“Your room isn’t ready quite yet,” says the man at the front desk. His crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt offsets his muscular, coffee-colored arms. The resort logo is centered on his matcha green tie, which is slightly askew. His nametag is perfectly level; ‘Hello, I’m Ajay!’ it reads.
“Okay,” I reply, “About how much longer.” My question comes out as a command, a New York habit I’m keen to break. Ajay begins punching computer keys with his long, elegant fingers. Like he’s playing the piano. My gaze lifts and I look through the picture window behind him. A faint horizontal line separates one shade of blue from the other—the sea from the sky.
“About 45 minutes,” Ajay says with a wide grin. “An hour tops.” On the desk, the saddest Christmas tree in the Caribbean shimmers with tinsel and gaudy red baubles. I’m suddenly overheated. My head-to-toe black ensemble was appropriate when we were wheels up this morning at Kennedy. Here, it’s stifling. I’m ready to relax. While my husband’s British citizenship expedited his entry, the rest of Passport Control was on island time.
Ajay reads my mind. “You can grab your bathing suits and hang out by the pool. I’ll come find you when the room is ready.” We dig into our bag. A bathing suit, cover-up, and sandals for me. Trunks, flip-flops, swimming cap, and goggles for Daniel. Ajay points us toward the spa. “I’m going for a swim,” Daniel says. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
In the changing room, I trade my black sweater for a black bikini. It’s tighter than I’d like. I feel uncomfortable. And vulnerable. I wrap a sarong around me. It’s baby blue and has little gold beads that click against each other when I walk. Click, click, click. The sound is weirdly satisfying.
Outside, the sun blinds me. I put on my sunglasses and take in the scene. The pool deck is a zoo. Kids of all ages run amok. Parents ignore them behind issues of People and Vanity Fair. The music is a few decibels louder than necessary—steel drums. The rapid fire of rolling notes attacks my senses rather than soothe them.
I see an empty umbrella-covered lounger in a far corner and walk over to secure it. Click, click, click. The canvas gives more than I anticipate. I sink into it like a stuffed turkey at Christmas.
Whenever Daniel swims, I sit on the beach. I like to watch his arms and legs glide effortlessly through the water. I like to keep track of him by the constant splash in his wake. He’s easy to spot—his bright yellow swim cap acts like a beacon. Daniel is a competent swimmer. More than competent. I’m convinced he was a fish in his last life.
I need to watch Daniel swim because his swimming scares me. I blame generations of worried women in my family for this irrational fear of water. I’m anxious. But just this once, I put my anxiety aside and I wait by the pool like Ajay asked. Settling in, I open up my book.
“Sooooo? How far along are we?” says a voice with a singsongy lilt. I turn to my left and see a man with a toothy smile staring at my stomach. He’s older than me, but not by much. His fire-engine-red hair matches his arms and chest. Two swatches of opaque, white zinc are smeared beneath his mint-green eyes. His bathing suit is expensive—with stencils of multicolored sea turtles frantically paddling in all directions. It’s marine mayhem. He’s just come out of the pool, and water is puddling beneath his chair.
Normally, I enjoy polite chit-chat with strangers. On ski lifts, at the supermarket, at the coffee shop. But I’m in no mood to chit-chat today. I’m roomless. In vacation limbo. Unsettled. My too-tight bikini is digging into my hips. This stranger’s question, while well-meaning, feels violating. My hormones are in such a rage that I’m sure he can see them. I want to tell him to mind his own business.
I take off my glasses. “Six and half months,” I say dryly. “I’m due in May.”
I re-open my book, the universal sign for ‘leave me alone.’ But, he keeps talking. “Kids,” he says shaking his head as if we’re old friends, “You spend the first two years of their lives getting them to walk and talk. Then the next twenty telling them to sit down and shut up.” He chuckles at his joke, clearly practiced, and waits for me to do the same.
“Yup,” I say curtly and put my glasses on. His smile fades. Redhead gets the hint.
Tonight is New Year’s Eve, the night the resort pairs an extravagant buffet dinner with a cringey late-night show. Sushi stations, pasta stations, seafood towers, and fondue towers are followed by reggae bands covering ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ and ‘Wonderwall.’ I notice a photo booth set up on the veranda. A crate beside it is filled with oversized, plastic party glasses, neon feather boas, and sequined top hats. All the trimmings for the kind of spectacle that makes people question why they ever leave home for the holidays. Forced fun. No matter how nice a hotel is, on New Year’s Eve, it’s part of the package.
Daniel and I have already opted for a quiet night at the hotel’s smaller, more expensive restaurant. It’s a calculated move. We assume that big families with small kids won’t want an expensive dinner and that party-ers won’t want a quiet one. I’m already looking forward to a king-sized bed with soft sheets and piles of mushy pillows. A bed that I won’t have to make in the morning. If I’m awake at midnight, it’ll be a miracle.
Thirty minutes have passed and I’ve managed less than five pages. If Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire can’t hold my attention, I’m doomed. Plus, it’s just so noisy: the clamor of a thousand city kids wreaking havoc on the resort. Drowned maraschino cherries lay at the bottom of half-drunk, overpriced, mango smoothies. Naked toddlers with floaties wrapped around their pudgy, little arms whine as sunscreen is reapplied. ‘Marco’ and ‘Polo’ are hollered ad nauseam.
I should be on the beach.
Wallowing in my annoyance and intolerance, I don’t hear the panicked voices right away. But, I sense them. I look up. Guests are walking with purpose. Moms are scanning the pool for their kids. The energy in the air has shifted and there’s not a ‘Marco’ or ‘Polo’ to be heard. I overhear someone saying, “There’s been an accident at the beach.”
A long pause follows. Then, “It’s bad.”
My brain dives underwater—taking its sweet time processing what it’s just heard. Every cell in my body tightens as I stand up, which is challenging because of the sunlounger’s unfortunate elasticity issue. Guests are flocking to the beach as if pulled by the undercurrent of a strong wave. I wobble, physically and mentally. All 6 ½ months of my future son are an obstacle as I make my way across the hot sand toward the shore.
A crowd is gathering on the sand squinting at the sea. Foamy white waves lap their toes. Seaweed tangles around their feet. I catch low murmurs, “It was a speedboat,” “outside the channel markers,” “freak accident.”
People who say, ‘My whole life flashed before my eyes,’ always struck me as irritatingly melodramatic. To everyone I once judged, take this as a formal apology. The minutes ahead would send me into a dizzying range of emotions. Petrified to calm. Immobile to frantic. In those minutes I assume the worst, as is my nature. How will I raise my kids without a father? Will I have to give birth alone? How will I get home?
I look to my right. A woman—a mom—a wife is sitting on the sand cradling her head in her hands. Somehow, I know. It’s her or me. It’s her husband or mine. It’s her life that will forever change, or it’s mine that will. Our eyes lock, and in them, my fear is mirrored. It’s unbearable—I’m wishing it were her. She’s wishing it were me.
I race down the beach—all the while searching for a tiny patch of yellow in the water. Is that a white cap or a swimmer? Is that a swim cap or the sun’s glare? I’m distraught. A man appears beside me. Maybe he thinks I’m going into labor. I stammer, “My husband—swimming—I can’t find him.” Gently, he takes my arm to help me find a needle in a haystack.
Twenty minutes have passed since I left the pool.
Twenty minutes have passed since the accident.
Twenty minutes of imagining the unimaginable.
Twenty never-ending minutes.
The stranger points out in the distance. “Is that him?” he asks. We see a speck. Is it yellow? We wave our arms desperately, not yet knowing if it’s a human, a bird, or a buoy. After what feels like another lifetime, the speck stops moving. It changes course and quickly moves towards the shore. It’s not until he takes off his cap and goggles that I allow myself to believe it’s my husband.
I sink into the sand and sob.
A hush falls over the resort. A wave of silence out of respect for the bereaved. We overhear snippets of conversations, “British,” “dad,” “elite swimmer,” “tragic.”
Daniel later tells me he had no idea what was happening on the other end of the beach. When he saw me waving, his immediate thought was, ‘Shark!’
Perhaps my brain wasn’t capable of registering details in the face of such overwhelming fear, because I have no memory of the kind man who spotted Daniel. I don’t know what color his hair was, or if he even had hair at all. That I remember the shade of the redhead’s green eyes with such clarity is a mystery I’ll never solve.
I don’t see the woman again. But the resort has a ceremony for her husband on the beach the next day. New Year’s Day. I watch from our balcony. Flowers. A bonfire. An intimate huddle of grievers. I feel like an intruder. I feel guilty, too.
Since then, not a New Year goes by without me thinking about that moment our eyes locked. The details of her face may be a distant memory, but the energy that moved between us is palpable still. Seventeen years have passed. My son is graduating from high school this June. Generations of worried women aside, I’ve learned a lot about managing fear. I have ‘tools’ in my ‘toolbox’. I cope.
Once I stop sobbing, Daniel and I head back to the pool. The sun has shifted, and long, dark shadows are cast across the deck. The redhead is gone—all that’s left of his existence is leftover french fries swimming in a puddle of ketchup.
As if on cue, Ajay appears. His nametag is lop-sided but his tie is now straight. “Mrs. Edwards?” he says softly. “Your room is ready.” I gather my book, my sandals, and my sunglasses. I put on my sarong and follow Ajay into the lobby. Click, click, click. It’s time to check in.
