My hand reaches for the edge of the pool after the last lap and finds it. I’m preparing to hoist myself out of the water but something’s already taking up the space.
I sense a presence looming, and when I open my eyes, I’m too close. Something’s in front of me and it’s broad and dark and imposing. My elbows buckle and I fall back into the water before I recognize Jerry Whitman, squatting at the lip of the pool.
“Nice form,” he says with a smile, when my head’s back above water. “Did I scare you?”
My forearm burns, and while I tread water, I glance down to find my skin a little inflamed.
“Lemme see,” he says, reaching, and I reach back so he can pull me through the water to the side. He twists my arm gently. “Uh-huh. I think you scraped it on the way back down.”
I make a timid sound when I try to agree, and then apply the slightest resistance to his hold so that when he lets me go I can protectively coil the wounded arm against my body the way Kelly kept doing.
But Jerry doesn’t let go. He must not have felt my attempt, which must have been as timid as my wordless reply. Instead he pulls again, this time as though he might lift me completely out of the water with one hand. The grip he has to make on my wet arm is tight, some of my skin pinching and the abraded part of it burning as though the scrapes are elongating because of his hold. I help instead of complaining, using my free arm to push myself up until between the two of us, we’ve managed to get me out of the pool and seated on the lip.
He’s squatting again, hovering and turning my arm despite the fact that it’s entirely overcast by his shadow and he can’t see it any better than I can. He must, though, because he clucks in regret.
“That can’t feel good,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I promise through a smile, though it’s unlikely a child can ever reassure the parent. I’m almost certain he’ll blow cool air over the disrupted skin if this goes on much longer, but when I try again to retract it, Jerry Whitman lays his palm flat against my arm.
I suck my teeth, and he looks from my arm to my face, though he doesn’t otherwise adjust.
“Does that burn a bit?” he asks, and I nod.
“Yeah. A little.”
Another second and he removes the hand that seems to radiate heat by comparison to my cool, damp skin.
“I was afraid of that,” he says with a chuckle, and then he lets me go entirely. Almost immediately, he lifts his hand again, index finger raised as though he’s considering something before he points at my wrist. “Were you wearing a bracelet earlier?”
“The one with the engraving,” I agree enthusiastically. Instead of cradling my stinging forearm against me, I plant the heels of both hands against the rim of the pool as though the topic excites me. As though I’m unaware he wouldn’t be asking unless he were already sure. As though I can’t tell by the way he’s asking that he thinks I shouldn’t have been. I will not lie to him—not after the way he and Brianne kept me when my parents tried to take me home. Or if I lie it will only be the way parents expect their children to, the way siblings use each other as scapegoats. It will be harmless. “Cherish thought it’d make me feel better,” I tell him, “after being so ill and hideous for two days.”
I smile but I don’t bare my teeth. I keep my lips closed, and instead hunch my shoulders high as though my head is sinking into my chest, I’m so touched by my best friend’s gesture.
“It’s so beautiful,” I say. “Of course I knew better than to wear something that precious in the pool.”
“It’s an heirloom bracelet,” Jerry Whitman says, but not chastisingly. More evidentially.
“I love the name Eloise.”
I should have waited a beat. With anyone else, I would have. But I trust Mr. Whitman, especially after today, so I’m not listening to him. I’m not giving him a chance to speak, and instead of performing penitence, I’m trying to impress upon him how special I understand the jewelry to be.
It’s the kind of self-involved Cherish would get away with being—but I’m the family’s new addition. I have to be much more conscientious before I can get away with flouting the house rules. I have to be perfectly well-behaved, a pleasure so that my invitation is extended again and again.
“I didn’t feel right accepting it,” I say as confession. “It must mean a great deal to all of you.”
“It does. It was my mother’s, and Cherish has always understood the gravity of inheritance.”
This time I wait, but so does he. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so squarely in Jerry Whitman’s sights, or else it’s the kind of gaze that feels singular. It’s impressive. I could see this stare cutting through any manner of Cherish’s dissents or tantrums, stilling her into silence because Mr. Whitman is being so quietly direct. I find myself studying it, noting the anatomy of the presentation from his unwavering eyes to the athleticism that allows him to stay squatted beside me without tensing or his muscles trembling.
I should react, but I’ve never seen Mr. Whitman be the least bit disciplining; I’m not sure what he expects in return.
Control.
I wait a moment more. He will know I’m unaccustomed to this side of him, that I require some manner of instruction or explanation on how to proceed.
But his brow starts to furrow and then irons out almost before it’s noticeable.
I’ve been matching his gaze too long. He’s noticed—which can only mean Cherish wouldn’t have.
Now I curl my arm protectively close to my torso and let my eyes fall, sweeping over the pool and out across the darkness of the yard rather than studying the stone beneath me. He’ll know I’m not Cherish, not exactly. Even if I’m unsettled, I wouldn’t cower.
He takes in a breath before he speaks, giving me a chance to return my gaze to his attentively.
“I’ll have a word with Cherish.”
I don’t flinch, don’t give any suggestion that I am threatened by this course of action.
“Family heirlooms are for family,” he says.
It’s night and even the light is creating shadows, so I don’t know if Jerry Whitman sees the way my face goes slack.
Control.
I go still, the way he did a moment ago.
Control.
Even the good make missteps. That’s what I tell myself when it threatens to uncoil in the deep of me. When the release that I let spill out over Kelly wants to unspool in my belly, when I wonder what it takes to knock the wind out of Jerry Whitman and I immediately know that it has to do with his daughter.
Control.