arrived. It was a familiar scene to them by now, their daughter injured, and either stitches or a cast, which made Austin feel a wave of panic wash over him as he thought of it. And when she wasn’t injured, she was sick.
He and Zoe didn’t speak to each other on the way back to the hotel. They laid Jaime on her bed when they walked into the suite. She looked drugged, she was so exhausted from the trauma, as her eyes fluttered closed within minutes and she drifted off to sleep. She had been through the wringer, nearly drowned, cut her chin wide open, and had twelve stitches. It would have been extremely trying even for an adult. Her parents looked nearly as bad. They walked into the living room of the suite, and Austin poured himself a stiff drink from the minibar. He looked devastatingly handsome with his wet dark hair and powerful athletic body. But what did it matter? Zoe wondered if he’d ever forgive her. It seemed like a long time before he sat down and looked at her. She was sitting across from him and didn’t move. She looked like she was waiting to be whipped.
“What do you expect me to say to you?” he asked her in a low voice, so Jaime didn’t hear them, but she was sound asleep. “I’m sure you’re sorry, but that was the most irresponsible, neglectful thing I’ve ever seen. How am I supposed to trust you with our daughter’s life when you do something like that? Do you know how many times she’s been injured? I can’t even count anymore. She’s had more stitches and broken bones than any child I’ve ever heard of, other than the kids at the shelter. I don’t understand it. I don’t know if we’re neglectful parents or she’s a particularly active child, but I’m beginning to think we’re unsuitable parents. Zoe, something has to change.” He looked devastated and so did she.
“It will, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, I was talking to those women, it was only for a few minutes, I was having fun with them, and the next thing I knew, the lifeguard came over and told me she almost drowned, and you were holding her and she was bleeding.”
“I think we have to hire a full-time nanny,” he said with a look of desperation, but the truth was that she had never gotten hurt with Fiona, except when she fell down the stairs because Zoe wouldn’t let him put up a gate. And she had never gotten injured with him. It only happened with Zoe. And she always had a reason, a ready apology, or an excuse. For a terrifying moment, he wondered if she was subconsciously trying to kill her, if there was some deep psychological reason why she wanted to hurt their child, like jealousy, or fear, or something deeply psychotic. But whatever the reason, he no longer trusted his wife with their daughter. And after the scene at the swimming pool, he wasn’t sure if he ever would again. It wasn’t Jaime’s fault. She had never gotten injured at school. It only happened at home, or when Zoe took her out. He didn’t dare tell her what he was thinking. It sounded too sick.
“I swear to you, Austin,” she said with a pleading look, “I will never take my eyes off her again.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said sadly. “You’re a wonderful mother in a lot of ways, and I know you love her, but we’re not responsible parents. I’m scared, Zoe. You have to watch her better. That shouldn’t have happened today.”
“It won’t again. I promise you.” As he looked at her, he saw the woman he had loved for nine years, the champion of abused children, and the best mother in the world. But was she? What if nothing he believed about her was true? He wanted to believe it, to cling to who he thought she was, but all he could think of now was Jaime at the bottom of the pool, while Zoe laughed with the other women and didn’t even know where Jaime was. What if she had already been dead when he got there? He started to cry as he thought of it, and Zoe came to sit next to him and put her arms around him, and she was crying too. “I love you and Jaime more than anything in life,” she whispered, and he