I exhaled and sat back down. Jesus, I wished I was just in there with her. I might talk to Gabriel about taking her swimming at weekends or something. The sooner she swam strongly, the better.
Bethany waited patiently until the last fifteen minutes of the session, which was when they started the sitting dives. She’d been so excited last time when she’d managed to go headfirst into the pool that she’d been talking about doing it again all week. Only a few kids had managed it last time. Some had just refused and sat and watched. Others had tried but ended up inelegantly shuffling into the water feet first.
“Hands either side of your ears and lay one hand over the other.” The instructor in red shorts on the side of the pool wandered from one end of the row of ten children to the other.
The first child got the go-ahead to dive, and I kept my eye on Bethany, who would be one of the last to go. She looked like she was chatting to herself and kept positioning her arms and then relaxing them, practicing her form. She was so darn cute. She did it again and this time, her body started to move forward, almost as if she was going to go into the water, but she shifted and brought her arms down.
Sit back, I wanted to shout. Be patient and wait your turn.
My eyes flitted to the other end of the line-up of four-year-olds sitting on the side, and another child plopped into the pool, taking the attention of both the instructor in the pool and Miss Red Shorts on the side. The instructor in the pool helped the child who had just dived out of the pool while the instructor on the side coached the one about to enter the water.
Bethany brought her arms up again into position and leaned forward, but this time she’d gone too far. I could see the moment her balance failed her. She glanced at me as I stood up, horror splashed across her face—not because she was in danger, but because she knew she was about to go into the pool when it wasn’t her turn. She tried to regain her balance, turning awkwardly, but instead of regaining her feet, she slipped into the water, hitting her head on the side with an almighty clunk on the way in.
Time slowed and it felt as if everything had been covered in molasses. I dived into the water from the other side of the pool and felt her tiny body in my arms before she hit the bottom.
I was vaguely aware of shrieking as I broke the surface.
“Miss Lumen, what do you think—”
I ignored everything but Bethany, lying her on the edge of the pool. She was unconscious. The blow to the head had knocked her out. I leapt out and rearranged her. People came toward us—I didn’t know if it was children or the instructors—and I was vaguely aware of someone screaming.
“Call an ambulance,” I yelled.
Bethany’s chest seemed to rise and fall but I put my hand on her belly to make sure. She was breathing, thank God, and I moved her onto her side, pulling her head back so she didn’t swallow her tongue just like I’d been taught.
“Why isn’t she moving?” I heard a child ask.
“Has someone called a goddamned ambulance?” I screamed.
Nine
Gabriel
I nearly tore off the sliding door at the entry to the hospital as it seemed to take an interminable time to open. Finally, I raced up the corridor toward pediatric accident and emergency. I’d been here once before when Bethany had fallen off the bed when she was four months old; I hadn’t realized she had learned to roll over, and while I’d grabbed a new nappy she went right over the side. I’d had the same bitter taste of bile in my mouth then as I did now. The same panic running through my veins. Except this time was worse. I hadn’t been with her. I couldn’t hold her. I couldn’t feel her warmth.
“Gabriel Chase. My daughter’s been brought in by ambulance,” I said to the receptionist who seemed to be on another call and not in any hurry to do anything.
“Just take a seat, and I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said in a slow, drawn-out reply.
“I will not take a seat,” I bellowed. “I want to see my daughter.”
“Gabriel,” someone called from the other side of the room.
It was Autumn. The adrenaline chasing around my body pulled me toward her, noting how very sad, serious, and bedraggled she looked.
Please don’t have bad news.
Please let Bethany be okay.
I’ll do anything. Give up everything.
Was it too late to strike a bargain with God?
“How is she? Where is she?” I said, searching her forlorn face for clues.
She pulled at my arm and we raced around the linoleum corridor, past a nurses’ station. Autumn ushered me through a curtain.
There sat Bethany, in a hospital gown but fully conscious and smiling, a nurse by her side taking her temperature.
“Daddy,” she said, beaming at me. “You’re here. Not at work.”
Relief erupted in my veins at the sight of my beautiful daughter. Nothing was better than this, I said to myself. Being with Bethany was everything I needed. It was why I put up with work, why I vowed not to date. Why I breathed in and out. It was all about this little one with the gangly legs and shiny curls.
“They say she’s fine,” Autumn said from beside me.
“I want to speak to a doctor,” I muttered before stepping toward the bed and lightly pressing my lips to Bethany’s forehead. She looked okay, but I had to push down the urge to scoop her up and hold her as close as possible.
“How are you feeling, my darling?”
“Do you have snacks?” she asked.
Well, that was a good sign.
“She’s fine, Mr. Chase. Just a bump to the head is all,” the nurse said cheerily. “We’re going to keep her for a few hours just for observation.”
“I want to speak to the doctor.”
“They’ll be in when they’re free.” The nurse smiled, filled in something on a chart, and then left. Bethany smiled, glanced at Autumn, and held out her hand for something.
Autumn glanced at me. “I gave her the iPad. The doctor said it was fine. I know she’s not supposed—”
“It’s okay,” I replied.
Autumn handed Bethany the tablet and she set about doing whatever she did on it, which always seemed to involve feeding cartoon food to cartoon dogs.
“What happened?” I said, taking a seat next to Autumn, trying to show her and myself that I was fine. Calm. Relaxed.
“They were all lined up, sitting at the edge of the pool, ready to do sitting dives—”
“I fell in, Daddy,” Bethany said, looking up from the tablet.
“She tried to stop herself from falling and ended up turning and banging her head on the side,” Autumn explained. “Then she went down.”
The bile in my stomach rose again. I should have been there. “No more swimming lessons for you,” I said. I might even look into home schooling. I needed to keep her safe.
Bethany looked up from the tablet. “I like swimming,” she replied, frowning.
Autumn’s phone went off beside us and she opened up a message. “It’s from Hollie,” she replied. “She’s nearly here. She’s bringing me some clothes.”
I turned to look at Autumn properly and noticed her hair plastered to her head. “Are you . . . wet?”