Scars

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Her solace: those weekday afternoons before the school got out and the children invaded the pool. For the last two weeks, the weather had been fair. Sunlight streamed in the floor-to-ceiling windows on the north and south face of the pool area, dappling the water with brilliant yellow light. Rena particularly liked the way the light filtered into the artificial blue depths below the surface. When she swam into such a patch, the water felt warmer, even though it couldn't be.

The pool was part of a rec center only four blocks from her new apartment; a fact that frustrated her more than the apartment itself. The apartment had three small windows facing south and east with barely enough room on the sills for her small collection of malingering plants. The counters were too low, the toilet too high, and the chrome bar in the shower always caught her in the back. More than anything, she hated the apartment's silence, and hoped, at her six month review, the shrink at the pain center would say she had recovered enough to care for a cat.

By contrast, the pool was never silent. Not even when she was underwater. She heard the rustle of the filters, the splashing of the other lap swimmers, and the rhythmic bubbles caused by her exhaled breath. When she surfaced, she heard voices and laughter; the radio on a rock-and-roll station she would never play, and the phone, constant and shrill against the echoy boom of the large room itself. She never paid attention to what happened on the decks. The fact that anything happened at all was enough for her. Saturday, now, Saturday was different. She never went to the pool on Saturday, saving its pleasures for the weekday, and for the pool attendants who were older. The teenagers who guarded the place on the weekends stared at her. They couldn't hide their revulsion. The adults were more skilled at hiding their shock.

But this Saturday her stereo's tuner went on the fritz, sliding past each station she tried to tune in. For a half hour, she got Christian broadcasting mixing exhortations against sins of the flesh with some pretty good soft rock and then that too faded into static. She had seen all the movies on television, and she had no interest in sports. Her neighbors across the street seemed to be out of town: their little girl and mongrel puppy had not been outside all day --an event Rena lived for --the vitality, joy and love those two shared made her happy even while it made her ache.

She could no longer stand the silence. She grabbed her swim bag, and let herself out the front door, promising herself that the stares would not bother her this time, would not ruin her solace. She walked, as she always did, head down, wincing each time a car whooshed by. Cars still frightened her. It had taken her nearly a month to get enough nerve to take the bus. Before that, she had had Meals on Wheels, and hoped that they never realized she wasn't really a shut-in. The first hurdle came in the rec center. She stopped at the window and paid for her session. Disability, combined with the insurance and settlement money, left her more than enough to buy a membership, but she enjoyed being anonymous here. In her old life, she would have been greeted by name --she would have known everyone's name --but here she ignored the faces and personal histories as much as possible. The girl at the window was new: a recent survivor of the life-saving course who had that fresh-faced bright-eyed athleticism so appealing in people under twenty-five. She smiled when she saw Rena, an open, welcoming smile that made Rena cringe. "Good thing you got here now," the girl said. "I was about to leave."

Rena glanced at the clock. Still a half hour before closing, but that late the desk attendants usually left money collection to the lifeguard. "I have time to swim, don't I?" she asked.

"Sure," the girl said. "In district or out?"

In response, Rena put dollar and three quarters on the counter, signifying in district membership. It took a moment for her to get the last quarter out of her pocket: she was concentrating on that and so the girl's stare caught her off guard. The ribbed pink skin, the scars criss-crossing the back of her hand were the worst of her wounds: she had crisped both hands and most of her arms reaching into the burning car for Robbie.

The doctors were amazed that she had regained almost total use, but how did one tell that to an eighteen-year-old girl who had never left her hometown?

Rena didn't explain. She pushed open the door to the women's locker room and sighed when she heard voices in the shower. The hair dryer was running, and a woman was speaking baby talk in the changing area. A toilet flushed while Rena stood, indecisive: did she go past the showers, past the perfect naked bodies, or around the concrete dividing wall directly into the changing area, past the full-length mirror?

She opted for the showers, noting that the women weren't perfect, their elderly bodies ringed with excess weight and tiny lumps of fatty tissue. They were talking to each other, oblivious to their nakedness, something she loved about women over fifty who had somehow learned to accept age with grace, and not to mourn the loss of their youthful figures. She had talked to one of them once: a woman who had just had a pace-maker put in and who still wore a two-piece bathing suit despite the vertical scar that ran to her bottoms.

Six women stood in the changing area --apparently a class had let out --and one little girl who was standing on the bench, holding the handle to the suit wringer, volunteering to get the water out of everyone's suit. Rena kept her gaze averted and walked to the farthest corner. She set her bag on the wooden bench and undressed slowly, hoping no one watched.

She tried not to watch herself. In the space of an evening, she had lost her husband, her child, and the body she had grown up with. Somehow her face had been spared despite the intense blistering heat when the gas can in the trunk ignited as she was pulling open the side door to save an already dead Robbie. Now, every time she saw herself, that night came back in a blaze of orange against a moonlight sky: broken glass raining all around her; the smell of inky smoke, gasoline and burning flesh as vivid as the moment it happened. Only the smell of chlorine diluted it. Only when she breathed into the water did she feel as if she were blowing black smoke out of her lungs forever.

With shaking hands, she pulled out her neon green one-piece suit. The color was hideous, but at least it wasn't black or red or yellow or any mixture of those three. She slipped it on, then wrapped herself in her towel, hiding in its fluffy warmth. She could feel the gazes upon her, but she pretended she didn't care. She walked past the women with what dignity she could muster, and headed into the pool area. This late in the day, most of the swimmers were gone. Only the middle lane was taken by a man Rena had never seen before. The lifeguard --a tall, reedy thin girl-woman --stood, feet apart, and life stick clutched against her stomach. She watched the swimmer intently as if she could control each breath he took. Rena hung up her towel, took a kickboard off the stack and climbed in the shallow end. The water was cold, and she realized with a shock that she had forgotten to take the required shower. She shot a quick glance at the lifeguard, as if she were going to get kicked out of the pool for failing to follow the rules, but the lifeguard didn't seem to notice.

The man finished his lap, surfaced and shook the water off his face like a shaggy dog. Rena slipped into the water, hiding her body. He smiled at her and she smiled back, glad he couldn't see how she really looked. His hair was long and dark; it matched the long dark hair on the rest of his body. He put both hands on the side of the pool and levered himself out.

She left her kickboard on the side, then slid underwater completely and pushed off kitty corner for the deep end. She loved the pool when it was empty. She felt almost normal then. Her doctor was so proud of her: when he first saw her after she had moved here, he thought she would never regain full use of her body again. But he had recommended the swimming, saying that non-weight bearing exercise would stretch her scars gradually and, combined with physical therapy, might give her a normal range of movement. After spending the first week in terror of revealing her body, she finally went to the pool and remembered her love for the water. It was that love, not any dedication to health, that gave her what little freedom she had now.

The laps felt easy; she had found a rhythm. She kept her count, eyes open. A child had left a tiny ring on the bottom, and she was half tempted to dive for it, or maybe catch it with her arm. As she made her flip turn and headed for the deep end, she began planning the move. She glanced at the lifeguard, saw her talking to a slender man --a boy really --as tall as the guard herself. Not the right time then. She was still insecure enough that she wanted the lifeguard's eyes on her when she tried something new. On the sixtieth lap, she heard a whoop echo over the music. Disappointment ran through her. School was out, and the children would take over for rec swim. Then she remembered: no school. It was Saturday. The pool would close soon. The call was probably the lifeguard warning her to get out. But she only had ten more laps to go. If the lifeguard wanted her out, she would have to touch her to get her attention. Rena swam as fast and as hard as she could. The push felt good. In water, at least, her body obeyed her.

When she was finished, she pulled off her goggles and squinted at the clock. The pool should have closed fifteen minutes before. The lifeguard was going to be mad at her. She sighed. She probably should have paid attention to that call.

She climbed out of the pool, the water dripping off her body, and grabbed her kickboard. The air, which had seemed warm when she got in, now had a chill. Someone had left the door to the jacuzzi open. She peered through, but no one sat outside. The jacuzzi was silent. She came back in and headed for the pile of kickboards.

Rena didn't see the blood until she stepped in it. It was warm and thick, not cool and thin like pool water. She set her kickboard on the pile and swallowed --hard --thinking perhaps she was having one of her nightmares in the daylight. But no. The body was real. The lifeguard lay flat on her back, left hand in the water, eyes open and unseeing, blood draining from one long slash across her throat.

* * * *

It took the police five minutes to arrive. While she waited, Rena huddled by the phone in the pool office. She shivered in the cool air. She had retained enough presence of mind to touch nothing --she didn't even pick her towel off its peg. Each second felt like an hour. She stared at the clock, concentrating on the movement of the hands, forcing herself to think of nothing but that. Her psychologist would have been proud of her: no screaming fits, no flashbacks, no post-traumatic shock. She had stayed calm. She wasn't letting herself think about what had happened while she was happily doing her laps.

The sound of a car's wheels crunching gravel in the parking lot frayed her nerves even more. She stiffened, barely allowing herself to breathe. Outside the engine shuddered to a halt. Car doors opened and released a burst of static from the police radio. Then the first door slammed, followed quickly by the other.

She should have gotten up, but she half expected them to die in the parking lot. As if the murderer were still out there, waiting, not attacking her because she was invisible to him. But footsteps rang on the tile floor, the sound echoing over the now-calm water.

"Hello?"

The sound made her jump, even though she expected it. She tried to answer, found her voice stuck in her throat. She swallowed, then managed: "Over here."

As the footsteps approached, she gripped the plastic seat of the stool. The policeman who peered in was red-headed, freckled and young --no. Not young. Boyish. But his eyes had a maturity that she recognized. He was in his thirties, like she was, only time had improved on his features instead of ruined them.

His gaze was flat as he took her in. She cringed even more, not used to such scrutiny, but unwilling to look away. He grabbed her towel from the peg and tossed it at her.

"You look cold," he said.

She wrapped the towel around herself and nodded. The terrycloth was plush, warm, and soft against her skin. She had very little feeling in her hands and arms, but the rest of her scars, left by a hundred pieces of broken glass, had nerve endings intact.

"She's --by the lifeguard station," Rena said.

"I know." His voice was gentle. "My partner's with her." Rena let out the air she had been holding. She could feel the terror, nibbling at her edges, threatening to overwhelm her.

"Did you see what happened?" he asked.

She shook her head, swallowed. "I was swimming." Then heard how odd that sounded. Swimming while a woman died.

"And you saw nothing?"

She shifted under the towel. A tingling formed inside her: energy, building up. "I heard a yell. I thought she wanted me to get out of the pool. I --" She looked away. "I wanted to finish my laps." He leaned against the door, his thumbs hooked on the pockets of his jeans. He wasn't wearing a uniform; she hadn't noticed until that moment. His blue chambray shirt and faded denim gave her a degree of comfort. "Were you the only one in the pool?"

"There was a man in the dressing room, I think. He had just got out. And...." She frowned, an image she couldn't quite reach flitting through her mind. "Someone. I thought I saw someone. But I don't remember."

Two more cars pulled up. At the sound of their engines the shakiness she had kept inside moved out. Her entire body trembled.

"You need to get dressed," he said.

She glanced at the locker room door. "Don't you need to look for evidence?" His smile was rueful. "You watch a lot of crime shows."

She shrugged.

"I'll take you home. You can change there. Then we'll need you at the station to make a statement." She bit her lower lip to keep her teeth from chattering. It took all of her strength to force out the words:

"Am I under arrest?"

"Not right now," he said.

* * * *

Rena had never had a guest in her apartment. For the first time, she saw it through someone else's eyes. The obsessive neatness of a single person's life: the coffee table with one book overturned to the correct page; the television remote next to the only dented spot on the couch; the absence of knickknacks, crocheted pillows, photographs --anything that would have made a house a home. She had had a home with Dennis and Robbie; she couldn't bear to be in it after they were gone.

"I'll just be a minute," she said.

She fled the living room without looking over her shoulder for the detective's reaction. In the car he had told her his name, Joel Bellin, as if they were meeting on the street instead of over a dead body. She was the one who had insisted on "detective." She didn't want to forget his words. "Not right now" meant that she would be charged later. And she didn't want to be too comfortable with the man who charged her. The bedroom door had no lock, but the bathroom's did. She grabbed a shirt and a pair of jeans, and set them on the laundry hamper. She was so cold and shaken that she couldn't forgo the shower. Still she had to check the lock twice before she felt safe enough to take off her suit. The water warmed her, and made the trembling stopped. She got dressed quickly and, except for her wet hair, curling around her shoulders, and the faint scent of chlorine, she felt as if she had never been to the pool. It took a minute for her fingers to grab the bathroom lock, but when she did, she let herself out. He was still in the living room where she had left him. He stood in front of her only bookshelf, scanning the titles. There was a bit of her in the house after all. Shelf after shelf of historical novels and science fiction. Books that took her away from here, but never even pretended to unite men and women or even to examine families.

He stared at her for a moment, taking in the clothes, and then he said, "You know I'm going to ask about it eventually. You may as well tell me."

The directness was new. No one had been as blunt before. She felt heat in her cheeks. "Car accident," she said.

"You alone in the car?"

She shook her head.

"Anyone else survive?" he asked.

Orange against the black of the night: the gagging stench of smoke. Her eyes watered, remembering.

"I'm sorry," he said, and the words sounded sincere.

"It was years ago." She picked up her purse, gripping the strap carefully, and slung it over her shoulder.

"Not that many," he said.

She met his gaze. "Enough," she said, ending the conversation.

* * * *

Even the police station looked clean in this town. She would have thought it safe if not for the bulletproof glass over every window. Bellin led her through the back tunnels, painted white to hide the concrete architects thought so important in the late sixties. The air had a processed smell, lacking only the stale odor of cigarette smoke to make it feel like the office building she used to work in when she lived in the Midwest. But this was the West. No one smoked in public here.

Voices echoed down the hallway first, mixed with ringing phones, and the blare of a radio. She straightened, bracing herself, and Bellin glanced at her, then looked away. She hated the way he saw everything yet said nothing. Either he should comment or stop looking. He pushed open the double doors and suddenly she was enveloped in the cacophony. The conversations didn't stop when she entered. People sitting on desks, behind desks, interviewing other people, some in uniform, some not. Two women stood by the coffee machine stirring Sweet 'N Low into steaming chipped mugs. A man, feet propped on his desk, phone cradled between his shoulder and ear, looked at her face, then her hands, then at Bellin, apparently realizing that her injuries were not current, not today's problem.

"This the suspect?" A woman whose voice had the rich, deep timbre of a natural contralto asked. Rena jumped. Suspect. She hadn't expected it so soon.

Bellin took her elbow, sliding his hand under her forearm, and braced her palm. Her curved fingers, their deep scars, the pink skin, flared like neon in the room. She couldn't look up at the woman who spoke.

"How much range of movement you got, honey?" the woman asked. Rena tried to grab Bellin's forefinger, wincing as the skin pulled. She could make a tight fist, but it was work. She could move her fingers out of the fist easily, but she couldn't straighten the fingers at all.

"You're right," the woman said. "No way. Not holding and stabbing at the same time." Finally Rena brought her head up. The woman was short and stocky, but her heaviness was in her muscular shoulders, her powerful arms. Her skin was the color of good coffee and her dark hair hung straight over her ears.

"I'd like to take a statement from you," the woman said.

"Am I a suspect?" Rena asked. She would find a lawyer if she had to. She could afford it. The money sat in four different accounts, untouched. Blood money. Some actuary's estimate of the price of human lives.

"No," Bellin said. He let go of her arm, and it fell to her side, still warm from his touch. "I'll drive you back when you're done."

"Thanks," she said, but he had already turned away, picking up papers from a cluttered desk between them. She felt bereft without him: she had been using him as a lifeline since he appeared at the pool.

"I'm Detective McCary," the woman said. "Must have been pretty frightening, coming out of that pool."

"I didn't see her at first," Rena said.

McCary led her into a small room with no windows. The concrete hadn't been painted here, and the room had a chill that felt as if it would never go away. Metal folding chairs surrounded a formica table with a tape recorder built into top. McCary produced a cassette from her pocket. "You mind if I record?"

Rena shook her head. She stated her name and address as McCary asked her to do, then retold the story, detail by detail.

"And you saw no one?" McCary asked.

Rena frowned. That tantalizing sensation at the corner of her memory had returned. No one? "I saw -someone." Almost. She almost had him. "It was so brief. I was doing laps, not thinking about it." She bit her lower lip, ashamed of the next admission. "I work so hard now at ignoring people. Like maybe they won't see me if I don't see them."

"Because of the hands?" McCary asked.

Rena swallowed. "The whole body. All but my face."

"But people don't see that. And your face is striking. Model pretty." Rena closed her eyes against the words. Dennis's words, "model pretty," as if she could have been something other than a secretary, a wife, a mother.

"Sorry," McCary said. "Didn't mean to upset you."

"The whole thing is upsetting, isn't it?" Rena said as she opened her eyes and shivered. Her hair wasn't quite dry yet and the chill was sinking in.

Then --suddenly --the memory came: a slender man, a boy really, with a teenager's thinness, talking to her, gesturing. Rena had seen him before. In the jacuzzi outside. He had come out of swim team practice to look at her, his eyes dark and cold as he stared. He had mumbled something under his breath, something she had to work hard at not hearing, before going inside, and laughing with his friends.

"He was young. I saw him once before. I think he's on the swim team."

"Can you identify him?"

That face, long bones, not fully grown yet. An uneven beard and lips too full for a boy. And those eyes. She nodded.

"Good," McCary said. "We'll get the entire team in for a lineup." Rena heard the dismissal. She reached out, almost touched McCary's hand, then stopped before she could bring herself to do so. McCary watched, brows furrowed.

"The girl," Rena said. "Who was she?"

"I thought you knew," McCary said. "You been going to the pool for months."

"Not on Saturday," Rena said.

"Ah," McCary said, and she appeared to make a mental note, as if the information went into a file somewhere in her head. "She was the head cheerleader at the high school. Her father works at the university. Her mother is one of those charity wives."

"Her name?" Rena's tone was insistent, but she kept her head bowed, submissive, so she wouldn't seem too demanding. She just thought it proper that she would know who the girl was, who had died, on such a beautiful afternoon.

"Candace Walker." McCary smiled, and there was sadness around her eyes. "She hated to be called Candy. I always got the feeling she was waiting to be on her own so that she could change her name."

"You knew her then," Rena said.

"She went to school with my daughter. They had the same homeroom." And more, McCary's tone said. But Rena wasn't going to press. It really wasn't her business, this relationship between high school girls, now over forever.

"It must be hard for you," Rena said.

McCary studied her for a moment. "Death is always hard," she said.

* * * *

Bellin drove her home. His insistence. She had tried to take the bus, but he had objected. "You need to be gentle with yourself," he had said.

They didn't talk all the way across town. The radio interrupted the silence with occasional bursts of static. When he pulled up to her apartment, he stopped the car slowly. She fumbled with the latch and, for the second time that day, he touched her. He put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't want to think about how long it had been since someone touched her voluntarily, with no medical purpose in mind.

"He saw you, you know," Bellin said.

She nodded, unable to look at him.

"Does he know who you are?"

"No." Her voice sounded soft, even to her.

"Does he know where you live?"

"No."

"Can he find out?"

Slowly she brought her head up, tilting her chin as her mother had once taught her for a different arrogance altogether. An arrogance that was designed for a more flirtatious age, where women had fewer rights, and so had to use their attitudes to scare men away. "I'm not the kind of woman people remember."

"You're precisely the kind of person he would remember."

"But he thinks I'm beneath contempt."

"You've spoken to him?"

"Once." She flushed. The boy's words fluttered at the edge of her consciousness. If she concentrated, she would be able to hear them.

She had blocked the words for a reason. She pushed them away.

"And?"

"He doesn't believe I'm human." The sentence made her flinch. It was only one of several he had said; the only one she would allow herself to remember.

Bellin brought his hand up again, then clenched his fist as if uncertain about how to treat her. But he didn't say "I'm sorry," nor did he back down. "Is your name on file at the rec center?"

"I'm not a member. I always pay in cash. I prefer it if people don't know who I am." She spoke in a rush, with an anger she hadn't realized she was holding until that moment. All this stress. A girl was dead -murdered --and Rena wanted no part of it. She wanted to hide in her apartment, to find a book and disappear in someone else's world --forever.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. Then he grabbed a pen off the dash, scrawled on the back of the card and handed it to her. "My home phone. I want you to call me if there's trouble."

"I'll call 911," she said.

"Take it anyway."

And because she could think of no way to argue, she did. Then she tugged on the door handle and pushed the heavy door open. She was glad the neighbors weren't home. What would they think seeing the scarred woman getting out of a police car?

After she got out, she nodded to him, not sure what to say. Gratitude was inappropriate --gratitude for what? taking her away from her world? --and goodbyes seemed trite. So she said nothing. As she pushed the car door closed, he raised his hand in a half wave. She nodded, then turned her back, hurrying to the apartment because she knew he wouldn't leave until she was safely inside. But when she got inside, she almost turned around and asked him to join her. Instead, she leaned on the door and scanned the apartment for changes. Nothing was out of place. The empty feeling was a familiar one. She had felt it each night since she had moved to Oregon, a painful reminder that she had no one to come home to, no one to talk with, no one who cared. If she allowed it, the feeling would turn into a full blown panic of the kind she hadn't experienced since the Midwest, in those awful days when she had finally been released from the hospital, when the attorneys and the doctors and the insurance agents somehow thought she could live in the same home where her husband laughed and her child played, and she had been happy for much too brief a time.

* * * *

In the middle of the night, she awoke in pitch blackness, her bed warm and her feet still cold. Her heart was pounding. She had dreamed that the boy/man was with her. He told her she wasn't worth killing, that she wasn't worth noticing at all, that people like her didn't really exist. In his left hand, he held a glass shard --tinted glass, the kind that came from car windows --and he brought it slowly, lovingly to her face. When its point touched the fold of skin beneath her left eye, she screamed and forced herself awake.

With a shaking hand, she turned on the lamp by the bedside. She touched her face, feeling its smoothness, the only comfort she had. The room was silent. Only the hum of the refrigerator to remind her of civilization. She got out of bed, and staggered into the bathroom, the stiffness in her joints making her realize how deep the panic went. She flicked on the light and peered into the mirror. Nothing marred her cheek. No scars on her face, but the hands that touched her skin were unfamiliar to her. In her dreams, her hands were unmarked, as smooth as her face.

The panic welled, like a bubble: if he wanted to find her, he could. Everyone would remember her --the scarred lady. He would wait outside her window and then let himself in, carrying a knife --a glass shard

--big orange flames against the night sky.

She found herself standing over her jeans, clutching Bellin's card in her hands. She stared at his scrawl -he crossed his sevens in the European method --and slowly set the card back down. _If there's trouble_, he had said. But nightmares weren't trouble. They were expected, especially after someone had witnessed a murder.

* * * *

The Sunday morning paper had Candace Walker's high school graduation photo on page one. Rena unrolled the paper on her kitchen table and pressed the sides down while staring at the dead girl's face. Rena's fingers brushed the side of her plate, sticky with honey. The scent of her half-eaten English muffin mingled with the aroma of the Coffee Corner's French Roast special. But her appetite was gone. For a moment, Rena stared at the photo. It was a graduation picture. The photographer had given Candace a sensual grace she hadn't had at the pool. The soft lighting and the scooped neckline of the dress made Candace look as if she were about to be kissed instead of photographed for a yearbook. Rena ran her fingers along the neckline. The ink felt soft, smeary, and left her fingertips black. She took a deep breath and read, studying each line, looking for her name.

But the police had been careful. The article focused on the murder and the discovery of the body, but did not mention any witnesses. A few of the things Rena had told them were reported to the paper by a police spokesperson, but none of the important details were present. No mention of Rena or the boy or the cause of death. But an entire paragraph devoted to the fact the rec center would be closed until further notice.

She sighed and absently picked up her coffee mug. It slid through her fingers, catching on her thumb, and spilling on Candace's photograph. Rena blotted it with her napkin, apologizing to Candace under her breath. Then realized it didn't matter at all.

Candace wouldn't notice anything again.

The shrill cry of the phone made Rena freeze. Her breath knotted in her throat. The cry came again --not muffled as it was when she heard the neighbor's phone --but clear and pure. Hers. Who would call her on a Sunday? The only calls she received were salespeople and the clinic reminding her of her appointments.

Carefully, she set her coffee mug down and walked into the living room. The phone was on the endtable near her spot on the couch. She pressed the speaker button to answer. It was always easier than picking up the handset.

"Yes?" She sounded vulnerable. A woman alone. She suspected all her callers knew just from the tone of her voice.

"Rena? It's Joel Bellin."

The detective. She pressed a hand over her heart. She had recognized his voice the moment he had spoken her name. "Yes?" she said again.

He cleared his throat. "We, ah, we have rounded up the members of the swim team, and will have a lineup this afternoon. I'd like to bring you in to look at them, if you don't mind." The boy's eyes hard and cold, filled with something more than contempt. Something like hate. She had assumed it was because she was damaged. Perhaps it had been something else. "No, I don't mind," she said, but the fear came back, beating against her stomach like the wings of a trapped bird.

"I'll be there in an hour," he said.

"I'll be here," she said, and hit the button, severing the connection. She stood over the phone for the longest time, wishing that she could leave the apartment, go anywhere. Swim. But she wouldn't be able to go the rec center now. Maybe never again. She had never revisited the site of the accident, sometimes going blocks out of her way to avoid it, finally moving halfway across the country to escape it. She certainly couldn't return to the site of a murder. Rena went back into the kitchen and picked up her mug. Candace Walker's hopeful face, wrinkled from the spilled coffee, haunted her. Almost unwillingly, she read the girl's biography. Short, dry facts: good student who planned to attend the University of Oregon in the fall, survived by her parents, grandparents, and a younger brother. The obituary was longer than Robbie's had been --what does a reporter say about a five-year-old boy? He hadn't been to school yet. He had learned to walk at eight months, to read by the age of three. Accomplishments, but not the kind that made a resume. He had laughed a lot, and his hugs were fierce. He had had a little boy smell of sunshine and peanut butter. She was gripping the mug so tightly the scars on her hand pulled. Odd she had never mourned Dennis like she mourned Robbie, even though she had loved her husband dearly. But he had lived, and he had told her more than once that he did not fear death.

But her son. Her son. He had been her hope. Her future. Her immortality. A bundle of smiles, and tears, and wonder. Newspaper articles never captured the essence of someone's being. What happened to Robbie's joy and Candace's strength? And who would remember them when their loved ones were gone?

* * * *

The damp concrete smell permeated the observation room. Four chairs were lined up behind the one-way mirror, and through it, was a room little wider than a hallway where, for the last half hour, men and boys had paraded in front of her, holding numbers to their chests as if they were prizes in a raffle. Bellin sat beside her so close that she could feel the warmth of his arm next to hers. McCary stood behind them, hands on her hips, frowning at the scene below. The room was cold: the air-conditioning on high. Rena wished she had coffee, tea, something hot to keep her hands warm. None of the people in the lineup bore more than a casual resemblance to the boy she had seen. All were tall, thin and athletic. All had dark hair and narrow features. But none of them had the eyes or the cruel cut to the lip. After the third group, she found herself questioning her own memory. She closed her eyes for a moment, and his image rose again in her mind, and she knew she had not seen him. Then she asked them to continue again.

Finally the room below was empty. Bellin sighed and leaned back. "That's it," he said.

"That's it?" she repeated, knowing it sounded stupid but unable to help herself. She had thought it would be so easy. "Was that the entire swim team?"

"Plus," he said.

"Maybe he was just someone associated with the team," McCary said. Rena shook her head. Of that she was certain. "They don't allow anyone but the swim team in the pool area during practice. Even when people show up early for a meet, they have to stay in the bleachers." They had to have missed someone. Had to.

"We used the coach's year roster, and asked him to add names on it if he had to. He didn't. This is the team," Bellin said.

"Are you sure the boy was on the team?" McCary asked.

"I don't know." Rena pressed her hands to her forehead. "He was there one afternoon when the team was there. He wouldn't have been in the pool area if he weren't on the team."

"But you were," Bellin said.

She shook her head. "I was in the jacuzzi. They let people stay in the jacuzzi all day."

"He was there then," Bellin said, more to McCary than to Rena. "Someone else is bound to remember him."

A headache had built behind Rena's eyes. She wanted the boy caught. She wanted to go back to her pool, to her quiet, dull life. "Are they protecting him?"

"I don't know," Bellin said.

"I should have brought Sasha's yearbook," McCary said. "Do you mind if I bring it by tonight?" Rena smiled weakly. "I have nothing better to do."

* * * *

Rena made a pot of coffee and paced nervously, straightening as she moved. She found it more difficult to have an expected guest than an unexpected guest. She had spent the last half hour wondering what McCary would think of the apartment.

Her stereo still didn't tune properly, so the only music came from the clock radio she kept in the kitchen. The music sounded so tinny that she had shut it off. She almost turned on the television before she realized that any sound would be intrusive.

The kitchen smelled of French Roast and chocolate chip cookies. She hadn't baked since Robbie died. The pain shrink would probably say it was good that she was reverting to old habits, but she wasn't so sure. She would have rather had a swim at the rec center, followed by an evening alone with a book. Anything but this.

At the hum of a car pulling up, she froze. Then the car door slammed, and she hovered near her front door like a girl about to meet a blind date. When the bell rang, she had to count to ten before pulling the door open so that she wouldn't seem too eager.

Detective Bellin stood before her, his white shirt open at the collar, his hair loose and curling around his forehead, the yearbook held casually against his thigh. "Detective McCary couldn't make it," he said.

"Problems at home."

Rena swallowed back an odd disappointment. She liked McCary, hoped that they would be able to talk about more than murder over the coffee and cookies she had made. "Nothing serious, I hope," she said. He shrugged. "Her daughter hasn't been doing too well since the murder. It doesn't help to have a mom who is a cop."

"I would think it would," Rena said. "Protection and all."

"Who protects a cop's family," he asked. "while the cop is protecting the city?" She had no answer to that except to stand away from the door and let him in. He wore a different pair of faded jeans with cowboy boots peeking out beneath. His hair was still damp on the ends. He had been home to change before he came to see her.

"Smells good in here," he said.

"I made some cookies. Chocolate chip. You want some?"

"And coffee," he said. "The good stuff." He smiled and it wiped away all the lines, the hurts, the age hidden in his face. For the first time, she noticed him as a handsome man, and the realization made her step away.

"I have cups out in the kitchen. I figured we could look at the table --"

"Good idea." He waited for her to lead him in there, even though he knew the way. She went immediately to the counter, and plastic wrap covering the cookies. Her hands were shaking so badly she could hardly move them. But he didn't offer to help and for that she was grateful. She didn't want to seem weak in front of him. She didn't want to seem weak in front of anyone.

"You didn't have to come out here," she said. "I could have come to the station."

"I know."

She crinkled the plastic wrap and tossed it in the garbage under the sink. Then she leaned against the counter, unable to look at him.

"You don't have to take care of me," she said.

She wasn't sure how she wanted him to answer. A quick denial would have confirmed her suspicions, and no one answered an accusation like hers with the truth. His silence, though, was unexpected. The clatter of mugs on the formica was the only sound in the room. She gripped the handle of the coffee pot firmly, hoping that her hand wouldn't slip and make her regret her words. The coffee poured smoothly, its rich steam coating her face. She took his mug to him, cradling it in both hands, and setting it gently before him.

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" he said, placing her back on the defensive. She put the sugar and cream in front of him, then returned to the counter for the cookies. The fragile plate felt awkward in her hands, but she didn't drop it. She set it down carefully, and got her own mug before joining him.

Without saying a word, she grabbed the yearbook from the chair he had placed it on, and put it beside her mug. The yearbook was covered in pale blue leather with the school's emblem and name embossed in gold. The effect was a washed-out, clearly unprofessional choice of some hapless yearbook staff. The scent of well tooled leather and fresh ink mixed with the coffee. She opened to the index, scanned until she found the page with the swim team, and stared at the picture.

She had seen all of those faces. Young boys with their scrawny bodies looking defiantly at the camera. They wore red briefs as swim suits, a color that made most of them appear even more pale and sickly. All of the boys had been scattered through the afternoon's lineup. She read the caption underneath and realized that the whole team was in the shot. How odd. She really had thought she understood the rules about pool attendance.

"Not there?" Bellin asked.

"He's not in the official photograph," she said. She studied the others on the page: the boys hovering over the pool; a boy in goggles with his head shaved coming out of the water; a series of slightly arched bodies caught in the opening dive. He wasn't in any of them.

She closed the book and started over, looking at the whole thing page by page, trying to ignore the loopy unformed writing of the students to McCary's daughter: the banal sentiments that the girl probably treasured. Rena stopped only when she saw Candace Walker's signature at the end of a long page of writing which covered several school photos.

_To the First Runner Up:_

_Got to work a little harder, friend. Don't want to go through life always a bridesmaid. Seriously, thanks for covering. Couldn't've done it without you. Too bad you're not going to State. I can use the competition._

--_Candace_

"Charming, huh?" Bellin said.

Rena nodded. She remembered that bitchy friendliness which wasn't really friendly at all. She had probably participated in it willingly when she had been in high school, and she still saw it at the pool among the girls' swim team. "What does she mean by covering?"

"I don't know," Bellin said, "and neither does McCary. Her daughter says it has to do with missing cheerleading practice, but McCary's not sure. She's working on it."

"Anyone thought to get Candace's yearbook?" Rena asked.

He smiled and took a cookie off the plate, as if her suggestion pleased him. "No," he said, and took a bite, making a production out of enjoying that first small taste. She ignored him and went back to the book.

Nothing for pages. She thought it odd that all yearbooks looked the same. The fashions changed, but the faces never did. It was almost as if she were looking at pictures of her friends in 1990s garb. About twenty pages from the end, she stopped and frowned at a photograph in the corner of the girls' swim team page. Bellin had gotten up to get himself another mug of coffee. She took the moment of privacy to stare at the face, eyes burning at her as they had that afternoon in the jacuzzi.

"That's him," she said, and pointed. She wouldn't put her finger on the page. To touch his photograph seemed too personal and closer than she ever wanted to get to him again. Bellin stood behind her, his head just above her shoulder, his hands spread on the table around her, as if he were protecting her back while staring at the picture. "Different color trunks," he said. And he was right. The boy, uncredited in the photograph, was standing beside the diving board, talking with someone hidden by the metal rails. His trunks were blue and fit so snugly that she could see the bulge outlined by the light. He had been caught in a moment of distraction, as the only person credited in the photo --a girl --did a cannonball off the high dive, her hair streaming above her head.

"Another team?" she asked.

"Could be," he said. "At least we know what he looks like now." He patted her on the shoulder. "We'll find him."

"Good." His words took a tension she didn't even know she carried out of her body. She glanced at him, then returned her attention to the book, determined to see if the boy appeared in the last few pages. He did not.

When she finished, she slid the yearbook back at him. "What else do you need from me? You want me to testify?"

"Later." He had returned to his chair, leaving her back cold. His hands were wrapped around his steaming coffee mug, and most of the cookies were gone from the plate. "Another lineup, though. You are planning to stay in town?"

His question had been routine, not intrusive. She made herself speak lightly. "Have nowhere else to go." He nodded, then his gaze met hers. He studied her for a moment, his eyes moving as they took in her face. Finally he said, "I don't think you need taking care of, you know. I think you're one of the strongest women I've ever met." Then he grinned as if to take the intimacy from his words. He grabbed another cookie and waved it at her. "Thanks for dinner."

"That's dinner?" she asked, but he was already in the living room, and pretending he didn't hear. She took the yearbook to him, and watched as he let himself out. The drama was over. The diversion in a life of sameness was gone. She was now a woman cursed with another nightmare, and a vague sense of loss.

* * * *

Rena knew she was dreaming because she still had a sense of her body, curled on its left side, warm and snug in her queen-sized bed. But part of the warmth came from the jacuzzi outside the swimming pool at the rec center, the swirling water caressing her tired limbs. In the dream, it was February --cold, drizzly February, her favorite time in the hot water. She sat with her back to the pool, and lifted her face to the rain, her body warm and her head cool. Only there did she really feel alive. She didn't hear the door, but the splash made her look up. A boy, teenage thin with corded muscles running along his arms, and his chest, had dropped a black practice brick into the hot tub. His dark eyes glittered as he looked at her, his full lips twisted into a smirk.

_Think anyone wants to look at you, bitch?

_The words reverberated in her head. She felt the warm bed, and willed herself to open her eyes. But she couldn't. She had to hear this, to remember, to see if he had given her a clue. _I should really cut your face to match, so that you never go out in public. Freaks like you are too ugly to live.

_He left the hot tub, turned his back as he headed for the glass door. She placed her feet on the brick and thought of picking it up, of hurling it at him, and then he stopped as if he had read her mind. _Don't ever show your deformed self around me again, bitch. You got that?

_She didn't move. Her entire body was trembling, but she didn't move. He pulled open the door, letting out the sound of a splash and the roar of the crowd. Then the door closed, leaving her in silence, with the memory of his words.

The rain streamed down her face, at once hot and cold, fresh and salty. She sat out there until she grew lightheaded from the heat. Then she grabbed her towel, and walked around the building to enter from the front so that she wouldn't see him, wouldn't hear his deep voice ever again. But it echoed in her dreams. Her dreams. This time she struggled and surfaced, her breath catching in her throat. If he had hated her so much, why hadn't he hurt her? Although he had threatened to cut her. The darkness seemed to carry his face. Slender, menacing, it formed and reformed on the ceiling, against the windows, over the night stand. With a shaking hand, she turned on the light and basked in its warm glow. Her bedroom, done in neutrals, the off-white walls unadorned, seemed reassuringly familiar. He was only a dream, but the dream was as close as sleep.

She got up and went into the kitchen, her feet cold on the tile floor. The kitchen still smelled faintly of cookies and coffees, reassuring smells, morning smells, family smells. She sank in her chair, and put her face in her scarred hands. Her life would never be normal. She had to accept that, had to accept accidents that destroyed everything she loved, and viciousness that tainted places where she felt safe. A dream image passed before her closed eyelids: a cheering crowd. She brought her head up. It had been a meet that day. He didn't belong to the local team. He had been part of the visiting team, hence the different trunks. And if she tried, she could probably remember the day, and find out who he really was. Excitement rose in her chest and she had to pace to keep from feeling overwhelmed. February gray --an early meet, before Valentine's Day because the roses on the back fence which had bloomed on Valentine's Day weren't even budding yet.

Two weeks of newspapers. Something to do. If she found nothing, she wouldn't contact Bellin or waste his time. But if she found something...

If she found something, she might be able to show that young punk that even freaks had a right to live.

* * * *

The public library was a single-story red brick building that took up less than half a city block. The branch libraries in the Midwest were double the size of this town's only library. She had always dismissed it, thinking a place this tiny wasn't worth her time. Since she had extra money and nothing to spend it on, she bought books at the local chain stores where turnover was so great no one had a chance to remember her.

So when she walked through the door, she was unprepared for the smell of processed air, dust and old books. A wave of nostalgia crashed over her, quicker than she could stop, and for a moment, Robbie's hand was in her own, and Robbie's voice rose over the din, asking for the story lady, and her own rose with his, shushing him, reminding him that libraries were quiet places. She had to lean against the hardcover fiction shelf (A-Ca) before catching her breath, half wishing for the ghostly presence to remain, and half wishing she would never hear from him again. The loneliness she felt after his visits was almost more than she could bear.

But she had a mission, a purpose for the first time in months. She swallowed hard, and made herself stand, going forward when all she wanted to do was run.

No one had noticed her. Even though it was a Monday afternoon, the library was full. Adults filled the chairs near the tables, browsed the shelves, stood in line in front of the desk. Two women briskly stamped books, then ran them through the demagnetizing machine, while one elderly woman assigned library cards. Rena pushed her hair off her face. She asked the elderly woman where the microfiche was, and had to follow a wrinkled finger to the eastern back corner.

Someone had replaced the card catalogue, probably to save space, and patrons were lined up to use the only available computer terminal. She passed the stacks of phone books and current magazines, to disappear in a tiny musty room that smelled of oil and dust. Four microfiche machines sat in the corner. One had a hand-lettered sign that read _Out of Order.

_She looked in the drawer for the local paper, and found that her memory served: the first half of the year was already on fiche, which made sense in a library this small. She wound the brittle film through the old-fashioned machine, wondering why no one had bothered to computerize this, and turned the knob until she reached the sports section for the first part of February. It didn't take her long to find the meet. The paper had it all. A list of the students who worked on the meet in the small announcement on Thursday, and local coverage on Friday. A photograph accompanied Friday's story, and she caught a glimpse of his blurry back, made recognizable by the fact that he was heading out the glass doors to the jacuzzi. To harass her.

He was from Seavy Village, a coastal town just north of Florence. The team's members were listed, and only one lost his race, by a mere two-tenths of a second. The loser's name was John Garnsey. Two-tenths of a second. It all made a sad, pathetic kind of sense to her now. She put the heel of her hand against her eyes, and closed them. Two-tenths of a second. The time it took to skip the median and crash into on-coming traffic. The time it took to say, "I'm sorry," to the only survivor, burned, covered in glass and unable to cry because there was no fluid left in her body. The time it took to smell bourbon on the breath.

She gave a shaky little sigh, and went outside. The air was cool and the sun hidden behind a cloud. The bus wasn't due for fifteen minutes. She leaned against the bus stand, and wished she could think of nothing.

* * * *

Rena explained it to Bellin on the phone while she sat on her comfortable couch, the receiver cradled between her shoulder and ear. She called him because she could not face him. Her voice remained calm, but her body shook as she told him her theory.

It seemed both obvious and hideous now. Candace Walker had run the timer on John Garnsey's race. She had clocked him two tenths of a second shy. And in his righteous self-centeredness, he had believed that she erred. For he couldn't believe that he would fail. Someone else had to be to blame. The loss must have cost him something. Reputation. The respect of his teammates. Something. Enough to cause him to come back and check the lifeguard board. Enough to make him return a third time, and kill her, not caring that Rena was in the pool because Rena wasn't human. She choked out the last phrase, the part about not being human, and then said nothing. The silence echoed on the phone lines, and for a moment, she thought Bellin didn't believe her. Then he said,

"Excellent work. I'll tell McCary and we'll contact the authorities in Seavy Village." His praise shook her more than the crime did. She clasped her hands tightly together, running her thumbs along her scars to keep herself focused.

"Detective?" she said, her voice calm again. "I'd like to see him when you bring him in."

"You will," Bellin said. "We'll need to do another lineup."

* * * *

They put him in the third set of men and boys, second from the end. Rena sat in the hard plastic chair and leaned toward the one-way glass, clutching the neck of her sweater with one hand, the edge of the chair with the other.

John Garnsey appeared to be staring right at her. He wore a Beastie Boys t-shirt and tight blue jeans, and held his number just above his belt buckle as if he were ashamed to hold it. _Think anyone wants to look at you, bitch?

_She took a deep breath to wipe the sound of his voice from her memory. As she did, she saw him in a quick, sideways, chlorine-filled glance, gesturing as he argued with Candace Walker on the last afternoon of her life.

"That's him," she said. "Number two."

"You sure?" Bellin asked, his tone cautious.

She turned, wondering why he doubted her. Both he and McCary were watching her, their expressions flat and unreadable. She glanced back at the boy. She held his life in her hands, like she had once held Robbie's. Only she had grabbed Robbie too late.

_Freaks like you are too ugly to live.

_She shivered. Once. The air-conditioning was too high. Even the sweater she had brought to compensate didn't help. "That's him," she said again. "I'm sure." Beside her, Bellin exhaled. "Looks like we got a case," he said to McCary. She nodded, then reached forward and squeezed Rena's hand. "Good work," she whispered. Then she stood. "I'll take care of this," she said to Bellin, and left the observation booth. Rena was shaking. Her fingernails had turned blue. "Tell me," she said, still staring at the boy's face, "that he dated her. Tell me that she two-timed him or that she beat up his sister." Bellin put his hands on his knees as if he were bracing himself to speak. "He had never lost a race before." His words were soft. "At least not in high school. Lost once in junior high and came charging out of the water at the timer, but the coach held him back. He was smaller then." _The car was hot, hot, too hot as she reached for Robbie. His eyes were open, his mouth filled with blood. Dennis was still in the driver's seat, twisted toward the back as, in the last moment of his life, he too tried to save his son. Rena took a quick gasp of burning air, a sharp "hah!" as her heart snapped --_From below, Garnsey stared at the wall as if he saw her, as if he knew she was accusing him.

"Does he know what he did? Does he understand?"

_And as the paramedics pulled her away from the fireball, the glass rain, she saw a form lurch toward her in the red-gold light. His suit was silk and rumpled, his hair mussed where he had run his hand through it.

"I'm sorry, lady," he said, the bourbon on his breath so strong she nearly gagged. "But you shoulda steered outta the way..."

_"People like him," Bellin said, "don't believe anyone else exists." She put her hand over her heart as if she could ease the ache. Her palm was warm, but not warm enough. Never warm enough.

"We'll need you to testify," Bellin said.

Then she looked at him, really looked at him. The fluorescent light took the youth from his face and accented the tiny white scars on his chin and cheek. The crow's-feet near his eyes were deep, and the area around his mouth showed that he would be wearing sorrow lines as he grew older.

"I'll testify," she said. She could be strong for that.

One by one, the men filed out of the room below. Garnsey had an athlete's gait, a confidence that belied the emptiness beneath it. She didn't understand it; if she could face a drunken man who had slaughtered her family, if she could live every day alone with only scars and memories, then how could that boy kill over the loss of a single race?

"How do you do it?" she asked. "How do you face the world every day, knowing that there are people like that boy in it?"

Bellin stood and placed his hand on her shoulder. She could see his face reflected in the glass, a wavery ghost over an empty room. "It's hard," he said. "But I find my hope when I meet people like you." The warmth of his hand had penetrated her sweater, like a small, hot sun sending its heat to damaged places within. She leaned her unscarred cheek against his work-roughened knuckles. Time to start taking risks again, to step out of the shadow of a lurching, drunken man in a rumpled silk suit.

"I owe you a real dinner, Detective," she said.

"Joel," he said, reminding her of the warmth he had shown that first afternoon, warmth that she hadn't realized until now had saved her.

"Joel," she said, and smiled.