“I will, if you behave. I want you to take your dip first, so I can make lunch.”
“Hi there!” A couple in a golf cart was passing outside the cage. “Beautiful day!”
“Good as it gets!” the attendant called. “Have a great one!”
When Chester Ivy looked back, the red car was gone. “It’ll be ruined,” he said again. “Please get it for me. Go get my wife, she can swim.”
“Sorry, Chet, she’s not around.”
The oven timer stopped as the attendant came from the entry. When he was close, Ivy grabbed for the remote. “N’uh uh—” The attendant held it away. “First the dip.” He extended his free arm. Defeated, the old man took it and began shuffling. With someone to hold to, he moved better. They stopped, and the attendant pointed at the pool. Like a huge photograph, the surface still mirrored the clouds.
“See it?”
“Clouds,” he said. “Of course I see.” Cheeky young bastard. But you had to keep quiet. He was powerful. If you misbehaved or talked back, this one kept things from you. Or left you in strange parts of the huge house.
“No, Chet—” The attendant pointed. “Your Lamborghini, right there.” Now he saw the red model car resting on the bottom. The attendant clucked his tongue. “Just like all these dead-at-the-top drivers down here. That could be someone’s nice new Mercedes or Beemer. Right off the end of Naples Pier. Listening to Golden Oldies all the way down.”
“Please get it.”
“After the dip and the lunch. Let’s go.”
The man again let himself be led. The attendant hefted the cast-aluminum chair and brought it with them. When they reached the shallow end, he positioned the chair before helping to take off the robe. Cinched around the old man’s shrunken waist were colorful red boxer trunks. He watched the robe draped on the chair—it was always the same routine. The attendant set the remote on the seat, then took Ivy under the arm. They moved carefully, side by side, down the pool’s shallow steps.
It was warm, the way he liked it. “Good?” He nodded, stroking the surface, standing waist-high in tepid water. “OK, now, I’ll be back in five. You get tired, just sit on the steps like we practiced. Got it?” He nodded again, the water warm, the clouds blurred by his movements.
The attendant stepped back up. He put his foot on the chair and wiped with the terry cloth robe. “Fixing us something real special today.” He changed legs. “Nice portabella mushrooms on whole grain bread. Sprouted peas on the salad, Annie’s dressing. Sound good?”
This one ate vegetables and made things only he liked. He lowered his foot and went inside. Still smoothing the surface, the old man remembered the toy car. The battery contacts would get wet and corrode—but now he stopped stroking the water. Before retirement, he had been a GM engineer. All at once Chester Ivy understood that if the car still took a signal, he might get it back himself.
Yes, of course. Run it along the bottom and get it out before it was damaged.
The idea made him smile. He turned where he stood, bent down, and braced himself on a tile step. Gingerly he knelt on the step just below the surface. It hurt, but he never took chances. Why had they left Michigan? He worked his way up the next shallow step. With a precision flowing from the pain in his bony knees, he remembered bad falls—in the big room with the mobile, in the bathroom, going to the car. When you fell here, it wasn’t the pain. It was knowing the next one might mean that whatever small freedom you still had would be over.
It hurt, but reaching the deck, he swung carefully and sat on the edge. The sense of risk lifted, his breathing slowed. After several seconds he twisted around and grabbed for the car’s remote control. It was at the back of the chair. Twisting half off the deck, he grabbed again, got it and dropped back. But the remote had snagged the robe.
As always, the cast-aluminum chair had been placed at the edge within easy reach. This time, the left front leg slipped off and down. The man still clutched the remote, and now the right leg slipped. The chair toppled forward, the man still clutching the control as the chair’s solid armrest struck his throat. He fell back into the pool, pushing, choking.
Stunned by the shock of water in his lungs, he stared up. The white robe lay flat on the surface above him. He thought of clouds. He had wanted his wife to see them but knew in the moment what he often chose to forget. That she was dead, and had been for years.
The three crossed the road to the airport’s parking structure.
“What a prick,” Brenda said.
Sweeney was walking next to her and nodded, but said nothing. He had his suitcoat over his shoulder, carrying his golf clubs. Rivera was leading the way with her bag. Brenda put her head back. The sky was overcast, but the sun’s heat felt warm on her face.
As they moved into the cool parking structure, she remembered: Charlie had come here several times with his wife. What kind of time had they had? He was full of memories she would never learn about. Good and bad times, gone but not forgotten.
The van’s remote side panel slid open. She and Sweeney got in as Rivera stowed the luggage. Soon they were underway in his spotless truck, and she glanced at Sweeney. He seemed lost in thought, hands on his knees.
Charlie Schmidt’s hands were like the rest of him. Solid and hardworking. She remembered admiring them last November as he painted her apartment.
The weight of regret settled again as she saw him in old khakis and a flannel shirt, using the roller. Like her father, Charlie was as even-tempered as she was not. And funny. For some reason, that had surprised her. Perhaps because,
