Motherish by Laura Rock

Author:Laura Rock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literay Fiction, Feminism, Family relationships, Parenting
ISBN: 9780888016423
Publisher: Turnstone Press
Published: 2018-09-12T16:46:18+00:00

Masters Swim

400 m warm-up (swim/kick x 100)

Marta slipped into the fast lane, breaking the surface with a subdued plomp. Her arms flew up, then fell. They did not sync with the music blaring from loudspeakers, would not obey the propulsive beat. She had the ability to isolate herself. Overhead, a string of pennants fluttered like Buddhist prayer flags in the wind of giant ceiling fans. Beyond the fans, a fretwork of ducts and pipes mapped the indoor sky for backstrokers trying to stay on course. Her backstroke was uncertain, but she preferred its view to the endless black line on the bottom of the pool, and it gave her eyes a rest from the mural on the far wall, a garish beach scene two storeys high. Sometimes she flipped over and floated just to study the ceiling’s layered shadows. How she might render them in charcoal on paper. If she could.

Saturday-morning swimmers emerged from locker rooms into the chlorinated pool air, goggles in hand. They paused when the music hit them. Turn it off, Marta sang under her breath, but there was no chance of that. Lifeguards and swim instructors danced in place, causing the flotation devices slung across their bodies to jiggle. Teenagers shaking butts and wrists, cracking each other up. No more than five years separated Marta and the oldest lifeguard, but they were crucial years. At twenty-six, she felt ancient in comparison.

Too early for this. All night she had worried the sheets on Jill’s pullout sofa, where she’d landed after abandoning California. The dream of art school lost, and with it the money she’d saved working retail. Not only working, but hesitating, never feeling ready. Jill had raced through college on a scholarship while Marta floundered. And then she stayed too long, but the faith that California might yet have something vital to offer had pinned her in place.

Marta closed her eyes and sank. Hugging herself, she felt in her element. How easily the water claimed her. She was still astonished at finding a welcoming space in this strange combination of sport and meditation. Soon after venturing into the pool at the Y, she’d advanced from floating half-laps to an hour, sometimes more, of steady movement. Swimming was the one thing that silenced now what?—her unwanted mantra. She could rinse her brain. And she expected that this was not only a California thing, but true of any pool. She lingered under water, slept for the span of a held breath, before rising again.

Bouncing in her corner, warmer now, Marta surveyed the benches lining the walls. She’d expected Jill to beat her here. Perhaps her younger sister had been waylaid by a friend, one of the crowd that cheered whenever Jill leapt into a new adventure, this time as entrepreneur. Marta batted the still water. She hoped Jill hadn’t invited anyone. She’d agreed to test Jill’s prototype, but that didn’t mean she wanted an audience.

As she stretched her shoulders, Jill appeared at the far doors, balanced on crutches.

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