I figure the best place to start with is at the source.
Home.
“This is a pleasant surprise.” Mom smiles when she opens the front door to let me in.
“Hey, mom.”
“What’s all that you have?”
“I thought we’d hang out today. I’m going to cook us a pot of mussels along with some garlic bread and we’ll look at pictures of daddy.”
I carry my bags of groceries straight through the living room and into the kitchen.
“I’ll start cleaning the mussels.”
“I’ll go get the photo albums,” she says excitedly.
I point to a picture I’ve probably seen a million times but ask my mother again, “Where was this one taken?”
“This was the day your father, and I drove to the mountains for your first week of overnight camp. We drove in one car and Lorraine and her crew drove in another.” My mother remembers fondly. “You didn’t want us to leave, so we spent the day helping you unpack and settle in. To help you adjust, Lorraine and I used our power of persuasion to get you and Cecily placed in the same cabin. For some reason, they made a mistake and had you two in separate cabins. You had the top bunk, and she had the bottom.”
I distinctly remember that week of fresh hell. Cecily dominated all the girls in our cabin, telling us all what to do every moment of the day, and none of us were brave enough to stand up to her. Our parents described it as strong-willed. In today’s society, Cecily would have been labeled a bully.
“Yeah, she almost drowned me that week.” I admit out loud. I’ve never told my mother this story, but it’s time I stop sheltering her from the truth. I can’t pick my relatives, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them. Cecily is, and has always been, an unlikable girl and I’m not sugarcoating it anymore.
“What do you mean?”
“We were at the lake and we were all being tested for how well we could swim. Each kid got a different color band based on your level. Red for beginners, yellow for can swim and float, green for strong swimmers who will be fine in the deep end of the lake on their own. Cecily didn’t want that red string, so she lied and told the counselors that she could go in the deep end.”
“And they listened to her?”
“Mom, most of those counselors were like nineteen years old, barely adults themselves, so yeah, they listened.”
“That’s true. They hired a lot of college kids. I forgot about that. So then what happened?”
“Cecily dove off the dock like she must have seen in a movie or something.”
“Oh, my!”
“And then she sank right to the bottom.”
“You never told me that story. Does Lorraine know?”
“I’m sure you would know about it if she told her mother.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell her mother that she almost drowned.”
“She was embarrassed, Mom. Cecily’s ego has always been too big for her body. I dove in after her because I knew the truth. I knew she couldn’t swim a lick. I tried to save her, but she panicked and was pulling me down with her.”
“Adrienne!”
“Luckily two of the senior counselors saw we were in distress, dove in, and saved us both.”
“Did you get back in the water after that?”
“I swam all week. Cecily pretended like she didn’t feel like getting wet and sat on the side of the lake sunbathing.”
“You always did love the water, and Cecily never quite got the hang of it.
