Page 31 of What Boys Learn

For the next twenty minutes, we remained in our own worlds, our parallel lanes. When complicated questions or images began to form in my mind, encouraged by the mindlessness of my slow and steady breaststroke, I pushed them away. But I could not push away the silent words, surfacing like bubbles.

He barely knew Izzy. He’s got nothing to do with any of this.

Another length, a tap on the wall, a slow turn, and back again.

He’s not like Ewan.

But that wasn’t a name I wanted to think about.

I mentally sidestepped, trying to think instead of my late mother. I could see her wistful, patient smile. I could remember tagging along with her to grown-up places—art galleries where she browsed but never bought; bookstores where she took her time in the fiction section.

Once, from a phone booth near a movie theater, she placed a call to let my father know that we wouldn’t be home until late, and he mentioned a visit from a neighbor alleging something, graffiti or a suspiciously injured cat—and she should come quickly. Still, we went to the movie. It wasLa Cage aux Folles, in French, playing at the Fine Arts in Chicago—a little over my head, but I enjoyed it in the end because she did. The last movie we ever saw together.

My mother had done an admirable job of seeming evenkeeled no matter what was going on around her. She didn’t let her kids’ moods or misbehaviors drag her down. Until the day she died of a stroke, one never would have known she was stressed or suffering.

If I were sentimental, I’d wish that she could have lived just a few years more. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t. It would have broken her already-weak heart to see how Ewan turned out. Unless I was misunderstanding everything and she always knew. Perhaps she was only waiting, full of dread, for the rest of the world to find out.

13

When I finished my laps, I lingered, watching as Benjamin swam toward me and then stopped, eyes impossible to read behind his tinted goggles.

“I’m not done.”

“Okay then,” I said, tone artificially bright, determined not to be affected by his bad mood.

I proceeded to the empty chair two seats away from the man with the piles of reading material. There was something about his profile—the straight nose and the full, thoughtfully pursed lips—that vaguely reminded me of a favorite college professor I hadn’t seen in years.

“Gymnast?” the man asked me.

I followed his glance to the nearest lane, where Benjamin was progressing slowly, turning one somersault after another, kicking wildly enough that the nannies in the shallow end were staring at him, too.

“Oh.” I laughed. “No. It’s something he saw on YouTube. A way to practice your flip turn, away from the wall.”

“Isthatright,” the man said, looking impressed. “My daughter could flip turn from a young age, but only as long as she was wearing a noseclip. I don’t remember how she learned. Not from me, that’s for sure.”

He turned in my direction, so attentive I didn’t feel right digging into my bag for something to read.

“My daughter used to swim competitively,” he continued. “She was on the Dartmoor team before she and my ex-wife moved hundreds of miles away.”

Divorce, plainly stated. Was he trying to flirt?

“You really don’t recognize me?” he asked, grinning.

“Sorry. I don’t.”

“Curtis Campbell. You were a student of mine.”

He pulled off his sunglasses. That’s when everything slotted into place: not just the nose and the mouth, but the thick eyebrows that had always reminded me of the actor Colin Farrell. Kind, dark eyes with long, thick eyelashes. Eyes that had made me feel safe. Like I belonged.

“Statistics for psych majors,” he said. “Followed by Abnormal.”

“Dr. Campbell?”

“In the flesh. But less of it.”

Dr. Campbell was an extremely heavyset man in baggy brown Dockers and unfitted dress shirts. Dr. Campbell used to hide his face behind a scruffy beard and mustache. Dr. Campbell, nice as he was, didn’t look like an Irish movie star.

“You applied to be my assistant,” he said.