The Swap - Robyn Harding Page 0,31

have spun Brian’s chair around to face me, should have told him what Max and I had done, but I was a coward. Instead, I got up, went to the kitchen, and poured a glass of water. I gulped it down, hoping to dilute my regret and self-loathing, but it didn’t work. Setting the empty glass on the counter, I gazed out the window at the waxy leaves of our camelia bush, its early pink blooms already dead and decomposing at its feet.

Max Beausoleil had lied to me. He had tricked me and manipulated me. I should have been enraged, but I couldn’t blame this all on him. I knew how much I’d wanted him that night, how eager I’d been to believe his words. If I confronted him and accused him, it could damage his marriage to Freya. She claimed to be open-minded and sexually adventurous, but those were just words. There was no way she’d be chill about her husband bedding her best friend while she slept upstairs. She would hate Max. She would hate me. The thought filled me with dread.

And Brian . . . Oh God, poor Brian. The thought of hurting him made my stomach ache.

I made a decision, then. What Max and I had done was over. It did not need to be discussed, dissected, or analyzed. Dragging it into the light was not worth jeopardizing my marriage or my friendship. I loved Brian too much. I loved Freya too much. So, I buried it.

Like a body.

autumn 2019

21

low

On October 5, I came home to find Gwen, Janine, my dad, and a midwife wearing a white turban helping my mother give birth in a wading pool. I turned around and walked back out, drove into town, ate three slices of pepperoni at the pizza joint, got an ice cream cone, and savored it in my truck parked at the boat launch, then went to the convenience store for a slushie. Finally, when a couple of hours had passed, I drove home.

“Meet your new baby brother,” my mom said, cuddling a mint-green bundle to her chest. “This is Eckhart.”

“After Tolle,” my dad elaborated. Like there were other Eckharts the poor little bugger might be named after.

He was very small and practically fuchsia and shriveled like a prune. I touched his soft cheek and his tiny hand. He grabbed my finger in his little fist and brought it to his mouth. He was cute. I might like this kid more than my other brothers. And then he started screaming. I didn’t realize then that he wouldn’t stop for four months.

“It’s colic,” my mom said, as she bounced and jiggled the angry purple creature that was my brother. “He’ll grow out of it.”

“When?”

“Don’t start, Swallow! Don’t fucking start.” And then she burst into tears.

I’d really misjudged my new sibling. I liked him even less than the other ones. What did he have to be so miserable about? He had my mom, my dad, and Gwen at his beck and call. They spent every moment of the day trying to make him comfortable: feeding him, burping him, changing him, swaddling him, swinging him, singing to him, and taking him for walks and car rides, even boat rides. Nothing pleased Eckhart. He was an asshole. An infant King Joffrey.

To remove myself from the noise and chaos, I spent more and more time at the pottery studio. I had nowhere else to go. The tourist trade had dwindled with the summer and so had my employment. Jamie had apologized profusely, but she couldn’t afford to keep me on full-time. I only worked weekends now, or the occasional midweek shift if she had plans or was away. It was virtually impossible to find off-season employment on the island, but I had a plan.

I had been working in the studio several days a week for seven months. My wheel work was passable, but I didn’t have Freya’s delicate touch, I couldn’t replicate her unique creations. But I’d discovered a talent for handwork, pinch pots to be precise. I had made a perfect little cup and then decided to add an oversize lid that made it look like a toadstool. It was a decorative, whimsical piece, but when you removed the cap, it was a perfect container for earrings, pills, or paper clips.

“That is so adorable,” Freya had gushed. “If you make a few of these, I bet Jamie would sell them.”

“Really?”

“I’ll talk to her,” she said, with a wink. “I got you the