Underneath Everything

The pool's chlorine stung my nose, familiar and grounding. I swam laps while the girls practiced, back and forth, counting strokes to keep my mind from drifting to the vibrating iPhone on the pool deck. From the water, I watched Julie across the pool – her laugh carrying over the splashes, her hand brushing against his arm as they watched the girls race.

He was the father of one of the swimmers – a baseball coach at the high school, tan and confident in a way I hadn't been in years. Julie called him "just a swim dad." Called me paranoid.

I pulled myself from the water, dripping and breathless. On my phone, the text message waited: "Same time tomorrow?"

After practice, we went to the baseball field for Sarah's game. Julie sat two rows down, him beside her. Their shoulders touched when she laughed. I watched from the bleachers, my daughter's swing and miss mirroring something in my chest.

"Bullshit," I said, loud enough that heads turned.

Julie turned. "What?"

I stood up, walking down the rows. "All of it. The swimming practices. The baseball games. The 'just a swim dad' crap." My voice cracked. "I saw the texts, Julie."

The silence stretched. Sarah struck out, swinging at air. Her teammates shouted anyway.

"Dave," she started, then stopped. Her hand moved from his arm.

"I'm done swimming upstream," I said. "Done pretending." I walked toward the parking lot, toward whatever came next, toward the truth that had been underneath everything all along.