Florence Adler Swims Forever(87)

Joseph appeared in the doorway, carrying a stack of three empty crates. He set them down on the floor beside Florence’s bed. “Do you want help?”

Esther placed the swimsuit on top of the dresser and looked around the room. What she wanted was her daughter back. She thought about telling him that but instead she just said, “I’m fine.”

She moved one crate onto the bed, reached for a camisole, refolded it, then placed it at the bottom of the crate. Did Joseph plan to hover in the doorway all afternoon? She wished he would leave her alone but, to her disappointment, he wandered over to the dresser, opened a drawer, and removed a pair of motorcycle goggles Florence had retrofitted for her swim around the island.

“It was a smart idea,” he said. “Dipping the goggles in paraffin.” The wax had begun to flake off in large chunks, and he picked at a piece that hadn’t yet pulled away from the leather.

Esther let out a short sigh. “A lot of good it did her.”

“She made it around Absecon Island.”

“And that should please me?”

“It pleased her.”

Esther held on to the crate in front of her with both hands.

“You’d do it all again?” she asked, tentatively. “Teach her to swim, encourage the practicing and the competitions? Knowing how this all ends?”

“Of course not.” He moved around to the other side of the bed, picked up a pair of stockings, and began to fold them. Her heart sank. He clearly intended to stay.

“Not like that,” she said, reaching for another pair of stockings just like the ones between his fingers. “Fold them in half first. Then roll them.”

Joseph looked at her, his eyes so full of pity it made her want to scream, but did as he was told.

He bungled three pairs before he spoke again. “There wasn’t any part of you that enjoyed watching what she could do in the water?”

Esther unfurled the hosiery Joseph had folded and refolded it to her liking. Had Esther gotten something out of Florence’s swims? She had certainly never enjoyed the helpless feeling she got when her daughter was out in the open water. But, in small ways, Esther supposed she had enjoyed Florence’s triumphs. She had liked complaining to the grocer that her daughter was eating her out of house and home. He would weigh a big bunch of bananas or a bag of glossy oranges and cluck agreeably. She liked the way the mothers of the younger girls in the Ambassador Club always made a point of asking, whenever they bumped into Esther, how Florence was doing at Wellesley. Esther would recite as many lines from Florence’s letters as she could remember, fully aware that the news would be reported back to the girls on the team. She wondered whether, if she ran into those women now, she would tell them to keep their precious daughters out of the water. She could picture Florence rolling her eyes at that.

“I am allowed to miss her, too,” Joseph said quietly.

Esther could feel a quiet rage building inside her. How dare Joseph try to twist this moment inside out until it was about something else altogether. The words were out of her mouth before she could consider what she was saying: “At least you have Anna.”

Joseph looked confused. “What does that mean?”

“How did you phrase it again?” She tossed the rolled-up stockings into the crate and moved over to Anna’s dresser, where she yanked open the bottom drawer and grabbed at the thick stack of papers.

“Esther, those aren’t yours.”

She flipped through the pages frantically, looking for the copy of Joseph’s affidavit. “It’s here somewhere.”

“Those documents are important. You should put them back.”

“Here,” she said, waving the affidavit in the air. She scanned the addendum, looking for the line that had made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. “?‘At seventeen, the applicant’s mother and I became engaged to be married.’?”

She read the rest of the paragraph aloud, including the part where he claimed Anna was like a daughter to him, before thrusting the affidavit at him.

“You wrote this. And, what, three months later your daughter is dead? Kena horah.”

Joseph closed his eyes and leaned against the bedpost. “You think the evil eye killed our daughter?”

“What should I think?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her before he said anything. “That she got a cramp. Or got caught in an undertow.” His voice cracked on the word caught.

“She was a good swimmer,” she said as she began to sob.

“Esther.” He tried to move toward her, stockings in hand, but she held the stack of papers in front of her like a shield.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Inez.”

“I feel like an idiot. That first summer we met, how much of it was real?”

“All of it,” said Joseph as he pried the papers from her hands and pulled her toward him.

“When did you end it with her?”

“Do you remember the night you took my hand? In front of the Chelsea?”

Esther nodded her head.

“I wrote to Inez that night.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I wanted to be the kind of man who followed through on his promises but that I had met a woman whom I knew I’d never be able to let go of.”