Everyone laughed when my three-year-old pointed at my stepmother’s stomach and shouted that her daddy was inside. I laughed too, until she began crying and dragged me closer. Then I saw the tiny mark beside Clara’s swimsuit, and my husband turned the color of pool chalk.
By noon, there were scattered wet footprints across my kitchen floor and one pink sandal floating in the deep end.
Ariel stood beside the pool wearing purple goggles and a paper crown that had gone soft around the edges.
She had insisted on keeping it on while swimming because, according to her, queens did not remove crowns for water.
She had insisted on keeping it on.
Glen was grilling hot dogs beneath the maple tree. Every few minutes, he lifted the lid and frowned at the smoke as if the grill had personally betrayed him.
I was carrying a bowl of watermelon toward the patio when my stepmom, Clara, arrived.
She paused outside the gate. That was Clara’s way. She rarely entered a room without first making certain no one would resent her for taking up space.
My stepmom, Clara, arrived.
She wore a white cover-up over a swimsuit and carried a neatly wrapped present beneath one arm.
“You’re late,” my father called from the lawn.
Clara smiled.
“I know.”
She did not explain. She never did.
She wore a white cover-up over a swimsuit.
Fifteen years earlier, she had married my father two years after my mother died. I had been 17 then, angry at the world and especially angry at any woman who stood in my mother’s kitchen.
Clara never fought back.
She simply became careful.
She did not sit in Mom’s chair.
She never changed the curtains.
She had married my father two years after my mother died.
She asked before touching anything in the house, even after she had lived there for years.
At the time, I took her caution for coldness.
Eventually, distance became our family language.
Still, she had come to Ariel’s birthday.
That mattered.
I took her caution for coldness.
Ariel ran toward her with both arms raised.
Clara bent down and hugged her, then handed her the present.
Inside was a wooden tea set painted with tiny strawberries.
Ariel gasped. “Can we have tea now, Grandma?”
“After cake,” Clara said.
Ariel considered this injustice, then accepted it.
Ariel considered this injustice.
***
For the next two hours, the party moved the way children’s parties do… loud, sticky, and slightly dangerous.
Preschoolers chased one another with water guns.
My father fell asleep beneath an umbrella.
Glen burned the first tray of hot dogs and blamed the wind.
Clara stayed near the edge of everything.
Clara stayed near the edge of everything.
She refilled cups.
Collected paper plates.
Tied a loose balloon ribbon around the fence.
When I asked whether she wanted to swim, she glanced toward the crowded pool.
“Maybe later.”
She refilled cups.
“You’re wearing a swimsuit, Clara!” I said.
Her smile was small. “That doesn’t mean I have to be brave enough to dive in.”
I thought she meant the children splashing everywhere.
***
After cake, the heat became unbearable.
Even Clara finally removed her cover-up.
Clara finally removed her cover-up.
Her swimsuit was a simple one-piece. She walked down the pool steps slowly, one hand gripping the rail.
Ariel was racing past with two friends when she stopped so suddenly that the children behind her bumped into her back.
She stared at Clara. Then she pointed.
“Mommy, Daddy’s in there!”
Every adult within hearing distance turned.
“Mommy, Daddy’s in there!”
For one second, nobody understood.
Then laughter spread across the patio.
My father, who was awake then, nearly spilled his lemonade.
Glen raised both hands from the grill.
“I can confirm I am not.”
I laughed too.
For one second, nobody understood.
Clara looked down at her stomach, then toward me with an expression that said children were strange and we should all move on.
Heat climbed into my face. I hurried toward Ariel.