She swam
Date: March 3rd. Not the type of day one should go swimming. Tell that to my mother. She has insisted that in order for summer to appear, you have to act as if it's already arrived; A type of philosophy even I would call absurd. That says a lot seeing that I don't have many standards when it comes to thinking, or anything for the matter. In fact, I'd say I don't hold any standards at all.
Of course I deny her hypothesis and explain every which way it is flawed before I make the decision to jump in.
It is cold. So cold. But I get over in about the time it takes me to snarf down own of my grandfather's cookies: 3.4 seconds to be exact.
After those few seconds after I had jumped, and come back up for air, I realize my mother has come down with an entire platter of lemonade. Keep in mind my family consists of two people: me and my mother.
She takes a deep breath before dipping her toes in the water. For a second I thought I saw a tinge of regret in her eyes but by the time she looked at me it was gone.
"Isn't it just a wonderfull?" She says, trying to convince herself that it's true. The clouds overhead rumble just to prove her wrong.
Not wanting to dwindle my mother's spirits I muster my best possible response, "yeah," I say ,"I mean it could be raining, and its not. So I mean it's not that bad. I mean it's wonderful. Yeah, wonderfull." I clear my throat. That could have gone better.
She puts on the sunglasses I gave her as a gift 6 years ago and refuses to throw away. They're in the shape of hearts, and neon pink in color. Absolutely hideous. Thankfully she has the decency not to where them in public.
"Lemonade?" She asks. I despise lemonade. I hate it with a burning passion. Not that I've told her this, and I don't intend to. Instead I grab one and give her a wide smile. I take a sip forgetting I was holding lemonade and not a simple refreshing ice water like any other sane person, so I spit it directly into the pool I was standing in.
Her eyes widen. I can tell because of the way her perfectly shaped eyebrows raise a fraction of an inch, and the nonexistant wrinkles by her eyes seem to somehow become even less visible than they already were.
"I am so sorry," she says," I knew I added one too many lemons, but I didn't want to put it to waste. Do you want me to make a new one for you?"
What continues to astonish me is that she says this with actual concern. Like her beverage physically harmed me, and she's responsible. If she was any other mother she would have scolded me for my poor manners, and infecting the pool with my saliva. But of course she's not every other mother. This only makes me feel 10x worse. Frantically I try to come up with some form of an apology.
" No, you don't need to really. I'm sorry . . . I . . . ."
already I can see a tear falling down her face. When she speaks, all her words come out choked up, like someone was actually depriving her of the oxygen she needed to breath.
"This all my fault, I just wanted to do something fun the both us, I messed it all up, I'm so sorry...," before I was able to lie to her and tell her I was having the time of my life she was gone, grabbing a nearby napkin and dabbing at the corner of her eyes.
Only now do I realize how pathetic this situation is. It's March 3rd, and I'm alone in a pool swimming in a combination of the beverage of the devil, my own saliva, and chlorine so strong it will sting your eyes just looking at it. Not how I expected to spend my first day back.
