Beautiful Swimmer

CW: Suicidal thoughts, mental health, postpartum depression, infanticide

Beautiful Swimmer

By Pat Holland

Rain fell in torrents. Violent gusts of wind swept down the dark streets of Los Angeles. Near the YMCA, the streetlamps seemed to sway from the force of it, their cones of light weakened and distorted by the driving rain.

At the end of the block a young mother dove for the only remaining parking space. Sighing as she undid the safety straps that pinned her daughter to her car seat, she said, "Come on Pearl, my little mermaid. Let's race to the Y." Then she thought to herself, it's a good thing I'm going swimming, I couldn't get any wetter.

Following their weeknight routine, Mary took her daughter into the locker room and togged her out in her favorite Ariel the mermaid swimsuit. Mary's own suit was a very plain, a black Speedo tank saved from her time on the University of California swim team.

As Pearl toddled around the pool, Mary unlocked the equipment room and brought out a tattered old pack-n-play playpen. She set it up near the diving board then chased down Pearl and put the squirming, crying, unhappy little girl in her playpen. Mary understood what a long day it must be for the two-year old. Her sitter said she missed her nap so maybe she would settle down and sleep while her mother did her laps.

Mary had worked out an agreement with Theresa, the evening lifeguard. Theresa always took the guard chair closest to the diving board and watched Pearl for those precious, valuable minutes, the time Mary took for herself to swim every evening.

Theresa was not the guard on duty. Just before she dove in, Mary called out to the new lifeguard, "Can you watch her for me?"

When he nodded and mouthed the word "yes" Mary dove into the water. For just a little while she would be free of the responsibility of watching over her toddler. The little girl couldn't swim and didn't like the water very much. Her mother loved it.

Every evening after work, Mary used her time in the pool to swim until she was physically exhausted. She swam through the burn until the pattern of each stroke and her speed where all that mattered. Then, and only then, would she take Pearl home.

Mary counted each lap. As she made the turn at the shallow end, far away from her little girl, she would double check that Pearl was still snuggled down and settled in her blankets or awake and happily playing with her bucket of toys.

By lap 30 Mary's muscles began to burn as she moved into a dream state. She had been a competitive swimmer at U. Cal. She had been one of the lucky ones, a freshman with a full ride, a full scholarship.

She remembered how proud her father was. As soon as she received the scholarship papers, he told everyone about the hardships he had put up with to get her to dawn swim practices, moved to a school district with a better swim team and well-known coach. Now, his dreams had come true.

Mary bought into the program. As a freshman she pushed hard to improve her stroke and her times. She never read that scholarship agreement, but she should have. When she got pregnant her times went off. Mary pushed herself harder and harder during practices. She'd often race into the locker room to throw up before or after each practice. Then at the big meet she fell short of winning. One touch, less than two seconds off changed her life.

Her coach took her into his office and read her the riot act. He kicked her off the team. Her scholarship would be given to the next hopeful. The school would immediately void her scholarship contract using the morals clause.

For two days, Mary raged against the loss of her scholarship, the changes in her life. As English major, she understood dystopian societies. She had just never realized that the small world of NCAA college sports was rigorously administered like a dystopian society. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair; but it was not something Mary could change.

So Mary packed up everything in her dorm room and left the university. She flew home to Alabama and tried to explain what had happened to her Dad, but when he learned the father

of her baby was a black boy---one who was not willing to marry her or take any responsibility for the child---her father cast her out too. All the prejudices of his youth came back as he pushed her out the door.

Two years had passed. Mary still loved swimming. As she hit the wall at the deep end and flipped into the next lap, while taking the long, weightless glide before her next stroke, Mary remembered her time as a scholarship swimmer at U. Cal. She had gradually risen through the ranks until she was just one qualifying-meet win, one touch short of qualifying for the Olympic Swim Team.

Suddenly Mary began swimming harder, as if she was trying to beat her old opponent. She pushed herself harder and harder. She raced the ghost of the girl who had matched her stroke for stroke, then managed to touch the wall first at the finish of the Olympics qualifying heat. The other girl became an Olympian and went on to earn a gold medal for the U.S. while Mary had birthed her ugly little girl child. Mother Mary felt she had earned a lifetime of misery.

The only way Mary could regain that golden life was by swimming fast enough to get back on a college team. She had always been goal oriented. She knew a happy life would only come with competitive swimming.

Lap after lap, Mary sped up. Recalling that long-ago race, she bitterly remembered how it felt to see the wall just four strokes away, then three, then two. Each racer had to choose whether to risk stretching to float into the underwater touchpad on the wall or to make another powerful stroke. Mary stroked hard, but as her hand came down her opponent's fingertips touched the wall first.

That was then; this is now Mary thought with an inward sigh. Winded and spent, Mary stood up after she touched the wall at the shallow end. She struggled to catch her breath. Then she sank back down in the water and curled into a fetal ball. Here was her womb, her place of safety, her escape from life. If only she could stay down there forever, totally free of all the responsibilities, free of Pearl, her anchor to a hard life.

When her need to breathe became stronger than her need for her life in the water, Mary pushed off the wall heading for the deep end. As she took that first stroke, she scanned the deck to make sure Pearl was still quietly playing in her playpen.

Mary gasped as she watched her little Pearlie tip it over in the deep end. Pack-n-play, toys, and all, Pearl toppled headfirst into the pool.

The lifeguard was not in his chair---or anywhere near the water. He was on his cell phone with his back to the pool. If anyone could reach Pearl in time to save her, it would have to be Mary.

She began swimming faster than she had ever swum before. Could she reach her daughter in time? Did she want to save her daughter? Drowning would be quick and almost painless. Mother Mary would be free of all that dragged her down. All that slowed her down. All that kept her from going back to that golden lifetime.

What would Mary lose if she lost her daughter? She didn't think Pearlie loved her. She was sure she didn't love her daughter. Pearl dragged her down, slowed her down. Pearl made her life more difficult. For the first year of her little life, Mary was so dragged down with postpartum depression that she acted like a zombie mother, one of the undead who stumbled around uncaring, unhappy, and unwell.

One evening, Mary had wandered back to the couch leaving Pearlie naked, crying and shivering the bathroom basin. Pearlie might have died then, when she was only two months old. Or she might have died on any of the many nights Mary turned her face down and surrounded her head with soft pillows. She had deliberately set up a perfect place for a sudden infant death. But Pearlie had survived her night in the basin and her nights face down in her crib. As she grew older, she could turn over so the chances that she would die had decreased.

Stoking toward the deep end Mary wondered if Pearl would be better off dead. Mary had certainly considered staying down in the bottom of the pool past her last breath. Staying in that safe womb of warm water until her life ended. Maybe Pearlie would feel the same way as she took her last breath and floated away in death.

Mary wouldn't follow her in death. Mary would regain her life. Was that fair? Was it possible to ignore the motherly instincts she felt now? She knew it was the feeling she should have felt all along. Should she just slow down a bit and let Pearlie's life go?