Beneath the Brim

Eleanor adjusted the wide-brimmed hat, pulling it lower over her eyes. At forty-seven, she'd become skilled at hiding—hiding the fine lines around her mouth, hiding the loneliness that had moved into her condo like an unwanted roommate, hiding the fact that she'd started taking those expensive vitamins from the infomercials, the ones that promised to turn back time.

She was poolside at Richard's new house, watching him glide through the water with twenty-two-year-old Chloe, whose body was smooth and unmarked by life's inevitable betrayals. The pool sparkled with that impossible blue that only money could buy.

"You're not going in?" asked Marcus, Richard's brother, handing her a drink she didn't want. His eyes crinkled with knowing kindness. He was fifty-three, divorced twice, and somehow Eleanor felt more seen by him than by anyone in years.

"I don't swim anymore," she said, clutching her hat like a lifeline. "Not since..."

Since what? Since her diagnosis? Since Richard left? Since she'd started feeling like her body was a stranger she had to learn to live with?

The sky darkened without warning. Summer storms in the valley arrived like arguments—suddenly, violently. A crack of lightning split the sky, so close it made the pool's surface jump. Rain began to fall, not gently but in sheets, washing away sunscreen and pretense.

Everyone scrambled for the house. Richard grabbed Chloe's hand. Eleanor stood frozen, water dripping from the brim of her hat, vitamins dissolving in her stomach, utterly alone in the chaos.

Then Marcus was there, offering his hand, not minding the rain. "Come on," he said. "Let's get you inside."

She took it. In that moment, with lightning illuminating the wet pavement, she realized something: she'd been waiting for Richard to look back and see what he'd lost, but he never would. The vitamins weren't the cure. The hat wasn't protection. They were just things.

Later, wrapped in a towel, Marcus found her on the porch. "You know," he said, "Richard's an idiot."

Eleanor laughed—really laughed, for the first time in months. "I know."

"And that hat?" He gestured to her sun hat, dripping on the railing. "It doesn't suit you anyway."

She took it off and let him see her face—all of it. The rain had washed away the makeup. She felt naked, exposed. She also felt something else: alive.

"Join me for dinner tomorrow?" Marcus asked. "Someplace casual. No pool, no hats required."

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

The storm passed as quickly as it had arrived. Eleanor went home and threw the vitamins in the trash. Some things, she decided, you couldn't swallow your way out of. Some things you had to walk through, even in the rain, even when lightning struck, even when you were terrified of what people would see when you finally took off your hat.