The Four Seasons

by Mary Alice Monroe

  Anne Marie hurried to her side. They wrapped their arms around each other and wept. Jilly held on to her daughter, squeezing her tight, reveling in the feel of her child in her arms for the first time. How many times had she dreamed of this moment, never believing it would happen? “Thank you, Merry,” she whispered.

  Jilly! She heard her name whispered and looked over her shoulder, but no one was there. She heard the voice again, a child’s voice. Jilly!

  “Where’s my grandchild?” Jilly asked, scanning the room, feeling a sudden unease.

  “Lauren!” Anne Marie called into the sudden silence, walking quickly around the room.

  Suddenly the room felt cold as they all realized that Lauren wasn’t in it. At once, they all began calling her name with attempted calm. No one wanted to express the panic they all felt as they began to search around the tables and tall plants of the restaurant.

  “Oh, she’s probably just playing hide-and-seek,” Susan said, but her face was white.

  “I’ll check the lobby,” Kyle said curtly, jogging from the room.

  “I’ll check outside,” Hannah volunteered and sprinted through the doors.

  Jilly, Birdie and Rose stopped at different areas of the room and zeroed in on one another, their eyes wide with panic. In that frozen moment, they all shared one thought between them.

  The pool.

  Without a word, they took off on a run. It was a reflex action, driven by memory.

  Jilly sprinted across the restaurant, her breath coming short. She heard again the high call of the birds circling around her. Jilly! Jilly! Help! Her feet hit the floor in time to her prayer, “Not again, not again, not again.”

  They sprinted through the lobby, Jilly in the lead, Birdie and Rose right behind her. Through the glass walls, between the foliage, she could see Lauren inside the conservatory tottering at the edge of the pool. Her hand was reaching into the water. In a heartbeat, she tumbled in.

  “Lauren!” Jilly screamed. She had only once before known such blank terror. She scraped her leg on a chair as she rounded the corner, then pushed through the glass doors, hearing the pounding footfall of her sisters behind her. Kicking off her shoes she ran across the tile, slipping once, catching her balance, then going straight to the edge of the pool. With one flying leap, she jumped in after her.

  The water felt as thick as syrup and her clothes grew heavy as she tried desperately to reach for her granddaughter. Two loud thumps echoed under the water as a large body jumped in to her left and another to her right. The turbulence caused a multitude of rocking ripples and a spray of bubbles that pulled her back from the small target of pink dress and white limbs flailing in the water.

  It was her nightmare all over again. Jilly felt a great fury and an inner screaming, “I will not lose her. I will not let anything happen to this child, by God, I will not!”

  With superhuman strength, she clawed through the water toward Lauren. Her breath was tight in her chest. She lunged downward, her hands reaching out through the veil of bubbles. She snagged a bit of cotton, tugged hard, then Lauren’s small body was in her hands. She pushed her arms upward toward the surface.

  Birdie and Rose broke the surface when she did. Rose grabbed hold of Lauren’s trunk to help Jilly lift her out from the water. Birdie climbed up the ladder to cradle the child and carry her out and over to the terrace.

  Jilly and Rose climbed from the pool and watched in silence as Birdie bent over the child and began checking her vital signs. She moved with quick precision, and for the first time Jilly saw her sister perform as a doctor. Jilly clung to Rose as Birdie administered CPR and she watched her granddaughter’s chest move up and down in rapid succession.

  In that millisecond of waiting, time stopped, rewound, then sped back at the speed of light to play a dark and murky scene for the Seasons.

  It was the summer of 1969. The sky was cerulean. The Bahama Blue waters of the swimming pool were wavy as the mermaids frolicked from the deep end of their make-believe world to the shallow end. But only two mermaids swam today. Rose was piqued that Jilly wouldn’t play and kept calling her into the pool. “Come on, Jilly! We need you.”

  But she wouldn’t come. Jilly was changing now that she was going into high school. She wasn’t interested anymore in their favorite game, or any game for that matter. All she cared about were those stupid friends and the boys who called and made her act all goofy. And Rose didn’t like it one bit. Jilly was talking to one of those boys now, stretched out on a lounge chair, all slathered up with suntan oil and listening to rock and roll.

  “Jilly, get off the phone and play. Please? It’s not the same without you. Jilly!”

  Jilly lifted her sunglasses to glare at her, then turned her shoulder and went back to her phone call.

  “I play! I play!” Merry called out from the ladder. “I wanna play!”

  “Get away from the pool, Merry!” Rose snapped back at her.

  Merry stepped back, pouting.

  Rose dove under water toward the pool’s drain for the orange plastic ring Birdie had thrown in. Today Birdie had made the new rule that the one who captured the magic ring would be the queen of mermaids for that day.

  Rose swam for it with all her might, wanting more than anything to prove that she could reach the bottom and touch the drain like her older sisters could. The pressure ached in her ears and squeezed her lungs, but she felt a surge of elation as she grasped the plastic ring in her fingers. Keeping her legs tightly together to form a fin—a very important rule of the game—she swam swiftly underwater back toward the shallow end, making it only far enough to where she could stand. Only Birdie could make it all the way to the shallow end on one breath. She burst through the water triumphant, catching her breath and shouting, “Look, Birdie, I’ve got it!”

  Still smiling, she searched for Birdie, eager to share her glory. She found her standing on the narrow strip of cement bordering the pool, anxiously inspecting a scrape on her foot. Rose felt the coolness of a cloud passing over the bright sun. Her skin prickled and she suddenly knew something was wrong. Her smile quivered as she pushed her long hair from her eyes and scanned the pool. Jilly was chatting on the phone. Birdie was bent over her foot. Merry…Where was Merry?

  She looked over to the ladder, to where she’d last seen her baby sister. Merry wasn’t there. She was about to turn her head when something caught her eye. A flash of movement under the water. Focusing, she saw a wisp of red hair and a snippet of pink dress.

  Rose couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe. She felt frozen as she shivered in the cloud’s shade. Overhead, she heard birds call. Only later did she realize it was her voice.

  “Jilly! Jilly! Help!”

  Birdie heard the cry for help and her head snapped up. Her sharp eyes instinctively searched the water. She spotted Rose standing stiff in the water, her arms stretched out toward the deep end of the pool. Following the trajectory, Birdie’s gaze caught sight of a blur under the water. Even before her brain processed that what she saw was a body, she bolted to her feet and dove into the water straight for her target.

  She dove too deep. She knew it the moment she hit the water and cursed herself for wasting precious seconds digging her way up and over to the tiny limbs motionless under the blue-green water. She swam her heart out, one stroke after another, and knew she’d reached Merry fast. Grabbing hold of her, she pushed her up, kicking strong legs hard, straining under the weight of her baby sister as she broke the water. She didn’t know who took Merry from her hands, but it was enough to know that Merry was out of the water.

  Jilly’s hands shook as she grabbed Merry from Birdie’s hands and pulled her out. She’d heard the call of her name and, irked, looked up to see Birdie dive into the pool. Instinct reared and she’d dropped the phone, leaping to her feet and running toward the ladder, scanning the water. Her heart stopped and forever after she’d recall the wavy image of red hair, blue water and white limbs.

  What should I do, what sh
ould I do, she asked herself over and over in a blind panic as she laid Merry’s body on the cement. Her sister’s arms and legs flopped to her side like one of her stuffed dolls.

  “Merry! Merry!” she called out, shaking her, desperate for her sister to open her eyes and say something.

  “Turn her over!” Birdie shouted, climbing up the ladder. “Slap her back!”

  Jilly did so. “Come on, come on…”

  Merry’s chest was not rising and falling. Her mouth was gaping uselessly.

  “Call the operator! Get an ambulance! Run!” Jilly screamed. Birdie took off to the patio phone while Rose clutched herself and cried. Jilly gathered her baby sister in her arms, holding her tight against her cheek, rocking her, still patting her back. It’s okay, Merry,” Jilly crooned, knowing in her heart that it wasn’t. Tears fell down her cheeks as she stroked her sister’s limp body and cursed herself. She should have watched her more carefully, she screamed inwardly. She was the eldest. She was in charge. It was her fault.

  “Baby, baby, baby…just breathe.”

  “Just breathe,” Birdie said to the little girl as she compressed her chest.

  Lauren’s small body heaved, then she coughed. Birdie quickly rolled the child to her side and held her close while she sputtered and threw up water. She was such a little one, she thought as she patted her back. Two? Maybe three years old? After she cleaned the child’s mouth she gently turned her around again to check her vital signs. Lauren’s big brown eyes stared back at her like a fawn’s, confused and stark with fear. It struck Birdie how much she looked like Hannah. Right down to the adorable cleft in the chin.

  She felt a sudden, overpowering love for her and realized in a flash that Jilly was right. It wasn’t the child. This child was beautiful and innocent and all that she’d sworn the Hippocratic oath to protect. This child was not a stumbling block for her to overcome.

  “Lauren! Lauren!” It was Anne Marie’s voice in a high and strident panic.

  “Mama,” Lauren whimpered, reaching out. She coughed again.

  “You’re all right, Lauren,” Birdie said, smiling, using her name. She lifted her up in her arms and turned to face Anne Marie, who was running toward them. “See, sweetie? Your mama is coming.”

  Anne Marie reached out for her child and hugged her tight against her chest, rocking from side to side as she cried. Lauren coughed again, rubbed her nose and blinked several times as she looked around with a dazed expression.

  “She’s going to be just fine,” Birdie said in her reassuring doctor’s voice. “She just took a little swim.”

  “Thank God,” Jilly whispered, slumping against Rose.

  Kyle and Susan came running into the domed pool area, followed by Hannah and a hotel manager. Worry was still etched on their faces.

  “It’s all right,” Anne Marie called out, choking out a laugh. “This little dickens decided to take a swim.” She was trying to put a cheery front on it, but panic still shook her voice and her grip was tight on her daughter.

  Kyle swept Lauren into his arms and hugged her to within an inch of her life.

  “We’re sorry,” Jilly choked out, emotion strangling her breath. “We’re so sorry.”

  Anne Marie looked at her incredulously. “You’re sorry? Whatever for?”

  “For distracting you. For not paying attention to where Lauren was.”

  “Jillian!” Anne Marie exclaimed. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I am Lauren’s mother. Watching her is my responsibility, not yours. It’s not your fault. You saved her life!”

  Jilly felt her strength ebb and turned to her sisters. This time, Birdie did not look away. Rose’s eyes were red. Their hair was dripping, mascara was running down their faces and their ruined clothes clung to their bodies, exposing unflattering bra lines and bulges. She thought they had never looked more beautiful.

  “We called an ambulance,” the hotel manager said, wiping his brow. Two uniformed paramedics entered the pool area. Outside, the red flashing light of an ambulance reflected off the glass.

  “She’s okay,” Kyle answered. “We don’t need an ambulance.”

  “It won’t do any harm to get her checked out, just so everyone can sleep tonight,” Birdie said. “But don’t worry. This little girl is just fine, aren’t you, sweetie?”

  “We’d feel better about it if you did, sir,” the manager said.

  Kyle nodded and Anne Marie reached over to carry Lauren, who had started to cry.

  Her granddaughter was going to be fine, Jilly thought with inexpressible relief. But Merry hadn’t been fine. They each knew it that day as they saw the paramedics rushing Merry into the ambulance. They each saw it on their mother’s stricken face, in the unspoken blame in her eyes when she looked at them. They each understood it when they peeked into Merry’s room weeks later to spy her lying listless and pale in her bed, surrounded by strange medical equipment, while their mother read at her side. They’d never talked about that day in the pool. Never allowed themselves to revisit the event in their private thoughts.

  A nervous hotel manager and his staff hovered around them, offering towels and apologies.

  “Yes, it’s all right. We’re fine, thank you,” Jilly muttered, wrapping herself in a towel. She kept her eyes on her new family as they clustered together and followed the paramedics to the waiting ambulance.

  “Come on, Jilly,” Rose said, taking hold of her arm, taking charge. “Let’s go upstairs to our rooms and dry off. You, too, Birdie. I’ll order tea. Then I think it’s time we talked.”

  25

  AFTER THEY’D SHOWERED AND wrapped themselves in the hotel’s thirsty white terry robes, a subdued Jilly, Birdie and Rose gathered together in Jilly’s room. They quietly found places on the floral sofa and chairs ensemble by the window. An acid-hot sun was pouring in from the south, drenching them in light. Rose had ordered tea from room service.

  “I’ll never drink Darjeeling without thinking of Rajiv,” opened Rose, setting her cup down on the table. Then, realizing what she’d said, she glanced quickly up at Jilly.

  “It’s all right,” Jilly said, blowing on her cup. “I can hear his name without breaking into tears. Barely.”

  “Are you planning on seeing him again?” Rose asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied wearily, then sipped her tea. “I don’t know that I can even think about him right now. My mind is…filled.” She looked at her sisters from over the rim of her cup, then set it down in the saucer. “I know we’re all thinking of Merry and what happened in the pool that day. We’re all remembering it again, aren’t we?”

  They nodded and lowered their eyes. The mood deepened as they shifted in their seats. They all sensed that the unspeakable was at last going to be spoken.

  “All those years I never allowed myself to think of it,” Rose said in a hushed voice. “But it was always there somewhere, lurking. It was a punishing kind of thought. Blaming, you know?”

  “I do,” Birdie conceded. “I still wince whenever I remember grabbing hold of her little body in the pool. It’s a searing pain. The image burns my brain, so I just reject it and push it out of my mind. I did that when she died, too. I just pushed it away. I couldn’t mourn this death until I reconciled the first.”

  “We came close to talking about it in the attic,” Rose reminded her.

  “Thank God we didn’t. Our instincts were right to back off. I don’t think we could’ve handled it then. We weren’t ready.”

  “I’m not sure I am now,” Rose said. “Except that I want to. Even need to. I have to get past it so I can move on in my life.”

  “We all do.”

  Jilly wrapped her arms around her stomach, feeling for the first time in a long while the stabbing pains in her gut.

  “Jilly?” Birdie asked, her eyes narrowing in study. “Are you all right?”

  “It was my fault,” she blurted out in a strained voice. “What happened to Merry was all my fault.”

  “It was not your fau
lt!” Rose reached for Jilly’s hand. “What about me? And Birdie. Don’t you realize that this happened to all of us? We were all in the pool.”

  “I was the eldest. I was the one in charge!” Jilly lowered her face in her palms and shook her head. “I remembered it all today. I was on the phone! Fooling around with some boy. I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t want to have to baby-sit when all my friends were out having a good time. I was mad at Mom and at Merry for making me take charge.” Raising her face she said with self-reproach, “Mom was right about me. I was just so selfish.”

  Birdie hurried to her side. “Jilly, listen to me,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion. She reached up to firmly remove Jilly’s hands from her face. “It was not your fault.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re the one who saved her!”

  Birdie’s face contorted. “But I wasn’t quick enough!” Her voice broke. “Oh, God, I wasn’t there fast enough.”

  “Birdie…” Jilly breathed in disbelief. She never knew Birdie had felt any guilt about the accident. She’d always assumed that Birdie gloried in her role as the lifesaver, even to this day.

  Rose looked up, her face pained, and she put her hands to her own trembling mouth. “No, Birdie, you were fast. You would have reached her in time. But…I didn’t call out. Today, when I saw Lauren in the pool, it all came back to me in a flash. I saw Merry in the pool again, under the water. I didn’t do anything!” she blurted out in confession. “I couldn’t move. I just froze.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Birdie said hurriedly. “You were only six years old. What could you have done?”

  “Something! Anything! I should’ve done something instead of just stand there. I wasted precious minutes. Minutes that would have made a difference.”

  Jilly moved to wrap her arms around Rose, who was overcome with tears. “You did call out,” she reminded her gently. “I remember. You called my name.”