shade to Sonia’s hair. No doubt they both paid handsomely for it.
Carmel’s daughter Lulu was fair-haired. Lulu looked entirely unrelated to Carmel, which had never mattered until the day Lulu told her that when Daddy and Sonia took them out to dinner a lady stopped by the table and said to Lulu, “You’ve got beautiful hair just like your mummy, haven’t you?”
Carmel said, in a high, strained voice, “Huh, that’s funny. Did you tell her that Sonia wasn’t your mummy?”
Lulu said that Daddy had said it wasn’t necessary to always point out that Sonia wasn’t her real mother, and Carmel had said, “Of course it’s necessary, darling, you should point it out every single time in your loudest voice,” but only in her head. Out loud she said, “It’s time to clean your teeth, Lulu.”
Remembering this, she’d picked up speed, her arms and legs chopping through the water, harder and harder, faster and faster, but she couldn’t sustain it, she wasn’t fit enough, she was so unfit, and fat, and lazy, and disgusting. And she thought of her four girls on the other side of the world, in Paris, where Carmel had never been, having their hair done by Sonia, and probably sitting still for her, and suddenly she swallowed a giant mouthful of water.
She’d hopped out of the pool, without making eye contact with the friendly blond lady, as per the rules, fortunately, because she was crying like a fool, and she’d cried all the way to her room. There was no way the big man coming down the pathway to the pool hadn’t noticed.
“Get a grip,” she said now to her reflection in the mirror.
She wrapped her arms around her body.
She missed her children. It hit her like a sudden fever. She longed for the comfort of their four beautiful little-girl bodies and their heedless, proprietorial use of her body: the way they plonked themselves on her lap as if she were a chair, the way they burrowed their hot little heads into her stomach, her breasts. She was always yelping at someone, “Get off me!” When she was with her children, she was needed—essential, in fact: everything relied on her. Someone was always saying, “Where’s Mummy?” “I’m telling Mum what you just said.” “Mummmmmy!”
Now she was untethered by obligations, as loose and free as a balloon.
She undid the tie of her swimsuit and let it fall in a heap on the bathroom floor while she studied her naked body in the mirror.
“I’m so sorry. I still care very deeply for you, but we’ve always valued honesty in our relationship, haven’t we?” Joel said to her a year ago, while he poured her a glass of wine. “It really hurts me to say this but, the thing is, I’m just not attracted to you anymore.”
He truly thought he was being kind and ethical. He believed himself to be a man who did the right thing. He would never have cheated on her. He simply left her, went straight onto a dating website, and replaced her. His conscience was perfectly clear. He’d always liked to keep his possessions well maintained, and if they couldn’t be repaired to “as new” then he updated them.
Carmel lifted her breasts in both hands to where they used to be, when they were “as new.” She looked at the stretch marks on her wobbly stomach and thought of some sappy Facebook post she’d read about how stretch marks were beautiful because of what they represented, creating new life, blah blah blah. Maybe stretch marks could be considered beautiful if the father of your babies still loved your body.
When Joel asked if he and Sonia could please take the girls on a trip to Europe over the January school holidays—Disneyland in Paris! Skiing in Austria! Ice-skating in Rome!—Carmel had said, “Are you kidding me? You’re going on the trip we used to talk about doing? But you’re doing it without me?” but only in her head. Out loud she said, “That sounds like so much fun!” And then she arranged all their passports.
She’d told her sister that she was going to spend the time they were away eating paleo and doing cardio and weights and yoga. The plan was to transform her body.
She didn’t want Joel back. All she wanted was for his mouth to drop open when he saw her. She didn’t need him to gape, although that would be nice. She simply wanted her body to look as good as it was physically