It was a sliding door moment. Standing on the esplanade, Kirsty gazes down at the sandy pool, brushes her windblown grey hair off her face, and feels the years roll back. Then, she sees the fresh faced young woman she'd been, sitting and smiling as she watched her two small children giggle and splash in the shallows, tipping the water from their little buckets. The water surrounding the continents was safe and warm and each concrete country - visible back then - had beckoned her toddlers with the thrill of discovery.
She sits on America's crumbling east coast, dangling her legs in the balmy water; watching and waiting for Dean's return to shore. Kirsty tries to imagine what her life would have been if she hadn't noticed him, years before, sunning his bronzed body on the beach. He'd stood so proud and confident: the stance of a man who knew he looked good. She'd watched him swim... enthralled by his sleek body and powerful stroke which parted the water with the strength and grace of a seal. It was intoxicating - and she was hooked!
But, once together, too frequently she sat on the sidelines, watching - gazing anxiously for sight of him, way past the white water. Her fear that he'd drown became habitual. Why was he always the one swimming furthest from the shore, even in rough, choppy surf. Surely he was tempting the Gods. Regardless, her infatuation did turn to love but, though his smile could light his face with all the charm of a sparkling Xmas bauble, she suspected it was all just - camouflage.
Time, and the responsibilities of raising a family exposed his deeply flawed character. He professed to love her and naively she thought that love was enough to withstand all the pressures of raising a young family. Initially, his insistence they always go to the supermarket together seemed a good thing - until she discovered it was just another form of control.
"Look Hun," he'd say, cradling the baby; "she's smiling." Kirsty wouldn't risk saying "it's just wind" - because she feared reprisal later, when they were alone. Also, she wanted him to be the good man he appeared to be. She'd see passing shoppers, smiling their approval, probably thinking; aww, such a good Dad. Because that's how it looked - except - they couldn't see the bruises she hid under her carefully chosen clothes. Over time, bruises fade, but the shame - it ate into her soul until finally she knew: survival meant escape.
And now, looking out over that sand-clogged pool, to the ocean he'd been constantly drawn to - doing what he thought proved his manliness - taking risks; she knows she'd ignored those early signs. Because young love was a powerful drug, and initially, she'd been so intoxicated by it - that her mind kept inventing excuses - enabling him, often accepting blame, where none existed. Remembering that time they'd been at the beach - snorkelling together with a small group of friends - even now the memory makes her cringe.
Having wiggled and squeezed her slightly chubby body into her friend Carol's borrowed wetsuit, she'd emerged from the water, removed her mask - was struggling with her wetsuit zip. "Hey Carol, wasn't that wetsuit too big on you?" Dean says. Carol looks down, her cheeks turning pink as she replies; "Yes, well, my kids are older. Kirsty's still got that curvy luscious look - sort of new mummy yummy."
Kirsty's hand trembles but she gives Carol a fleeting, grateful smile as she tries to pull the suit over her thighs, teetering as she momentarily loses her balance, then she pauses when her nose drips stringy mucus onto her hands. As she turns her head, suit hanging partly off and tries to wipe her face, he stands, hands on hips, a look of disgust flies across his face. Stepping closer, he grabs her arm - hard. She winces as he hisses in her ear; "For God's sake clean yourself up, and get that suit off. You look ridiculous." Turning, with a practiced, wooden smile; "Babe," he snorts, pointing his head toward her, "More Michelin Mum than yummy mummy."
Thinking back now, as a seasoned older woman, Kirsty wishes she'd understood then what bitter experience taught her: gentleness only enticed bullies to attack mode. In the car, travelling home from the beach, she'd attempted to quietly reason with him. With the children leaning into each other on the back seat, pale, still and silent, as they were learning to always be, she said in a hushed voice; "Don't you realise how you embarrassed me? Do you want our friends to think you're a bully?" His left hand then slid off the steering wheel and landed on her thigh, where he knew a bruise already existed, he squeezed harder and harder still as he accelerated - going too fast now for the windy road they're on. Speaking softly, but his eyes shooting daggers;
"Don't ever call me that." Then louder. "My old man taught me what a bully is. You have no idea. Anyway - you're embarrassed! What about me? Fat and snotty - some beach babe!" Half a stone is hardly fat, Kirsty thinks as the car fishtails in the road's soft edge. "Slow down," she yells, looking back as the toddlers whimper and huddle closer; "You're scaring us. What's wrong with you?" She never fully understood the answer to that question.
Years later, standing looking into the dark pit of Dean's freshly dug grave, the man facing her on the other side did cause her to speculate. His estranged father, who she had assumed dead, glared at her with brutal cynicism - and very little sorrow when he said: "That boy was always full of himself. Had to be best at everything; expected everyone to kowtow to him. Well...the sea gave him his comeuppance didn't it?"
She had loved Dean - enough to feel pity for the frightened little boy who had probably always cringed inside him.
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