The Last Days of the Swim Taxi

He had to pass a test at the hospital before they’d let him in our car. On the tenth day in the NICU, hooked up to all the beeping things, we watched him sit in their car seat. I glanced at the O2 monitor over and over. His floppy head seemed to sink into his neck and I worried he wasn’t getting enough air. What if he failed the test? What if Baby Elliott got an F in Car Seat Breathing and they didn’t let us take him home?

“All set,” they said.

“Wait what?” I said. How irresponsible, them letting us take him all by ourselves. We were novices. I didn’t know how to keep him alive. Surely the NICU nurses could come with us. Our car had three extra seatbelts.

My husband, Alex, drove carefully while I sat next to Elliott in the backseat staring at his little body the whole way home to make sure he was breathing. Four pounds, ripped out early and buckled in a five-point harness when he should’ve still been attached to my placenta.

Our first car ride together. Little did I know how many miles we’d log over the years.

In elementary school I signed him up for year-round swim to get him out of the basement and off video games. The first few days he screamed at me from the back of the minivan all the way to the pool, “I hate you!” The drive felt interminable. I gritted my teeth and made a chart. One point for practice, five points for meets, and at the end of the chart, he got the video game he wanted.

By the end of the chart, he was a swimmer. Driving to the pool every day after school became routine.

I found a carpool of other swim boys. Our pool is on the other side of town, and we burn up the highway back and forth all week long. Every day after school we’d meet at the Rite Aid on the corner, where our boys would climb in our rotating vans lugging bags bigger than they were, filled with fins, kickboards, snorkels, caps, and goggles. We scheduled carpool month to month, and the boys learned to sweet talk one of us into running through the Chick-fil-A drive-thru for milkshakes a couple times a week.

The Rite Aid became Walgreens and our carpool became smaller as the boys grew, schedules changed, and kids started getting their licenses. But for Jack and Elliott, the months became years and they moved up through the training groups together. Jack’s mom, Ashley, and I became friends and our texts grew from schedules to laughter to prayers as we schlepped and scheduled and rooted for our swimmers, a couple of swim taxi drivers watching our boys become men. Milkshakes turned to protein shakes and we added in dryland, what swimmers call the gym. We drove to the pool then the gym then home. Pool-gym-home, pool-gym-home.

They’re silent on the way to the pool, eating and snoozing and texting quietly. Occasionally one of them snickers and I strain to hear what they’re saying, a fly on the steering wheel. On the way home, they chatter, hyped up on endorphins and proudly going over everything the coaches made them do. In between drop off and pick up, I live my own life.

There are five options for Swim Taxi Moms killing time during practice when it’s too far to drive home in between, and I’ve done them all.

Number One: The Errand Taxi, when I go into Target for shampoo, cinnamon tea, and mascara, and come out with those things, plus leggings, candy for a holiday that’s still two months away, new trash cans because the old ones keep disappearing, and a memoir.

Number Two: The Working Taxi, when I sit in the car and write a rough draft on my laptop or in the notes section of my phone, read a book, answer email, or wait on hold with a doctor’s office for 45minutes.

Number Three: The Nap Taxi, when I park in the spot farthest away from the entrance, lay the seat all the way back, and leave this mortal plane until the boys are done and knock on the window and I startle out of a deep sleep and scream a bad word.

Number Four: The Mom Date Taxi, when I arrange to meet a friend at the nearby bistro after drop off, and we eat chopped salads and sweet potato fries until I fly back to the pool fifteen minutes late.

Number Five: The Exercise Taxi, when I walk around the nearby lake and through the neighborhoods or schedule a hot yoga class that finishes just in time for pick up, and I stink up the car with my sweaty Mom stench on the way back.

Swim Taxi Driver is my part-time job and I schedule my week around trips to the pool.

“Sit your wet butts on the towels, guys,” I said as they climbed into my first post-minivan, new-to-me SUV with leather seats. Leather seats that heat my butt! What are we, royalty?! After a while, I stopped spreading towels down and let them slide in wet. The leather didn’t seem to mind.

My car smells like chlorine, clean and disinfected. Swimmers smell the best of all the sports kids.

I took Elliott to all-day meets on weekends an hour or two away. We developed a routine in the wee hours of the morning, getting up, making breakfast, and packing snacks to last through the final heat. I drove in the dark while he slept.

During my cancer treatment, my parents took over my half of the carpool. Grammy, Granddaddy, and Ashley coordinated rides. Couldn’t let my cancer keep the boys from the pool. They texted me updates at meets while I lay on the couch on pins and needles. My husband texted me when Elliott got his state cuts and sent me a photo of our giant former preemie grinning in the snow.

I was so sick of driving, and then cancer hit, the seatbelt sliced straight across the painful port on my chest, and I missed the hours of driving and waiting and killing time. The first time I drove after chemo was swim carpool. It felt good to be behind the wheel, to smell the chlorine, to listen to the boys. This thing that felt like a chore became a gift. I get to drive them. I get to be part of this.

Our babes made the high school team together and we added crack-of-dawn practices to our taxi schedule. We drove to the pool and home then school then the pool then the gym then home again. Up and down, around and through, coordinating drive schedules each week, talking tech suits and goggles and dive over starts.

I see the upperclassmen heading to their own cars while the parents of the freshmen line up in the circle drive. Soon that’ll be Elliott, I think. I’m tired of driving and relieved. I’m devastated to miss these car moments and never want them to end.

He takes the team bus to meets now. I drive separately and hunt for him on the pool deck, like “Where’s Waldo” with speedos and caps, and text him “Great job!” “You’re amazing!” “Nice PR!” He’s so big. He’s so fast. I’m so proud.

My passenger seat is empty on the drive home. He takes the bus home and texts that the team is going to eat. He gets a ride home from a friend.

When our team won county for the twenty-third year in a row, by one point, one point out of hundreds, Ashley and I screamed our heads off and body slammed each other into a hug, jumping up and down while our husbands laughed at us. Our boys held the trophy and we took photos.

It’s pure joy seeing our kids work hard and bring their dreams to fruition. We parents sit together at state, watching morning prelims and afternoon finals. Our boys are a world away on the pool deck down below. We scream proudly from the nosebleed section of the same aquatic center where Elliott had his first meet all those years ago. The pool seemed so big then. He’s grown into it.

My son is getting his license soon. In a few weeks he’ll have another kind of car test and I’ll be the one struggling with my breathing.

My days as swim taxi driver will be over. I’m so tired of driving but I don’t want it to end. What will I do with all my newfound time when my mornings and evenings and weekends are free? I’ll miss sitting in the dark, whether it’s 6 a.m. or 8 p.m., watching wet kids in swim parkas stumble out into the parking lot, another practice survived.

Elliott and Jack get into my car and as I drive away, they say, “Hey we were thinking, can we get milkshakes, for old times’ sake?”

I grin and head toward Chick-fil-A. “Absolutely.”

These are the last days of the swim taxi, and I’ll treasure every moment till the day I stand in the driveway while my baby drives off.

Melanie Dale is the author of four books, Women Are Scary, It’s Not Fair, Infreakinfertility, and Calm the H*ck Down. She’s a writer for the TV series Creepshow, a monthly contributor for Coffee+Crumbs, and her essays are published in The Magic of Motherhood. She has appeared on Good Morning America and has been featured in articles in Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, The Bump, Working Mother, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Los Angeles Times. To get out of the office, she spent the last few years shambling about as various zombies on The Walking Dead. She and her husband live in the Atlanta area with three kids from three different continents and an anxious Maltipoo named Khaleesi.