The Pool of Memory

Seventy-five years ago, I was the pool's youngest spy. Every summer afternoon, I'd perch behind the rhododendrons, watching my older sister Eleanor practice her diving. She didn't know I was there—that was the point of being a spy. I had my notebook, my juice glass of water, and my mother's strict orders about my daily vitamin. 'You need your strength,' she'd say, pressing the chalky orange tablet into my palm, 'for all that swimming you're not doing.'

The truth was, I couldn't swim. I was twelve years old and terrified of the water. But Eleanor? She moved through it like she'd been born to it. Her graceful dives, the way she sliced through the chlorinated blue—that was worth any number of hiding spots.

One afternoon in 1951, my spying days ended. Eleanor spotted me in the bushes. Instead of laughing, she waded over to the edge. 'Your vitamin won't help if you never get wet,' she called out. That summer, she taught me to swim. Not in lessons—just sister to sister, patience and persistence, the same way she'd later teach her own children, and theirs.

Now I sit on this bench with my great-grandson, Leo, who's seven and hiding behind the same rhododendrons, spying on his sister's swimming lesson. I press a chalky orange vitamin into his palm. 'You need your strength,' I say, 'for all the spying you're doing.'

He grins at me, gap-toothed and wise, and I see Eleanor in that smile. Some things—family, patience, the way water holds you up—these are the vitamins that sustain us long after summer ends.