Page 84 of Here One Moment

When she covers her mouth with her hand she smells chlorine. Timmy is now enrolled at three different swim schools. He does six lessons a week, all of which require her to get in the pool with him, because he is a baby. Timmy is happy. He loves every opportunity to get in the pool. Willow only does one swimming class a week and she’s happy to go to the pool center childcare, thank goodness. On the two days Willow is at preschool, Paula takes Timmy for two lessons: one at ten a.m., one at two p.m. He sleeps so well.

Her thoughts spool endlessly: Where will it happen? Pool? River? Ocean? How will it happen? How can I stop it? How can I prepare?

The only time her mind is truly at rest is when she’s in the pool with Timmy, watching him effortlessly “self-rescue,” watching him not drown, watching him float so peacefully, so confidently, his face dreamy, as if he’s back in the womb.

“Wow, he’s a true water baby!” people say, and Paula says, “He sure is!”

Paula picks up her phone and calls her sister.

“Just hold on a sec,” says Lisa. Paula waits while she yells her order at a McDonald’s drive-thru, changing her mind, umming and ahhing. She is surely driving the poor order-taker mad.

Paula rests her head against the window. She can just see the entrance to the cathedral from where she is parked. Strangely, this is the second time she has been to a double funeral at this church. Last year she went to support a friend, a work colleague who had lost both her parents in a car accident. It was another driver’s fault, just like in the case of the young girl from the flight.

That was a desperately sad funeral and Paula nearly made herself sick trying to hold it together, imagining the stares. Why is she crying, she never even met them! Surely she won’t feel like that today, when the two doctors are so much older and died of natural causes.

“How are you?” says her sister, with her mouth full, presumably of fries.

“How could you be eating fries at this time of the day?” asks Paula.

“Why not?” says her sister. “Life is short, and I don’t need to fit into a wedding dress anymore. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” lies Paula.

“You never do nothing,” says Lisa suspiciously.

“Are you driving?” asks Paula, imagining her sister distracted by her fries and Paula on the phone.

“It’s fine, I’ve pulled over,” says Lisa. “Everything okay?”

“I was just thinking,” says Paula.

“Oh, dear,” says her sister.

It bursts out of her. “I was just thinking that if Timmy drowns when he’s seven I’ll be too old to have another baby and Willow will be an only child.”

“He won’t, I promise you. This is really terrible, it’s upsetting how this is affecting you, Paulie.”

It’s her childhood nickname and Paula suddenly wants to tell her little sister everything, that it’s not just the endless swimming lessons; sometimes she feels like she might already be on that slippery slope to a strange, strange place. Her thoughts are getting darker and more twisty.

Her sister’s voice is suddenly urgent. “Maybe you need to talk to someone about what you’re going through at the moment. Like, a professional?”

“What? No. I’m not going through anything.”

“You kind of are.”

If anyone discovers the thoughts that flutter like bats across Paula’s mind they will take her children away.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“You could do a telehealth call with that doctor—what was his name? Dr. Donnelly.”

It’s humiliating how her sister remembers that name so easily.

A young woman crosses the road in front of Paula’s car. She’s wearing a black dress that is too big for her. Something is familiar about her.

It’s the bride. From the plane.

“Actually, got to go, sorry, Lisa, I’ll call you back later,” says Paula, and opens her car door fast.

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