turned a dial on her screen and keyed in Carmel’s room number.
A woman’s tear-choked voice emerged loud and clear from Masha’s monitor.
“Get a grip. Get a grip. Get a grip.”
21
Carmel
Carmel stood in her room and slapped her own face. Once. Twice. Three times. The third time she slapped herself so hard her glasses flew off.
She picked them up, went to the bathroom, and looked at her flushed cheek in the mirror.
For a moment there, when she was in the pool, swimming her laps, endorphins zipping through her body after that fantastic bushwalk, she felt fine, more than fine—she felt exultant. It had been years since she’d had time to do laps.
As she swam she gloried in the fact that there was nowhere to be, nothing to do, no one to worry about. No jazz pickup or karate drop-off, no homework to supervise, no birthday gifts to buy, no doctors’ appointments to book; the endless multitude of teeny-tiny details that made up her life. Each obligation on its own seemed laughably easy. It was the sheer volume that threatened to bury her.
Here, she didn’t even have to do her own laundry. Carmel simply had to put her washing outside her door in a little cloth bag and it would be returned to her, laundered and ironed, within twenty-four hours. She’d literally cried with happiness when she read that.
She had set herself a goal of fifty laps of freestyle, faster and faster with each lap. She was going to get so, so fit here! She could almost feel that excess weight falling off her. All she’d ever needed was time to exercise and a pantry free of treats. As she swam, she silently chanted in time with her strokes: I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, breathe, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, breathe.
But then that tiny voice beneath the exultant chanting, just the faintest whisper, had begun: I wonder what they’re doing now.
She’d tried to ignore it, chanting louder: I’m so HAPPY, I’m so HAPPY.
The voice got louder until it became a shout: No, but seriously, what do you think they’re doing RIGHT NOW?
That’s when she’d felt her sanity come loose. The feeling of panic reminded her of one of those recurring dreams in which she’d lost all four of her daughters in some bizarrely negligent way, such as leaving them on the side of the road, or just forgetting they existed and going out dancing.
She’d tried to calm herself with rational thoughts. Her children were not lost on the side of the road; they were with their father and Sonia, his perfectly lovely new girlfriend, soon to be wife. Carmel knew from the itinerary that today they were in Paris, staying in a “wonderful” Airbnb flat. Sonia, who “just loved to travel,” had stayed there before. It would be cold, of course, in January, but the kids had new jackets. They were on the trip of a lifetime. They were having a wonderful educational experience while their mother had a wonderful break to “recharge.”
Their father loved them. Their father’s new girlfriend loved them. “Sonia said she loves us more than life itself,” Rosie told Carmel after only the third time she met the woman, and Carmel said, “Well, she sounds like a total nutcase!” but only in her head. Out loud she said, “That’s so nice!”
It was an amicable divorce. Amicable on Joel’s part, anyway. On Carmel’s part, it felt like a death no one acknowledged. He just fell out of love with her, that’s all. It must have been so hard for him, living with a woman he no longer loved. He really struggled with it, poor man, but he had to be true to himself.
It happens. It happens a lot. It’s essential the discarded wife remain dignified. She must not wail and weep, except in the shower, when the kids are at school and preschool, and she’s alone in the suburbs with all the other weeping, wailing wives. The discarded wife must not be bitchy or unkind about the new and improved wife. She must suck it up but without developing a sour face. It is better for all concerned if she is thin.
Carmel had touched the side and turned to do another lap when she saw that someone had joined her in the pool. The friendly-looking older blond woman. Carmel almost said, “Hi,” before remembering the silence and ignoring her.
She’d kept swimming and thought about how that woman’s hair was a similar