Shallow End

The swimming pool at 5 AM smells like chlorine and suppressed regrets. Marco arrives before dawn, when the water is still glass-still, before the aquacize classes and swimming lessons fill the air with forced cheer. He's been coming here since the funeral — six weeks of dawn laps, trying to outswim the heaviness in his chest.

His father's orange baseball cap sits on the bench, a stubborn sentinel. Dad never went anywhere without it, even after the dementia started eating his memories like acid through paper. Marco had found it in the hospital room, still bearing the faint sweat stain at the crown where his father's head had rested.

"You know," his father had said during those final weeks, "I once hit a home run off a bear."

"A bear, Dad?"

"Big grizzly. Pitching for the Yankees. 1973." A wink, then confusion would cloud his eyes. "Or was it a circus?"

Marco had learned to just nod. The bear became a fixture in his father's stories, along with the baseball games that never happened and the orange groves they never visited. Sometimes his father thought Marco was his dead brother. Sometimes he didn't know him at all.

The locker room attendant appears, a silent figure pushing a mop. Marco nods, strips down to his swimsuit. The cold air raises gooseflesh on his arms. He hates this — the ritual, the routine, the way his body automatically performs motions his mind resists.

He dives.

The water engulfs him, silence at last. Here, underwater, he can almost hear his father's voice clearly, undistorted by disease: *"Never fight the current, kid. Work with it."* Breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle. Lap after lap until his muscles burn and his lungs scream.

When he finally surfaces, gasping, the sun is cresting over the horizon. Orange light spills across the water, turning the pool into something almost sacred. For a moment, just a moment, the grief feels lighter — bearable.

Marco climbs out, dripping and exhausted. He picks up the orange cap, turning it over in his hands. The fabric is soft with age. He puts it on.

"Alright, Dad," he whispers. "Let's play ball."