and threaten them with dire punishment if they ever spoke harshly to the boy, insulted him, excluded him. He felt, in brief, like a parent, and it was a hugely strange and disorienting emotion that seemed to balloon outward from his center to encompass and swallow everyone and everything around him.
As Becker looked at Karen, holding Jack’s other hand, the warm glow he felt expanded to include her. He not only loved this little boy; by extension, he also loved the mother. More than loved her. He felt toward her the same protective urge he felt toward Jack. He would marry her, they would raise the child together, and Becker would shield both of them from the world’s perils, great and small.
Becker gazed at Karen over the boy’s head. She looked back with a sour, pained expression.
As Jack released their hands and stepped up to the swimming counselor, frightened but eager to have the ordeal behind him, Becker was overwhelmed by the boy’s courage.
Becker put an arm possessively around Karen’s waist.
“Can he swim?”
Karen pretended to shift her weight and twisted, slipping away from Becker’s arm.
“Not well. He’s afraid of the water.”
Becker heard the nervousness in her voice.
“I can teach him,” he said.
“I’ll teach him,” she snapped, then tempered the remark by adding, “or they’ll teach him here… They’re professionals.”
Jack stood at the end of the dock, his little face turned attentively to the counselor, listening to his instructions. He looked to Becker like a midget warrior being sent into battle.
“He’s brave. I couldn’t be that brave,” Becker said.
Karen gave him a puzzled look.
Jack turned from the counselor, took one look at the water and dived in, arms and legs flailing, landing on his stomach, his head and face arched backwards as if they could somehow avoid contact with the lake.
Becker gripped Karen’s arm and they watched, both holding their breath, as Jack struggled across the roped-off area enclosed within the rectangular wooden dock. He swam the first lap like a startled spaniel, head out of the water, hands and feet paddling beneath the surface. The return lap was supposed to be done with a breast stroke and Jack attacked it gamely, using a stroke that looked little different from the first one. When he gained the dock again, he held on to it for a moment, puffing.
Becker and Karen watched the counselor kneel down to talk with Jack, saw the boy nod his head to indicate that he was all right. After three deep breaths. Jack pushed off the dock into his version of the backstroke. His arms slapped at the water twice and then he sank beneath the surface. He was up again immediately, sputtering, arms still gyrating, then he sank again.
Becker started forward to save him, but Karen held him back.
“He’s in trouble,” Becker said.
“Don’t shame him.”
Jack had surfaced once more, still struggling. The counselor was now walking parallel to the boy, holding a long, flexible pole, ready to intercede if needed, but, remarkably, he was not needed. Progressing by fits and starts, more under water than on the surface. Jack was gaining the far side. It looked to Becker like a form of medieval trial by drowning, testing not the boy’s ability, but his tolerance for pain and terror.
Jack reached the dock at last, clinging to it with one hand, too tired to pull himself up, his face barely above the surface. The counselor knelt again and conferred with Jack, determining if he was ready for the final lap required by the test. Even from a distance Becker could see the exhaustion in the boy’s face.
“They’re not going to make him go again,” he said incredulously.
“Let Jack decide,” Karen said.
Becker was incredulous. He had not suspected her to be capable of such cruelty to her own child. “He can’t possibly do it again,” he said.
“It’s up to him.”
Becker fought an impulse to throw his hands in the air in surrender, to wave to the counselor and let him know it was over. It was only Karen’s steely control that made him stand where he was.
Jack turned to look at Karen and Becker, his mouth agape with the effort of breathing. Becker tried to smile, to let the boy know he had done enough, to give it up with honor. He was amazed to see Karen show a clenched fist of determination and encouragement.
“What will it prove?” he demanded.
“Whatever it proves,” she said, not turning to face him. She nodded her head at Jack, tightened her lips, once again showed the fist.
Jack turned back to the counselor, nodded, breathed again, then launched himself for the final lap. It was meant to be swum with the sidestroke, but it was obvious that Jack had no idea how to perform the maneuver. After sinking once, he came up again on his belly and reverted to the dog paddle that had served him on the first pass. He inched across the area between docks as if tethered to the far shore, fighting for every advance, paying for it with a loss of vitality and buoyancy, sinking, then rising again with less and less strength each time. It seemed to Becker like an ordeal that would never end. He marveled at his sudden vulnerability when it came to the boy, he was amazed at Karen’s coolness. If this was what it was like to be a parent, he didn’t know how anyone survived it.
When Jack gained the dock at last, he hung in the water for a full minute before accepting the counselor’s offer of assistance in getting out. After a hug and pat on the back from the counselor, who turned immediately to his next victim. Jack came toward Becker and Karen on wobbly legs, his face white, his nostrils pinched with fatigue. He was too tired to smile, but as his mother put her hand lightly on his shoulder and kissed his head, he looked into her face for confirmation of how he had done.
“Great job,” Becker said, taking his lead from Karen and restraining his enthusiasm. He wanted to lift the boy to his shoulders and parade him in triumph. “Well done.”
Jack continued to look to his mother for approval and Becker sensed a jab of jealousy.
“I cheated,” Jack said, still gasping for breath.
“I know,” Karen said.
“I didn’t do the sidestroke,” he said.
“I know.”
“Hell, that’s all right,” Becker blurted. “You’re only ten. You had to keep from drowning.”
Karen stopped him with a frosty look.
“Cheating isn’t all right,” she said. “You didn’t mean to say that.”
Karen and Jack turned back toward the road leading up the hill to the cabin. She kept her arm lightly on his shoulder until the boy pulled away and stepped ahead of her, getting his strength back, his confidence now soaring. There would be no more holding of hands this day.
Becker trailed them both, feeling excluded and hurt and angry with himself for being so.
They said goodbye at the cabin. Jack already restless and eager to have them gone. His bunkmates were talking about the swimming test and Jack wanted to join them. Karen’s farewell was warm but brief, nothing to embarrass him in front of his new friends. Becker wanted to kneel and take the boy in his arms, to whisper wise last minute words of advice and encouragement, but he sensed that Jack would be appalled by the display. At the end, he merely shook his hand and said goodbye. When Becker looked back, Jack was already involved with the other boys.
When they reached the car, Becker saw that Karen’s face was wet with tears although he had not heard a sound from her.
“What a wonderful kid,” she said.
Becker realized that for the first time he knew exactly what she meant.
Then she had fallen into the strange silence as they drove. He imagined her struggling against her tears. It would not have surprised him if she had turned the car around and headed back to the camp. Becker felt an overwhelming sympathy for her because he felt the same way, but he did not know how to express it to her in a manner that would help. They could be married while Jack was in camp, he thought, offering the boy a surprise when they came to rescue him in two weeks’ time. Or would it be better to have the boy at the ceremony?
Becker looked again at her troubled profile and placed a reassuring hand on her thigh.
