They were sharing a lounge chair by the pool, Chuck and Agnes, married forty-odd years and vacationing in California.  They were in some town on the central coast--Avila Beach was the name of the place.  The beach was, in fact, a ten minute walk from where they sat now, by this small campground pool, and Chuck would’ve much preferred a walk on the beach, or on the nice pier he’d heard some of the other campers rave about, have some fish and watch the sea lions.  But Agnes wanted to sit by this tiny pool right along the highway.  Socialize, she said.

            “They were just playing.  Boys, you know how they are.”  Agnes sat at the edge of the lounger, a white towel wrapped around her waist.  Her giant bosom was crammed into the floral swimsuit, her flesh bulging a bit on the edges, especially near her armpits.  The grey bundle of hair in her neck bobbed when she talked.

            The woman who was spread out in the lounger next to them nodded, her hand cupped over her brow against the sun.  She was skinny, Agnes’ age probably. 

“There were six of them, playing some pool volleyball,” Agnes went on.  “It was hot that day.  No relief from the heat but in the pool.”  She smiled.

            Chuck closed his eyes and tried to block out the street noise, his wife’s talking.  He’d heard this story too many times to count, and with every time, he’d come to hate it more.  This was Agnes’ version of socializing, rehashing the same misery again and again to total strangers, at restaurants, campgrounds, you name it.  Once, she even managed to tell the whole sordid tale at a gas station.  Each time, the story was a little different, moving from an I’m-not-sure-what-happened to the definite black-and-white version Agnes was recounting today.

            “And they were pulling and pushing.  The way boys do, you know.  My grandson, Evan, he was trying to get away.”  She waved her hands.  She’d lost weight again, Chuck noticed.  Her arms were lighter, the skin looser.  He’d fallen in love with those arms.  He was too much a man to admit this to anyone, but Agnes made him feel safe.  That soft flesh enveloping him…  Agnes always took care of him.  When his father died, she held him with those big arms while he cried.  When Chuck got laid off, she invited the foreman over to the house, changed his mind over chicken pot-roast.  Agnes always took care of everyone.  She cooked for the neighborhood, took care of all the kids--lord, how Chuck hated to come home to the house and find it full of kids, running, screaming.  The house would feel so small then, no room for him.  The times he had wished for everyone to just go away, he couldn’t count.

            “And these two boys, under the water…”  Agnes was crying now.  She wiped her eyes briskly, rubbed her fingers on the towel.  “These boys took Evan’s legs and pulled him down.”

The woman shook her head, but didn’t sit up from the lounger.  You could only expect strangers to care so much –Chuck tried to tell Agnes that, but she didn’t want to hear.  I’m not like you, Chuck.  I need to let it out.

            “They kept him down so long, he drowned.  My grandbaby, my only grandson, dead.”  Agnes covered her face as she cried.

            “I’m so sorry,” the woman said, first to Agnes, then to Chuck.  “You must be devastated.

            “You manage,” Chuck said.  That was what he always said.  But this time he added, “and you move on.”

            Agnes moved her hands and looked at Chuck in horror.  She paused.  “You move on?”

            Chuck shrugged, regretting the words already but knowing it was too late to take any of it back. 

            Agnes stood, dropping the towel on the chair.  “You don’t move on.  You never forget,” she said and paced to the pool, where she slowly eased into the water.  In the crowd of children, she made angry laps in the pool.

            “I’m sorry,” the woman next to Chuck said.  “I hope I didn’t make things worse.”

            “It’s fine,” Chuck said, laying back on the lounger, glad he was able to stretch without Agnes at the end. 

            “I’m sure it’s hard for your wife.  Losing her grandson.”  The woman sat up and gathered her towel and sunscreen.  Chuck sat up, hoping to claim the chair after the woman left, for Agnes. “And for you,” she added.

“We manage,” Chuck said again.  Which was a total lie, of course, they weren’t managing at all.  What Agnes left out of her usual story, was how the boys had been in their pool--Agnes and Chuck’s, and how Agnes had been in charge of the half-a-dozen kids their parents had conveniently parked with her.  Agnes had been inside, since it was so hot, watching the kids play from the window.  So it took her an extra moment, in that heat and with her age, to realize there were only five heads bobbing in the water, not six.  By the time Agnes made it to the pool and jumped into the water in her housedress, Evan’s lungs had already filled with water and it was too late.

            “Best of luck to you and your family,” the woman said awkwardly as she walked away.  Chuck nodded, placed Agnes’ towel on the lounger, commending himself on his swift thinking.  Now at least they could both stretch out a little.

            Agnes was floating on her back in the pool, her head perched so her hair wouldn’t get wet.  Chuck watched her amid the other vacationers, kids, some with a parent.  Agnes, socializing, he thought wryly.  How lonely his social wife had become.  Those boys that drowned Evan had gotten away, claiming they had been on the other side of the pool when his grandson died.  Must’ve hit his head, something.  How easy people brushed it off, moved on with their lives.  The neighbors, who used to take such advantage of Agnes’ hospitality no longer brought their kids over.  And to add to the pain, their only daughter Tracy, Evan’s mother, stopped calling altogether.  She needed space, she said.  The house, the pool, the minivan empty.  So last summer Chuck and Agnes sold it all, in an effort to start over, only to replace it with an empty camper and someone else’s pool.

            The glare of the sun reflecting off the water blinded Chuck for a moment.  Where was Agnes?  He sat up, scanned the pool for his wife’s familiar and angry head, but she wasn’t anywhere.  Chuck stood, got to the edge of the pool where he was splashed by one of the fathers playing ball with his daughter.  Heads everywhere, bodies blurred into one another under the water. 

            “Agnes?” Chuck called, touching his neck.  He circled the pool, feeling his face go cold.  The noise of the other vacationers seemed to be getting louder and louder as he called her name.  There.  A round shape floated in the middle of the pool, the rainbow of colors from her floral swimsuit.  Chuck jumped in, feeling the cool water seep into the fibers of his clothes as he waded to the deeper middle.  “Agnes?” he heard himself say.  Yell.  He reached under the water, where he grabbed her arm, the flesh still warm from the sun.  Chuck pulled his wife’s heavy, limp body toward him.  Her face was pale and slack.  “You stupid woman,” he muttered and moved to put his lips to hers, before she dribbled water on her chin and his.  She opened her eyes.  “What the hell were you doing?” Chuck said as he felt her heavy weight pull on him while she tried to find her footing on the pool’s floor.

            Agnes wiped her hair back.  “I just wanted to see what it was like for him.  How he must’ve felt.”  She looked at Chuck.  “It was so quiet under the water.  So peaceful.  I just couldn’t get myself to come up for air.”

            Chuck nodded.  “Come on,” he said.  “I got us an extra chair.”