enjoying them socially. Zoe loved having time to just be a mom and a wife, without all the pressure and demands of her job. She hated to see the vacation end.
She was talking to three of the women, while Jaime and the three other children were playing nearby, on the last day. Zoe was smiling and relaxed, she had a deep tan and looked beautiful, as the four women were chatting. And Austin had gone to play tennis with one of the men they’d met.
They were comparing the schools their children went to, one of them in the suburbs and two in New York, when Austin came back from his tennis game, and spotted Jaime racing around the pool with her friends on the wet cement. Zoe had her back to them and didn’t see them, and was wearing sunglasses and a big hat. She looked like a movie star, and Austin could see that Jaime and her pals were going wild, and none of the mothers were watching them.
He called out to Jaime and she didn’t hear him, as he rushed across the pool area to stop her from running, and before he could get to her, he saw her stub her toe and trip, slip across the wet cement, hit her face on the side of the pool, fall into the water, and go down like a rock to the bottom of the pool at the deep end. She didn’t have her armbands on, and no one had noticed her yet. She was so small and had fallen in so fast. Zoe still had her back to her, and the lifeguard was helping an elderly woman with a deck chair and hadn’t spotted Jaime when she fell in. Austin was at the pool within seconds, kicked off his shoes, jumped in, wearing his tennis clothes, swam down to the bottom, grabbed Jaime, and rose to the surface with her, as she spluttered and coughed. The lifeguard had seen Austin dive in and rushed to the side of the pool to pull Jaime out when Austin handed her to him. The lifeguard laid her on the ground, as Austin hauled himself out of the pool and picked Jaime up in his arms, as she coughed up the water she’d swallowed, and as he held her, he realized that he was covered in blood. She had split her chin wide open on the side of the pool as she went down. By then people were looking and asking if they could help. Austin was shaking, as he realized that if he hadn’t seen her, she might have drowned.
A man came over to them and said he was a doctor, took a quick look at her chin, and told Austin she would have to be stitched up. The wound was bleeding profusely, as Austin pointed to Zoe and asked the lifeguard to go and get his wife.
She looked shocked when he came to get her, still talking to the other women, and rushed to where he pointed to Austin and Jaime, and she almost slipped herself on the wet surface, knelt down next to them, and tried to reach out for Jaime, but Austin had a firm grip on her, and spoke to Zoe in a harsh voice.
“Get a car and driver from the hotel,” he said to her coldly, “she needs to be stitched up. She’s got a gash on her chin. And while you were talking to those women, she damn near drowned.”
“I was watching her,” Zoe insisted.
“No, you weren’t. I saw you. You were talking to them with your back to the pool. You didn’t see any of it, she was running around the pool, and she didn’t have her floaties on.” All week they had made her wear them anytime they were near the pool, and on the very last day, everything had gone wrong. It was Murphy’s Law, but it wasn’t new to them. “Just get a car, we can discuss it later,” he said, as Jaime sobbed and clung to him. It was a sad end to their wonderful vacation, and he couldn’t believe how irresponsible Zoe had been with a three-year-old in her care at a swimming pool.
The women Zoe had been chatting with were all crowded around them by then, holding tightly to their children. Jaime had served as a lesson in what could happen in an instant if you ran around a swimming pool.