Page 17 of Shining Pearls
Dean shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe he chose to take her because he wanted her for himself. There’s a good chance that he misconstrued her kindness as romantic interest in his twisted mind.”
I nodded sadly. It was becoming harder and harder to find any reason to dislike Claire. As much as I wanted to believe that she wasn’t worthy of Alex’s profound love and devotion, I was beginning to fear that she might actually deserve both.
14
Claire
Before I knew it, Tuesday was here, and it was time to take Hannah to her swimming lesson with Josie. Hannah was excited and looking forward to it just as much as––if not a bit more than––I was dreading it.
Alex tried to talk me out of going, claiming that there was no reason to put myself through that. He had even offered to take Hannah to her lesson, but the last thing I wanted was to force my husband to see and spend time with his mistress. The fear was still very much alive within me that he might decide he would be happier with her and leave me.
Hannah’s swimming lessons proved to be difficult for me beyond just the torture of seeing the woman Alex had an affair with. Watching my daughter splash and laugh in the pool made my anxiety rise to unprecedented levels. Even though I knew she was having fun, I kept picturing my father shoving me off the dock into deep water at the harbor and shouting at me to “Sink or swim!”
Those memories haunted my nightmares to this day. Many nights I woke up panicked and covered in a sheen of sweat as my subconscious relived those long moments of flailing in the water before my tiny kid sister jumped into the water to rescue me. Meg had always been the athletic one, despite her diminutive size.
In my terror, I knocked her in the face with my elbow and fought against her, but she had refused to give up on me. My father had stared at us in disgust as my little sister kicked her scrawny legs and towed me to shore. He was a tough guy who believed in picking your own switch to be beaten with or using his worn leather belt on our rear ends, if he felt the situation called for it.
I’d always had the impression that he resented Meg and me for not being sons, but in that moment as he glared down at us as we panted on the beach, it was obvious that he truly hated us––me for my weakness and Meg for having a soft spot in her heart for me.
From that day on, he emotionally checked out even further from our family. Although my mother would never openly accuse me, I knew that she believed that awful day was the catalyst that convinced him to abandon us and never look back.
I told myself that I didn’t care and that we were better off without him, but I still felt massively guilty for my significant part in his decision to leave. Meg adored our father, and she was never quite the same after he bailed on us.
Hannah’s loud squeal after she successfully swam by herself a few feet underwater echoed around the swimming facility. The sharp, high-pitched sound startled me and drew me out of my rumination.
It was wonderful to see her having so much fun––even if it was in the water. I would gladly endure a great deal of discomfort in order for her to enjoy herself, as long as she was safe. Even though I was bitter about Josie’s place in her life, I knew the woman truly cared about my daughter and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.
A text buzzed in on my phone from Alex.Everything going okay?
Yes, Hannah is having a blast at the natatorium.I clicked send and grinned at the ridiculous last word, which Alex had casually used this morning at breakfast to refer to the pool facility.
Hannah and I had a good laugh about her father’s vocabulary being next-level smart. He claimed he needed to know a wide range of words to be a successful author, but I disputed that assertion, since his books needed to be able to be understood by the general public.
After Hannah and Josie climbed the steps from the pool, I wrapped my pruny, shivering child up in a warm towel. She climbed onto my lap, which got me wet, but I didn’t mind. It was worth it to have my sweet little girl in my arms.
Josie tied her towel around her chest and stood awkwardly beside us, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Deciding to be the bigger person and try to be friendly with her, I asked, “Josie, do you know what a natatorium is?”
“Sure, it’s a room that has a pool, like this one.” She answered quickly, raising her arms to indicate the building surrounding us.
“Aww, that’s not fair,” Hannah chimed in. “Aunt Jo grew up in mad-a-tor-iuns because she’s the best swimmer in the whole wide world.”
The other woman and I shared a smile over the little girl’s adorable mispronunciation of the big word, even as I fought not to flinch from the sucker-punch to the gut provided by my daughter’s obvious pride as she bragged about Josie’s phenomenal swimming skills.
As much as I wanted to be mature about this, my stomach churned with jealousy that this woman was so good at something that frightened me to my core. Needing to make a break for it, I stood and carried my towel-bundled child to the locker room to shower off and change.
“Same time next week?” Josie yelled after us.
I couldn’t do anything more than nod, but Hannah filled the void by yelling back, “I can’t wait!”
15
Josie
Dean was giving me a disbelieving look as we walked together on the boulder path that jutted out in the water and led to Captain’s Point Lighthouse.
“No, really. It wasn’t that bad.” I defended my assertion that talking to Claire at Hannah’s swimming lesson hadn’t been nearly as awful as we had expected it to be.
“It had to be super-awkward. She knows you slept with her husband, right?”
