Avery stepped out of her shoes. She held out her hand.
Vivian looked at the hand for a long moment. Then she stepped out of her heels, one at a time, set them neatly side by side on the flagstone, and took it.
Across the patio, Dorian had come out of the house with two cups of coffee. He stopped. Avery watched him take in the scene — his mother barefoot at the edge of the deep end, the woman he'd been learning to look at holding her hand — and watched him set both cups down very carefully on the drink table, beside the white roses and the orange dispenser.
"Mom," he said. "Avery. Wait—"
"Count of three," Avery said.
"One," said Vivian.
"Two," said Avery.
They never made it to three. Vivian went first. Avery would tell that story for the rest of her life — that it was Vivian who couldn't wait, Vivian who pulled her in, sixty-six years old and laughing, both of them going in feet first with their skirts billowing up like jellyfish and the white roses scattering in their wake.
Underwater it was quiet. Truly quiet. Avery opened her eyes and saw Vivian beside her in the gold-blue light, hair floating up, cheeks full of air, eyes wide with astonishment, holding Avery's hand as if she had never planned to let go.
They surfaced together, gasping.
"Oh," Vivian said. "Oh, it's *cold*. Bev, you *liar*."
Avery was laughing so hard she swallowed pool water. At the edge, Dorian crouched exactly where he had crouched in June, one forearm on his knee, looking down at them — and this time there was no worry under it. Only something wide open and helpless and glad.
"Hi," he said.
"Don't," Avery said. "Don't you dare say it in a tone."
He looked at her. Then at his mother, treading water in her good dress and beaming now — really beaming — at both of them.
Dorian stood. He took off his shoes. He took his phone out of his pocket, set it face down on the flagstone, and didn't look back at it.
"I'm getting in the pool," he said.
"You're wearing a suit," said his mother.
"Exactly," he said, and jumped.