Breathing Water (5 page)

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Authors: T. Greenwood

Tags: #General Fiction

BOOK: Breathing Water
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June 1994
I
n the morning, I woke up before the sun. I had been dreaming the sound of Grampa's bagpipes. Every morning he would stand at the end of the dock in his pajamas, waking the world with his music. He was terrible, but persistent. His own grandfather had played, and he said he was just carrying on tradition. My childhood mornings are made of this sound: bagpipes, water, and Gussy in the kitchen.
I searched the shed for the oars and wished that I had shoes on. Rusty nails threatened tetanus with every step. Behind the plastic lawn chairs and the old mower were the oars as well as a stack of orange life jackets. I grabbed the oars and one of the smaller jackets and stepped tentatively back out onto the driveway. I knew I should eat breakfast, but I was eager to get out to the island to see if the tree was still there.
There were clouds covering most of the sky, but the weather forecast on the public radio station had predicted afternoon sunshine. I went back into the camp and grabbed a peach from the blue bowl on the counter. It was too early for peaches. It was hard, the skin taut, reluctant.
I rolled the cuffs on my jeans up and stepped into the water; there was the carcass of a crayfish in the sand. Tess and I would lure crayfish with bits of hot dog when we were little. Grampa would cook them up in one of Gussy's big silver pots. When they emerged from the pot, red and steaming, he would arrange them on one of Gussy's platters.
Delicacies,
he said.
The rare miniature lobsters of Gormlaith.
I couldn't eat them because I was allergic to shellfish.
When I untied the boat and set the oars inside, I realized that I had never been in a boat alone on Gormlaith. I felt the way I did the first time I went grocery shopping. The first time I wrote a check, drove a car.
I awkwardly put the oars into the oar locks and started to push myself away from the shore. The sun shone brightly on my arms and then disappeared behind the clouds. The island was less than a half mile away, and I was glad. I tried to remember the rhythm of this task, dipping the oars into the water and pulling them out at the right time. The boat turned left and then right. Slowly and steadily, I made my way to the island.
I was seven the first time I went to the island. It was my birthday, and Grampa told me that he would take me to his favorite place. We set out after my chosen breakfast of banana and chocolate chip pancakes, one Gussy must have made against her better judgment. I had a small allergy to bananas, and later we both knew my arms would be covered with blotchy hives. As we rowed out to the island, Grampa was quiet. I pointed and asked questions, and he quietly rowed. But when we got to the shore, his face lit up. He took me by the hand as we hiked through the woods to the other side. He named all the trees by genus and species, comparing the more mysterious ones to the pastel drawings in the dog-eared book he kept in his back pocket. He snapped the slender stalks of ferns and held the fresh dewy green to his nose. He left me picking wildflowers to bring back to Gussy, while he lit his pipe and disappeared behind a tree. He emerged wearing only his boxer shorts and undershirt. Then he stepped carefully across the rocky shore and waded into the water, still smoking his pipe. For almost an hour he floated on his back, smoking. The smoke curled up in perfect spirals of liquid fire.
My arms were tired, and I stopped rowing for a minute as I passed two loons dipping and flapping their wings against the glassy surface of the water. The bottom of the boat sunk and crushed the sandy bank at the shore of the island. I struggled to pull the boat up onto the grass so that it wouldn't float away and leave me stranded. I tethered it to a tree trunk to make sure it wouldn't disappear, and then began to make my way through the woods.
My heart raced as I walked through the trees, the burrs and branches scraping my bare ankles. No one lived here. It was too rocky to build a foundation, too small for a home. But it took me nearly ten minutes to find the place. As I wandered through the trees' gnarled branches and tangled leaves, I wondered if I had been mistaken. Some things still felt too much like dreams to be real. But this was vivid. I dreamed this tree, I dreamed that day over and over. And soon, I began to recognize the landscape. The archway of birches, architecture of white bones and transparent leaves. Just when I was ready to give up, I saw the willow.
When I was a child, the willow curved gently over the spring, making a perfect veil under which I could hide as Grampa and Gussy picnicked near the shore. I made its umbrella my cave of leaves. While Gussy pulled plates and utensils, wineglasses and a corkscrew from the picnic basket like Mary Poppins from her magic bag, I lay on the cool ground beneath the tree and pretended I was invisible. But now, the willow remained the way it had since that afternoon with Max.
The wood was blackened, split down the center. Leaves no longer grew from the willow's fingertips. Its charred limbs couldn't hide me anymore. Because that summer, kissed by a gentle summer storm, trusting the sky, lightning came as a surprise, and its graceful back was quickly broken by the light.
June 1991
B
lue morning. This is a perfect day, and I wake up feeling full. When Max sleeps I love him. He is like a child in slumber, vulnerable and kind. When we first shared a bed, I would stay awake all night sometimes watching him sleep. The window is open, and soft wind brushes my bare shoulders. I consider kissing him, but know this will reverse the magic. I have been disappointed before, and I am learning how to make the spells I cast in the middle of the night linger.
I walk quietly down the wooden stairs that spiral from the loft to the living room and am dizzy when I reach the floor. On the sunporch the shades are drawn, rolled all the way to the floor, enclosing us inside. I open them now, letting in the morning. It's only the night that he fears. The lake is rough, white caps like frothy milk render it a small sea.
I open the bread box and reach for the loaf of sourdough bread he made yesterday. I cut thick slices and cover them with brown honey mustard, smoked Gouda, avocado, and turkey. I scoop mounds of tomato, mozzarella, and red onion salad into a plastic container. I grab a bottle of white wine from the case he bought at the liquor store in town and search through the silverware drawer for a corkscrew.
“Morning,” he says and pads into the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“I haven't made it yet.” I smile. “I was making lunch. I thought we could row out to the island today.”
“Um,” he says and sits down in the breakfast nook.
“Kenya or Maxwell House?” I ask. I am accustomed to simple food, student food. But because Max cooks, I am learning to distinguish croissant from biscuit. Gouda from Velveeta.
The coffee fills the kitchen with smells of African coffee plantations, and Max tries to find music on the small radio Gussy keeps on the counter.
“What's on the island?” he asks and sips at the bitter coffee that is too strong for me.
“Not much. A spring, blueberry patches, trees.”
“Hmm,” he says.
 
Coming here was my idea. After we graduated I thought we could leave everything behind: the empty classrooms where we went to argue so that no one would hear; the dormitory where he stood and screamed into the night air that he would die unless I loved him back, almost falling down the treacherous fire escape as I stood below weeping in my pajamas. I thought as we drove away from the blossoming campus, the air redolent with lilacs and finality, that I could transform fear into love at the lake.
And, I suppose, it has worked. He sleeps more deeply here. The nights are quieter, and his chest rises and falls more slowly. The dreams of his mother come less frequently. His angry fists beat dough into compliance now, and vegetables offer their suppleness to his sharp knife.
 
He struggles with the oars, complaining that one is longer than the other, as we make our way slowly toward the island. The air is cooler out here on the water. I let my hand dip into the thick dark surface, watch it change shapes and colors. There are clouds overhead as I tilt my head back and peer at the sky.
“Shit,” he says when I tip over the picnic basket while trying to crawl out of the boat onto the shore. The wine bottle breaks and the sharp smell permeates the air.
My chest tightens, and I reach over to pick up the pieces.
“I'll get them,” he says, brushing my hand away.
I grab the basket and jump gingerly out of the boat. Max follows behind as I start to walk toward the other side of the island, where I know the willow will make a perfect picnic spot. I can hear him breathing heavily behind me, feel the soft earth yielding beneath our feet.
I spread out a sheet that I found in Gussy's closet and set the picnic basket down. Max sits down and looks into the basket. “Turkey?” he asks.
“Um-hum,” I say. I know this is his favorite sandwich.
He peels back the bread and looks at the slices of turkey.
“You shouldn't get the packaged kind,” he says. “The kind you get at the deli is better. Fresher.”
“I'll do that next time,” I say.
“It's full of preservatives. It's
pressed
meat. Not much better than bologna, really.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I'll get the deli kind when we go into town.”
“Did you bring another bottle of wine?” he asks. He knows that I broke the only one.
“No,” I say, lowering my head, staring at my hands.
Quietly, I eat my sandwich. He picks the meat out and lays it on a napkin.
“I can't eat this,” he says. “It makes me sick.”
“Max, I told you I would get the kind you like next time. Why do you do this?” I ask.
“I do this because if I don't tell you how to do things, you have a tendency to screw them up.”
My heart thuds dully in my chest. The air feels thick, pregnant even. I can't finish my sandwich, and the mozzarella in the salad is warm. There are crumbs from the hard crust of the sourdough in my hair.
“It feels like a storm,” I say.
“Maybe,” he says. “We should get back anyway.”
“Don't you want to go swimming or anything?”
“Not really.”
“Well I do,” I say. I pull my shirt over my head, trembling when the cool air touches my skin. I hope that I will be able to distract him with this.
“Jesus,” he says.
“There's nobody here,” I say and run toward the shore. I step across some slippery rocks until I am far enough out to dive.
“Effie, damn.”
I look back at him sitting below the willow. The sky is growing dark. The breeze trembles across my shoulders.
“We'd better get back,” he says, crooking his finger at me, luring me back like a child.
“Just a little swim,” I holler. “Come in with me.”
“I said we'd better get back. I just felt some rain,” he says and stands up.
I move farther out on the rocks. The air is cold on my bare chest; I shiver.
“Fine,” he says and kicks the picnic basket. A bunch of red grapes spill out onto the clean white sheet. “I'll fucking leave you here.”
I don't move. I try to imagine what it would feel like to jump into the lake, the first shock of cold and then the water slowly warming, encircling me. As he starts to walk away, the sky rumbles, threatens. I put my arms around myself and look at the black clouds swarming overhead. I can't see the red of his shirt anymore, and I begin to panic. I am suddenly running across the rocks, scraping my ankle when I slip near the shore. I struggle to put my shirt back on and I call after him. He doesn't answer.
I sit down under the willow and wait, stubbornly hoping that he will return. The rain begins to come down in hard sheets; my hair sticks to my face. The thunder explodes, and my heart races. He is not coming back. I start to fold the wet sheet, to put the dirty plates and containers back in the picnic basket. My hands are shaking. The rain blinds me, my eyes filling with tears and rain. I trip on a fallen tree branch and scrape my wrist. A thin trickle of blood stains my shirt as I hold the sting closely to me. I find him in the woods.
“Are you crazy?” he asks. “Come with me and get in the goddamn boat.”
“Max, it'll be safer to wait out the storm here. If there's lightning we could get in a lot of trouble out there,” I plead.
“Well, I'm going back,” he says and starts to walk away again.
“Max, don't,” I cry and drop the picnic basket. “We can wait under this tree,” I say and motion to the willow.
“No,” he yells into the rain.
I run after him, stubbing my toes and scraping my legs. At the landing, he steps into the boat and grabs the oars. “Are you coming?”
I stand still for a moment, as he sits down in the boat and begins to push away from shore.
“Fine,” I say and reach out to the edge of the boat. When I step into the boat, it rocks with my weight, threatening to spill me.
“Sit down,” he says.
He raises one of the oars and pushes us violently away from the safety of the island into the cold gray water. A flash of light and more rain. I sit as far away from him as I can and pray. I recite bedtime prayers each time the lightning strikes. I am shivering and the wind keeps blowing us farther and farther away.
“I'm scared,” I say as thunder cracks like old bones. I know he won't hear.
We finally get turned around and Max rows frantically until I can see the red of the camp. I feel lightheaded, dizzy, and cold. My T-shirt is stuck to me, and my hair tastes like rain in the corner of my mouth. The sky is no longer blue, but almost black. When the bright bolt of light strikes, the island is illuminated by the flash.
I lie down on the daybed in my wet clothes, staring at the lake, until Max climbs up the stairs to the loft. I wait until I hear the sounds of his sleep and then climb the stairs and curl myself around his familiar body.
Later that summer, when Max is in town grocery shopping, Gussy and I go to the island and I find the tree that the lightning kissed. I touch the cold black wood and start to cry. He made me believe that day that he knew where lightning would strike. And I realized that the places I thought were safe weren't safe at all.

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