The Girl in the Mirror(59)

Now my heart pounds wildly and the baby struggles inside me like a creature in a snare. My belly muscles spasm. Is this what a contraction feels like? I must be calm; this can’t be good for the baby. I push against the sand and swim upward, expecting to crash into this nightmarish barrier. Instead, I burst into fresh air. I gasp for breath. I’m in deep water, and a wave breaks over me, filling my nose and mouth with brine. I tumble downward again. I’m shivering, nauseated, and so very tired.

I fight back to the surface and force myself to breathe evenly, to make slow, calm strokes toward the beach. Soon I’m in the shallows again, trembling as I make my way back to the warmth of my towel.

It’s time I stopped this stupidity. I’m a heavily pregnant woman. I’m not a free agent anymore; the lives of my husband and our two children are bound up in mine. This is motherhood. However fake the rest of my life is, my baby is real. From now on, I’ll swim in the pool.



In the afternoon I’m poolside, drooping in a deck chair, my baby bump pointing skyward, when there is a frantic banging on my door. Through the glass panels, I glimpse a hefty arm, a woman’s meaty fist.

Is she one of those crones from my prenatal class? Has she come to scold me again? But no. As I approach I see her through the glass. Virginia.

She’s hacked her hair as short as a boy’s. She’s dressed like a slob. She’s as big as a bus. And she’s crying.

I open the door and Virginia bursts inside, pushing me out of the way before shutting and dead-bolting the door behind her. It’s just a careless shove, but the image flashes through my mind of her pushing me to the floor. Is she here to hurt my baby?

And then I realize why she’s so enormous.

She’s pregnant. Very pregnant.

“Is my mother here?” she asks. Her voice is tremulous. “Is Uncle Colton or anyone here?”

I don’t want to say I’m home alone. “The maid’s here. And the gardener,” I lie.

“Are you in touch with any of my family?” Virginia asks. “Are you in touch with my uncle Edgar?”

“Never heard of him.” At least this is the truth.

She sinks to her knees, sobbing and shaking, wrapping her arms around my legs. “Summer, despite everything, we’re sisters!” she wails. “We’re flesh and blood. You have to help me. You’re the only one who can. I won’t let them do it!”



Ten minutes later, we’re sitting on the couch together, while Virginia stuffs her face with M&Ms from a pink backpack. She’s still crying, but she’s starting to make some sense.

Turns out she did get married on the first of May.

“I thought I was in love,” she says. “We had so much in common. We both like manga, and Richie’s even better at drawing than I am, but after the wedding night, after, you know, we did it, everything changed. I realized the reason we have so much in common is that we’re family. He might not be a blood relation, but I grew up seeing him as a cousin. He almost feels like a brother! You have a brother, don’t you, Summer, so you would understand! However much you love him, you don’t want to fuck him!”

The word sounds obscene in her baby mouth. She hardly needs to invoke my brother to make her point. I get it.

“What was the purpose of all this?” I ask. “You knew I was pregnant.”

“Mum told me you had miscarried,” says Virginia. “She even got me to write you a sympathy card.”

So the marriage went ahead in the hope I would miscarry, or perhaps in the hope that my pregnancy was a lie. Francine had not given up without a fight. And she was a lot closer to the truth than she had realized.

“But what about all those photos on your Facebook page?” I ask. “Two weeks ago you were tanned and toned and taking selfies at the gym!”

“Mum knew you would find those photos,” says Virginia. “They’re from months ago. Mum took them all in one day with a bunch of male models. She told them it was a fashion shoot.”

“Why did you go along with all this?” I ask.

“I have to be honest. They didn’t force me,” Virginia says. She tucks her feet under herself, a girlish gesture at odds with her matronly bulk. “I stood there in that registry office in Auckland and swore my life to him. It was my sixteenth birthday, and it was raining so hard that it soaked through my shoes. I got married with cold feet, literally.” She snorts, but the sound becomes a sob. “Mum took us to a hotel room and then she and my gross uncles feasted in the restaurant below while Richie and I, you know.”

“God, I’m so sorry,” I say. The gross uncles must be Colton, and Francine’s brother—the “Edgar” Virginia is so scared of. I don’t remember him, but I imagine a red-faced goblin with a bulbous nose, huddled with Francine over a banquet of greasy roast pig and several bottles of expensive port while Virginia and Richie are upstairs. At the thought that Colton was there, I feel a pang for my mother. Does she love Colton? And the thought of these teenagers fumbling their way through the act like a pair of child prostitutes is enough to make me gag.

“The next day was worse.” Virginia opens a bag of M&Ms and practically crams them all in her mouth at once. She talks as she chews. “Mum had one of those ovulation-detection kits and she made me pee on a stick each day. She said I was having my LH surge, so she made us have sex three times. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And each time, afterward, she made me stand on my head!”