A/N: Onward.

Big Swamp

Chapter Nine: Hymn, Her, and Fireflies

Sarah Walker in the choir?

Father Casey asked me this morning about forecasting the future. I didn't forecast this.

Sarah smiles at Diana. "Oh, I know Chuck, Miss Beckman. We're dating."

Beckman's mouth drops like the hinges in her jaws are freshly oiled. "Dating?"

Sarah laughs. "Yes, you could say that."

Diana looks at me in wonderment. "Dating." It's not a question now. Diana turns to me. "Chuck, you never said."

Sarah slips against me, takes my hand. "It's new, Miss Beckman. We're both still...adjusting...to the idea."

For the first time that I've seen her, not counting the Club, she's dressed for the Alabama heat. She's got on a white dress, cotton, and white sandals. Her hair is held back from her face by small white barrettes.

She smiles at me and squeezes my hand. I still haven't spoken. Diana's gazing at us. Together.

Wonderment.

Words, I used to have words. None now, nope. "I...we…" I manage nothing remotely coherent, only to smile back at Sarah.

Diana chuckles. "Fear not, Chuck," she glances at Sarah, "Sarah brings you tidings of great joy!"

Both women chuckle. At me. I'm still waiting to be revisited by language. "I..we...I didn't know…" words begin to return and I change the destination of my sentence, "I didn't know you sang."

Sarah reaches up and straightens the collar on my shirt. It's a small thing, done without fanfare or comment, and, yes, we've held hands, danced close, kissed, but that's somehow the most intimate thing that has passed between us. Diana notes it. And then I begin to wonder about it, and about the whole scene — to wonder what's happening, what Sarah is doing. Was the straightening for my benefit or Diana's, or both?

"Oh, there you are!" A new voice.

Sarah looks past me and I see her gaze shift but I turn before I can decipher the shift.

Bryce Larkin stands in the door to Diana's office, gleaming. His smile hangs in the doorway like the Cheshire Cat's in Alice's Adventures, except that his seems to arrive before him, not linger after him.

Neither Sarah nor I speak for a moment, so Diana does. "Hello! I'm Diana Beckman, the church secretary. You're a friend of...Sarah's?" Diana makes an educated guess.

Bryce moves gracefully into the room, speaks to Diana. "Hello, ma'am," Bryce says that word with a hint of irony as if he's subtly poking fun at the South, at Diana, "I'm Bryce Larkin. Sarah's friend, as you said."

Diana nods to Bryce and then looks from Bryce to me and back again.

Sarah is still holding my hand. I'd expected her to drop it when Bryce appeared, but she didn't. Diana's trying to figure out the palpable change in the room's atmosphere, and so am I.

Bryce turns to Sarah. "Wylie told me you'd be here, so I thought I'd come to hear. Bored out at the farm. Sarah Walker in a choir was a sight not to be missed." There's an undertone in his voice, unmistakably present but not unmistakably clear, but he obviously expects Sarah to understand it. If she does, she hides her understanding.

I start to say something and then Father Casey fills the door. He takes in the scene and the players with a quick, sweeping glance. "Time to get started, folks."

He leaves. Sarah, still holding my hand, tugs me forward, past Bryce. "Time to sing, Chuck."

I follow her out of the office and hear Diana behind me. "Mr. Larkin, you can go and sit in the Sanctuary if you'd like to listen."

Sarah's face, when she looks back at me, is slightly flushed. But she smiles at me, slows, and lets me lead her.

A temporary riser stands in front of the altar on the near side, roughly where I was standing this morning while Father Casey contemplated flowers. Several people are already on them. Sarah releases my hand so that I can climb to the top level with the other tenors. Father Casey, watching, nods toward the altos when Sarah looks at him. She steps up on the lowest level with a quick, bright smile at me. The flush in her cheeks is gone.

I see Bryce seated about midway down the aisle. He must have gone outside and come in through the Sanctuary's main door. Diana stands at the end of his pew. She's waiting for me to make eye contact. When I do, she rolls her eyes in Bryce's direction and gives me an I'm-on-your-team smirk. I grin back.

She then takes her seat in front of the organ keyboard.

Father Casey takes his place behind a tall music stand. "Okay, okay, everyone," the murmuring group quiets, "it's time to start. Let me take a second and welcome our new member, Sarah Walker." Father Casey looks at Sarah, and then, as everyone begins to say hello to Sarah, he glances at me.

"All right," he goes on, "let's begin with When I Survey the Wondrous Cross."

I said that my relationship with the church is complicated.

I don't attend, not regularly. Sometimes I go on Christmas or Easter; sometimes I slip in the back on a random Sunday and sit for a while, listening to Father Casey's brief homily. Dad and Mom took us regularly when we were little. I suppose my relationship with the church was complicated primarily by their death. No need to go into that now; it's easy enough to guess how it mostly goes.

I loved the music and I love it still. Nothing's changed that. If anything, losing Dad and Mom made the music sweeter to me, dearer to me. Hymns like the one we're about to sing, the sublime words by Isaac Watts, transport me. I can't give the music up. The choir does not sing at weekly services — just at special events.

"So," Father Casey begins, "just a couple of thoughts on what we are about to sing — about the words themselves. We will talk about the music as we work on it. — This is a spiritual meditation. The keyword, for our purposes, is 'survey', the verb of the first line. The song is a visual survey of the scene of Christ's crucifixion. The point of the survey is not to revel in Christ's suffering, but rather to be humbled by it, and, humbled, spurred on to a better life. Christ's death, folks, is always about life…"

He says a bit more and I listen, but I also watch Bryce. He's trying hard to hide his boredom and his...discomfort. The easy, sure suavity of his manner fails him here in the Sanctuary.

We sing through the song once and Father Casey stops us to make some notes on the music, the different parts, the harmonies. Bryce gets up and leaves, hurrying a bit more with each step.

I glance down at Sarah and see her reaction to him leaving, watch her shoulders drop. She does not glance up at me.

We finish rehearsal and the choir members crowd around Sarah, introducing themselves and being introduced. I descend from the riser and Father Casey meets me. He glances at Sarah then looks at me.

"All mirrored surface?" I ask quietly.

He shrugs uncertainly. "She's got a pleasant voice. Shocked me when she came in, asked about the choir. She came to me first, here in the Sanctuary. I sent her to Diana to get registered, get the music." He pauses. "That woman's a puzzler."

I have no words of dispute.

As the crowd around Sarah disperses, she walks to me and takes my hand again. "Say, Chuck, since it's so hot and since we've still got some daylight, why don't you come out to the Hall and we'll swim."

"Swim? There's no pool at the Hall."

She nods. "True, but there's a lovely little pond in the woods."

The way she says that makes my pulse race. She smiles a slow smile at me. "Can you go home, get some trunks, and head over?"

"Sure. — Will it just be you and me?"

"Yes, Chuck, just us. Uncle Wylie's at the Club and Bryce is going to Montgomery tonight; he's supposed to stay over. So, no worries about unwanted company…See you soon."

Her smile becomes frankly flirtatious and my pulse redlines. She stands on her toes and brushes my cheek with her lips, then she leaves the Sanctuary through the front doors.

Diana comes up to stand beside me; she must have been close enough to overhear. "Get moving, Chuck. That's not an invitation you want to respond to slowly."

When I turn into the drive at the Hall, I see Sarah on the second-floor balcony. She's wearing a wrap over her red bikini. She waves at me eagerly then gestures that she's on her way down.

I park in front of the Overseer's House, beside Sarah's Porsche. It's now dusty I notice as I climb from the Camry.

Sarah comes out of the house in the wrap and wearing sandals. She's carrying towels and a small cooler. I have my trunks in my hand, and I changed into sandals myself.

"Hey, Chuck," she says. She seems in high spirits. She points to the house. "Go inside, turn right, turn left, and you'll find a bathroom. You can put on your trunks and leave your things there. Oh," she points to the stoop of the rear door, "will you carry that Bluetooth speaker for me?"

I run inside and change, leaving my jeans in the bathroom. When I return, I am in my trunks. I grab the speaker. Sarah's standing on an extension of the half-circle driveway that leads back to the woods. Against the edge of the woods an old barn stands, and near it another small house like the Overseer's House.

We start to walk in that direction, toward the edge of the woods.

"I enjoyed choir practice," Sarah offers, "I haven't really sung since I was in show choir in high school."

That is about the first piece of personal information she's shared with me. I want to know more but I try not to sound too eager. "Where was high school?"

"Then, it was in Kansas. I was just at that high school one year, just in the show choir the one year, but I wished I could have stayed longer, in Kansas and the choir."

I nod carefully but do not ask anything more. We walk on and reach the edge of the woods. The extension of the driveway ends but a clear, wide path leads into the woods. The sloping sunlight of the afternoon makes everything seem to glow golden. A rare breeze blows — Alabama summers are normally preternaturally still — and it rustles the leaves around us.

Sarah points to the path then takes it. I walk beside her.

"I moved around a lot as a girl. My parents split when I was little. I lived with my mom — but she got sick, Lupus. Pretty soon, after a couple of years, she couldn't take care of me, so I moved to live with my dad. But he changed locations often because of work, so I never settled anywhere. Mom died in my early teens. I didn't feel settled until I went off to college. But even that turned out to be temporary…"

She trails off as we continue to walk. I'm not sure what to say if anything.

"I lost my parents when I was about the same age…"

She stops and looks into my eyes. She nods, moves the small cooler into the hand carrying the towels, and she takes my free hand in her now free one.

The pond is larger than I expected. It's encircled by woods, and the green trees and the blue sky reflect on the silvery, glassy surface. A graying wooden pier extends out into the water. A makeshift, flat raft is tied to the end of the pier.

The breeze had stopped and now it returns, disturbing the glassy surface of the water, rippling the trees and sky, nudging the raft.

Sarah walks to the pier and stops, gazes at the water. She sets the cooler down, takes one of her towels, the largest one, and spreads it on the grass just in front of the edge of the pier. I place the speaker on the towel and she moves the cooler beside it.

She looks at me, her eyes as warm and accessible as during our dance at the party. She kicks off her sandals and shrugs off the wrap. I work not to stare. It helps that I blind myself for a moment by taking off my t-shirt, and then become self-conscious, too self-conscious to look at Sarah for fear I'll see her looking at me. I have no abs like Bryce to offer. I'm not out of shape, far from it, but I've never made any effort to sculpt myself. Narcissus and I have never been that close. But maybe he and I shouldn't have been so distant.

I finally do look at Sarah and she is looking at me, smiling. "Chuck, if you have your phone, why don't you turn on some music? I'm never good at choosing."

I turn on the speaker, pull my phone from the pocket of my trunks and pair her speaker and my phone. I flip through my music: I have a lot. I want something that fits the scene. I choose Matt Pond PA's album, Still Summer. The first song, "A Spark" comes on and Sarah tilts her head listening.

"I like that," she says, closing her eyes and swaying to the song. I watch her for a moment understanding just how serious my condition has become — like, life-threatening, cardiac. She opens her eyes and laughs. "C'mon!"

She runs effortlessly to the end of the pier and dives into the pond, knifing perfectly into the air and cleaving the water splashlessly. I plunge in behind her, with less grace and more splash.

The water's cold, colder than I expected, and it shocks me for a second. I sink; the water's deeper than I expected too.

And then I feel her around me, warm and strong. We break the surface together, gasping, and then laughing together. No matter what happens, I will always have this moment — the sinking sun, the warm breeze, the cold water, her warm skin. I turn to her: she blinks water from her eyes and then she kisses me and swims away. I swim after her. She lets me catch her and we kiss again. She swims to the pier and climbs out of the water and sits down. I climb up after her.

"Get us a beer, Chuck?"

I nod, assuming that's what's in the cooler. I pad wetly to it, leaving footprints on the pier. I dig two beers out of the ice and carry them to her, sitting down cross-legged next to her. I open one and hand it to her. She takes a drink as I open mine. The title song on the Matt Pond PA album starts:

The heat was hanging low on a dead-end evening
She was a tightrope walker on the dotted-yellow lines...

"Chuck," she says as she listens, her voice soft, dreamy as she stares into the water, "do you ever think about a different life?"

She turns to face me, her hair darkened by the water, her eyes deeper than the pond. I take a sip of my beer. "Different how?"

"Like, I don't know, a reversal. A one-eighty? Can a person do that, just change direction?"

I look out over the water. Dusk is settling on us and bringing fireflies with it. As each glows above the water, its reflection glows on the water. Sarah looks and I hear her breath catch.

"I don't know," I begin softly, trying to answer her question with a seriousness that matches the question and the moment, "I guess I think so. Habits can be hard to break, that's sure, but people get mixed up. The problem's not breaking the old habits, as if you were going back in time. We break old habits by creating new ones, going forward in time. The new habits, if we make them, shoulder the old ones out."

She does not look at me; she's staring at the water again, the blinking fireflies and firefly reflections. She gives herself a shake after a few minutes pass. "So, did you talk to your friend at the DMV, your old crush, about the rusty pickup?"

I hadn't thought about that since I found Sarah in Diana's office. "Yes, actually. The man's name is Bill Peppers. He works at Briggs and Stratton."

She gives me a puzzled look.

"It's a factory on the south end of Auburn. They manufacture small engines — mainly for lawn mowers and such-like. It's been an important employer here. Anyway, the Peppers guy works there. I plan to go out there tomorrow and see if I can find out anything. I guess I'll take Morgan with me."

"Really? Does he detect too? I thought he just did...well, whatever he does in that front room."

"The boss out at Briggs and Stratton is Big Jim Sutton. He doesn't like me but he likes Morgan."

Her puzzled look returns. "Doesn't like you but does like Morgan?"

"Big Jim is Hannah's father."

"Oh," Sarah says simply. She sips her beer then follows the new line of conversation. Her tone's light. "Hannah seems like she's nice."

"She is. We've been friends for a long time. We dated a little as high school ended."

"Not since?"

"No, not really. We've gone to some things together but never as a couple."

"Because of her dad?"

I chuckle. "No, it's sort of the other way around." I don't explain that.

Trying to match her tone, I say: "Bryce seems like he's...nice." I can't keep the pause out of my comment.

Sarah chuckles — I love that sound. Little bells on trees. "Bryce is Bryce."

"You say you two grew up together?"

She sighs. "In a manner of speaking, yes."

"But I thought you moved around a lot."

She nods, glances at me then away. "My dad sort of adopted Bryce. He ended up moving around with us for a while."

I don't quite understand that but I don't ask for an explanation. I just nod and sip my beer.

Sarah scoots closer until she is against my side. She reaches for my arm and makes it clear she wants me to put it around her. I do and pull her close. She turns quickly and kisses my ear, then rests her head on my shoulder.

To say that I'm not sure exactly what's happening, that I've been lost since Sarah told Diana we were dating, would be an understatement. This — as darkness gathers — doesn't just feel like a date, it feels like us together.

But we've never actually dated, so how can we be together? I don't pursue the question. Sarah lifts her head and we look at each other and serious kissing commences.

Matters are about to get out of hand — because matters are about to get in hand — when Sarah pulls back. She gives me a teasing laugh and stands, brushing her bottom. She steps carefully off the pier and onto the raft. She does it without a hint of lost balance.

She crooks her finger at me as she sits down on the raft. I step out, surprising myself by not falling in or upsetting the raft, and sit down beside her. She unties the raft and paddles with one hand on her side. She gives me a look and I start paddling with one hand on mine.

The raft moves slowly away from the pier. Sarah stops paddling after a distance and I do too. She stretches out on the raft and motions for me to do so too. We are beneath the fireflies now. Their lights shine down on us.

The fireflies are beneath the now visible stars.

I try to sharpen all my senses, to etch this in my memory. I survey it all.

We drift for a while. Then Sarah asks, "Bill Peppers?"

"Yeah, does that name mean anything to you?"

"No, I've never heard it before. I'd never seen him before yesterday."

"Mmhmm."

"So, what did you have to trade your old crush for the information?"

"Jill? I'm babysitting her boys — five and seven — on Friday night."

Sarah rolls carefully onto her side, looking at me. "Want some help?"

There are so many things I should ask her, so much I don't understand. But some nights should just be and not mean. I roll over carefully, say yes, and serious kissing recommences.

A/N: Ah, night swimming.