asking me to do the one thing I’m most afraid of!”
Grandpa remained silent for a long moment.
Then he suddenly asked:
“Do you know why your grandmother never went into this pool during the last ten years of her life?”
I was confused.
“No.”
He opened the old box on the table. Inside were photographs. Grandpa picked one up.
It showed a young woman with a round face, a large stomach, and full hips. She was standing beside that very swimming
pool.
“Is that Grandma?”
“Yes. When she was thirty-five.”
I was stunned. She looked so much like me that, for a moment, I thought I was staring at an old photograph of myself.
“Your grandmother spent years being ashamed of her body,” Grandpa said. “Every summer, she promised that the following year, she’d finally swim with me. But she always found a reason to postpone it.”
