The Vacation

by T. M. Logan

  “I couldn’t possibly comment.”

  How could I have been so blind?

  I had vowed to find answers, to find the source of Sean’s betrayal. And now I knew. I knew more than I had ever wanted to know.

  Only one question remained.

  What am I going to do about it?

  But I finally knew the answer to that one.

  Sean appeared beside me at the sink, tea towel in hand. I could smell beer on his breath, on him, surrounding him like an invisible cloud. Something else, too, something stronger. Tequila. I felt myself stiffen.

  “Need a hand?” he said.

  I didn’t look at him.

  “If you want.”

  He picked up one of the frying pans dripping on the rack and began to dry it. His movements were slow, exaggerated, like he was concentrating hard on not dropping anything.

  “Daniel’s tucked up in bed reading his book,” he said. “Going to turn out his light in ten minutes.”

  “Good.”

  There was a lengthy silence while I scrubbed violently at fragments of pasta stuck to the bottom of a pan. I wanted to throw my anger at him, wind it up and hurl it at him with all the strength I could muster.

  Why her? What does she have that I don’t? What the hell are you thinking?

  How could you do this to me? To the kids? With one of my best friends?

  He put the frying pan away and carefully picked up another from the rack.

  “Are you OK, Kate?”

  “Do you care?”

  A pause.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Of course I care.”

  “I’m fine.”

  He looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  I stopped scrubbing.

  “For what?”

  “That we argued.”

  I stared into the soapy water in the sink.

  Tell him. Tell him you know.

  “What else are you sorry for?”

  “Well now, let me see.” The joviality was forced. “How long have you got?”

  I turned to glare at him in time to see a halfhearted smile die on his lips.

  “Seriously? You’re trying to make jokes?”

  His smile vanished completely.

  “Sorry, Kate. Sorry.”

  I plunged the last of the pots into the sink, water splashing over the side and onto my feet, and resumed scrubbing even more vigorously than before.

  “How’s your phone, by the way?”

  He shifted beside me, as if sensing a trap.

  “Absolutely knackered. Won’t even switch on.”

  “That’s a shame, isn’t it? How are you managing without it?”

  His eyes flicked up to mine in the dark reflection of the window, then away again.

  “All right.”

  “Still keeping up with your messages?” My voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Keeping on top of things?”

  “It’s no bother,” he said quietly. “I’ll sort it when we get back to England.”

  I finished the pots, drained the water, and dried my hands.

  He took half a step toward me, hands out as if to hug me, but I shook my head.

  “Don’t,” I said, a note of warning in my voice. “Don’t even try.”

  “Kate, I’m—”

  “You’re what?”

  He hesitated, seeming to weigh his words. “You know I’ve always been a rubbish liar.”

  “You seem to have got a lot better at it recently.”

  “Not really.”

  I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  He seemed about to say something, then thought better of it, his eyes dropping to the floor.

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Why can’t you just tell me? I hate this! Hate it.”

  I fled from the kitchen before he could see my tears, before he could say anything else. It was painful just to be near him, to have to talk to him. Instead I went upstairs to our bedroom, sitting on the bed in the air-conditioned cool until my heart had slowed to something near normal, wiping my eyes with a tissue.

  This was a special kind of torture. Why wouldn’t he just come out with it, put me out of my misery? Was I going mad? Was I losing it? No. I had evidence. I had seen things, heard things, that could not be denied or explained away, however hard he tried. My head was pounding. I opened my bedside drawer to find some Tylenol, shifting books and chargers and passports to one side, reaching to the back.

  There, a box of Tylenol. But something was wrong. Out of place. Or, more accurately, absent. I had put it here two days ago, for safekeeping, and now it had disappeared.

  The camcorder tape of Sean and Jennifer.

  52

  I checked again, shifting the drawer’s contents around. No tape. Someone had moved it, taken it. Sean? Pushing the bedroom door shut, I went around to his side of the bed and quickly looked through his drawer, then the lining of his suitcase and the chest of drawers where T-shirts and shorts were neatly stacked, but no miniDV tape. It was gone.

  The sounds of laughter from the pool below floated up to me in the bedroom. I couldn’t hide up here forever. Checking my face quickly in the mirror, I took a deep breath and opened the door to the hall. Daniel’s bedroom door was slightly ajar. I gave it the lightest of taps and pushed it open.

  My son lay curled on his side, engrossed in Harry Potter.

  “Was about to turn my light out,” he said, putting the book down and taking his glasses off.

  I sat down on the edge of his bed and brushed the hair off his forehead.

  “Are you OK after what happened earlier?” I said. “Are those scratches and scrapes hurting?”

  I held my arms out and enveloped him in a hug, feeling the warmth of his small chest against me, his sweet little-boy smell, his thin arms tight around me. Wondering how much longer he would let me hug him before he became too embarrassed, too self-conscious to do it anymore. Wondering whether he would blame me for what had happened between Sean and me, feeling the heat of tears behind my eyes.

  Don’t cry. Don’t upset him.

  “Are you all right, Mummy?”

  “Of course,” I said, swallowing hard and trying to keep my voice level. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “And is Daddy all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “What makes you say that, Daniel?”

  “Dunno,” he said, his little chin resting on my shoulder. “He seems a bit funny this week.”

  “Funny how?”

  “Just a bit weird.”

  I released him from the hug and looked at him properly in the light of the bedside lamp. “Funny with Izzy?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “I don’t think he likes Jake.”

  “Why not?”

  “He keeps asking what we’ve been doing when we go out adventuring, says I don’t have to play with them if I don’t want to.”

  “Daddy just wants you to be safe, that’s all. Jake’s a bit of a daredevil, isn’t he?”

  “Hmm.” He yawned. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

  “Something nice.” I kissed him on the forehead. “Night, Daniel. Love you.”

  Lucy wasn’t in her room. Only her phone was there, plugged in to charge, winking and flashing in the darkness with more of the constant stream of updates from friends at home. The battery had died completely during our evening meal and I had been secretly glad to see her untethered from it for a little while, to have a conversation with her and not constantly feel I was trying—and failing—to compete for attention with the iPhone in her hand.

  Back in the kitchen I refilled my wineglass and made my way down the stone steps to the pool, the evening air still hot and almost unbearably humid. Russ lay sprawled on a lounger, two inches of ash on the cigarette smoldering between his drooping fingers. Sean sat next to him, beer in hand, by a table clustered with glasses and bowls of snacks, empty bottles of wine an
d beer and a half-empty bottle of tequila. I could tell, in my peripheral vision, that he was turned toward me, trying to look at me. Trying to catch my eye.

  I sipped my wine and kept my eyes on the swimming pool, where Lucy and Rowan plus Alistair, Jake, and Ethan were throwing a volleyball between them, shooting for little goal nets perched at each end. Underwater lights set deep in the walls gave the water an ethereal, shimmering glow against the darkness of the night, mosaic tiles portraying three dolphins standing out bright and colorful on the floor of the pool, the water above them perfectly clear.

  “Are you coming in, Kate?” Alistair gestured at me, his beard glistening with droplets of water. “We need a sixth for water polo.”

  “Not tonight,” I said, as cheerfully as I could manage. “Maybe another time.”

  “That is a shame,” he said with an exaggerated grin. “How about you, Sean?”

  My husband shook his head.

  “Think I’ve had one too many beers. I’d probably sink.”

  “Nonsense,” Alistair shouted, his voice bright with alcohol. “An invigorating, restorative dip is exactly what the doctor ordered at this stage of the evening’s proceedings.”

  “Reckon I’ll just watch, thanks.”

  “It’s also the perfect cooling therapy for the Mediterranean heat.”

  Sean shook his head and sat back on the lounger.

  “I’ll take your word for it, pal.”

  Lucy slapped the pool’s surface with her palm, splashing water toward him.

  “Come on, Dad,” she said. “I need you to be on my team.”

  “Well…”

  “Pleeeease?” she said. “You’ve already got your swimming shorts on.”

  Sean sighed, took a long slug of his beer, and put it down by the side of the pool. Pulling his shirt over his head, he kicked off his flip-flops and stepped unsteadily into the pool with a heavy splash.

  “Excellent,” Alistair said, raising the ball above his head. “Let the game commence!”

  53

  I sat back on the lounger, watching them splash and play and laugh in the sparkling water of the infinity pool, the ball thrown back and forth as if none of them had a care in the world. Just an evening swim, an escape from the cloying heat, a refreshing dip in between drinks, Sean standing in the deep end, trying to catch my eye, trying to give me his smile, that smile, the one that had made my stomach do somersaults back when we first met. His charming, twinkling smile that felt as though we were sharing a private joke just between the two of us. A secret club that no one else could join.

  Not anymore, though. Now his smile just made me feel a plunging heartbreak so deep, so dark, that I couldn’t see the bottom. I knew, as surely as I’d ever known anything, that he had been on the point of confessing in the kitchen half an hour ago. He was about to tell me everything but had pulled back at the last moment. Why? Why waste time? Why not just get it over with? Perhaps he didn’t want to do it while we were away, in front of all our friends. That was it; he wanted to be on home turf, on familiar ground.

  His words rang in my head.

  I’m sorry.

  At least the fact that he was here in front of me, in the pool with our daughter, meant that he couldn’t be with her. With Izzy. I wondered what their plan was, how they would do it. Was I supposed to just wait until he decided to tell me, until I found more of their secret messages, until they were caught in the act? Was I supposed to just sit and wait until I was told my marriage was over?

  No. That wasn’t going to happen. If Sean didn’t have the guts to tell me, then I would force the issue—confront Izzy and make her admit it, get it out there in the open. Tonight. When she returned from whatever it was she was doing.

  The game of water polo carried on regardless, Sean, Lucy, and Rowan versus Alistair and his boys. Sean and Alistair manned the goals at each end of the pool, while Rowan and the three teenagers blocked and dodged and took shots in the space in between. Sean was distracted, his eyes still wandering toward me, but I refused to give him the eye contact he was looking for. My eyes were firmly on Lucy, her golden hair fanned out behind her in the water, swimming and diving and turning like a beautiful mermaid. My little girl. Jake and Ethan had left their phones on a side table and they were pinging and bleeping almost constantly with notifications, a continuous stream of updates on social media that seemed ferociously frequent even by teenage standards. But it was nice to see Lucy—to see all three teenagers—doing something that didn’t involve their phones, that didn’t involve the endless picture posting and status sharing, the comparison with friends and the unspoken fear of missing out that drove the constant need to be connected all day, every day.

  * * *

  It was subtle, at first.

  So subtle I almost didn’t register it.

  But as the ball was thrown back and forth and the players splashed and laughed, a sense of unease began creeping up my arms. With every goal scored, every shot blocked, the distance between certain players in the middle—Lucy, Jake, and Ethan, to be precise—got smaller. And then a little smaller still, until only a few feet separated them. The brothers moved farther and farther into the deep end, into Lucy’s half of the pool.

  As I watched, the prickle of concern climbing up to the back of my neck, Lucy got the ball and raised it high to throw at the goal. Ethan waded toward her and hurled himself forward with his arms raised high to take the ball from her, lunging into her, pushing his body into hers, no space between them at all, faces inches apart, arms touching, hands touching, his chest against hers, skin to skin, nose to nose, him pushing and reaching and grabbing in a full-contact tackle, his shoulders and arms overpowering her slender frame, his hands snatching the ball away from her and holding it up, and I knew, I just knew, that what he wanted more than anything was for her to come back at him and try to take it away as he had just done.

  Instead, Jake lunged at his brother and took the ball from him, hurling it aside and shoving his brother in the chest. Pushing him away from Lucy.

  “What the hell, Ethan?” he shouted angrily. “It’s not a bloody rugby line-out, all right? It’s not supposed to be full contact.”

  “Chill out, bro.” Ethan splashed water into his brother’s face. “Just a game, isn’t it?”

  Alistair started to wade forward to separate his boys, before seeming to think better of the idea. He moved back into his goal, reaching for the ball.

  I sat forward in my seat, a hot bloom of anger unfurling in my chest, torn between a mother’s instinct to protect her daughter and a parent’s instinct to avoid embarrassing a teenager. But Lucy dived beneath the surface and came up a few feet away with her back to me, smoothing her hair off her face, holding her hands up to continue the game.

  Perhaps I had imagined it—she seemed OK. The shout died in my throat.

  Don’t embarrass her. Don’t make another scene. You’ve done that enough already this week.

  Sean was taking a long pull from a bottle of beer at the side of the pool and appeared not to have noticed.

  The game continued. Lucy intercepted the ball on its way to the goal and drew her arm back to throw, but Ethan was on her immediately. He waded forward and lunged again, hardly even seeming to go for the ball. Both hands held up, he launched himself toward her even more forcefully than the last time. Pushing and reaching, hands grabbing and pulling, his face in hers. Lucy wasn’t giving in so easily this time and she turned to dodge away from him, but then he was all over her, grappling with her for the ball, laughing, both hands on her shoulders as he almost climbed up her back, spinning her around to face him. A thrashing melee of bodies and arms and water splashing everywhere, and then Jake was pulling Ethan away and squaring up to him, fist cocked back, Alistair diving forward, arms out, trying to separate his boys, Ethan dodging away—

  Hands landing on Lucy’s chest. Her shriek of alarm.

  Sean’s shout of anger.

  Lucy dived under the surface again, kicking hard and
surfacing next to Sean in the deep end, gasping for breath, one bikini strap hanging loose on her shoulder, a dark line of fingermarks showing red on her upper arm. Her face seemed to be frozen in shock, chest heaving for breath as she gripped the side.

  Sean spoke to her briefly, quietly, a gentle hand on her elbow. She put her bikini strap back into place and said something back to him, her head down, then climbed out and wrapped a towel around her shoulders, pulling it tightly across her chest.

  I hurried over to her, putting both hands on her shoulders. She was shaking and wouldn’t look at me. We were both shaking.

  “Lucy, are you OK?”

  “Fine.”

  “Why don’t you head up to your room? I’ll come up in a minute.”

  She nodded and walked quickly to the stairs up to the balcony, head still down. Sean was wading into the middle of the pool, his face dark with anger.

  He had evidently seen things differently from me.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he said to Alistair.

  Alistair retrieved the ball and threw it past him into the empty net.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Grabbing my daughter? What the hell is that about?”

  “It was an accident, Sean,” he said, his voice neutral. “Nobody grabbed anyone. Water polo always includes a bit of rough-and-tumble.”

  “Rough-and-tumble?” Sean repeated. His voice had taken on an edge I had only heard once or twice before, his Limerick accent hard and loud. “Are you having a laugh?”

  “You’re drunk, Sean.”

  “And you’re a bloody pervert.”

  Alistair turned and began to wade toward the steps in the shallow end. “I’m not listening to this.” He turned to Jake and Ethan. “Come on, boys, game over. Time to get out.”

  “Hey!” Sean shouted, going after him. “I’m talking to you!”

  Alistair ignored him, water flowing off him as he climbed the steps out of the pool and picked up his towel. Sean caught up with him, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around.

  “I said, I’m talking to you. You know she’s only sixteen, right? And you know what that makes you?”

  Veins were standing out in Sean’s neck and arms, his face a mask of rage, his hands clenched into fists. He was taller, broader than Alistair, and in much better shape. I hurried toward them along the side of the pool, dreading what was about to happen.