Rusty’s mom was elated when she saw us standing at her door. There were big hugs all around until she noticed Rusty’s crutches.
“What happened to you?” Bev asked.
We’d come to San Diego for some peace, to splash in the pool and walk the beach. But I couldn’t put the fire behind me. Every reminder of it sent my emotions spiraling. I tried not to let it show.
“From what I hear I got beat by a little old lady,” Rusty joked. His voice was almost back to normal but it still faded if he talked a lot. Another reminder.
“How long can you stay?” She asked.
Rusty looked at me. He wasn’t sure who we were here for this time. He wasn’t sure what it would take.
“Mom, I don’t know,” he confessed. “We came to…”
“Regroup, I know,” Bev answered. “I’ll call Sandy. Maybe she will come for dinner tonight. And you’re not sleeping in the attic. You’re not climbing all those stairs with crutches.”
“We like the attic, crutches or no crutches. We like to sleep out on the balcony,” he said.
Cody came home from work beaming, “Hey! Little Sis! You’re still in one piece!” Then he saw Rusty. Every time Rusty joked about his leg I sank deeper. By the time Bill and Sandy had joined the group I was having a hard time staying pleasant. We barbecued around the pool and then Chase walked in. Cody got up and got Chase a plate and a beer just like he always did.
“Aren’t you going to ask Rusty what happened to him?” Cody asked Chase.
“Nope. What have you been telling them?” he asked Rusty.
“That a little old lady beat me,” Rusty answered.
Chase shrugged. “Yup, she got me, too,” Chase said.
“Wait a minute,” Cody said. “You were there and Rusty was there? In Joshua Hills? This has Cassidy written all over it.”
Everybody looked to me and I was stuck. How could I tell Rusty’s family what happened when I still couldn’t even admit it to myself? I couldn’t even talk about it to Rusty!
“Yeah, I was there, too,” I managed to say.
“There were three of you, against one little old lady, and Rusty came out of it with a broken leg?”
“One little old lady in the dark with a stun gun,” I added.
“That still…”
“At the top of a flight of stairs,” I added. “Rusty took the worst of it because he was the first one in.” And that was as far I could go. I pretended to go to the kitchen for a refill and quietly disappeared. I put on some shorts over my swimsuit and went for a walk. After a while I went for a run and when I was all run out I went for another walk. When I feel good I can run five miles. I maintain that, since I have to do a lot of backpacking, and it was required for academy, I just figured it was good to maintain an easy five miles. When I feel rotten I can go seven because I push myself. I kick my ass. I use the run to give myself a good cussing out, physically. So by the time I stopped running I was beat and I was probably seven miles from the Michaels’ house. And I still didn’t know the city very well, so I was lost. Well, not really lost. I could find my way back. It was just going to take some figuring to do it. I knew to head uphill and I knew to watch for streets named after explorers. It was late at night when I finally dragged myself into the house. Rusty stood as I came in the door and started to hobble over.
“No, don’t walk on your leg,” I told him. I walked over and gave him a big, worn out hug.
“You can’t run from this forever,” Chase said.
“Who said?” I asked.
“It’s going to beat you unless you do something about it.”
“How much did you tell them?”
“Just enough so they think you’re a hero,” Chase said.
“Oh Chase, you didn’t. Please say you didn’t.”
That night the nightmares were particularly fierce. I woke with a start thankful I hadn’t woken Rusty. I paced the attic on silent feet. It didn’t help. I put on my swimsuit and dropped the rope ladder that went from the balcony to the ground. I climbed down and slipped into the pool. I swam laps under water so it wouldn’t be noisy but I had to stop because I couldn’t swim under water and cry at the same time. No matter what I did I felt worse. Not only did I dream about the fire now, I dreamed about the hospital. All the hopelessness I had felt was magnified. And when I dwelled on them I felt the same hopelessness woven with guilt and I was miserable. I swam and swam trying to out swim my emotions. Running hadn’t worked. It looked like swimming wouldn’t work either.
There was a scrape of a chair on flagstone and I froze, surprised I had heard it in my haste amongst the water noises. It’s a little hard to freeze in seven feet of water. I made my way to the side and hung on, ears tuned for the smallest sound.
“Rusty’s right, you are hard to sneak up on,” Bill said. Rusty’s dad.
“Thanks,” I said trying desperately to reel in my emotions.
“What are you doing out here all by yourself?”
“I woke up and couldn’t sleep. I needed to work something off and I knew Rusty wouldn’t want me to go running.”
“Is what Chase said, true?”
“From Chase’s point of view? Probably.”
“Then why the conflict?”
“Chase doesn’t know the whole story. He’s missing about ten minutes. But it’s ten minutes I’d give anything to go back and fix.”
“Ten minutes?”
“If anybody knows how much can happen in ten minutes it’s you. Our luck made up for my stupidity.”
“Chase says you saved their lives.”
“Bill, please,” I cried. “I can’t talk about it. I just can’t.” I pulled myself out of the pool and headed for the ladder but Bill beat me to it.
“You can’t say what?”
I was shaking with sadness and rage at myself and anger at him for pushing.
“Please, let me go. If you were almost anybody else you’d have a fist fight on your hands right now. You’ve pushed too far. I’m in fight or flight and if you don’t back off I’m… I’m…I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Chase is right, you can’t run from this.”
“Chase is usually right. As long as Rusty’s okay the memories will fade. Rusty said they would, once, after a different bout of trouble. These will too.”
“How long? Can you wait that long?”
“I have to. I just have to.”
“You don’t have to, give it to me.”
“I can’t! You’d hate me. If you knew…”
“Nothing could make me hate you,” he said releasing the ladder. I climbed up and looked at Rusty still sleeping. It wasn’t like him to sleep through things. Usually, a slight noise was enough to put him on guard. Voices woke him easily. I had thought just my being in the pool would wake him up. I thought it meant he was still recovering from the smoke and that made me sadder. I paced the attic until I gave up, and curled up in a beanbag chair I found deep in the recesses of the attic. I moved a game controller out of the way and cried myself to sleep.
“Cassidy? Hon? What you doing here? Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings. I could see why he wondered. I was deep under the eves of the roof wedged in between the TV and a bookcase full of game cartridges and paperbacks. A half played game of backgammon lay on the floor by my head.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just had a rough night and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“What if I want you to wake me?”
“You had plenty of chances. You must have needed the sleep.”
He noticed the swimsuit, the hair that dried scrunched up in the beanbag chair.
“Hon, I need my girl back. Can you find her for me?”
“I’m trying. Let’s go see if she’s at the beach today.”
“I don’t think we’re going to find her by going different places.”
“It can’t hurt to try. Maybe some good memories will replace the bad ones.”
The sun was warm and sparkled on the water as I felt a swell coming behind me.
“Don’t try to stand up,” Cody said as he comfortably treaded water beside the surfboard. “Just ride the wave in for now. Later you can kneel on the board. But don’t try to stand from the very beginning. It’s all in the balance.”
I looked to Rusty watching from the beach. He couldn’t swim with his cast on but he enjoyed the sand and sun. Even at the beach he watched for trouble. I’d found it here before but today trouble wasn’t looking for me.
I felt the wave lift me up and felt a rush of wind as the board slid through the water. Chase skimmed down the face of the wave beside me. He was a seasoned surfer, taking it up before I was born. Cody was teaching me, gradually. The wave crested and the surf engulfed the surfboard, knocking me flat. I disappeared board and all while the water pounded around me, tossing the board around and driving me to the sandy ocean floor. I was tethered to the board, so all I had to do was not panic and eventually I’d be near the surface again. When the turbulence ended and I popped to the surface I saw Rusty, on his feet, waiting. I climbed back up on the surfboard and paddled out again.
“One of these days I need to learn how to steer,” I told Cody. I turned the board over to him. I knew he wanted to surf a lot more than he wanted to watch me fall off the board.
When I swam to shore I saw that Bill and Bev had joined the group. They had a picnic lunch. I was afraid to face Bill after the night before but he didn’t hold it against me.
“We have fried chicken or roast beef sandwiches,” Bill said.
“Sam at the taco stand promised to tell me all about Rusty’s crazy childhood at the beach but Rusty always finds a way to prevent that from happening.”
“You can’t believe Sam anyway,” Bill said. “He’s seen so many kids come through here. He gets them all mixed up.”
“You think so?” I asked. “Let’s see.”
I ran over to the taco stand, partly because Rusty couldn’t catch up to me in time, partly because I wanted some space. Sam looked at me for a second before he made the connection. He was pretty sharp. He’d only met me once or twice before.
“We have a bet going,” I told him. “I need a story about Rusty to prove a point.”
“Rusty? Michaels?”
“Yeah.”
His grin broadened.
“Okay! When Rusty was about fourteen he came out here with Tony and we had a battle of the stands, Rusty and I against Tony and Herschel the hotdog man. I cooked tacos as fast as I could and Herschel cooked hotdogs as fast as he could and the boys ate as fast as they could. The boys set up a table between the two stands and they had to finish their hotdog or taco before they could run back for another one. Rusty ate twelve tacos, but Tony only ate nine hotdogs. Then there was a conflict because the tacos fell apart and we weren’t sure if Rusty really ate a dozen tacos or if he fed the seagulls the tacos. Rusty argued that if he fed the seagulls all those tacos then he’d still be eating. Before they could settle the bet both boys turned green. When they tried to dig up the money to pay for the tacos and hotdogs they came up a couple of bucks short. Rusty walked around in a hotdog costume to make it up to us. He brought in a lot more customers so we all called it even.”
“Thanks Sam,” I said and bought a plate of nachos and cheese.
“Well?” asked Rusty when I got back.
I grinned, “Did you or did you not challenge Tony to a taco/hotdog eating contest when you were fourteen?”
He grinned back. “I was so sick. Tony was worse. That’s why I ended up walking around in the hotdog suit.”
“Oh, Rusty, you didn’t,” Bev said.
“Sam said Rusty ate twelve tacos and Tony ate nine hotdogs.”
“That’s all?” Bev said. “I thought you boys were going to eat us out of house and home.”
“That was after a three scoop sundae and churros from the boardwalk,” Rusty admitted.
“You didn’t do anything like that when you were a kid, did you?” asked Bev.
“I did a lot of dumb things in my time but they rarely involved food. Rusty’s heard the stories.”
“Most of Cass’s food stories are about weird things she’s had to eat to survive: gopher snake, vole, raw rabbit, cactus. It amazes me the ways she discovers how to survive on nothing. Cassidy lives by her wits.”
Yeah, I thought, and one of these days, if I’m not careful, I’m going to die by my wits.
“I think I need half a roast beef sandwich to go with these nachos,” I said.
We sat and ate and visited, glad the night before hadn’t damaged our relationship. After we ate I stretched out on a towel to rest.
“Are you tired?” Rusty asked.
“Yeah, I hardly got any sleep last night.”
“Same nightmares as usual?”
“Sort of, hospital dreams get mixed in, too, but only the scary part.”
“What can we do?” he asked.
“Wake me up if I start tossing and turning.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay, sit where you’ll cast a shadow on me.”
“That’s not what I meant either.”
“I know.”
I dozed off, thankful for even a little bit of peaceful sleep. Even ten minutes would help. At first I slept well, I have no idea how long it was but I found myself at the one place I couldn’t stand seeing. The staircase. Rusty? Or Chase. I had to choose. The fear felt like a lightning bolt made of ice that stabbed straight through me. I could move Chase. I couldn’t move Rusty. The choice. The decision would affect the rest of my life. If anything happened to Rusty I’d never forgive myself. But Chase had a chance. I had to give it to him. I had to. And in the dream when I chose Chase my world fell apart. The fire flared up consuming everything. I woke up crying. When I found the present again I was embarrassed.
“I told you to wake me,” I said through angry tears.
“Cassidy,” Bill said. “He was going to but I asked him not to. I wanted to see how deep this hurt goes.”
“Well, you still don’t know,” I said bitterly and I got up to leave but Bill followed.
“Dad, stop,” Rusty called, but Bill followed anyway.
“The crux of the matter lies in why you think I would hate you for what happened. Whatever that is, you’re dumping more hate onto yourself than I could ever conjure up for you.”
I broke into a jog.
“Cassidy,” he said jogging beside me. “Tell me what it is. Stop and tell me in one sentence what’s eating you alive.”
I broke into a run. He stuck to me like glue. I headed for the water and he tackled me. I went face first into the sand and an old lady ran up and started beating on him with a beach umbrella.
“You leave that poor girl alone!” she yelled.
He ignored her.
“Don’t go in the ocean feeling like this. It’s dangerous… Cassidy, tell me. Just one sentence.”
The lady turned beet red and walked off down the beach.
“I can’t! I can’t even admit it to myself…”
“Yes, you can, or it wouldn’t affect you this way. What’s doing this to you?”
The ocean’s roar was nothing compared to the battle in my head. I had to run, or hit something, or cry, so I cried. Face first in the sand with people walking all around us, I cried, “I chose Chase. How could I do that? I chose Chase.” Bill just sat there, Rusty’s worried look on his face. “How could I leave him in that old dry house? It was burning! But Chase had a chance. I could give Chase a chance. So I chose Chase.”
“You went for help…” Bill said.
“With the basement filling with smoke. A quarter mile. Help was a quarter mile away, on foot, and the basement was filling with smoke. And I didn’t know what kind of help there was. I knew I could get two cops to help get him out. But that’s all I could count on.”
“If Rusty hadn’t made it, what would you have done?”
“I would hike into the hills and never come out. I’d walk until I couldn’t walk anymore and when I was rested I’d walk some more. No food, no water. And I wouldn’t come back.”
“Chase would have found you.”
“No he wouldn’t. Ask Chase. If I knew he’d come after me, even he wouldn’t be able to find me. But we made it. It was touch and go for a little while and it was scary for a long while, but we made it.”
“Are you sure? Because Rusty’s not. He’ll never be whole until he sees you be whole.”
“I know. Bill, even when Rusty was semiconscious, he was worried about me. I tried to answer his questions about what happened. I thought he was worried about the case, what had happened, all the facts, but no matter what I told him, nothing would console him, until Kelly told him I was all right, that the guys were there for me. Chase and Kelly and Landon and Schroeder. When Kelly told him I was all right and I had backup he calmed down.”
“So the real heart of the matter was you hate the fact that you chose Chase over Rusty.”
“And he suffered for it. I hurt him. That’s what hurts. My stupidity hurt Rusty.”
“If you could go back and change those ten minutes, what would you change? Would you leave Chase? I don’t think so.”
“I’d hold my suspect at gun point and not let her move. I let her curiosity get to me. What she was doing seemed harmless and I was curious, too. She tripped a booby trap and it started the house on fire. If I could go back I’d keep Agnes spread eagled, at gun point, until the guys woke up and took over.”
“So you learned something from all this. I’m sorry you had to pay the price for it that you did. Would you choose Chase again?”
I sighed, “Yeah, I’d choose Chase again and it would be just as hard and painful as it was this time. Every time I felt Chase’s heel catch on a stair I counted the seconds it was costing Rusty. But I’d do it again. Because Chase did have a chance. I had to give it to him.”
“So when are you going to quit punishing yourself?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I think there’s healing in forgiveness. I think you can start right now. Choose to forgive yourself and even if you don’t feel forgiven you’ll have taken a step. Even if you have to do it every day, choose to forgive. You’ll find those days coming less often and then one day you’ll know you don’t need to do it anymore. When that day comes you’ll be whole again. Will you do it?”
“I… I don’t know if I can.”
“I’m not asking you to do it all at once. I’m only asking you to take the first step for your own good.”
“I don’t want any good for me. I don’t deserve it. I need a good thrashing. I’d feel better if I just had a good thrashing.”
That saddened him and that’s how I knew I had his forgiveness. If he could forgive me, maybe Rusty could, too.
“You’ve thrashed yourself enough. It’s not helping. It hurts those around you to see you go through this. Forgive yourself. Stop this cycle you’ve put yourself in. You’ve faced it. You’ve put it in words. You can see it. Now put it behind you.”
He stood and gave me a hand up.
“You’re forgiven. You wanted my forgiveness. You’ve got it. I couldn’t hold onto any ill feelings while I watched you dream. Your hurt runs deep and it’s only there because you love my son. You love him so much it hurts. I can’t fault you for that. Now you need to forgive yourself.”
We headed back. He kept looking behind us. I didn’t realize how far I’d run before Bill stopped me. He looked behind us again.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Seeing if you put it behind you yet.”
“You can’t see that.”
“I’ll be able to see when you’ve done it. It’ll free you and you’ll be more like my favorite daughter-in-law again.”
“I’m your only daughter-in-law.”
“I’ll know when it happens,” he said confidently.
Rusty stood and crutched his way over when he saw us coming. Bill joined Bev on the beach blanket so Rusty and I could talk.
“Why is it always the dads you gotta watch out for?” Rusty joked, knowing my dad had his own quirks.
“It’s okay, he’s a wise man. And he cares an awful lot. Any guy who will tackle his daughter-in-law and endure a beach umbrella beating just to talk has got to care, right?”
“He didn’t…” Rusty said heading back for the blanket.
“Rusty, don’t. I know why he did it. It’s okay. He meant well.”
“I should have waked you, no matter what Dad said. Where does that much sadness and fear come from? I can’t imagine one person capable of handling that much sadness.”
“If I could I wouldn’t have nightmares. Your dad says I won’t find peace until I’ve forgiven myself. But I can’t.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong. What can you possibly have to forgive yourself for?”
Don’t run, I told myself. You can’t run from Rusty. You have to face it so just toughen up and get through it.
He saw the walls go up and he stopped.
“This is a brown couch issue, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But there’s no brown couch.”
“I can take you home. We can use the attic.”
“No, it’s just time. I don’t have the strength to hide it anymore.”
We walked in silence for a while as I gathered my thoughts. I finally thought I had found a way to explain what was in my heart. When we found a quiet place we sat down.
“One time Landon and I were on our way to the compound to get our cars after a search. There was a traffic accident and we got out to tend to the victims. Landon treated a mom and a couple of kids and I went and talked to the guy in the other car. He freaked out and fled the scene and I tracked him to a little bar and grill. He turned out to be one of the men you were looking for. I went in to ID the guy from the accident scene and you and a team of cops converged on the place not knowing I was in there. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah. I remember. Alfonso.”
“You were fixing to send the bomb squad robot to stun grenade the place. You called me to say you were going to be late for dinner and you found out that I was in the bar and grill. You said, if you’d gone ahead with the plan and launched things into the restaurant to bring Alfonso out and then found out I was in there you’d have been a basket case.”
“And I would have.”
“I did worse. I did worse to you and it wasn’t just uncomfortable things like pepper spray. And the only reason for it was carelessness. If I’d just followed procedure the fire wouldn’t have happened. But I slipped and it cost you. It could have killed you. Every decision I made cost you. When I let Agnes look in the desk, it cost you. And when I chose to pull Chase out of the house it cost you more. I relive every second of that time a hundred times a day. Because I hurt you. I ask myself a hundred times a day, how could I choose Chase? I’m a basket case, because I hurt you.”
He was quiet for a long time.
“You can’t continue like this,” he said. “I don’t have any easy answers for you, but you can’t continue like this. You’re going to beat yourself to a pulp and I can’t watch you do that. Decide you’re moving forward. When it slows you down just tell yourself, that’s in the past and you’re moving forward. Then do it. Don’t let it drag you back.”
“You really want me to do that?”
“I think it will help. I want my girl back. I want to see you fly free again. I love to see you go after life. It’s beautiful when you really enjoy life, whether you’re on the trail or at the beach or stalking deer. When you’re really living you’re the most beautiful thing in the world.”
“So, you can forgive me? For what I did to you?”
“I hundred times over, if that’s what it takes.”
I was forgiven. Rusty still loved me. I didn’t quite understand it but I could accept it.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try.”
“You’ll try what?”
“I’ll try to forgive myself and I’ll try to move forward without running. I won’t let it drag me back. I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ll try.”
“That’s my girl. That’s more like it. What do you want to do to move forward?”
“First? I’m going to learn how to surf, or at least how to spot a wave and steer. Maybe I’ll even learn how to stand up.”
“You really want to learn how to surf?”
“I want to learn anything that will get me outside. I’d rather be doing something at the beach. The more active I can be the less I will think about things that get me in trouble. That’s why I tell Strict to put me to work, why I went to ATV training. Will you teach me rock climbing?”
“After the cast comes off.”
“Okay, first though, surfing. Let’s go see if Cody is tired of it. Maybe he’ll let me have a turn.”
Cody had just flopped down on the towel ready to call it a day.
“Go on. Chase is out there. He’ll help you,” Cody said. I wrestled the surfboard under my arm and jogged slowly down to the water. I paddled out to wait my turn. I tried to leave the good waves for the experienced surfers who could appreciate a good ride. My only goal was to learn how to read the waves. I could do that by watching. It was what I was good at, careful observation, pattern recognition, watching the surfers’ feet on the board, translating it to board movements. Tracking on the water. Chase paddled up and sat on his board.
“Chase, I’m not running anymore.”
“What are you doing?”
“Actually I’m tracking the surfers. I’m learning surfing tracker style.”
Little laugh lines. “If anybody can do it, you can. So, if you’re tracking have you noticed the difference between a regular foot and a goofy foot?”
“A what? A goofy foot? Give me some time to observe. I’ve only been doing this a few hours.”
Chase always knew the right questions to ask to get me thinking. A goofy foot? I began watching people’s feet. Most people put their left foot forward. I imagined myself if I ever learned to stand on a surfboard. How would I stand on one? Well, after falling off a hundred times. When I knew what I was doing, how would I stand on a surfboard? I decided it would be left foot forward. If most people led with their left foot, then the people who put their right foot forward must be goofy footed. While I was figuring all that out I was watching feet, and the board’s reactions to the foot movements.
A wave swelled underneath me and I could tell this one had my name on it. I stayed out the way of the experienced surfers so I wouldn’t infringe on their territory, but this wave had strayed into my territory. I lay on the board trying to feel just that right time when I could catch the wave.
“Paddle! Paddle!” yelled Chase. “Okay, wait, wait…now!”
As I skimmed down the wave I looked behind me. No fire, so far so good.
A couple of waves later Cody paddled out.
“Where’d you get the surfboard?” I asked, because I was using his.
“This one’s yours,” he said. “The color was Rusty’s choice. He said it had to be visible from the air.”
Leave it to Rusty, anything to help me move forward. I bet we took a lot of trips to the beach, too. Cody and I traded boards. I let him take the next wave, watched the timing, the movements. When it was my turn I found the crest, almost missed on the timing, I had to hurry. Up, up it went then…then down! It went down and the board slipped forward. Everything felt right. My heart leaped. Now, to stand. Getting from a prone position to a standing position on a moving board was impossible, just a little off and I was tossed off the side, the wave lost to me. Again and again, it was a matter of balance. Once I got the side-to-side motion under control I had to work on forward backward position. Time after time I was too far forward and the board plunged into the water, dumping me over the front. When I was exhausted I rode the board back to the beach and flopped down on the blanket. Rusty grinned glad to see me doing something besides thinking.
“So,” Chase said as he walked up with a drippy hotdog, “Did you figure it out?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Not I think so. No questions?”
“No, I figured it out. A regular foot is someone who surfs with their left foot forward and a goofy foot is someone who surfs with their right foot forward. I told you I was tracking out there.”
That night I thought I would be too tired to have nightmares but I was wrong. Rusty woke me gently and held me until the fear subsided.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s just…”
“Nope, no looking back,” he said. “Only forward.”
Sigh, “Okay, so how am I supposed to do that with only an attic and my thoughts?”
He winked at me, then got up and tossed the ladder over the balcony. We snuck down the ladder. Descending a rope ladder in a cast is not easy.
“If they’d given me a choice, I would have told them to give you a cast you could swim in, but they didn’t ask.”
“It’s okay, I can watch.”
“Guess my bathing suit being in the downstairs bathroom doesn’t mean anything.”
“Not in the middle of the night.”
He sat on the side of the pool, one leg in the water, broken leg on the side of the pool. I slipped out of my tank top and panties and dove into the pool, then paddled up to Rusty. I tickled his leg with my fingers and he splashed me with his foot. He pulled out his foot and turned around, dangling his hands into the pool. I swam into his touch and gave him a kiss. The porch light switched on and Bill stuck his head out the back door.
“Dad!” Rusty said.
“Sorry,” he said grinning. “What are you doing up in the middle of the night?”
“We’re not looking back,” I answered from the shelter of the poolside.
“That’s better,” he answered and went inside.