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Briar
“Abby, no splashing,” I say from the pool deck.
“Sorry,” she replies breathlessly as she pops her head out of the water. Then she and my niece, Felicity, dive back in together. Their little feet kick water all over me and my sister.
Juliet is sitting in the pool chair next to me. She’s wearing a wide-brimmed hat and large round sunglasses and sipping sweet tea out of a Mason jar.
My sister is the only friend I have left. And I enjoy spending time with her, especially without our mother around. Juliet naturally sides with her on most things. And the two of them make me feel like the odd one of the bunch.
We used to have more friends over for playdates or game nights. Our neighborhood was a much friendlier place before everything happened last year with Caleb’s family.
Now, Juliet is the only one who still comes around.
Abby and Felicity are swimming in the pool, diving to the bottom to retrieve the little sticks that we have to toss in every five minutes.
“Are you signing Abby up for ballet again this year?” Juliet asks.
“She doesn’t want to do ballet,” I reply with a sigh.
“Oh, that’s a bummer.”
Overhearing our conversation, Abby pops out of the water and pulls the goggles off her eyes.
“Mommy, I want to do karate,” she says enthusiastically.
“I know, peanut. Daddy and I are going to sign you up for karate,” I answer proudly.
Already, I can sense my sister gearing up her argument with the way she purses her lips and plasters a fake smile on her face. “Are you sure you don’t want to be in ballet with Felicity, Abby? There are a lot of little girls in there.”
“I’m sure,” my daughter replies, and I smile proudly at her.
Juliet gives me a shrug as if to say she tried, and I appreciate her for not pushing the topic more. My parents constantly pressed us to do things we didn’t want when we were kids. I remember wanting to go to theater camp in middle school, but my mother insisted I was more suited for cheerleading, so that’s what I did.
I even had myself convinced that I loved it.
“So,” Juliet starts in a hushed tone. “Kyle told me about you-know-who.”
My sister and I have made a deal not to talk about the scandal or anything revolving Truett Goode in front of our kids. It usually means we have to speak in code, but we’ve gotten pretty good at it by this point.
“And hisattempted schmurdercharges,” she adds.
I’m wringing my hands in my seat. I had to hear about the charges through social media instead of from my husband, but I didn’t have the heart to press him about it. I know that Caleb is carrying a lot of stress over his father’s case and what happened to Sage.
But I wish he’d open up to me about it. I wish we had that kind of marriage where we could lean on each other in moments like this. Instead, he’s closing himself off entirely.
I glance sideways at our kids in the pool as I reply, “Yeah, I know.”
“Have you and Caleb talked about it?” she asks.
Letting out a disgruntled sigh, I shake my head. “Not really. I don’t think he wants to talk about it.”
Instead, it’s been hovering around us for over a week, like an ominous elephant in the room.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Juliet says. “I was sort of hoping they would have gone with a lesser charge. It’d be so much less complicated. I’m ready for the day when we can forget this whole thing ever happened.”
“I know,” I mumble to myself, although I know our family will never forget about it. But I don’t argue with her. I think what she wants is for me to agree with her, but deep down, I’m glad he was charged with attempted murder. I hope he’s found guilty, and I hope he spends the rest of his miserable life in jail. I don’t care that he’s my husband’s father or my daughter’s grandfather.
“Oh my god,” my sister whispers under her breath, disrupting my train of thought.
