Aquarium (25 page)

You have to tell me, my grandfather said, his voice rising. What the hell is going on?

What’s happening? Steve asked, ducking his head in.

They were kissing. They were making out in the bathtub.

Really? Steve asked.

My mother turned her rage on Steve. Don’t sound interested. You will never see me again.

Jesus, he said, and he slipped away.

I thought someone was hurt, my grandfather said. I thought something terrible had happened.

And this is not terrible, that your granddaughter is turning into a little dyke?

Sheri. Slow down here. Caitlin and Shalini are both good kids. If they’ve kissed, maybe they’re a little confused or something, but they haven’t done something wrong.

I won’t raise a pussy licker. Shalini, get out of the fucking tub right now. You’re going home, and you’re never seeing Caitlin again.

Sheri! my grandfather yelled, and I could see him as a father for the first time.

But my mother ignored him. She stalked over and grabbed Shalini by the hair and yanked her out of the tub, dripping and naked and grabbing at my mother’s arm, trying to free herself.

Stop it! I screamed, and I was out of the tub but fell on the slick wood and was too slow. They were clogged at the doorway, my mother trying to get through, pulling Shalini, and my grandfather blocking as if this doorway led to somewhere important, as if this were the gate that had to be guarded. He had grabbed my mother’s shoulders but was pushed back into the living room.

The violence has to stop, Sheri. You’re violent, and it’s not okay.

I’ll show you violence, she said, and she punched straight ahead with her right fist. Something I could hear, and he caved, punched right in the heart. He let go of her and took a few steps backward and then just sat on the floor, collapsed. His mouth open, unable to get a breath.

I didn’t know who to run to, my grandfather on the floor or Shalini with her hair twisted in my mother’s fist. Shalini crying and wet and naked, exposed, and I went for my mother’s arm and bit down through her shirt and into flesh. It seems so animal now, but everything about that day was barbaric, and how else could I get her to let go? I wasn’t strong enough for any other way.

My mother hit me very hard then, in the face, a popping sound in my head and the world closing, and I fell back onto the floor and somehow didn’t pass out. I saw my mother let go of Shalini and come to me, touching me, her face in close, sorry, but Shalini pushed her out of the way and held my head in both hands and kissed me.

H
ow do you recover from a day like that? My grandfather on the floor trying to breathe, Shalini and I naked and wet and both hurt, my mother crawled away into her own corner, Steve hiding. How do you put a family back together, and how do you forgive?

Caitlin, my mother said. My baby. I’m sorry.

She was tucked against the wall at the end of the couch, her hands up to her face, hiding her mouth. Hands in fists like a boxer defending. She seemed animal. The fact that she could talk didn’t seem to fit at all. I watched her as I would something at the zoo, removed for the first time, distant.

My grandfather leaning back propped on his hands, as if he were lounging on the grass or at the beach, but his eyes were closed and his mouth looked like pain. I don’t think I had a heart attack, he said. I think I’m okay.

Someone needed to help us, all of us. Someone needed to help my grandfather up, and check my face, and dry off Shalini and put her in clothing, and somehow take care of my mother. But Steve had vanished, still hiding somewhere in the kitchen or a bedroom, failing to appear, and there was no one else.

My face was sore but strangely not broken and not even very painful. That popping sound must have been my mother’s hand. Shalini so gentle, fingers on my cheek and then kissing me again.

I just can’t watch that, my mother said. You don’t know what it’s like. None of you know. I wasn’t even a dyke, but I’ve been called one plenty of times, working construction. And called a muff diver on stage when I danced with another woman. Men love the idea of two women together. They want to watch and then kill. You’ll be hated all your life.

I think the world is different now, my grandfather said. I think they’ll be okay.

You don’t know anything. And I can’t watch it. I won’t have it in my house. Shalini is going home now. I’m sorry about what I did. But Shalini is going home now, and she’s never going to come over again, and I don’t want Caitlin to see her at school.

My grandfather heaved forward onto his hands and knees and then stood. He walked to the kitchen table and I could see Steve back there, standing with his arms crossed and one hand to his mouth, looking afraid.

Matches, my grandfather said, and he pulled open a drawer. This is a box of matches. He lit one, a flick and flash, and then turned to the table and lifted the contract, and he brought it over the sink and lit the lower corner and held it up as the flame grew and devoured. There’s your contract, he said. Notarized and burned. And the house is not going in your name tomorrow. I don’t care anymore what you think of me, or whether you’ll ever forgive me. All I care about now is protecting Caitlin and Shalini. So you have a choice. If you want this house, if you want to go back to school and stop working your job, you’ll let me take you tomorrow to find some help. Some counseling. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you, but I’m going to protect Caitlin and Shalini now, and Shalini can stay here tonight if she wants, and she’ll always be welcome. And she and Caitlin can do whatever they want. It all looks like love to me.

My mother still tucked against her fists, and I thought she would explode out of there, tear my grandfather into pieces for what he’d done, but she wasn’t moving.

I think he’s right, Sheri, Steve said. And I’ll help you too.

My mother’s mouth twisted like she was going to cry, and I felt so sorry for her but also a new coldness, something I never would have imagined possible.

My grandfather came to her, knelt on the floor and put his arms around and held her close. She put her arms around him and they just stayed like that, rocking a bit. I knew both would have their eyes closed, and knew that finally they had met again. Maybe this is as near as we can come to forgiveness. Not the past wiped away, nothing undone, but some willingness in the present, some recognition and embrace and slowing down.

Shalini’s skin felt cold, and I was shivering, so I sat up, my head pulsing, and we went back to the bathtub, slipped into the warmth and submerged. I closed my eyes and went all the way under and just hung there in a void because too much had happened. I heard the faucet and felt water cold then hot, and the temperature rose and I was lost in the sound of all that water, reaching like a goldfish to the surface with my lips for a quick gulp of air and then back down, returning to nothing. Shalini’s hands on my legs, some caress from another world, from darkness, gentle and reassuring. The end of terrible days, the end of being afraid, the end of being alone, and I knew it, even as it happened. The end also, though, of loving my mother in the same simple, full way. The limits of my own forgiveness.

I stayed under as long as I could, not wanting to return to air or words, but the heat drove me to the surface, and then Shalini’s lips, and it was the most perfect love I’ve ever known. No one will believe that, because we were too young, but we were absolutely there, not partially gone as adults always are. I had all of Shalini. Nothing was withheld. And she was far above me, in class and family, intelligence and sophistication and knowledge and beauty, and we didn’t yet consider those things, and I couldn’t yet feel inadequate in the adult way, really, even in the terrible shame of that day. And so nothing in me was withheld either. And there was the freedom of permission for the first time. On the other side of the door they knew what we were doing, and it was okay.

The house was silent when we emerged, only one light on, over the kitchen table, all the rest darkness. Three pizzas, mostly eaten, left out for us, so we sat wrapped in our towels, the air cold but our bodies still shielded by warmth from the bath. My family hidden away, no dinner together, contact too much. The Christmas tree lying on its side along a wall. We were starving, and we finished every piece.

The comforter cold when we first slipped under, so we clung together for warmth. My own room become our room, and my family let us sleep together without shame. Sometimes the worst moments can lead to the best.

That night was perfect and the beginning. Shalini sleeping on top of me, the warmth and weight of her, the fan of her hair making a cave around my face, rise and fall of her breath and small twitches as she slept. She abandoned herself to sleep, and I was held finally to the bottom of the ocean, as I had always wanted, thousands of feet down and the two of us gliding on great wings.

M
y mother in the morning shy and awkward, and this was something new, something that would go on for years and never quite end, the loss of her confidence as she tried to come to terms with her anger. Rage was what had held her together for so long.

But she put out bowls for our cereal, brought spoons and milk, and tried even from that first morning, though she couldn’t look us in the eye and we wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. Her hair unbrushed and not pulled back, and she hid within it.

I don’t know why I couldn’t just forgive her completely and immediately. Or later, when I would find out no one knew about her mother’s death for two years. Completely alone for that time. But something had hardened in me, some animal and instant response when I saw her disgust, how she looked at me when she first knew who I was, and some response also to being hit. A change in those moments, some switch turned off forever, the end of trust or safety or love, and how do we ever find the switch again?

So I admire that she could love her father, because I think that is what happened, and they lived here together even after I left for college. They lived in peace, and Steve remained, also, the three of them sharing a roof, and when my grandfather died, he was loved and forgiven. I’m grateful to her for that, and I hope eventually to be able to offer the same to her.

That morning, he took us to school, and he had become more like a parent. Your mother’s going to be okay, I remember he said. I see now that he had learned not to run and was even discovering he was stronger than he had thought. I’ll take you both to the aquarium today, he said. I’ll call your mother, Shalini, and let her know.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson, she said, and she squeezed my hand.

You won’t believe the fish, I said.

The whole world is in those tanks, my grandfather said. Everything.

We weren’t driving on East Marginal Way. We were on residential streets, going slowly. And so much later in the morning, only a few minutes before class, the sky already white-gray, as bright as it would become.

All the cars out front, and it was my first time not entering alone, and we had only a half week before vacation. Mr. Gustafson had given up completely. The classroom was mayhem. As he gazed at his book of old cars, slouched over his desk in his Santa hat, with his tongue just protruding, the Chinese New Year dragon was winding around the chairs, weaving in and out and pulling the sleigh. Shalini and I trotted our reindeer behind with the others, and somehow there were always strips and balls of newspaper in the air and other things thrown, balloons and glue. I was hopping as we trotted Lakshmi Rudolph, and Shalini was laughing, and I wanted to kiss her, so I tried, but she ducked away. Not with people looking, she yelled, still smiling.

What would have happened if I had just kissed her anyway, right then, and kept doing that every day and never stopped until it was normal for everyone to see, even her family? But you can’t go back, and I don’t regret anything with Shalini. There’s no point to regret.

By the time my grandfather picked us up after school, our faces were painted and there was glue on our clothes and our hair wild and we were flushed and exhausted.

Wow, my grandfather said. School is nothing like I remember it.

It’s not like India, Shalini said.

Mr. Gustafson is a bad teacher, I said.

You get some like that, my grandfather said. But don’t let them slow you down. Make sure you get good grades so you can go to college.

I wanted to ask my grandfather whether they had found help for my mother today, but I was afraid to ask. My cheek was bruised and sore but hidden by face paint which I would leave on for the next two days until vacation. I was afraid Evelyn would see and come around to destroy everything just as it was getting better.

We drove the route I had always walked, toward the low dark water of the sound, and we arrived so quickly.

I was holding Shalini’s hand as we entered. You have to see the splendid mandarins, I said. They look like your mother’s scarves.

My grandfather bought tickets for himself and Shalini, and then we ran to the first saltwater aquariums, where the most common fish lived, the ones you see in dentists’ offices. Coral and anemones and these fish that looked made of silk.