by Kate Hewitt
The day was crisp and cold, with the tiniest hint of spring in the air, just to fool us. I hoped Ella would be excited about her meet, and even the fact that I was going with her, although I realized that was a bit self-centered of me. Instead she seemed more withdrawn than usual, her face full of focus, striding down the sidewalk with far too much purpose for a ten-year-old.
“What’s the rush, Ella?” I asked lightly. “There’s plenty of time. We’re not in a hurry.”
“I want to get there early. I like to wait by the pool, so I’m ready.”
“You’re sounding like a real pro,” I teased gently. “How many times have you done this before?”
“One.” She scowled at me; clearly I was hitting all the wrong notes. “This time it’s going to be different.”
“Ella…” I tried to stay her with one hand on her shoulder, but she wasn’t having it, and she flung it off. “This doesn’t have to be so important, you know,” I said gently.
She looked at me with wounded incredulity. Yet another wrong thing to say. Even when I tried, I got it wrong. I told myself that didn’t matter; the trying was what did. Wasn’t that what Maria had said? Had she been right? In that moment, looking at Ella’s hurt face, I wasn’t sure anymore.
“I didn’t mean that it isn’t important,” I tried again. “Only that you don’t need to be worried about it.”
She just shook her head and kept walking.
When we got to the pool, Ella disappeared into the girls’ locker rooms while I drifted over to a stand of bleachers where parents were sitting. After exchanging a few awkward smiles, I realized pretty much everyone here knew each other except for me. People were sharing stories, talking about the world of competitive junior swimming, a universe I hadn’t realized had existed until this moment, when the acronyms and swimming speak about categories and levels and licensed meets flew around me as I settled onto the metal bleacher, the chlorine-heavy air stinging my eyes. All I’d known before today was that Ella swam. I’d been picturing something friendly and easy, akin to splashing around in a baby pool, but not quite. Obviously. Ella was ten. I felt the depth of my ignorance now, as a conversation with Laura that I may or may not have had surfaced in my consciousness.
Ella’s been picked for the junior swim team.
Oh?
It’s kind of a big deal.
Great.
I just don’t want her to feel pressured. She’s only ten.
She’ll be fine, Laura.
Except maybe Laura hadn’t said all that. Maybe she had, and I’d said something else.
Although, on second thought, I probably hadn’t.
I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees, as the teams came out. Ella was racing in one event, the butterfly. I knew that much, at least.
Something in me jolted at the sight of my normal dreamy daughter with her hair scraped back and hidden by a tight, white swim cap, striding down the length of the pool as she adjusted her goggles. Her body looked positively bony when all she was wearing was a black racing-back Speedo suit, all sharp points and uncomfortable angles. She definitely needed more milkshakes, and mentally I moved the appointment with the paediatrician to the top of my list.
I tensed as the girls, all looking so determined and so little, got ready. It wasn’t Ella’s race, but I was still nervous. A whistle blew. All the parents around me were straining forward, watching with equal parts eagerness and apprehension. One of them had a clipboard and a stopwatch. This was all far more intense than I’d ever realized. These little girls were twelve at the most, eight at the youngest, and they were all completely focused on what they were doing.
I sat through several races, the tension ratcheting higher with each one, until it was Ella’s turn. My heart was pounding, actually pounding, as she lined up in her lane at the end of the pool, toes curled over the concrete edge, body poised and ready.
The shrill piercing sound of the whistle made me jolt. Ella dove, her body arcing elegantly into the water, before she started cutting through it, arms windmilling, head bobbing up and down.
“Go, Ella! You can do it! Go!” I was yelling without even realizing what I was doing, half-rising from my chair. When the other parents had cheered and screamed, I’d looked at them a bit askance. Isn’t that a little much? They’re ten. Now I grew hoarse with yelling, even though I doubted Ella could hear any of it.
Yet as the race progressed, I started to realize she wasn’t going to come first. She wasn’t even going to come second. Even though she was trying her hardest, even though she looked amazing to me, Ella was going to come in fourth. I sat back down as the race ended, my heart sinking not because Ella hadn’t won, but because I had a terrible feeling she would take it badly.
I didn’t know how badly, until she hauled herself out of the pool, ripped off her swim cap and goggles, throwing them aside, and stalked towards the locker room. A coach followed her, and around me murmurs rippled like the tide.
Oh dear… it’s so difficult… poor sport… No, don’t say that. She’s only little.
The coach was trying to keep Ella by her, but I could see, even from the other side of the pool, that my daughter was falling apart. Her face was red, her hands clenched as she struggled between rage and grief. I didn’t understand why this race had been so important, only that it had been, and I wasn’t going to let my daughter deal with the fallout alone.
Quickly I rose from my seat and made my way down to the side of the pool, even though parents weren’t supposed to enter the pool area, and there was a large sign proclaiming boldly that no shoes were allowed. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get to Ella.
“Excuse me, sir…” One of the pool staff caught up with me, reaching for my arm.
“My daughter’s racing.”
“Parents are requested to—”
I shook her off and walked faster, my heart sinking as Ella shrugged off her coach yet again and ran into the female changing rooms. Of course, I couldn’t go into the changing rooms, and so I stood in front of the door, one hand pressed to the moisture-beaded wood, wishing I could break the door down, calling her name as loudly as I dared.
“Ella… Ella. It’s Dad. Daddy.” My voice caught on a ragged edge as I heard the sound of her choked cries from behind the door. My little girl was falling apart and she needed me. “Please come out, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay, I promise…”
“Excuse me, sir?” Another staff member hovered by me. “We really can’t have parents in the pool area.”
“Look,” I said, trying to sound reasonable and failing, “my daughter’s in there and she’s upset, okay? And her mother died three months ago.” Yes, I would pull that card if I had to.
“Why don’t I go get her,” the staff member murmured, and she went inside the locker rooms.
I waited, feeling helpless, everyone eyeing me askance, not that I cared at all. I was so tempted to storm through the doors myself, rules be damned, but some thread of common sense kept me tethered.
A few tense minutes later, Ella came out, her face blotchy and red, her hair in a damp tangle. She averted her gaze from me, shoulders slumped.
“Oh, Ella.” I dropped to my knees right there on the wet concrete and pulled her into my arms. She resisted at first, but then she came, her tense little body melting into mine as she burrowed her wet head into my shoulder, a shudder running through her. “Ella, sweetheart, love,” I said, the threat of tears thick in my throat, stinging my eyes. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“It isn’t.” Her voice was caught between a sob and a howl of rage. “It isn’t.”
There was a lot more going on here than swimming. I wasn’t so emotionally ill-tuned not to see that, although I knew I should have realized it earlier. Standing in the pool area, in the middle of a swim meet, with about a hundred spectators, I knew, was not the time to hash it all out.
“Ella, why don’t you get dressed,” I said as I eased back. “And then we’ll go out for milkshakes.”
Her lips trembled. “I don’t want a milkshake.”
“Something else, then. We’ll talk, Ella, but not here. I want to understand what’s going on. Please.”
She stared at me for a moment, her body still trembling, and then, finally, she nodded. I let out a quiet sigh of relief as she turned back towards the locker rooms.
I was conscious of the curious as well as censorious stares of the staff and swimmers, parents and coaches, as I stood there, my hands in my pockets, and waited for my daughter. Clearly we’d broken a million rules, and this was not the done thing. I didn’t care for myself, but I hoped it wouldn’t make things more difficult for Ella.
She came out of the locker room a few minutes later, dressed in her clothes and looking subdued. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she let me.
“Let’s go.”
“I’m meant to stay till the end of all the races…”
“I’m sure we can make an exception this time, Ella.” The woman who had tried to stop me before smiled down at her. “We’ll see you at practice on Monday, okay?”
I wasn’t sure about that, but I kept silent as Ella nodded miserably. The woman patted her clumsily on the shoulder and then we were thankfully walking out of the pool area, the air cold and fresh as we left the muggy, chlorine-heavy atmosphere behind.
We didn’t talk until we got to a diner a few blocks away, sliding into a well-worn vinyl booth and taking the laminated menus from the waitress that were nearly as tall as Ella.
“What would you like, Ella?” I asked, trying to inject a note of cheer into my voice that I knew neither of us were feeling. “You can have anything. Waffle a la mode? Cookies and cream milkshake?” I had a desperate urge to give her something full of cream and sugar, to put a little meat on her scrawny bones.
Ella just shook her head.
“Ella.” I put down the menu and looked at her directly. “Why was it so important for you to win that race?”
She shrugged and stared down at the menu. I waited, wishing I could read her mind. Ella had always been the dreamiest and most distant of children, in a way that was so different from Alexa’s deliberate sullenness. Ella was so often in a world of her own, happy to amble along. Her teachers had always said the same thing—Ella is a happy child but she doesn’t have any particular friends. Laura had sometimes worried about it, but I hadn’t troubled myself too much.
I was a bit of a loner at school, and I’m fine.
It was different for you, Nathan. You moved schools so often, you had to be that way. Ella doesn’t. Besides, wasn’t the whole point of this to give our children something different?
This. What had she meant by that? Was I imagining the frustrated tone creeping into her voice? Was I imagining the entire conversation? I had no idea. All I knew was I wanted to reach Ella now.
The waitress came to take our order, and Ella said she wasn’t hungry.
“Two chocolate milkshakes,” I said firmly. “And waffles with ice cream.”
“Daddy, I don’t want it.” Ella sounded angry.
“Then I’ll eat yours.” I tried to smile, but I felt too anxious. Why hadn’t I noticed what was going on with Ella before now? And what was going on with her? “Ella, will you tell me about the race?”
She shrugged, picking at a peeling corner of the Formica table. “I didn’t win.”
“Why was it so important to win?”
Another shrug.
“Ella.”
A long silence as Ella stared at the table, her damp hair falling in front of her face like a curtain. “Mom was so proud of me,” she finally whispered. “For being on the team.”
“She was,” I said after a second, feeling my way through the dark. “But she was always proud of you, Ella, whatever you did or didn’t do. And she’d be proud of you now, whether you came in first or fiftieth. I know that.”
Ella shook her head slowly. “I wanted to win. For her.”
A lump was forming in my throat, hard and heavy. I could barely speak past it. “I know you did, sweetheart, and I understand that. If you’d won, Mom would have been thrilled. Just as thrilled if you hadn’t. It’s you she loves, not your accomplishments, your grades or your races or anything like that.” I’d slipped into the present tense without even realizing it, and I felt it painfully now.
Laura was in the past. She wasn’t here, couldn’t be proud. She was gone. How could it still feel so surprising? How could it hurt as much now as it had in the beginning?
Gently I reached over and squeezed Ella’s hand. “Mom wants you to be happy, Ella. Happy and healthy and whole. That’s the most important thing. Not whether you win at swimming or not.”
Ella looked up at me, blinking back tears. “Do you think she sees me, Daddy? Can she see me swimming?”
I held onto her hand, my throat working as I tried to find the right words to say. Words Ella could hold onto, and words I could believe. “I don’t know,” I said finally. It felt like a big admission, and it was followed by an even bigger one, one that filled me with a humble longing. “I hope so.”
A tear trickled down Ella’s cheek as she tried to smile. “So do I.”
The waitress came with our milkshakes and waffles, and I ate all of mine, hoping to encourage Ella, but she had only a few sips of milkshake, not nearly enough. When I pressed her, she just shook her head. No easy fixes, then, but more small, limping steps. We were getting somewhere, even if I wasn’t sure where. That felt like as much as I could hope for. It was enough.
Twenty-Two
Maria
The next two weeks passed without incident. That is a funny word, incident—it was how they first described Laura’s murder. But those two weeks in February, when spring hovered in the air, like a promise or perhaps a taunt, we had no incidents at all.
I look back on them as if they were a dream, and yet at times they have felt like the most real part of my life. Ruby snuggling with me in the mornings. Sunlight streaming through the windows as we all ate breakfast. Board games at the dining room table after school. Ella slowly losing that pinched look—Nathan had taken her to the paediatrician, who gave her a meal plan and recommended a child psychologist that Ella had started meeting once a week. And Alexa… was I mistaken in thinking she had begun to soften? Sometimes she would slink into the dining room to watch us, forgetting her phone for a little while. At dinner once in a while she would say something, nothing much, but so much better than her sullen silence. I told myself these were steps forward, but I wonder now if I was fooling myself because I so wanted to believe there was a happy ending for all of us.
It all felt so hopeful, and that was something I had not felt in a long, long time. We were on the cusp, I was sure of it… I just didn’t realize of what.
Then, at the end of February, right before Laura’s parents were going to take the girls skiing, it changed in an instant. Ruby was at preschool and I was making sarma for dinner, the stuffed cabbage rolls the girls had discovered they liked. I remember how the sunshine slanted through the window and pooled on the floor, and how I was humming under my breath. I thought it was warm enough to take Ruby to the park after preschool; I thought I might even bring a picnic. If I did not feel happy, then at least I felt something close to it—a lightness I’d never thought to experience again.
Then my phone rang.
I did not recognize the officious-sounding voice on the other end of the line, a woman who asked for me by name.
“Is this Maria Dzino?”
“Yes…”
“I’m calling from The Walkerton School. I’ve been trying to reach Nathan West, but he’s been unavailable.”
“He’s at work. Is something wrong…”
“Alexa West has been suspended from school,” the woman stated in a flat voice. “She needs to be picked up from the premises immediately.”
A jolt ran through me, like a current, sharp and electric. “Suspended…” I was not entirely sure what this meant, but I knew it
could not be good.
“The headmistress, Miss Faber, can give you more information. May I assume you will be able to collect her?”
“Yes, of course.” It was still over an hour until I had to pick up Ruby. “I’ll come right now.”
I walked hurriedly to the school, my mind in a daze of worry. I tried calling Nathan twice, but his phone was switched off. I finally sent a text: Alexa is in trouble at school. Please come.
The receptionist knew who I was as soon as I walked through the school’s double doors, into its elegant lobby; she rose from her desk and ushered me into an office adjoining the lobby, a large, sunny room with polished wood, an imposing desk, and a thick carpet. There were several framed pictures on the wall, mostly of diplomas.
Alexa was sprawled in a chair in front of the desk, her bag in her lap. My heart sank as I saw the expression on her face—deliberately sullen and bored.
The headmistress rose from her seat behind the desk as I came in.
“Ms. Dzino? Please have a seat.”
I sat down opposite Alexa, glancing at her, but she looked away and refused to meet my gaze. I turned back to the headmistress, Miss Faber.
“What has happened here?” I asked.
“I’m afraid Alexa has been suspended.” I did not want to betray my ignorance of that word, so I just waited. After an uneasy moment where Miss Faber clearly expected something from me, she continued, “She will be suspended from school for one week.”
“She will not be able to come?”
Miss Faber’s expression tightened. “Yes, that is what suspended means.”
“Why has this happened?”
Miss Faber glanced at Alexa. “Alexa, would you like to tell Ms. Dzino why you are being suspended?”
Alexa shrugged.
After an arctic pause the headmistress continued, “Alexa was discovered skipping class, smoking and… congregating… with some boys from a nearby school.”