I slumped in a chair at the opposite end of the pool from the parents, knowing full well that I looked like a creep in full attire, shoes and socks, pants, shirt and jacket. I pulled my cap close to my eyes and tried to see only the water, just look at it for a while and think about what to do next. The water slapped against the sides of the pool as the kids thrashed and splashed around, and the sound bounced around inside the glass partitions that tried to keep the whole thing part of and apart from the rest of the hotel. The kids were between eight and twelve, cranked out in quick succession when the parents were young enough for all the trouble. The boy was the youngest, but would have been outmatched if it had been the other way around. He tried when he could to get at his sisters, picking at them when he thought his parents weren’t looking. The kids stayed in the shallow end. They were as white as string. Underwater they almost glowed with a ghostly fluorescence. None of us belonged there.

I tried not to pay attention, but the kids started fighting over something; the boy had it and the girls wanted it. “Give it back,” one of them said, and the parents parroted it. The boy sheepishly held it out in his hand (it was too far away for me to see), but somehow – through his own deviousness or incompetence – it fell from his hand and went to the bottom of the pool. There was a brief dispute as to who was going to fetch it; the young boy seemed reluctant to dive down the few feet and retrieve it. Maybe he couldn’t. Finally, one of the girls swam down and brought it back. This became a new game. The father took whatever it was that started the thing, then tossed coins into the pool, and the kids chased after them. Except for the boy. He never went under, even when his sisters gently coaxed him. Instead, he sat on one of the steps in the shallow end, squatting down so he was underwater up to his chin. His sisters would bring him the coins and he’d toss them back, farther out into the deeper water.