“Sure,” said the man, looking puzzled but game. “So where do you live now?”
“I’m…in transition,” said Lee.
He smiled. “I’m in London,” he said, holding out his hand. “Pete,” he said.
“Lee.” She shook his hand.
“Race you,” said Pete, and before she could respond, he lunged into the water and began swimming out toward a dock moored in the distance.
“Damn,” muttered Lee, knowing her hair looked better dry and blown out. Still, it would feel good to get her blood pumping. She took a deep breath and went under.
—
LEE HAD QUIT THEswim team when she found a new dream: to be an actress. She’d tried out forA Midsummer Night’s Dreamon a whim, but was cast as Hermia, opposite Felix Henderson, the hottest thespian in her class. His floppy blond hair was irresistible, and as Lysander, he looked so unflinchingly into her eyes that Lee wondered if maybe he loved her in real life as well.
Spending time with her dad had grown stale. The intervention had made no difference. He’d say he was quitting drinking, but after a white-faced night or two, he’d be back at it. Lee hated his weakness for booze. It exposed him as fallible, and seeing him this way was so awful that she had to avert her gaze. Toward Felix. And his floppy hair.
The night she was cast, Lee announced the news during a chicken dinner she shared with her siblings and mother in the kitchen. This was the usual way of things: Charlotte would cook and share the “kids’ dinner” in the kitchen while Winston drank alone in his den, and then she would prepare another meal for Winston and serve him in the dining room with full place settings, sitting down opposite him, cleaning up after him when he was done. Some nights, Winston brought his plate and utensils into the den, leaving Charlotte alone at the table. Lee could remember seeing Charlotte staring out the window of the dining room, her sad face illuminated by the candles she’d lit for her husband.
“So I’m quitting swimming,” Lee had said. “It’s at the same time as play rehearsals, so.”
Charlotte put down her napkin. “Have you told your father?” she asked.
“No,” said Lee.
There was a poignant silence. Winston sat just a few rooms away; they could hear the television from his den.
“He’ll be disappointed,” said Charlotte.
“But rehearsals are at the same time!”
“I understand, dear,” said Charlotte. Helpless anger filled Lee: as usual, her mother was tossing her to sea without even a floatie of assistance, much less two floaties, which would hold her above the choppy waves of her father’s drunken wrath.
“I’ll come with you,” said Regan, putting down her plate and utensils.
“You’re not finished,” said Charlotte. “And you haven’t been excused.”
“I’ll come, too,” said Cord, rising, reaching for Lee’s hand. Charlotte pursed her lips and sawed at her chicken. She wouldn’t argue with Prince Cord, thought Lee. This was a source of constant annoyance, and yet there he was, standing and waiting—he washerprince, too. He smiled. “Let’s go,” he said.
He was only twelve, yet he was so handsome, the bones of his face emerging from baby pudge. Winston rode him hard, wanting him to be aman,but Cord had a few close friends who balanced the scale. He’d found three pals who got his weird sense of humor; Lee would see them whispering and giggling in the seventh-grade hallway at Savannah Country Day. And seventh grade seemed simple to Lee, from her ninth-grade vantage point.
Fine, thought Lee. She could use the backup. She placed her hand in his. Regan rose to cover her other side, giving her a quick side squeeze. Regan! The sweetest little girl. She would be no help at all, but her hug was warm. United, they approached the den. Cord was the one who knocked.
Winston didn’t stand from his leather chair, but turned toward them when they entered, his face a portrait of annoyance. He raised his eyebrows and waggled his face, a rageful gesture that said, “What idiocy now?”
Lee swallowed, then spoke. “I’m quitting swimming. I thought you should know.”
He sat back in his seat, returned his attention to the television.Regan squeezed her hand. They waited. After a moment, he turned back to her. “You’re too slow anyway,” he said. He tapped a cigarette from his pack, lit it with a silver lighter. “Got your mother’s thighs,” he said.
Lee bit her lip. She left the den, pulling her siblings with her. They knew Winston wasn’t done; they knew Charlotte offered no protection. By leaving Charlotte alone in the house, they were putting her at risk, but one thing their upbringing had taught them was that you had to take care of yourself.
Cord and Regan led Lee to the place in the rocks. They played Cave Family until the sun went down, never saying a word about Winston, or Lee’s intermittent tears. Lee was too old for Cave Family, but she ate the invisible wild rabbit Cord brought home anyway, and played the stick game with Regan. Nobody came to look for them. The sun went down. When it began to lightly rain, they put themselves to bed.
Charlotte made Lee promise to never tell anyone—including her brother and sister—that Winston had not died of a heart attack. The fact that they had not saved him from suicide—had maybe driven him to it—was so shameful that Lee had not even told Matt. So while Winston’s death was a reprieve of sorts for Cord and Regan, who bloomed without their father’s dark presence, for Lee it was the start of her life as a fraud. She held it all—the fear, the sorrow, the pain of seeing her dead father. She couldn’t stand to be around her siblings, and fled as soon as she was able. But the secret had eaten away at her. And no one would ever thank her for keeping it, of course—how could they know what she had done—was doing—to keep their world intact? And yet she yearned to tell them, the only ones who would understand.
A month after Lee quit swimming, and a few weeks before he hung himself, Winston tapped on her door, pushed it open without waiting for her reply. He was swaying a bit but not too drunk yet. “What?” she said. This insouciance with Winston was new to her; she tempered it with a “What do you need, Daddy?”
“How about swimming?” he said. “You’re going to get fat if you just sit here every night.”
