“My daddy’s daddy used to beat him too. In Aberdeen, where he comes from, they think you have to beat children to make them mind. Well, that’s where we’re moving back to. Back to Alabama where he knows the governor. My daddy’s family owns the whole county where they live. So now he’s rich and he can go back there. So now they’re going to pack all the stuff in my room without me even being there.” Tears were beginning to run down my face into the dark blue chlorinated water. “Lilly, do you have that stopwatch I gave you?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Well, start watching it. Tell me when it gets to the top.” I took a position in the second lane and lay my arms back behind me and began to count into my stroke. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

“Now,” she said, and I dove into the water and began to swim. Like the wind, I told myself, like wind in a canyon, tear the rocks off the wall, turn the stone to pebbles, goddammit, Sister, swim.

Six minutes and forty-two point three seconds later I pulled myself up on the side and Lilly told me the time. “Oh, you’re kidding. No one can swim that fast. You didn’t time it right.”

“I pushed it when you touched the end. It was so beautiful to watch, Rhoda. You look like you don’t even move. I can hardly see you move. The water moves all around you.”

“Let me see the watch. You timed it wrong. Of course, there wasn’t anyone else in the pool. When you’re making the only waves it helps. Goddammit, if I did that. If I really did.”

“Try it again.”