The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,52

“Exactly,” she said. “It’s like when Shelby came, remember?”

Fourteen hours of hard labor with little progress, and her doctor had said it was time to think about a C-section. Laurel had sent David to the waiting room to get Thalia. He’d been so nervous that he hadn’t wanted to leave, but she’d begged him. He’d come back with her sister and then stood off to one side. Laurel had held his hand, squeezing so hard she felt his bones grinding, but it was Thalia who had called her a pansy and told Laurel it was time to “man up and push.” That had made Laurel so angry—being told to give birth like a man, of all things—but it had worked. She’d rallied, cursing her sister as she pushed Shelby out into the world.

“I remember,” David said, and his hand flexed, an involuntary movement, like it was remembering her grip.

“Are we okay?” said Laurel.

He waved that away and said, “We’re always okay. But I’m working at the office for the next— How long? Few days?”

“Maybe a few days, yeah,” Laurel said.

“Because that’s a lot of bags she brought.”

“Thalia packs that much for an overnight,” Laurel said.

“True enough. Okay. I see what happened. It’s fine.” Now he was saying it to himself more than to her. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’m supposed to meet the Richmond Games coder online for more dogfight tests.”

“Okay,” she said. “Go be Dave.”

He walked toward the basement stairs, and his gait was stiff, as if his legs were sore.

“You are mad,” she said.

“A little mad, yeah,” he said, his back still to her. His voice was loud. Then he stopped and took a deep breath, and he did turn around. He spoke quietly. “But I’m right downstairs if you need me, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and she watched him walk down. His head glided lower and lower with each step he took, as if he were setting. He’d said he was close enough to call if she needed him, and it felt true, right up until the moment when she couldn’t see him anymore.

CHAPTER 9

Thalia’s long body was sprawled out on the hardwood floor of Laurel’s dining room. She was on her back, her legs together, her back arching up as she stretched in the spill of late-morning sunshine that came in through the big bay window. It lit up her hair, two shades lighter than Laurel’s. Pure corn-colored, like Mother’s when she was younger. Laurel knelt near her feet, keeping watch through the sheers.

Thalia was all but naked again, this time in a Lycra sports bra with barely enough of a strap to credibly be mistaken for a shirt. She had on low-cut Lycra boy shorts, too, the kind Laurel had called “creepers” back in high school. They rode up as she moved, and showed the undercurve of her butt. She didn’t have one bit of cellulite there, and her breasts looked like unripe plums, set hard and high.

“I kind of hate you,” Laurel said, looking at her sister’s flat abdomen.

“Yoga,” said Thalia. “And clean living. See him yet?”

“Not yet.”

Thalia sat up, her feet still together, and bent at the waist, stretching down to touch her toes. Her long feet flexed. “God, who runs at noon in Florida?”

“He doesn’t work. I think this is first thing in the morning to him,” Laurel said.

“Is Data down in the basement?”

“David,” Laurel said, “is working from his office today. Does it matter?”

“If Stan Webelow takes me up on my offer, we’ll need a place to go,” Thalia said, and showed Laurel all her teeth at once.

“Oh, gross,” Laurel said, her lip curling as she got a vivid mental flash of Stan Webelow’s moist golden body, slick in its running shorts. “You wouldn’t.”

Thalia laughed and stood up, stretching her arms high toward the ceiling. “Get a grip, Bug,” she said. “If he’s gay, I’ll pick that up in three minutes. If he’s straight, I bet I can pick him up in two. Either way, we can cross him off the list and look where we need to be looking. It’s always the family.” She finished stretching and knelt down beside Laurel. The two of them peered up over the windowsill, watching the street like crocodiles. Even through the sheers, Laurel could see low waves of heat shimmering off the asphalt.

“Barb and Chuck Dufresne seem so . . . regular,” Laurel said.

Thalia snorted. “Even our family seems regular from the outside. As I remember, Chuck Dufresne is an ass.