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ISSUE 15 | SPRING 2013<br />
But of course we didn’t fall. We shuffled carefully to the edge, where the<br />
scent of chlorine flooded our noses.<br />
“Let’s sit here,” Li-Ming instructed, her voice cracking. Once a songstress,<br />
Li-Ming’s words now chafed against one another like the ragged rubbing of<br />
grasshopper wings.<br />
I wanted to tell those sad, downward peering eyes in the stands that Li-Ming<br />
was the best swimmer I’d ever known. She was so strong a swimmer she’d<br />
saved a man from drowning during the famous Jiangxi floods. But what was<br />
the use? Li-Ming didn’t swim anymore. The floods taught her too much<br />
about the power of water. I lifted her off her feet, positioning her heavy,<br />
rigid body at the side of the pool. Her round backside, sore from so much<br />
sitting, cushioned her landing.<br />
I rolled up my own pant legs then kicked off my shoes and placed them<br />
gingerly at my side. Our toes stretching in the water, it felt like we were<br />
young again even though I’d never swum in my life, and when we were<br />
young we had more pressing concerns than climbing to the diving platform’s<br />
highest rung.<br />
“If only your daughter had her mother’s round head, she’d enter the water<br />
more smoothly,” Mr. Peng’s hands spread atop my wife’s head, which, now<br />
bald, was covered with a magenta silk handkerchief painted with blue<br />
butterflies. Mr. Peng rubbed that handkerchief as if it could bestow good<br />
fortune upon him, as if Chenxi’s only downfall was that she’d inherited my<br />
large, square jaw. “Are you ready for your daughter’s debut?”<br />
Li-Ming nodded and I didn’t need to look at her face to see her smile. What<br />
pride is wasted on the dying. Our water-happy toes flexed and stretched,<br />
flexed and stretched, flexed and stretched. I couldn’t remember the last time<br />
my feet felt so unencumbered. The freedom was both liberating and stifling,<br />
like a caged bird released into the expansive, airy world beyond the bars.<br />
“Our debuting daughter better be safe,” I muttered to my own unsteady<br />
reflection.<br />
Mr. Peng tapped my shoulder and I looked up long enough to recognize<br />
those sunglasses he always wore, even on the indoor pool deck—he blamed<br />
an astigmatism, when really we knew he preferred the crowds not see his<br />
gaze lingering on his girls as they climbed up the board’s steps, their arms<br />
and chests dripping as they pushed their slick bodies out of the water. He’d<br />
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