Breathing Water, page 6
“It’s more complicated, Mom. You need to let me . . .” and then I let my words fall away from me. I could almost see them fade into the air in front of my face.
Her eyebrows settled into soft arches again. Her fear of hearing what I had to say was gone. She was safe again. She could pretend again that I had not made so many terrible mistakes.
“Colette is coming in a couple of weeks,” she said softly.
“Why?” I asked, suddenly furious again. The last thing I needed right now was to see Colette.
“To visit. She’s stopping by on her way to visit Justin in Saratoga.”
“Great.”
“Effie,” she said, scowling, and went to the sink with her empty glass. Then the nest distracted her. “This is beautiful,” she said, forgetting to finish her reprimand. She picked up the robin’s egg and cradled it in her palm. “Where did you find this?”
“By the tree house,” I lied. “I found it when I was sweeping out the dead flies. On one of the branches. I wouldn’t have taken it unless the egg was hatched.”
“You should keep an eye out for the baby.” She smiled. “Maybe put a feeder up or something.”
“I will,” I said.
“Well, I just wanted to check in with you. I brought some of your books from Gussy’s.” She motioned to the box.
“You’re leaving already? I thought we were going to eat breakfast.”
“I need to get back pretty soon. Your father wants to go to the farmer’s market when he’s done grading papers. Tomatoes.” She nodded. “We need tomatoes.”
“You’ve only been here a half an hour,” I said, but she was already moving toward the door.
“We’ll come see you next weekend. How about that? Maybe we can have a Fourth of July picnic with Gussy. Did you find the grill in the shed? Gussy said it should still work just fine. Maybe we can pick up some watermelon at the market.”
“Okay,” I said. “Next weekend.”
As I painted the trim near the bedroom window, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass, recollecting the glance I gave a photographer one childhood afternoon. Elbow deep in prickly white fabric freckled with silver to look like snow, I wore a dress the color of rust. He kept counting to three before he flashed the bright lights. He had a sock puppet and dandruff on his glasses. The lights were almost blinding, and the paper forest backdrop kept curling down behind me from the heat of the lamps.
When the photos arrived three weeks later, I knew something was wrong as soon as I looked through the plastic window of the envelope. My mother sat cutting apart a hundred likenesses of me; the room smelling of her patience. She pretended that nothing was wrong with the pictures, that they were perfect little Kodachrome portraits. But in each and every picture, duplicated in three or four different sizes, the flat winter forest behind me was falling down. Behind every glossy evergreen backdrop was autumn. Where the edges of the evergreen forest fell was the wrong forest where the leaves were dying. And in the picture, you couldn’t tell the difference between my hair and my dress and the shiny dead leaves. I was six years old and caught between seasons, falling quietly into fall.
At the kitchen table, she cut away the wrong backdrop, the wrong season (these photos were to be Christmas gifts for everyone we knew). She cut and cut until she had not only cut away the careless photographer’s trees, but my hair, my shoulders, and my rust-colored dress. All that was left was my somber face.
It is this glance, this expression that I saw reflected in the bedroom window, the lake shimmering behind me. And it was the same expression I gave him each time he banged his fist into the wall over my head, no matter how much plaster fell like snow into my hair. I was still caught between the seasons of his fury, but in the glance you couldn’t see his winter, you would only see me falling into fall. Fading into the wrong backdrop.
August 1991
I ride my bicycle slowly back from the blueberry patch, careful not to spill the basket brimming with blueberries. My fingers are stained, my lips (I am certain) are blue. The road twists and turns, and I stop to gather wildflowers for the table and stones to use as paperweights. I stop several times just to prolong this tender feeling I am having about my life today. It is late afternoon by the time I get home.
I see Max’s car in the driveway, the car he bought to spare his long legs from my Bug. He must have gotten back from the grocery store while I was huddled in the blueberry patch gorging myself on the plump, sweet berries. My chest aches as I get off the bike and open the screen door.
“Here are the blueberries,” I say and set the basket down away from where he is working.
“Can you put them in the fridge?” he asks.
“Uh-huh.” I smile and pour them into a colander. Each berry tumbling down, each wearing its own small crown. That was how you could tell that they were blueberries instead of the other, poisonous, ones. My grandfather had shown me this, shown me the regal blueberry and the evil blue imposter side by side.
“What are you making?” I ask and peek into the pot he is stirring.
“Cioppino.”
“What’s that?”
“Italian seafood stew. With whole crab legs, mussels, salmon, scallops.”
“Decadent,” I say. I don’t remind him that I am allergic to shellfish.
“I suppose.” He smiles.
I am tired from hiking through the blueberry patch, from riding my bicycle up hills. I hug him softly from behind so as not to disturb the rhythm of his stirring. Then I go to the front porch to lie down. The sheets on the daybed are embroidered with orange sunflowers. I picture Gussy sitting alone on the porch, patiently threading her needle. As I run my fingers over the raised petals and leaves, I imagine that when Grampa went for his nightly swim, Gussy lit a thick green candle and watched her fingers rise and fall. These sheets had been here since my mother was a child. Gussy was my age when she patiently coaxed sunflowers from clean, white cloth. I used to rub the floss and cotton between my fingers to fall asleep.
I lie down and listen to Max’s kitchen sounds. The scratchy radio, the cioppino bubbling, the hiss of a beer opening. I feel almost happy. The lake is choppy; the rhythm of the small waves tapping the shore lulls me to sleep.
Soon I awaken to darkness. I am lying on top of the blankets, cold and disoriented. I reach over to the nightstand and turn on the lamp. Its orange glow casts strange shadows across my thighs. My heart races at the silence in the kitchen. There is an odd scent in the air.
I go to the kitchen and see pots and pans strewn all over the stovetop and counters. Red sauce splattered on pale Formica. The sink is full of shells, gray and pink carcasses. There are seven empty beer bottles lined up on the table in the breakfast nook. My heart pounds thickly in my chest. I knock on the closed bathroom door and push it open gently. Empty. I go back to the living room and up the stairs to the loft. I expect to see him, hope to find him asleep in the soft bed. But the bed is empty, the mountain of quilts and blankets deceiving.
I return to the kitchen and gently push the door open.
He is sitting in an Adirondack chair facing the lake. He has dragged the heavy wooden chair from the shed to the front yard without me noticing. His arm rises and falls. I think about how to approach him. I practice my words. Pick a door, pick a door. If I’m lucky, I will say the words that will make him cradle his head in my arms. Or, better still, the chosen words might make him laugh. But more likely there is only one door and behind that, opened by any words I might choose, is the tiger.
He doesn’t hear me approaching. I watch his arm rise and fall. There is a rhythm to everything he does, it seems. Breathing, stirring, drinking.
“Max?”
He is quiet.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep,” I say.
I sit down on the ground next to him and when he doesn’t speak, I lean my head against his soft arm.
“Have you thought about this fall?” he says, not looking at me but straight ahead.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what do you think will happen to us this fall?”
“I don’t know,” I say. My heart is skipping beats. He is asking me a question I don’t want to answer.
He frowns.
“Don’t worry,” I say.
“You’re going to leave,” he says.
“Why would you say something like that?” I ask, lifting my head.
“Because it’s true, Effie. You’ll go off to New York this fall, meet some cocky bastard who sweeps you off your goddamn feet with a glance, and then I’ll get the phone call. He’ll probably be lying right next to you, sticking his tongue in your goddamned ear, while you make up some excuse. You’ll cover the receiver, but I’ll still be able to hear you giggling, telling him to stop. And then you’ll lie.” He is not looking at me. He is staring at the lake.
“Of course, you’ll tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me what you think will keep me from tearing the phone out of the wall and throwing it across the room. And all the while he’ll be sitting there.”
“Max, why are you doing this?” I ask. I am shivering.
“But I will hurl the phone across the room. I’ll rip the phone out of the fucking wall so you won’t have to hear me. And because all you’ll get is a dial tone, you’ll always wonder. You will always wonder what happened after the jack came out of the wall,” he says.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask, allowing tears that I hope will evoke some sort of tenderness from him.
“I’m telling the truth. Isn’t that what you want, Effie? You’re not pissed off because I’m accusing you of something but because there’s truth to everything I’m saying. You’re looking for a way out. I can see it in everything you do. From the very beginning you’ve been trying to figure out how to get out of this.”
“I am not,” I say. But I realize I am lying. I dream the man he fears. “Where did this come from? I’m here, aren’t I? Why can’t you let yourself be happy?” I stare into his eyes, which frighten me with their vacancy.
“Why don’t you let yourself be happy!” he cries suddenly. His voice is shrill. He raises his arm to drink, suckling the bottle with his pale lips. “It must be great, to be so simple and small. You have an easy life, Effie Greer. All you need to do is wave your magic Tinker Bell wand and make everyone happy. You spread your fairy dust, and everything is A-OK.”
“I don’t have to listen to you,” I say and start to get up.
“Of course you don’t have to.” He smiles. “But you will.”
“What happened to the cioppino?” I challenge him.
“Fuck you.”
“Did you burn it? Did you forget a pot while you were busy opening another bottle? Did you leave the burner on while you were fabricating ways for me to leave you?” I am growing. In the darkness, I feel my bones expanding to accommodate me.
He stands up and knocks the chair onto its side.
I start backing toward the house, slowly. I am trying to make the tiger angry. I want him to attack.
“Did you singe the sauce while you were imagining me with someone else?”
I am certain that he will strike this time. That these bruises will be real. As he puts his hands on my tightened shoulders I will him to hit where it will show. I want his careful kicks, his soft fists to leave marks this time. This will be the proof I need. The violet blossom of broken blood vessels, the blue berry, the evil imposter, will be my proof. But instead he strikes with his words, pushes me softly into the camp, and, later, into the bed, covering my mouth to keep me from telling anyone that there is only one door and it opens to this again and again.
June 29, 1994
The clock said three-thirty when I heard someone walking on the front lawn below my window. The sound was heavy, watery, and thick. I was too afraid to sit up. The curtains were open to let in the breeze, and he might have been able to see me. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on the sound of his feet. But behind my eyelids, I saw Max’s face. I saw Max watching me as I plucked the oyster shells from the sink, as I dumped soggy cigarette butts from the empty beer bottles. On the back of my eyes, I saw Max walking slowly toward the camp to find me, to make me go back with him again. I forced my eyes open, forced Max away. He was dead. He couldn’t come here anymore. Suddenly, I realized that it might be the break-in kids: high schoolers who broke into empty cabins to drink and smoke pot. But it was too late for that; it was that strange spot of time between deep night and dawn. The sky was black, but the air smelled of morning. I pulled the blanket away from my ears so I could listen for voices.
I heard the steps again, the swish of pant legs and dew-drenched grass. My heart was pounding so loudly, I swear I could see my chest rising and falling. I inched my way slowly to the edge of the bed and crawled carefully onto the floor. The wood was hard on my knees as I made my way to the window. There was silence.
I peered out the corner of the glass, trying to see the yard below. It was too dark. There were no streetlamps here. I heard the sound again, and shrank back down to the floor. I looked through the window and it was like peering into nothing. I sat on the floor until I was certain that whatever was making the noise was either gone or just part of a dream I was having, and then I crawled back into the bed. I drifted in and out of sleep until Magoo’s rooster started his cockadoodle-dooing at five-thirty and the sun was warm on my bare shoulders.
As I carried my coffee with me outside, I decided that I must have imagined the invasion. It’s something I have done since I was little, talking myself into a fearful frenzy. I walked to the edge of the lake and felt calm. Silly. I put my feet in the water and drank the hot coffee. It was a strange sensation, terribly hot and terribly cold at the same time. I enjoyed this odd equilibrium of hot and cold, frightened and calm until Magoo started up his chain saw.
I walked back to the camp, whistling loudly over the chain saw’s roar. And then I saw a glass jar on the steps to the unused front door. I walked slowly across the yard, thinking that maybe it was just the jar I kept the paintbrush in, stinking of turpentine and speckled with red paint. But there was something odd about its shape. Something unfamiliar.
I bent down and picked it up. It was a jelly jar, the kind with beveled edges. For marmalade or raspberry preserves. But there was no lid, and it was filled with murky water. The shape of the glass made kaleidoscopes of whatever was inside. I peered down through the top and realized that the water was teeming with polliwogs. I ran into the kitchen and set the jar on the windowsill next to the nest. I would need to get an aquarium if I wanted them to grow up. I picked up the jar again and looked inside. There must have been twenty or thirty of them.
I should have told Magoo thanks, but his chain saw was too loud for him to have heard me hollering through the open window.
I forgot about painting and drove into town looking for yard sales. I figured I could probably find an aquarium if I looked hard enough. When I hit the pavement and the houses grew closer and closer together, I realized I hadn’t been into town for almost three weeks. I never thought that my small hometown would feel like a metropolis, but today, with the main street closed off for the farmer’s market and people milling about everywhere, Quimby could have been Seattle for all of the traffic and noise. I decided to pick up a paper and have breakfast at the Miss Quimby Diner before I set out on my search.
When I walked into the diner, I could feel eyes on me like black flies. Glances swarming. The difference, I supposed, between this place and the city is that there is no such thing as anonymity here. And it had been way too long for me to blend in anymore. Faces were familiar, most I knew from high school. Faces grown longer, more tired. Eyes widened by time. Lips drawn. I kept my head down, some sort of Hester Prynne I imagined.
“Hi, Effie.” The waitress smiled. My eyes darted quickly to her name tag. Maggie.
“Hi, Maggie.” I smiled. I recognized her.
“Coffee?” she asked, but she was already pouring the thick black diner coffee into the small white coffee mug.
“Thank you,” I said and watched her hands. Her nails were painted carefully, that shade of red I’ve always associated with being grown up. And I wondered, was it possible that she was my age? This girl, Maggie, who used to sit next to me in biology in the ninth grade, drawing endless circles on the brown paper cover of her textbook. Softly snoring during the dreary films of spiders spinning their intricate webs.
“Did you and that guy, what was his name? Mac? Max?”
I nodded.
“Did you get married?” she asked and took her notepad and pen from her apron pocket.
I shook my head.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She blushed. “It’s just you too looked so cute together when you used to come in here on Sundays. I was sure you’d be married by now.”
“Nope,” I said and sipped the hot coffee. It burned my tongue, but I wouldn’t swallow it. If my tongue became ignited, I wouldn’t have to speak.
“Probably better off without him anyways.” She smiled. “Dog?”
“Huh?” I ask.
“Was he a dog? You know, good-for-nothing. Good for one thing maybe.” She winked. “I’m just foolin’ with you.”
After she handed me the laminated menu, I watched her walk away. I tried to imagine how Max and I must have looked to her. It amazed me that she remembered us that way. I remembered Sundays as silent. The long drive into town, Max bleary-eyed and sober. The newspaper a wall between us. The bitter grapefruit and cold silver spoon. Max’s plate spilling syrup and strawberries. Texas-style French toast, batter dipped and deep-fried. Ice cream. This sweet decadence of his nauseating me. How must this have looked to Maggie? I didn’t seem to recollect her ever looking at us longingly, the way I used to catch myself peering at couples with interlaced arms and that gentle contentment of being together. I didn’t remember ever feeling envied. I only remembered the white of vanilla ice cream on Max’s stubbly chin and the sting of citrus in that place inside my mouth where I bit the skin away to remind myself that I wasn’t dreaming. That all of this was real. That I was still alive.
