to grunt and keep snoring. I went downstairs to the fully stocked kitchen and got some bread, eggs, and sausages and put two plates together. Then I walked back upstairs and shoved the one plate in front of Langdon’s face. As I had suspected, the smell got him awake and soon he was blinking up at me.
“What’s that smell?” he asked in confusion.
“That smell is breakfast,” I laughed. “Time to get going.”
“What time is it?”
“Five-fifteen,” I replied. “We’ve got to head out soon.”
“Geez.” Langdon yawned, sitting up and taking the plate from my hands. “Is it that time already?”
“Unfortunately, it is,” I replied. “Are you coming or should I just tell Coach you’re not interested in competing this time around?”
“Fuck you, I’m up,” Langdon snapped, as he shoveled food into his mouth.
Once our plates were clean, we got our gear together and then moved downstairs as natural light started to creep into the house. Jonathan, Devin, and Stuart were in the garden, and the rest were in the kitchen finishing up their breakfasts. We greeted each other with tired nods, and moments later we heard the mini bus pull up outside the house.
“It’s here early,” Langdon pointed out.
“Only by five minutes,” I said as we shuffled out of the house in a disjoined line.
Langdon and I snagged seats at the back of the bus. Patrick slipped into the seat right in front of us. Unlike the rest of the group, he looked like he’d been awake for hours. He didn’t bother with good morning pleasantries. Instead, he ignored us altogether and that was fine by me. Beside me, Langdon yawned so loud several of the guys turned to look in our direction.
I shook my head at him. “How the fuck are you going to do this every single day?”
“Don’t we get Sundays off?” he asked, as though he hadn’t been through this process before.
“You know we don’t,” I laughed, aware that Patrick was listening to our banter. “How did you even manage the last time?”
“I was younger and more committed,” Langdon replied with a wink. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that sleep has become my secret mistress.”
“Well, in that case, it’s nice of you to have shown up at all, sleeping beauty,” I responded. “You’re going to be stiff competition in this state.”
Langdon gave me a side-glance. “I would have been up earlier… but I was dreaming about your mother. Maybe I should take a nap right here so that she can finish me off.”
I smiled tightly and looked out my window. It wasn’t that I couldn’t take the joke; I just hated anything that unnecessarily reminded me of my mother. I didn’t want to have to think about her any more than I needed to. As I thought that, an image of my mother popped into my head.
She was wearing the blue, sleeveless dress she loved so much and she was washing dishes in front of the sink. It was obvious she wasn’t concentrating on what she was doing because she was staring out the window as though she could see her future. Her brown hair was tied at the back of her head in a messy knot and her hazel eyes were bright with thought. She looked happy in that memory, but I realized, as I got older, that I had just assumed she was.
“Alan?”
“Hmm?”
“We’re here,” Langdon said, punching me lightly in the arm. “Man – it’s huge.”
The bus pulled to a stop, and we got out one by one. The facility was amazing. It was mammoth in size and it looked like several wings had been added to the existing plan. My awe was cut short as Patrick walked up to stand beside Langdon and me for a moment.
“Looks like we’ll finally get to see what ‘super-jaws’ can really do in the water,” he said in a condescending tone as he kept the smug smirk on his face.
Then he walked away without waiting for a response. Langdon turned to me with raised eyebrows. “Damn… looks like he got out on the wrong side of bed this morning.”
“That’s not it,” I shook my head. “He’s got it in for me.”
“Only because you’re the best swimmer in the group and Patrick already knows it on some level,” Langdon said with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter… the only thing he can try to do is beat you in the pool.”
“And he’s going to fail,” I said confidently.
Langdon laughed. “That’s my boy!” he said patting me hard on the back. “You give him hell.”
Langdon’s words conjured up an image of my father in his red t-shirt and beige pants. He was standing by the side of the pool cheering me on. I turned my gaze up to the massive, white walls of the training facility and took a deep breath. I let myself appreciate how fa
r I’d come for a moment. I let myself feel proud. The only thing that I regretted was that my father had not lived long enough to see me come this far.
“You ready?” Langdon asked, cutting through my thoughts.
I turned to him, with the image of my father fading. “I was born ready.”
Langdon looked at me challengingly. “Good, cause I plan on taking you out today.”
I laughed. “Bring it on, buddy; I welcome the challenge.”
Chapter Four
Jessica
The facility was amazing. It was even larger than I remembered, and I realized how much I had missed it. A few changes had been made since the last time I was here, and that made me feel like I was on a new compound altogether. A tingle of excitement darted through my limbs as I watched Coach Hopkins pull up a few parking spaces away from me.
I got out of the car with my bag in hand and walked over to her. Coach Hopkins was a young woman with dark hair and deep brown eyes. I had met her several times over the last few years, but this was the first time she was coaching me.
“Coach,” I said as I approached her. “Good morning.”
“Jessica,” she said, turning to me and glancing at her wristwatch. “You’re here early.”
I nodded. “I didn’t want to miss anything.”
“Well the rest of the team hasn’t arrived yet,” Coach Hopkins replied. “They won’t be here till six o’clock.”
“I figured.” I nodded. “I just…”
Coach looked at me as though she understood why I was here so early. I saw sympathy in her eyes, and I wasn’t sure how that made me feel.
“You live close by, don’t you?” Coach asked.
“I do,” I said.
“And that’s why you opted not to stay in the house with the other girls?”
We started walking toward the building together, and I was glad that this wasn’t a face-to-face conversation. It made it easier for me to admit the truth. “To be honest… my parents are a little… protective.”