Leave Me

Five minutes in, she touched the computers. She checked her e-mail. There was nothing from Jason. Of course there wasn’t. She was furious anew, but this time at herself. It was her own fault for opening this Pandora’s box. For five weeks, Jason had not e-mailed her but she had not known about it and had been fine. For five days she had known and had been a basket case.

The next morning she woke up and resolved to avoid all computers and e-mail and the temptation of the library. Instead, she would try swimming. She took a bus to Target to procure a bathing suit and a pair of goggles, then took another bus over to the club.

A Mommy and Me swim class must have just gotten out because a parade of towel-swaddled toddlers was being shepherded into the locker room. Maribeth recognized the look on some of the mothers’ faces: a sort of shell-shocked glaze. Because who in their right mind thought it was a wise idea to mix helpless children and deep water?

Maribeth had taken precisely two swim classes with the twins. At the first one, Liv kept trying to unhook the flotation brick strapped to her chest, while Oscar cried every time he felt even the tiniest splash. The teacher, a balding Israeli, had suggested she take turns with the twins, but Oscar cried when she left him on the deck, and while unsupervised, Liv had wandered over to the deep end and jumped in.

Later that week, Maribeth had recounted the story to Elizabeth, who had snorted with laughter. “It’s not funny,” she’d told her friend.

“It’s a little funny,” Elizabeth had replied.

Maribeth failed to see the humor. All those years of trying to get pregnant, she’d dreamt of doing something like this: swim class with her babies. Now it turned out, like so much else, to be a bust.

“Why don’t you ask Jason to help?” Elizabeth suggested.

Now that was funny. Jason’s salary was paying for the lessons. They could not afford for him to take time off to swim.

“I could come,” Elizabeth said.

This time Maribeth had laughed out loud, assuming Elizabeth was kidding. But the next week, there she was, at eleven on a Thursday morning. In her Chanel bikini and Brazilian-blowout hair, Elizabeth was a tropical fish amid all the guppy moms in their fraying Lands’ End one-pieces. But she’d been great with the kids, excitedly bobbing in the water with Liv, distracting Oscar with songs, while dishing the latest gossip to Maribeth about her new boss, a legendary, seventy-five-year-old editor-in-chief who still believed in the three-martini lunch. It was a welcome change from all the talk of sleep training and Music Together classes.

But the following week, Elizabeth canceled. She had forgotten she was taking Friday off for a long weekend with Tom and she could not skip out Thursday. She was so sorry. Maribeth was disappointed, but she understood. After a whirlwind courtship, Elizabeth and Tom had only recently gotten married—on a yacht, off the coast of Capri; Maribeth had not been able to attend.

Maribeth told Elizabeth to enjoy the time with Tom and then didn’t go to swim class that week. But then the following Wednesday night, Elizabeth called to cancel again. Her boss had invited her to one of his three-martini lunches and she couldn’t refuse. “I promise I’ll be there next time,” she said.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. We went last week and I managed just fine,” Maribeth lied.

The next day she dropped the class.

MARIBETH WAITED UNTIL the Mommy and Me brigade cleared out before stripping down to her suit. The high neckline covered most of the scar on her chest but there was no hiding her leg.

It was only after she’d stashed everything in her locker that she realized she had not brought a lock. She carried a couple of hundred-dollar bills at all times—contingency cash, and also her nest egg in case some clever thief got into the apartment, found all her hiding places, and cleaned her out.

Across the aisle, a woman in a swimsuit was locking up. “Do you know if they sell locks here?” Maribeth asked.

The woman stared at her through blue-tinted goggles. “Maribeth?” she asked.

Her first thought was that Jason, upon receiving her e-mail, had tracked her to Pittsburgh and sent someone to tail her. Her second thought was that this made no sense, given he had not attempted to contact her once in the previous four weeks nor responded to her messages.

Even after the woman pulled off her goggles and swim cap, it took Maribeth a minute to realize it was Janice.

“Golly, what a treat to bump into you,” Janice said. “I didn’t know you swam!”

“I don’t. Not really. A friend gave me guest passes and I thought I’d try something new. But I didn’t bring a lock.”

“Why don’t you share my locker?”

They walked back to Janice’s locker. Maribeth stuffed her things inside.

“I was going to call you this afternoon,” Janice said as they went down the stairs to the pool deck.

“You were?”

“Yes, I wanted to e-mail you over the weekend, but I didn’t have your address.”

“Oh, I don’t use e-mail much these days. I can give it to you. Why? Did you find something?”

“Not yet. I need more information. Your parents’ social security numbers would be helpful. Or a copy of your birth certificate.”

“Oh. Okay.” Her birth certificate was at home but she thought she might have that other information in her e-mail archives. “You could’ve called.”

“I didn’t want to interrupt you over the holidays in case you were with family.”

“I wasn’t. With family.”

“Oh, me neither,” Janice said.