The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,24
Mother was Cowslip.
From then on, Thalia used it as a verb, whispering “She’s Cowslipping” whenever they saw their mother’s face blank itself, her closed lips stretching into a wide smile, quelling whole rooms into submission with her mighty blindness and her will.
And this was the person David had called in to help her. Laurel buried her head in her hands. There had been a day, just one, when Mother had taken a stand for Laurel, but she’d done it covertly, in her own sly way. Mother would not want to hear that Molly Dufresne had walked through walls to visit Laurel’s bedroom. She would not be interested in getting Thalia to come over and soak that detective in words, then twist her and wring out answers. She wouldn’t want Laurel to run around asking her neighbors if they could confirm the presence of a pervert lurking on the Deerbolds’ lawn last night, and Laurel could not remember a single time in her life when she’d pitted herself against her mother’s love of decorum and won.
Still wishing for a toothbrush, Laurel squared her shoulders and went on upstairs.
Shelby and Bet Clemmens sat side by side on the sofa, watching a movie. Shelby’s mouth was turned down, and her eyes were tired. She had her feet tucked up and her arms looped around her legs, as closed up as a shoe box full of secrets in the very corner of the sofa. Bet slumped beside her, looking like Bet. Someone—Laurel’s money was on Mother—had closed the drape over the glass doors, and Daddy was standing at the end, peering out at the backyard through a narrow crack. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Morning, sugar,” as Laurel came up.
Laurel’s scrawny daddy looked like he never got fed enough when he was growing. He had a body that wanted to be strapping, but it had failed and dwindled on him. His arms, ropy with muscle and dark veins, were too long, and his head and hands were too big. He turned his head away to peer out again.
“Sweetie,” Mother said, and came immediately to give Laurel a decorous peck on the cheek. “What an awful night you’ve had. Would you like coffee? Or an egg? I’m making lunch soon, but you could have an egg.”
“Just coffee,” Laurel said.
“Come away from there, Howard,” Mother said. Her tart, fond tone was back. “And no more about mermaids or the water calling people. It’s morbid.” She sailed off toward the kitchen to get Laurel’s coffee. Daddy stayed where he was.
“There was a detective. Moreno—” Laurel said. Daddy was nodding. “Is she still out there with them?”
He shook his head without turning around.
Fine. Maybe she could get Mother out of here before Moreno came back.
Shelby was walled in between Bet Clemmens and the sofa’s arm. Laurel went and squatted on her haunches in front of her.
Bet leaned sideways, her eyes glued to the TV.
“Whatcha watching?” Laurel asked.
“Nothing, now,” Shelby said. Laurel was blocking her view.
“That boy there wants to ballet-dance, I think,” Bet said, pointing. “I can’t hardly understand a word he says.”
“It’s Billy Elliot,” Shelby said.
She’d ordered it and October Sky from Netflix specifically for Bet’s visit, as if the films would help her feel more at home. In Shelby’s head, DeLop was probably as cinematic as the mining towns in those movies. She’d never seen the real DeLop, and Laurel’s descriptions had been soft, to say the least.
“As soft as Dairy Queen cones, and just as fucking ersatz, Jesus Bug,” Thalia had scoffed once. She’d overheard Laurel telling Shel how much her cousins had enjoyed the Tinker Toys. Thalia had amused herself by taking Laurel’s gentling even further, telling Shelby long made-up stories set in a picturesque DeLop, one eyebrow cocked ironically at Laurel.
Thalia had peopled her purely fictional small town with big-eyed, delectably shabby orphans pulled straight out of velvet paintings from the seventies. They were watched over by Dear Old Aunt Enid, who, in Thalia’s version, possessed both teeth and a kind spirit. Enid lined the orphans up in clean, well- mannered rows to get their packages each Christmas. “Oh, please, convey our deepest thanks to Shelby,” Thalia’s orphans warbled, tears moistening the red ribbons Shelby had curled with a pair of blunt-tipped scissors left over from her grade-school days.
Laurel didn’t think Shelby had stopped to compare the real DeLop girl in her house right now with Thalia’s version. Bet had never warbled in her life, but she was such a blank