Twenty-five.
A personal trainer at an expensive gym downtown.
I had met her only twice.
She had always been perfectly kind to me.
But I had heard Daniel talk about her.
Jane runs half marathons.
Jane can do fifty push-ups.
Jane looks amazing on Instagram.
Jane can wear anything.
I had tried not to let it bother me.
“Okay.”
Daniel looked me over from head to toe.
Messy bun.
Old shirt.
Bare feet.
Stretchy pants.
“Just think carefully about what you wear.”
“To a water park?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. Say what you mean.”
He picked up his keys.
“Wear something long over your swimsuit.”
“It’s July.”
“Then you’ll be warm.”
And he walked out.
I stood there holding a damp washcloth.
Paige smacked both palms on her clean tray, as if demanding more banana.
Piper stuck the sock back in her mouth.
I picked up my phone.
Opened my photo gallery.
Scrolled to where the picture had been.
There was a gap now.
And suddenly I realized something.
Daniel hadn’t deleted that photograph.
I had.
I’d like to say everything began with the water park.
It didn’t.
Before the twins, I was a swimmer.
A real swimmer.
I competed in college.
Two-hundred-meter butterfly.
I wasn’t Olympic-level, but I was good.
My medals were still packed away in a shoebox.
When Daniel and I first met, I was twenty-six and swimming laps at the YMCA three mornings a week.
Sometimes he’d sit in the bleachers with a coffee and cheer whenever I nailed a flip turn.
“You look like a mermaid,” he told me once. “A really fast, really angry mermaid.”
I laughed so hard I swallowed pool water.
Then I got pregnant.
My body changed.
Naturally.
That’s what bodies do.
With twins, the changes came fast.
At five months, I looked full-term.
By seven months, I couldn’t see my feet.
Near the end, crossing a room felt like a feat.
And somewhere in that pregnancy, Daniel began making comments.
Small ones at first.
“Do you really need seconds?”
“Wow, you’re really showing.”
“Maybe skip the ice cream tonight.”
I told myself he was worried about my health.
Then the twins were born, and the comments got worse.
My C-section went wrong.
I remember hearing both babies cry.
Then alarms.
People rushing.
Someone saying I was bleeding, in a voice that was far too calm.
They had to operate again.
I lost a great deal of blood.
I spent eight days in the hospital.
I couldn’t lift the babies for two weeks.
Couldn’t drive for six.
When I finally got home, my stomach was soft and wrinkled, with a long red scar low across it.
Three weeks later, Daniel’s company held a picnic.
I wore a loose sundress because it was one of the few things that fit.
On the drive there, Daniel glanced over at me.
“Maybe mention that you just had the babies, so people don’t think you normally look like that.”
I laughed, assuming he was joking.
He wasn’t.
After that, the comments never stopped.
When I bought jeans in a larger size:
“Wow.”
When I took a cookie at his mother’s house:
“Oh, we’re doing cookies now?”
When I bought a dark green dress for his cousin’s wedding, one I truly felt pretty in:
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
I changed three times.
In the end, I wore black from head to toe.
At Christmas, Daniel asked the photographer to crop the family portrait.
“Shoulders up for Mona. She’ll thank me.”
And I did.
I actually thanked him.
On Saturday morning, I stood before our bedroom mirror in the swimsuit I’d bought for the water park.
Dark blue.
One piece.
Simple.
No skirt.
No ruffles.
Nothing meant to hide me.
I had tried on eleven swimsuits at Target while both babies fussed in their double stroller outside the fitting room curtain.
I almost left with nothing.
Then I tried this one.
For the first time in ten months, I didn’t hate my reflection.
It was comfortable.
It stayed put.
It didn’t pinch or dig.
I looked at my stomach.
My hips.
My arms.
My thighs.
The body that had grown two people.
The swimsuit was comfortable.
For once, that felt like enough.
“You can live with this, Mona.”
Daniel came into the bedroom.
He stopped short.
I saw his expression in the mirror.
“Don’t.”
He frowned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
His eyes dropped to the white cover-up lying on the bed.
“You’re not wearing that?”
“I’m bringing it.”
“I mean over the swimsuit.”
“No.”
“Mona. I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He rubbed his forehead as if I’d given him a headache.
“Why do you always have to make things harder?”
I turned to face him.
“I’m putting on a swimsuit to go to a water park. You’re the one making it complicated.”
His jaw tightened.
“Have you seen Jane in a swimsuit?”
I stared at him.
“What does Elliot’s girlfriend have to do with me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. Say it.”
He hesitated.
“Jane actually looks attractive in a swimsuit.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
“She’s twenty-five. She’s a personal trainer. Being at a gym is literally her job. I carried twins and had major surgery twice in one day.”
“They’re ten months old now.”
Again.
Ten months.
As if my body had an expiration date.
“What happens after ten months? Do I get fined? Is there a late fee because I don’t look like Jane yet?”
“Mona, stop.”
“No. I’m asking. Ten months? Eleven months? One year? When exactly am I required to look like someone who didn’t have twins?”
Daniel gestured toward the cover-up.
“Just wear it.”
“No.”
His voice went low.
“Then honestly, I don’t think you should come.”
I stared at him.
“You’re uninviting me from your parents’ anniversary because you don’t like me in a swimsuit?”
“I don’t want to spend all day pretending people aren’t staring.”
“Who is staring?”
He said nothing.
I picked up the beach bag I had packed.
Diapers.
Wipes.
Sunscreen.
Swim diapers.
Sun hats.
Snacks.
Bottles.
And the cover-up.
“I’m going.”
“Mona.”
“Your parents invited me personally. Your mother called Thursday. The girls are celebrating their grandparents’ fortieth anniversary. And so am I.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Fine. But don’t blame me when you feel uncomfortable all day.”For illustration purposes only
“Maybe I will. But you don’t get to make that choice for me.”
The drive took forty minutes.
Daniel didn’t say a word.
The twins slept in the back seat.
I watched cornfields blur by and thought about the medals in my closet.
About the girl who once flew through the water while a boy with a coffee cheered her on.
I wondered where that girl had gone.
At the water park, Celeste saw us first.
She hurried across the parking lot in an enormous pink sun hat.
“Give me Piper before she forgets who spoils her.”
I handed Piper over.
“She won’t forget. She’s already searching for your purse.”
Celeste laughed and kissed Piper’s head.
Then she kissed mine.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Kenneth walked up behind her.
Daniel’s father was sixty-seven, tall and soft-spoken, a retired high-school principal.
Since the first time I met him sixteen years earlier, he had always made me feel welcome.
“Happy anniversary.”
He kissed my cheek.
“I’m glad you’re here, sweetheart.”
Those words touched something tender in me.
I’m glad you’re here.
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