The Victoria had always seemed plucked from another world, one of grace and elegance and perfect ballerinas. And then, more than ever, beyond my reach. Puberty had raced across me that winter, leaving crooked stretch marks on my skin that didn't melt away with the snow. For the first time, the red brick and thick trees didn't offer enough shade. Instead of diving in, I spent more time under towels, nose in a book. I stared at the ballerinas and the blue sky. When I did venture to the edge, it was only covered in my father's T-shirts, refusing to slip them off until my body disappeared, swallowed by the water.

I pretended not to hear my brother, his shiny head glistening with water, shouting for me to come hunt for pennies on the bottom of the pool. I pretended not to see the differences between my little sister and me, hair scooped in the same ponytails, bodies in the same bathing suits. But she was still all skinny legs and cartwheels, someone who could believe our sick brother was taking medicine and therefore would be well.

It was on a very hot day that my mother sat, as always, along the edge of the pool, dangling her legs in the water. It was the middle of the week, and many of the lounge chairs were empty. But the dancers were there, sleek and creamy-skinned. I watched them, sure I knew the sketch of their lives: nights onstage, days by the pool. No hospitals or baby fat or bald heads. Bathed by the sun, never burned.

My eyes were on them as my mother called to me, waving, "Bessie, come swim for me."

I shook my head, pulling a towel over my chubby legs. I looked down to my book, but could not concentrate on the words. I had always loved to swim for her. When my arms pulled my body across the water in strong bursts it felt like a gift only I could give her. My mother had never learned to swim. It was something, like not going to college, she thought made her different from all the other mothers in our suburban town. I knew, even then, that these things embarrassed her, made her feel she hadn't done enough by us.

But she was different, the winter had proved as much. My mother knew that the best way to teach a 9-year-old to swallow a bitter pill was to mix the crushed pieces with sweet Pepsi in a shot glass. She practiced giving shots to fat oranges on the butcher block until her hand was steady. She scanned the radio on those long drives with my brother, looking for "American Pie" because a song like that lasted and made the road ahead come a little faster. And she knew the best way to treat a possibly dying boy was, of course, to live.

After a moment, when she had stopped calling, I raised my eyes to the pool. I could hear my sister laughing, and after a moment saw her bobbing beside my brother, swimming in small circles around him. He laughed too, flicking water toward her each time she passed. He floated on my mother's legs, his arms wrapped under her thighs, his toes poking up from the waves, held aloft by her body's strength. My mother leaned over him, splashing water over her arms and neck where half a dozen gold necklaces swam, many held together by tiny heart-shaped links of gold.

As I watched them, one skinny, one bald, one strong, all mine, it seemed there was only one thing to do. I stood and pulled the billowing shirt over my head and dropped it on the towel. Moving past the dancers, my eyes fell over the shimmering water, the rich brick walls and feathery pine trees rising above us toward blue sky. I walked to the edge beside my mother and, for a moment, shed my fears and plunged in.

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