Chapter 11 #4
Cece starts typing and then deletes the message, bottom lip chewed raw between her teeth.
What is she so afraid of? Things are already in motion; she’s made her decision.
Telling Morgan about Jonathan won’t change anything.
Except that it might. It most certainly will—of course it will!
And Cece isn’t quite ready to let go of whatever is between her and Morgan.
Whatever potential friendship they might be able to cultivate will evaporate with news of her reconciliation with Jonathan.
Cece wants to keep Morgan in her life—even if it’s selfish, even if it means withholding this bit of information.
It isn’t really lying; she’s not leading him on.
It’s not as if they’re planning a future together.
That’s an impossibility, even without Jonathan in the picture.
From where she stands, Morgan’s life seems nerve-wracking, filled with potential concerns of money and stability, the means to build a future, and that was before she met Lacy.
And even if she wants it, Cece can’t afford unpredictability and risk.
She has enough of that in her own life at the moment.
Still, Cece finds herself imagining. Imagining what Morgan might do if she were to tell him about Jonathan: reads the message and tosses the phone across the room in anger, laughs uproariously at the craziest woman he’s ever slept with, scoffs with disdain, or the worst of all, turns off the lights and sleeps a dreamless sleep, content to be rid of a clingy woman he’d barely known.
Cece thinks about admitting to snooping through his medicine cabinet but stops herself. Thanks for being so understanding, she types, a twinge of guilt needling her. How long is Lacy staying with you?
Kind of up in the air. My ex and I are still working on a more regular visitation schedule. She isn’t exactly making things easy.
Maybe we can get together after she leaves.
I think she’d probably prefer another person to hang out with. All her friends are up in Providence. I took off a few days so we could get some time together, but I’m worried we’ve already run out of things to do. Her phone seems infinitely more interesting than her old man.
You are very old. I don’t think she really liked me.
That’s just the way she is. All teenagers, really.
We’ll figure out something to do then.
Have you talked any sense into your landlord about the oyster farm? Last I heard she was knocking on doors collecting signatures for some kind of petition. I don’t think everyone in the neighborhood is taking kindly to it.
I’m afraid not. Lorraine is her own woman.
Oh well. It was worth a shot. Better get some shut eye. Text me when you’re back in town. I’ll tell Lacy to expect you.
The house is eerily quiet when Cece comes downstairs the next morning, a crick in her neck from the overly soft pillows.
Like she needed more evidence she’s getting old.
A few crumbs on the kitchen island serve as the only evidence of someone eating breakfast. From the window over the sink—no sign of Kim, her car gone from the shrub-lined driveway.
Cece shouts her father’s name, then the dog’s, but there’s no answer, not so much as a bark.
She moves from one room to another, a silly panic setting in, feeling like a kid who’s lost their parent in the grocery store.
She’s about to go outside to do a loop when a thud sounds from the basement.
Stairs creak beneath her feet, fluorescent lights hum overhead, the smell of mildew and sawdust mingling into a strange brew. Barry is bent over in concentration at his workbench, a flat pencil behind his ear.
“You’re awake,” he says, spinning around on his stool.
“Where’s Mom?”
Barry stands, his head nearly touching the exposed beams. “She lit out of here pretty early after her run. She was in a bad mood…something about you blowing off an interview.”
“Shit.”
“You two had some sort of agreement?”
“She set up a job for me, but I blew the interview, partly on purpose…mostly on purpose, I guess.”
Cece’s expecting Barry to be upset with her or at least reprimand her for wasting her mother’s time and energy, but he seems preoccupied.
“Aren’t you angry?”
Barry rubs his stubbled chin. Crumbs dot his flannel shirt, and Cece wonders if he’s the culprit for the mess upstairs. “I just want you to be happy. Your mother does, too, of course. She just goes about showing it differently.”
Cece has never heard her father speak critically of her mother. Even when they’d fought terribly, he’d always presented a united front. “What’s going on with you two?”
“We’ve just hit a rough patch—that’s all.”
“What about the business? Things sound worse than usual.”
“Business could always be better, but it’ll turn around. I have faith.”
“Mom doesn’t operate on faith, Dad. You know that.”
“Let me show you something,” Barry says.
Cece follows him to the far corner of the basement, under the air ducts and past the boiler and boxes filled with Christmas ornaments, where she’s confronted by an enormous wooden armoire with glass doors.
Inside, shelves lined with all her high school swimming trophies.
On the top shelves, her Patriot League plaques from her time at Bucknell.
Below, her high school awards in the shape of New York state, and toward the bottom, where the shelves grow crowded and cluttered, countless ribbons, crystal cups, and engraved plates from her youngest years of competition.
He’s even saved the cheesy participation trophies from when she first started competing, the ones with little gold men on top, crouched, ready to dive.
They hadn’t had any with women figurines, but Barry hadn’t cared.
And there, in a simple black frame, her certificate from the YMCA for completing her first swim class.
Cece remembers—hands gripping the foam board, legs kicking up froth, Barry at her side, up to his stomach, wet hair painted against his chest, hands at her sides.
Looking back, she doesn’t know where her father ended and she began.
It had always been swimming. There’d been no conversation about enjoyment or fulfillment, but had she needed one?
Was the passion innate or cultivated? She’d never know.
And wasn’t that Barry’s fault? He was the adult, the parent.
The anger comes quickly, like a flash flood, and Cece’s about to remind her father of all the pain and suffering she’s endured because of swimming, because of him, but then she sees his face, full of admiration and gratitude, and she understands that this is perhaps all her father has—a case full of his daughter’s trophies in his basement—and she can only bring herself to hug him and tell him it looks great.
If he wants to run sandpaper over those memories until they are smooth, so be it.
What will Cece gain from setting him straight, pointing out every misremembered moment?
Only fleeting satisfaction, she suspects.
“I’m proud of you, Claire,” Barry says, adjusting a few crooked trophies. “I know we had our differences about the surgery, but you were always a fighter. You can do anything you put your mind to.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I need you to watch Bernard for a little longer, if that’s all right. Your mother was supposed to be here…”
Cece feels a familiar twinge—anticipation—crouched on the starting block, bathing suit cutting into her hips, waiting for the gun, waiting to dive and sink or swim. “Are you guys getting a divorce?”
Barry shakes his head in a defeated kind of way. “No…God, no…nothing like that. Your mom just wants some space,” he says, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt. “She’s getting her own place for a bit, and I can’t watch Bernard on my own, with work and all.”
Even though Cece’s suspected something was wrong, she can’t believe what she’s hearing.
Her parents, on the verge of divorce. Hadn’t they made it through the hard part?
Careers, kids, paying for college—now is when they’re supposed to spend more time together, enjoy each other’s company.
Maybe that’s the problem. Cece wonders if her father actually believes what he’s saying, or if he’s trying to soften the blow.
Surely, he must have seen the signs. “Did Mom tell you why she’s unhappy? ”
“This isn’t on you, Claire. We’ll figure it out. We’ve had troubles before, and we’ve always come out through it.”
“How are you gonna take care of yourself, Dad? Mom does everything around here.”
Barry reaches for Cece, his long arms wrapping her in a tight embrace. “This isn’t your problem to fix.”
“Does Wynonna know?”
He lets her go. “No. Absolutely not. She can’t hear about this. She’s not like you.”
“Like how?”
“You’ve got strength, kid. You always have. I don’t know what’s going on with you right now with work and the extracurriculars, but I know you’ll figure it out. You’ve always had a strong sense of purpose.”
“What if that’s the problem? What if what I want doesn’t make sense? What if my purpose isn’t my purpose at all, but some stupid experiment?”
“Remember what I used to tell you before each swim?”
Cece rolls her eyes. “You’re gonna have to be more specific. You were a walking cliché back then, Dad.”
Barry chuckles. “What did I say right before your second shoulder surgery, when you told me you were scared?”
The raw antiseptic smell of the operation room, the pinging monitors…she remembers. “If you aren’t scared, you’re not trying.”
“Exactly. And what happened? You came back stronger, better than ever.”
“When was the last time you were scared with Mom?”
Barry makes his way up the basement stairs, varicose veins popping in his right calf, hand gripping the banister all the way up.
In the kitchen, he calls Bernard’s name and shakes a bag of treats.
Upstairs, nails scrabble on hardwood. “Like I said, fixing your parents’ problems isn’t your job.
” He rests a hand on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze, his eyes watery and big. “But point taken.”