“I do too, and I’m glad Jaime didn’t have surgery for nothing. The surgeon was smart too.”
They put Jaime to bed, and she fell asleep immediately, and Zoe went to lie down until Fiona came in. Austin had to leave, he had a court appearance that afternoon on a case for the shelter. He kissed Zoe before he left and smiled at her.
“We came out winners on this one,” he said with relief.
“I hope you’re right. It would be terrible if they made a mistake and should have operated.” He nodded, but didn’t argue with her. Jaime was home safe and sound in bed. That was all that mattered. He was sure that Cathy was right, and Jaime would get better quickly. Zoe always favored more extreme measures, but he knew what was behind it. She didn’t want to lose another little girl she loved, whatever it took to save her.
* * *
—
And as it turned out, Cathy was right. A week later, Jaime was fine, for real this time, and back in school. She told everyone about the boy who had swallowed a turtle.
Chapter 12
They limped through the rest of the winter with fewer illnesses than they had had before Christmas. Another cold for each of them and not much else. And once again, Zoe was unscathed. But Austin was tired and had lost weight, and Jaime had had more than her fair share of winter miseries in her first months of school. Austin suggested that they go to Florida for Jaime’s spring break, and it sounded like a great idea to all of them.
Austin found a resort just outside Miami that had a beautiful pool, a spectacular beach, and lots of activities for children, and he reserved a two-bedroom suite for them for Jaime’s vacation. They could hardly wait and were in high spirits when they flew to Miami, and were picked up by the van from the hotel.
Jaime got all excited when she saw the pool and the people having fun around it, and she wanted to play on the beach too. There was a high-end shopping mall near the hotel, which Zoe wanted to explore, and Austin just wanted to relax and enjoy his wife and daughter. He was exhausted by months of hard work, and had won two of the custody cases he was handling for the shelter.
They changed into their bathing suits as soon as they arrived. Zoe slathered sunscreen on Jaime and Austin, and they went out to the pool, where Jaime insisted her father take her swimming immediately. She was wearing floaties, inflatable armbands, since she couldn’t really swim yet, and Austin held her and showed her how to kick while holding on to the side of the pool. She’d had a few lessons, but all she could do was dog paddle while her armbands kept her afloat. She started to run when she got out of the pool, and Austin stopped her instantly and told her she’d have a time-out if she ran at the pool.
“Let her have some fun,” Zoe said, lying in the sun in a bikini that showed off her figure.
“It won’t be fun for any of us if she falls and hurts herself,” he answered Zoe. “You can’t be lenient with her here. One of us has to have our eyes on her at all times,” he reminded her.
“Obviously,” Zoe said and closed her eyes as she lay in the sun, since she knew that Austin was watching her. And later that afternoon, they went for a walk on the beach, with Jaime running ahead and then coming back to them as Austin and Zoe walked hand in hand, and Jaime stopped to pick up shells.
Austin promised to buy pails and molds and shovels at the gift shop the next day and build a sandcastle with Jaime. She was already having fun on the first day.
The next day, Austin and Jaime got up early and went down to the beach. After a stop at the gift shop, he built a sandcastle worthy of a princess, and then waded into the ocean with her, holding tightly to her hand. There were lifeguards both at the pool and the beach, and dozens of children everywhere. It was the perfect place for a family vacation, and by the end of the second day, Jaime had made several friends her own age. They played in the pool together, with their mothers standing next to them, and while Zoe took her turn with her, Austin lay in the sun and went to sleep. It was the perfect vacation for tired, busy people from New York.
At night, they explored nearby restaurants, and Jaime joined them for dinner. Austin arranged an outing on a glass-bottomed boat, so they could see the fish.
They put Jaime in an arts and crafts class for three-to-five-year-olds, making shell necklaces, and Austin and Zoe went snorkeling in the ocean while she was busy. They hadn’t had as much fun together in years. It reminded them both of their early days together where they’d been carefree and madly in love. And now they had Jaime to make it even better.
“We should have invited Grandma Connie and Grampa George to come with us,” Jaime said generously, and Austin and Zoe smiled at each other. They loved being just the three of them, and they bought postcards for Jaime to show her class when they went home.
They spent an afternoon at Seaquarium, and then went back to the pool at the hotel so Jaime could meet up with her friends again. Two of them were from New York and Jaime was already clamoring to see them again. They had to remind her every day not to run at the pool, where the wet surface was slippery, and several children had already fallen and gotten hurt, but with Austin’s stern warnings and close supervision, Jaime had been pretty good. And he was proud of the fact that Jaime had been well behaved at the hotel and the restaurants they went to, she had gotten much more manageable since she’d started school, and used to following directions. She was more grown up and reasonable than she had been at two. She was a pleasure to be with, and all three of them had enjoyed the trip. There were even several couples they’d met around the pool with children the same age that Zoe and Austin hoped to see again. Zoe rarely had time to meet up with other women, except at work. And it was nice meeting people away from their jobs, and enjoying them socially. Zoe loved having time to just be a mom and a wife, without all the pressure and demands of her job. She hated to see the vacation end.
She was talking to three of the women, while Jaime and the three other children were playing nearby, on the last day. Zoe was smiling and relaxed, she had a deep tan and looked beautiful, as the four women were chatting. And Austin had gone to play tennis with one of the men they’d met.
They were comparing the schools their children went to, one of them in the suburbs and two in New York, when Austin came back from his tennis game, and spotted Jaime racing around the pool with her friends on the wet cement. Zoe had her back to them and didn’t see them, and was wearing sunglasses and a big hat. She looked like a movie star, and Austin could see that Jaime and her pals were going wild, and none of the mothers were watching them.
He called out to Jaime and she didn’t hear him, as he rushed across the pool area to stop her from running, and before he could get to her, he saw her stub her toe and trip, slip across the wet cement, hit her face on the side of the pool, fall into the water, and go down like a rock to the bottom of the pool at the deep end. She didn’t have her armbands on, and no one had noticed her yet. She was so small and had fallen in so fast. Zoe still had her back to her, and the lifeguard was helping an elderly woman with a deck chair and hadn’t spotted Jaime when she fell in. Austin was at the pool within seconds, kicked off his shoes, jumped in, wearing his tennis clothes, swam down to the bottom, grabbed Jaime, and rose to the surface with her, as she spluttered and coughed. The lifeguard had seen Austin dive in and rushed to the side of the pool to pull Jaime out when Austin handed her to him. The lifeguard laid her on the ground, as Austin hauled himself out of the pool and picked Jaime up in his arms, as she coughed up the water she’d swallowed, and as he held her, he realized that he was covered in blood. She had split her chin wide open on the side of the pool as she went down. By then people were looking and asking if they could help. Austin was shaking, as he realized that if he hadn’t seen her, she might have drowned.
A man came over to them and said he was a doctor, took a quick look at her chin, and told Austin she would have to be stitched up. The wound was bleeding profusely, as Austin p
ointed to Zoe and asked the lifeguard to go and get his wife.
She looked shocked when he came to get her, still talking to the other women, and rushed to where he pointed to Austin and Jaime, and she almost slipped herself on the wet surface, knelt down next to them, and tried to reach out for Jaime, but Austin had a firm grip on her, and spoke to Zoe in a harsh voice.
“Get a car and driver from the hotel,” he said to her coldly, “she needs to be stitched up. She’s got a gash on her chin. And while you were talking to those women, she damn near drowned.”
“I was watching her,” Zoe insisted.
“No, you weren’t. I saw you. You were talking to them with your back to the pool. You didn’t see any of it, she was running around the pool, and she didn’t have her floaties on.” All week they had made her wear them anytime they were near the pool, and on the very last day, everything had gone wrong. It was Murphy’s Law, but it wasn’t new to them. “Just get a car, we can discuss it later,” he said, as Jaime sobbed and clung to him. It was a sad end to their wonderful vacation, and he couldn’t believe how irresponsible Zoe had been with a three-year-old in her care at a swimming pool.
The women Zoe had been chatting with were all crowded around them by then, holding tightly to their children. Jaime had served as a lesson in what could happen in an instant if you ran around a swimming pool.
“What can we do to help?” one of them asked him.
“We need a car to get to the hospital. My wife is taking care of it,” he said, as Jaime continued to bleed all over him and the lifeguard handed him a towel, which was instantly drenched with blood.
Zoe had run to the front desk on bare feet. She came back five minutes later with the assistant manager of the hotel, who insisted on escorting them to the car they were providing them. There were signs everywhere that said “Do Not Run at the Pool,” which all of the children and half the parents didn’t observe, including his wife, Austin thought, as he thanked the assistant manager. Austin was barefoot, dripping wet in his tennis clothes, and covered in Jaime’s blood. But she was alive and hadn’t drowned, which was a lot to be grateful for.
As soon as they got in, the car took off and headed to the nearest hospital, as Zoe tried to place the towels so Jaime didn’t bleed on the seat. They were at the hospital ten minutes later, and Austin carried Jaime inside in his bare feet. He hadn’t bothered to retrieve the tennis shoes he’d kicked off near the pool before he jumped in. He didn’t care. They went to the emergency room and stood at the front desk, while Jaime’s chin bled all over the floor.
“We’ll get you in right away,” the nurse on duty told him, “we can get your information later.” She immediately led the way down the hall to a room, while Zoe followed, looking pale beneath her tan, and a lot less glamorous than she had looked half an hour before.
“What in hell were you thinking?” Austin asked her in an icy voice as they waited for the doctor. “She’s three years old and she can’t swim, and you weren’t even watching her. What if she was dead by now, or brain dead because she drowned?”
“I’m sorry, the last time I looked she was sitting on a lounge chair with her friends.”
“And you assumed she wouldn’t move? When I got there, she was racing around the pool at full speed, and she fell in at the deep end.” Zoe shuddered as he said it. Jaime was whimpering by then and had stopped crying. Zoe was holding a towel to her face, and the bleeding had slowed down. Austin was in his wet tennis clothes and Zoe in a bikini.
The doctor came into the room then, and looked at the wound carefully after introducing himself. “It’s a clean slice,” he said looking into it with a light, “but it’s deep. No jagged edges. There will be a scar under her chin, but it won’t show for about fifty years, till her chin starts to sag.” He smiled at them. You could cut the tension between Austin and Zoe with a knife. “We’re going to have to stitch her up, but we’ll numb it, unless you want us to put her to sleep for a few minutes.”
“I’d rather not,” Austin said without consulting Zoe, and she didn’t say a word.
“That’s fine, you’ll have to hold her firmly,” he said to Austin, got his equipment ready and then turned to talk to Jaime, with a shot of novocaine held out of her line of sight. “Young lady, we’re going to make some little tiny pinpricks, they won’t hurt in a minute, and then we’re going to sew you up, and send you home.” She started to cry as soon as he said it and Zoe stroked her hair and spoke soothingly to her, and kissed the top of her head. Austin got a grip on her, and she screamed as they gave her the novocaine shot to numb her face, they let her sit for a while until the doctor was sure it had taken effect. Austin held her face, as Zoe held her hands down, and the doctor put twelve stitches in her chin, and covered everything below her mouth with a large bandage. Jaime was hiccupping with sobs by then, but it was over, and she reached out to Zoe, who picked her up and held her tight.
Austin looked like a train wreck, as they thanked the doctor. He gave them instructions for caring for the wound, and said the stitches should be removed in about ten days. Then Austin went to fill out the forms they had neglected when they came in. They were back in the car an hour after they had arrived. It was a familiar scene to them by now, their daughter injured, and either stitches or a cast, which made Austin feel a wave of panic wash over him as he thought of it. And when she wasn’t injured, she was sick.
He and Zoe didn’t speak to each other on the way back to the hotel. They laid Jaime on her bed when they walked into the suite. She looked drugged, she was so exhausted from the trauma, as her eyes fluttered closed within minutes and she drifted off to sleep. She had been through the wringer, nearly drowned, cut her chin wide open, and had twelve stitches. It would have been extremely trying even for an adult. Her parents looked nearly as bad. They walked into the living room of the suite, and Austin poured himself a stiff drink from the minibar. He looked devastatingly handsome with his wet dark hair and powerful athletic body. But what did it matter? Zoe wondered if he’d ever forgive her. It seemed like a long time before he sat down and looked at her. She was sitting across from him and didn’t move. She looked like she was waiting to be whipped.
“What do you expect me to say to you?” he asked her in a low voice, so Jaime didn’t hear them, but she was sound asleep. “I’m sure you’re sorry, but that was the most irresponsible, neglectful thing I’ve ever seen. How am I supposed to trust you with our daughter’s life when you do something like that? Do you know how many times she’s been injured? I can’t even count anymore. She’s had more stitches and broken bones than any child I’ve ever heard of, other than the kids at the shelter. I don’t understand it. I don’t know if we’re neglectful parents or she’s a particularly active child, but I’m beginning to think we’re unsuitable parents. Zoe, something has to change.” He looked devastated and so did she.
“It will, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, I was talking to those women, it was only for a few minutes, I was having fun with them, and the next thing I knew, the lifeguard came over and told me she almost drowned, and you were holding her and she was bleeding.”
“I think we have to hire a full-time nanny,” he said with a look of desperation, but the truth was that she had never gotten hurt with Fiona, except when she fell down the stairs because Zoe wouldn’t let him put up a gate. And she had never gotten injured with him. It only happened with Zoe. And she always had a reason, a ready apology, or an excuse. For a terrifying moment, he wondered if she was subconsciously trying to kill her, if there was some deep psychological reason why she wanted to hurt their child, like jealousy, or fear, or something deeply psychotic. But whatever the reason, he no longer trusted his wife with their daughter. And after the scene at the swimming pool, he wasn’t sure if he ever would again. It wasn’t Jaime’s fault. She had never gotten injured at school. It only happened at home, or when Zoe took her out. He didn’t dare tell he
r what he was thinking. It sounded too sick.
“I swear to you, Austin,” she said with a pleading look, “I will never take my eyes off her again.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said sadly. “You’re a wonderful mother in a lot of ways, and I know you love her, but we’re not responsible parents. I’m scared, Zoe. You have to watch her better. That shouldn’t have happened today.”
“It won’t again. I promise you.” As he looked at her, he saw the woman he had loved for nine years, the champion of abused children, and the best mother in the world. But was she? What if nothing he believed about her was true? He wanted to believe it, to cling to who he thought she was, but all he could think of now was Jaime at the bottom of the pool, while Zoe laughed with the other women and didn’t even know where Jaime was. What if she had already been dead when he got there? He started to cry as he thought of it, and Zoe came to sit next to him and put her arms around him, and she was crying too. “I love you and Jaime more than anything in life,” she whispered, and he nodded, and prayed that it was true. But he was no longer sure.
* * *
—
Zoe and Austin were both very quiet as they flew back to New York the next day. Jaime sat between them and played on Zoe’s iPad, as Austin watched them, trying not to think about the day before. If he had come on the scene seconds later, they could have been taking her body back to New York in a coffin. Jaime said her chin hurt. She had bumped it hard when she’d split it open and the doctor had warned them it would be bruised and hurt for a few days.
They got back to the apartment at three o’clock. Zoe unpacked and did laundry, and Jaime played in her room. She looked tired after the events of the day before, and some of the shine of their vacation had worn off. Jaime had returned as the walking wounded, and was going back to school the next day with her big bandage on her chin.
The Dark Side Page 14