Evening Swim

On a hot evening in Cheverly, we decide to go to the pool for splashing and dinner. There are six kids in the house, so we are busy running up and down the stairs looking for children and their suits, and getting them matched up, and then finding sandals and towels and and pool bag. Lilah has to be woken up from her nap and is crying intermittently without reason. Molly is going to get pizza with Max (1.5), and Phillip is still at work, so Heather and I herd the remaining five children down the street towards the pool. Jackson (7) is pushing Cole in the stroller and also trying to stay ahead of Audrey (5) and Claire. Heather is weighed down with Lilah, who is still waking up and regaining her sunny equilibrium. I try to keep Jackson from ejecting Cole out of his seat as he flies over curbs, and direct the girls back onto the sidewalk. The pool is only two blocks away, so we make it without our group loosing cohesion. We wait in line, and snake through the dressing rooms, and head down the steps to the kid's pool, a large circle of water about ten inches deep. Some friends of Heather's meet us there; they have a toddler and an infant, so between their little runner and ours, conversation is jerky and there are many unfinished threads.

Jackson, don't run and splash in the kid's pool.

(So you're defending your dissertation on Monday, Paul?)

Yes, Lilah, I see that you are swimming!

(Do you think it's easier to adopt or have natural children, now that you've done both?)

I'm sorry you got splashed, Audrey; that happens sometimes in the pool.

(So how big is the house you're looking at buying?)

If you're cold you can get out of the water, Claire.

That gate isn't latched; there goes Liam!

Lilah comes to feed me with a wet pebble, which she drops down my shirt, and to paint my feet, and  to water my legs. I take the girls over to the big pool so we can do "motorboat," a silly spinning-in-circles water game I introduced them to in the lakes in Berlin, which my daddy used to play with me. Audrey, out of the pool, plays with her towel and watches her shadow, crisply cast by the setting sun on the smooth cement. "Look Audrey," I tell her. "Your shadow is so tall! It's taller than your daddy!"

"No!" she tells me. "My daddy is so tall -- he would be all the way to that fence!"

Claire bounces over, huddled into her wet towel. "Can I get warm with you?" she asks, and burrows into my lap.

Then we see Molly and Phillip: pizza has arrived. We lead the kids up the stairs and they sit at the picnic tables, puddles swelling under their benches as they choose between cheese and pepperoni. Cole quietly puts away three pieces, painting his dimpled cheeks with pizza sauce. We say goodbye to the friends who had come to visit with Heather. The pizza disappears and the group drains back down to the pool.

"Look! Julie! The sky is pink!" Lilah runs over to hold my hands while she heralds this news to me, each word emphasized by her eager wonder. The sun is behind the trees; the evening is cooler now. The girls want to do motorboat again, but I don't want to get back in the water. Cole is fussy; Phillip takes him to the big pool and gives him a change of scenery and some one-on-one attention.

And then: bedtime! We traipse out of the pool, up the stairs, through the dressing room, across the parking lot. Phillip and the boys walk home, Max and Cole in the stroller, towel-robed Jackson running along beside. The girls pile into the car and Molly drives us home. At home everyone is changed and read to. I take Cole into his room and he tucks his head into the crook of my neck while I snuggle him, pray for him, speak love to him. Then he reaches for his mattress and lies down to suck his two middle fingers, and I sail his blanket down and it comes to rest over his quiet little body.