The Stork
The mistake, of course, was one day taking us to a beach which boasted clear translucent waters, instead of a dark blue murkiness. Running en masse down to the shoreline shrieking. Maybe this time. Maybe today we would take flight upon the waves, limbs finally pumping the right way, swimming! Moving like him, like…wait…standing. Standing like a bloody stork on one leg while the waves lapped around him and he paddled with his arms. The sharp shock of it, pulled up short, not from the sting of a jelly or the slap of the cold water, but something other, worse.

"Daddy you're cheating!" Hands clutching at cheeks in horror, a mini-munch, O like the fireball in the sky.

And the terrible fallingdownness of discovering that your father is a damned, unswimmable, fraud.