I take one step forward, then another.
“The water’s warm,” I tell Will, glad for my waterproof earphones. “I’m in up to my knees now.”
“What else?” he asks.
I describe it to him, the feel of the water, the sting of my eyes when I submerge my head with my eyes still open.
Then I’m underwater and he is with me.
When I come back up, I talk to him.
I tell him I’m afraid.
Of drowning, of feeling something wrap around my ankles, pulling me down. Of being caught by someone who works here. Of being alone. Of things that go bump in the night. Of things that live in broad daylight.
I tell him I feel brave, the bravest I’ve ever felt. And for once, it’s because of me, not because of my best friend.
I feel Lacey’s absence like a phantom limb.
I tell him that too.
“I miss you,” I tell Will.
“I’m right here,” he says.
I plunge back into the water and stay there, both of us, bodies underwater.
* * *
—
“When I think of you,” Will says as I’m slipping back into my jeans, “I don’t think of you as afraid. But you think of yourself that way.”
“Because I am,” I tell him, wringing water from my hair.
“What makes you say that? You just jumped into a lake naked.”
He’s right but he’s also not.
I explain it to him.
“Being brave wasn’t something I thought about when I was little.”
I grew up feeling fearless, hanging upside down in Avery Park, running just a little faster than my own heartbeat.
I realized I was the same amount of afraid as everyone else when I was six and sliding through the tunnel, when everything around me went black and suddenly the walls seemed to be closing in. I couldn’t go forward and I couldn’t go back and I don’t know how many minutes passed until Lacey came through behind me, and together, we came out the other side.
I realized I was more afraid than everyone else when I would fake sick to get out of parties, to get out of playing seven minutes in heaven or truth or dare, when Lacey would have to cover for me or do my dares with me.
“But the worst thing was Dad’s TIA,” I tell Will. “You know how I told you Sam was the one who yelled for Mom when Dad started slurring his words? Well, it shouldn’t have been. I was there too. Right next to him. We’d been watching TV and suddenly I couldn’t understand what he was saying and there was this confusion on his face, then this panic, and I should have taken charge and known exactly what to do, but I just froze. Until Sam did what I couldn’t. It’s like I don’t function on my own.”
“It could have happened to anyone, though. You were caught off guard,” Will says.
Lacey told me the same thing too, but it doesn’t make me feel better.
“What if it had been an actual stroke and I could have been the difference between Dad dying or living?” I say. “I just always freeze, when I’m afraid. I hate it.”
“Next time you won’t,” Will says, but he has more faith in me than I do.
BECAUSE I PROMISED my father, when I’m not avoiding Mom, I make a concerted effort to be mindful, or at least polite.
I still feel ill every time I look at her. When she’s standing up to put some salad on Samara’s plate at dinner, I wonder where her hands have been. Wonder whether she changes her clothes after she meets with him. If there’s a spare set in her car. Or in her office.
What about when she goes to the gym downtown, for spin class, which she’s started doing a couple of times a week? Is she meeting him? My mom is already pretty fit, but to be honest, I’m not seeing any more muscle tone in her lower body than I did before.
I know I am being ridiculous but I can’t help it.
Sometimes I swear I feel her looking at me, like there’s something she’s trying to figure out. Like maybe she still wonders about the day I came to her office. But every time I glance up and meet her eye, her face is neutral, passive.
She’s so good at hiding it. It makes me desperate to see them together again—Serg and Mom—to see how they interact, to see if there were signs all along that we all missed.
For the first time in recorded history, I volunteer to accompany Mom and Sam to Sam’s lesson on Saturday.
“Oh, of course you can come,” Mom says, seeming happy, which makes me feel bad because it reminds me that I actually like seeing her happy. And after weeks of not looking properly at her face, I’m remembering that my mom looks beautiful when she laughs. Her face gets all scrunched up and her eyes glitter; she’s told my sisters and me for years that she likes all the laugh lines on her face.
“Who would want to erase that?” Mom often says, to which I once made the mistake of saying, “Dr. Jensen,” he of the miraculous and ridiculous returning hairline. His wife too glimmers like freshly polished…something. Not skin, though. Because skin covers humans.
I’m pretty sure I got a talking-to about being “appropriate” and respecting one’s elders.
It used to be something I admired about my mother. How despite always wanting things to be perfect, she’s also determined to keep her wrinkles, the lines around her mouth, the scar just under her knee from a biking accident when she was little.
A body is a kind of time capsule.
But by the time we reach the rink, any affection I’m feeling for my mom is quickly replaced by blind fury and complete repulsion at the sight of Sergiy in his tight black pants and his low-neck V and why the fuck does he not cover up, there are children around. He’s a role model.
When we walk in, Sergiy turns immediately, like he has a radar for us, and then he nods once. Mom raises her hand and says, “Hi, Serg,” then turns her attention to Sam, like she would any other day. Obviously it would be worse if they were undressing each other with their eyes right in front of everyone, but I feel my blood boil at the knowledge that they are acting. Performing for our benefit. Which, now that I think about it, is something they are both used to—Mom when she does her public speaking engagements and Serg while he sleazes around on ice. They’re also clearly both very good at it.
I find a spot at the top of the bleachers, where I can watch them closely, and so far they still haven’t looked at each other again. Mom is talking to Ty’s mom and they are laughing about something.
Now Serg is looking at Ty and Sam and calling them over to get started.
Which is when we all realize that Sam is not wearing her skates.
Mom goes over to her and puts her hand on her shoulder. First she’s prodding her, then she’s persuading, then she’s suggesting to her, then Sam jumps away from Mom and goes running in the direction of the restrooms.
Mom holds her hands up in exasperation. I can see Serg walking over to the moms now, and though I badly want to see this interaction, something makes me jump up and follow Sam to the bathroom. It’s not hard to tell which stall is hers, judging by the bare feet on the ground.
I knock on the door. No response.
Knock again.
She’s obviously in there, so I try to think of an opener that she might go for.
“Sam, you realize how gross bathroom floors are?” I say.
There’s no response for a second, and then a moment later, I hear some kind of movement. When I back up to see under the door, her feet are off the ground.
“Toilet seats aren’t much better either,” I say.
“Go away,” she says.
“People throw up on them sometimes.”
“Oh my God, go away, Eden!” she yells, but at least she’s responding to me now.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. I knock once on the door. “Hey,” I say gently. “Sam, what is it?”
And then it’s
dawning on me that it was when Sergiy called her and Ty over that she freaked out. She spends more time with Serg and Mom than anybody else. She’s seen how they are together.
Could she know?
“Sam?” I pound again on the door. “If you don’t come out, I’m pretty sure Mom is going to come and drag you out.”
And cause a scene?
Never going to happen, but Sam doesn’t know that.
Right on cue, Mom arrives in the bathroom, and after several minutes of exasperation and then negotiation, Sam comes out of her stall.
“You have fifteen minutes left of practice,” Mom says. “You could still—”
“I’m not dancing,” Sam says firmly.
“Okay,” Mom sighs. “Well, you better go and apologize to Serg and Ty and his mom for wasting their time.”
I see them both walk over to Ty and his mom, and Sam does not once raise her head, though it’s possible she moves her mouth—I’m too far away to see—and then Mom is saying something to Serg, with Ty and his mom still nearby, so it’s probably nothing dirty. Then they turn around and I catch up with them so we can leave.
“I must say, Sam,” Mom says in the car, “that I am extremely disappointed. I can’t imagine what would make you behave this way, but I hope it doesn’t happen again. And I told Serg we’d make up a practice next week. Otherwise you guys can’t compete in Regionals.”
Sam does not make a sound. Which, if you ask me, is probably the best response to Mom’s disappointment.
As soon as we get home, Sam jumps out of the car and races up the stairs. I follow her.
Thankfully, the door of her room does not lock and she has forgotten to block it with a chair, so I’m able to walk right in.
“Why do you want to know what’s wrong all of a sudden?” she snaps from where she’s lying on her bed, a pillow cradled against her chest.
It feels like a slap, because it’s true that while my sisters have been on different paths than I have, I’ve not always tried particularly hard to find common ground.
“I always want to know what’s wrong,” I say. I take a few steps closer to her bed and she doesn’t throw her pillow at me or try to lash out, so I sit cross-legged beside her bed and wait.
Several minutes pass before I realize that she’s getting no closer to telling me what’s going on.
“So something happened, right?” I ask now, and to my surprise, she nods.
“Okay.” I speak slowly like I’m afraid to spook a jumpy horse, which I kind of am. “Is it…Does it involve Mom?”
She cuts her eyes to me at that, suspicion written all over her face, and when she says nothing, I know that I’m right.
Oh my God.
Is it possible…
Sam knows?
“Sam,” I say.
My chest is hurting because Sam and Mom…they’re not like Mom and me. They work well together. They both love skating. And Sam has been coached by Serg for years. She trusts him, respects him.
If she knows, if she even suspects, then it’s killing her.
“So it’s Mom…,” I say carefully. “Is there someone else?”
Another sharp look.
Another yes.
“Is it Dad?” I ask.
“No,” she says, almost annoyed at the guess.
“And it’s not me?”
“Not everything is about you, Eden. I’m sorry to tell you.” She hugs the pillow closer to her chest.
“And it’s not Mia, right?”
“She’s in another state!” Sam exclaims.
In another situation, I’d call her out on her patronizing attitude. But I’m desperate to know what she knows.
“So it’s not a family member,” I say. “Hmmm.” I pretend I’m going out on a limb. “Is it someone who’s close to the family? Someone we all know? Someone you know?”
After what feels like a million years, she nods.
My heart is beating so hard in my chest. “It’s Mom and…someone we all know.” Who else could it be? It’s so obvious that she was reacting to something Sergiy had said, and if this involves Mom…I take a deep breath and drop my voice so only she can hear me. “Did you see something weird between them? Mom and Serg?”
Sam sits up now and frowns. “No,” she says. “What’s wrong with you?”
I can’t recover in time. I don’t have any other guesses. She said Mom and Serg….
“It’s Ty, okay?” she says.
Ty.
As in her scrawny, eleven-year-old dance partner.
“Oh,” I say, deflated, shocked. But it’s good that she doesn’t know, right? It’s good that she hasn’t seen something that would destroy Mom for her. Or ice dance.
“What were you saying about Mom and Serg?”
Shit.
“Nothing. I was just…guessing. Like, maybe you thought they were mad at you or something. For not giving your best.”
Sam’s brow is crumpled for so long, I’m afraid she doesn’t believe me. But finally she says, “Anyway, because you’re pathetic and such a terrible guesser…” She takes a deep breath, sighs. “I hate the dress Mom picked out for our Leaverton competition. Hate.”
I can’t help it: I roll my eyes. “Sam, all this is about a dress? A stupid dress for your dance? Oh my God.”
But when I look at her, her eyes are filled with tears. She swipes them away with the back of her hand. “See why I didn’t want to tell you? Just go.”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” I say, rising from the floor and sitting on her bed now, next to her. I put my arm around her shoulder. “What’s wrong with your dress?”
“It’s cut like a V,” she says.
“Okay…,” I say, waiting for her to go on.
“Oh God, why are you so stupid? Leave me alone!”
I take a deep breath to maintain my composure. “It’s just…You realize how angry you’ve made Mom and that she had to pay for a lesson you didn’t have and…like, there are so many worse things in the world.”
Her shoulders remain rigid beside me. “I know there are worse things in the world,” she says. “But this is also important.”
And then it hits me. Oh yeah. Middle school.
The hell-like passage that is a dress rehearsal for the real thing: high school.
And I remember Lacey and me freaking out over the most pathetic things. What to wear to a dance. A boy she liked who didn’t like her back. Bangs cut too short.
“You’re right,” I say.
There’s a long pause and then Sam drops the pillow she’s been holding to her chest. “I hate it,” she says. And finally, finally, I understand.
A few minutes later, she is standing in a bedazzled purple-blue sequined leotard thing and it is indeed V-necked and where Sam previously had nothing, a small eruption of flesh is obvious.
“But the V ends practically at your neck,” I say. “It’s not like it’s low-cut or something. You guys are in the under-twelve division!”
“But it’s drawing attention there! And Ty already…” She seems to take a breath before she can finish her sentence. “It’s bad enough Ty can already feel them. Like, when we accidentally bump or something, and now he’s going to be able to see….” Her lips are quivering again.
It’s really, really not funny, but somehow I have to stifle the urge to laugh.
“And then I started thinking about, like…later. You’ve seen Torvill and Dean, right? Meryl and Charlie? Tessa and Scott?” she says, listing off a bunch of ice dancers. And then she’s making me pull out my phone so we can look at pictures and videos of them.
“It just gets worse later,” Sam says despondently.
“But it’s not like they are naked, Sam.” A lot of the dresses are V-necked and there is the occasional low-cut dress, but it’s all pret
ty tasteful. Plus, during their careers most of those people were in their twenties, at least, and Sam is eleven. “And you don’t have to wear it. You never have to wear anything you don’t want to. Just tell Mom.”
“Do you know how much she paid to have this made?”
“Honestly,” I tell Sam, “she’s downstairs probably freaking out, thinking you’re going to announce to her that you’re quitting. She’ll be relieved it’s just about a dress.”
Sam’s narrowed eyes make me quickly add, “Which is still very important.”
* * *
—
I was twelve when I quit skating.
“The morning of our end-of-year showcase, I told my mom that I wanted to quit.”
“How did she take it?” Will asks.
“About as well as you can imagine. She was furious.” Normally my mom believes in Contained Expression, and Reasoning instead of yelling, but her voice was hoarse by the time she stormed out of the kitchen that day.
“First she told me I was making a big mistake and I’d regret it. Later, when she was doing my makeup for the show, she told me that she and Dad weren’t going to come and watch me. They’d always come to every single one of my shows, and I think she hoped it’d make me change my mind.
“Throughout my performance that night, I didn’t look up into the stands, because I knew that I wouldn’t see them. That there was no one there for me.
“But then when I finished, I was pushing my way to the exit, to wait for Mom to pick me up, when I heard my dad’s voice. He had been there the whole time. He’d come to watch me, even though my mother hadn’t.
“We got into his car and he drove us to get sundaes. I knew he would be on my mother’s side—he’s always on my mother’s side—but he didn’t try to tell me not to quit skating. Instead, he told me my mother had grown up watching skating when she was little, with a family that was too poor to afford it, with a mother who thought black people didn’t skate.
“ ‘She wanted to give you what she never had,’ he said.
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