Free Altar by Philip Fracassi Page B

the black asphalt of the parking lot, only looking up when they reached the dark double doors.
    They passed through together, hand-in-hand.
     
     
     
    Tyler Lippon hated his wings. He was almost eight years old now and he told his mother again and again that he could swim just fine. She knew he could because she’d come to see him do the classes at the YMCA. He didn’t even use the float board for the kick exercises because he didn’t need it, not really. Plus, he knew how to hold his breath for a really, really long time.
    “You’re still too small, and there’s a hundred crazy kids in the pool bigger than you,” his mother said, pushing one tight blue inflated ring over his narrow bicep, the rubbery surface irritating his skin.
    “This is ridiculous,” he said, working hard to pronounce the last word, recently learned, filled with its host of syllables and mysterious angry meaning.
    His mother smiled and kissed him on the forehead and he knew he’d lost.
    “Next year, old man,” she said, tapping his nose lightly with the tip of her finger, her red nail polish matching her one-piece suit and lush ginger hair. Tyler hated the nickname, something his parents called him as a tease because he was smarter than a lot of kids, and had what his Grandpa Sam referred to as an “old soul.” But he didn’t think his soul was old at all. He figured it was right around eight, just like he was.
    Escaping his mother’s warm hands, Tyler spun, checked once for oncoming kids, then made a running jump into the pool’s shallow end. Kids splashed mercilessly around him but he didn’t mind, part of him actually grateful now for the wings that kept him easily aloft, although he’d never admit it to his mother. As he was prone to do, he put his face down into the water and opened his eyes, ignoring the dull sting of the chlorine.
    The underworld of the pool was beautiful. It was cloudy and blue, filled with hips and legs of kids jumping, spinning, walking and kicking, all of it in a dreamy slow-motion. When the water overlapped his ears the sounds of the surrounding children became muffled and far away and he felt alone, like an angel floating around heaven looking at the saved ones fighting their way up, up through the clouds. He smiled under the water and kicked his legs. As he swam out of the shallow end, he spread his buoyed arms wide to either side and watched gracefully as the coarse white concrete bottom of the pool dropped further and further away from the surface, giving him the delicious impression he was spreading his angel wings and flying higher and higher into the sky toward God.
     
     
     
    Martha watched her children enter the recreation center and sighed. It was so fucking hot. She wondered if she had time for a cigarette, then remembered the pool passes were in her purse. She pictured the kids standing by the bored clerk, Gary’s feet parading up and down in a frenzy of impatience while Abby sulked gracefully, one hip jutting out, her lips in a pout and her wide blue eyes batting mercilessly as she waited for her poor, sad, old mother to arrive with the passes so the kids could go play.
    Normally Martha just dumped the kids off, went and met up with Suzanne for an afternoon martini at the Chi-Chi’s by the mall, but today she’d decided to join the little monsters, get some much-needed sun. She felt run-down, pale and out-of-shape. She wanted to go out more, to work out more, but she was always so damned tired. It had been a long week with work and the kids, who were always a handful in the summer without the time-suck of school. The late-night drinking had kept her from sleeping well, and on top of everything she had the weekend to contend with. She dreaded the thought of seeing Dan and his stupid, smug, smiling, benevolent face walking up her driveway in some combination of khakis and Brooks Brothers oxford - his typical lawyer weekend wear.
    She and Dan were still thick in the middle of the legalities,