I glanced down at myself. I was fully covered — nothing low-cut, nothing flashy. Just an ordinary swimsuit on an ordinary woman trying to have one happy day with her granddaughter.
“It’s a pool,” I said quietly.
She tilted her head. “There are children here.”
“I am covered,” I said, my face going hot.
She smiled in a way that made it worse. “Some things just aren’t pleasant for everyone else to look at.”
It wasn’t only the words. It was the looking — the way her friends smiled into their drinks, the way I suddenly felt too old, too visible, too much. I reached for my cover-up without even thinking about it.
Amelia looked up at me. “Grandma?”
I forced a smile. “I’m fine, baby.”
I was not fine. I sat down and pulled the cover-up across my lap. I wanted to leave — not because she was right, but because I didn’t want Amelia’s birthday to turn into a story about her grandmother being laughed at in public.
Amelia stood there a second, staring at the woman. Then she leaned close to me and whispered, “I need the bathroom.”
