For my daughter Ariel’s third birthday, my husband Glen and I invited family and a few of her preschool friends to our house for a pool party. Children splashed in the water while the adults talked beside the food table, and Ariel ran from one group of friends to another.
My stepmother, Clara, came too. I was surprised to see her, though I was glad she had made the effort for Ariel.
Clara had married my father fifteen years earlier, when I was a rebellious teenager. We had never been close. There was no single terrible argument I could point to; after years of awkwardness, we had both found it easier to keep our distance.
For most of the party, none of that mattered. Everyone ate, the children played, and I watched Ariel enjoy being the center of her birthday celebration.
Then Clara climbed out of the pool in a one-piece swimsuit. Ariel was running past with several children on their way to get ice cream, but she stopped when she saw her.
She stared at Clara’s stomach and pointed. “Mommy, Daddy’s in there!”
The adults nearby burst out laughing, and I laughed with them. Glen was standing a short distance away, so I assumed Ariel had said one of those baffling things three-year-olds say.
Then I realized how embarrassing it might be for Clara to have a child pointing at her stomach. I went over, gently lowered Ariel’s hand, and reminded her that it wasn’t polite to point at someone’s body.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I said, trying to lead her back to the other children.
Ariel planted her feet. “But Daddy’s in there! You have to save him!”
A few people laughed again, more uncertainly this time. Glen watched us with a helpless shrug, and I pointed him out to Ariel.
“Daddy’s right here. See?”
She looked at him. Then she turned back toward Clara and began to cry.
I crouched beside her, startled by how frightened she seemed. Ariel sometimes cried when she wanted more ice cream, but this was different. She was struggling to tell me something, and she grew more upset each time I misunderstood.
“Daddy’s on her stomach,” she insisted.
It was the first time I heard her say on instead of in. I tried to ask what she meant, but she kept looking past me at Clara.
Clara rolled her eyes and said Ariel was talking nonsense. She walked to her lounge chair and lay down, apparently ready to leave the whole thing behind.
Ariel was not. She took my hand and pulled me across the poolside toward Clara, with Glen following us. By then, I wanted to see exactly what had upset my daughter.
“Show me, Ariel,” I said.
Her finger went toward one particular spot on the front of Clara’s swimsuit, over her stomach. Clara immediately covered it with her hand and turned away.
I asked her to wait so Ariel could explain. Ariel reached forward, still crying, trying to show me the spot Clara was hiding.
Before her little finger could touch the swimsuit, Clara caught her wrist.
“Let her go,” I told Clara.
She released Ariel’s wrist at once, but kept her other hand pressed against her swimsuit. Ariel pulled close to me, still crying, and pointed beneath Clara’s fingers.
“Daddy’s there,” she said. “I saw him.”
Glen stepped up beside us. “Ariel, I’m right here.”
“I know.” She looked at him, then back at Clara. “But you’re in there too.”
I followed her gaze. Something small and gold hung on a chain around Clara’s neck, resting against the front of her swimsuit. Until Ariel pointed it out, I had barely noticed it.
“Is it the necklace?” I asked.
Ariel nodded hard enough to make her wet hair stick to her cheeks. “Open it, Mommy. Get Daddy out.”
Clara’s hand closed around the little gold case. A memento, perhaps. I might have laughed at Ariel’s misunderstanding if Clara had not grabbed her wrist to stop her from showing it to me.
“It’s just a locket,” Clara said. “She’s worked herself up over nothing.”
“Then let me show her what it is,” I replied. “Maybe she’ll feel better.”
Clara looked past me toward the guests. Several were watching from their lawn chairs, though the children had gone back to the ice cream. I could hear them laughing at the other end of the yard while Ariel gripped my hand.
“This is absurd,” Clara said. “It’s my necklace.”
“You don’t have to hand it to me. Just open it so Ariel can see there’s nobody trapped inside.”
Clara’s expression tightened. She slipped the chain beneath the neckline of her swimsuit, hiding the locket from view.
Ariel began to cry again. “Mommy, she put him away.”
I picked her up and carried her a few steps from the lounge chair. She wrapped her arms around my neck, but kept looking over my shoulder at Clara. I told her Daddy was safe and standing with us; she insisted she had seen his face.
At three, Ariel could confuse a photograph with the person in it. That part made sense. What I could not understand was why Clara would not let us explain it to her.
Glen came after us. “Let me take her,” he said. “You two are both upset.”
“I’m trying to find out what she saw.”
“A picture, probably.” He glanced at Clara. “There are pictures in lockets.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I thought.”
He fell silent. I shifted Ariel on my hip and noticed that Clara had turned away from the rest of us. Her fingers were at her neckline again.
“Clara,” I called. “Whose picture is it?”
She faced me without answering. For one brief second, the locket slipped out from under the fabric and fell open against her swimsuit.
