Read Learning to Swim for Free Online Page B

could remember.
    The swimming lesson at the Oyster Beach Public Pool was already getting into the water. Much too fast, I thought. But I didn’t stick around to see how they fared.
    When my mother asked, I told her it went great.
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Bua an Dúlra
    Victory of Nature
     
     
     
    It was unconscious now. The way I walked to my pier in the early mornings. Once there, I would see boats pulling near ports in the distance, fishermen back from early morning rounds.
    The swimmer would be there, his arms spinning like windmills, churning the calm water. The waves, still weak from the night’s calm would keep him bobbing ever so softly as he swam, almost like a duck, completely at home atop the waves. Some days the waves were stronger, from windy, stormy nights, and they would lap over the swimmer completely as his arms violently turned, his dark head always coming above the water eventually, shaking like a dog.
    But one day I must have been a little late, because as I was approaching, the swimmer was pulling himself onto the wooden slats that sloped into the water at the end of the pier.
    I stopped and walked awkwardly away. From a safe distance, I studied him, the first time I’d seen him out of the water. He was tan, with dark hair. He was solid, though not very tall, and seemed almost surreal to me. Maybe because of the way he swam, or maybe because he was soaking wet and the water made his skin gleam.
    He was nothing short of gorgeous. Hotter than a Brad Pitt knockoff , indeed.
    He breathed deeply, as though thoroughly exhausted, and sat on the edge of the pier with his legs still in the water.
    When he went to stand up, I scurried away, only just realizing how awkward an interaction would be.
     

     
    My dad flew home often to go to the office, so that left just my mother to deceive on the afternoons that I was “attending swimming lessons.” That’s when I found myself meandering back toward the old woman’s house. This time, on purpose.
    She would usually be outside, slumped in her rocking chair, and would call out for me to join her. Sometimes she would call to Princess, and I’d follow awkwardly, waiting for her to address me. Which she would usually do with some far-fetched tale or question about my life.
    One day she ignored me completely, having summoned Princess to her side and inquiring into the dog’s day. I sat down silently in my designated rocking chair and waited.
    “They say a black dog is an omen of death,” the old woman said, whether to myself or Princess, I couldn’t be sure. “And dogs howling at the moon.”
    “Good thing Princess has some white and brown, too,” I said, only thinly veiling my sarcasm.
    “The dog days of summer are coming quite quickly,” the old woman went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “It will be July before we know it, and then everything will be hot and terrible.”
    “What are the dog days?” I asked.
    “The dog days of summer,” she repeated. “It’s the hottest time of the year, when the dog-star is prominent. Did you know that the sea gets crazy? Everyone is miserable. They say dogs go mad. Do you? Do you all go mad?”
    Princess was unaware of being addressed. She chased a fly with loud chomps of her mouth.
    “I think it’s already too hot,” I said. “I don’t know how you stand it—being out here all day.”
    The old woman tore her eyes from the sea and looked at me as if I’d just tried to explain astrophysics to her. She finally spoke. “Would you find my jacket, dear?”
    “You—your jacket?” I stammered.
    “Yes, my coat.”
    She nodded seriously, so I got up, confused. I went obediently to the door and inside the dark house, wondering for the millionth time if maybe this woman wasn’t completely there , mentally speaking.
    It had become something of a routine, her asking me to find her coat or her jacket or her sweater, my pretending to search for it, and then emerging back outside empty-handed. But just after