The hard part of diving for me was what the teacher called a “buoyancy compensator”—the part of the gear that helped you sink lower or float higher. I wasn’t as smooth with it as I wanted to be, but soon enough I was belly down on the pool floor, crawling deeper and deeper. I loved the way the blue-green light swam in the water. If I turned my head, I could see people swimming above me; I could see Ruth’s black fins with the red stripe down the middle. What word would Ruth give for a picture like that, I wondered.

Soon I was in the deep end, around the drain grate. Along the edge were carvings of sea turtles and stingrays. I swam up close, my goggles inches from the concrete, and wished I had an underwater camera with me.

To this day I don’t know what happened. In a split second, one side of my goggles had filled up with water and the other was full enough I had to close my eyes. It happened so fast it shocked me, and I twisted and flinched and lost my orientation. It took all my self-control not to completely panic and lose my regulator.

The water seemed to swamp my brain and I couldn’t think. My feet were flailing inside their flippers. What was it I was supposed to do? I tried to remember. Something about floating to the top, maybe? Inflating something? I needed someone to remind me what I was supposed to do. I was sure I was going to lose my oxygen and start gulping pool water.

I probably would have been able to manage, would have thought of something, but before I’d had a chance to calm down, I felt a grip on the back of my arm. A firm grip, pulling me upward. I knew who it was by the feel of her hands.

When we broke the surface, I yanked my goggles off and pulled the regulator out of my mouth. Even though I hadn’t lost my oxygen, it was still difficult to catch my breath, and I bobbed in the water, breathing hard and rubbing my eyes until I could see again.

When I’d blinked the last of the water out of my eyes, Ruth was there floating in front of me, goggles off, hair slicked back.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I can do this.”

For a second she just looked at me. In that flashing moment I could see the aching, sorrowful whirlpool behind her eyes, like a reflection in the water.

“Don’t freak out next time, okay?” she said. Then she turned and swam away, back toward the deep end, pulling on her goggles and regulator as she went.

Our Uber pulls up to the concert hall and I hand Ellie back the Neosporin.

“You tripped going into the cemetery?” Ellie asks.

“Yeah,” I say.