Breathing Water (6 page)

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Authors: T. Greenwood

Tags: #General Fiction

BOOK: Breathing Water
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June 1994
I
began painting early each morning and worked straight through until noon. Then I would swim to wash the salty sweat from my skin and begin again. The first week I could barely lift my arms in the morning, but now they weren't even sore anymore. I planned to finish the front of the camp by the Fourth of July. It was an arbitrary deadline, really. But I wanted the front of the house to look nice by the time the summer people started to arrive.
I was reluctant to get out of bed that day. I was working on the area near the loft window, and got a touch of vertigo every time I was up that high on the ladder. I swung my legs to the edge of the bed and stared at my pale skin; another hazard of painting is that the sun touches only the back of you. I looked like a half-roasted marshmallow: golden on one side and white on the other.
The phone rang. I scrambled down the stairs, almost tripping on my long nightie to get to the phone in time.
“Effie?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Want some company?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “What time?”
“I thought I'd leave in a few minutes. We could have breakfast,” she said.
“Okay, Mom.”
I couldn't believe how long my parents had waited to see me. My mother had called once right after I arrived. She said my father was busy finishing up his semester. They would see me soon. What she meant was that it had been three years, that I shouldn't expect them to just drop everything to see me when I had hardly written or called. That Colette would never have done this sort of thing.
I got the bucket of paint from the shed and found my brushes, clean and dry, on a piece of newspaper on the picnic table outside. I brought everything to the front of the camp. The ladder was still leaning against the wall. There were curled pieces of paint littering the green grass like crayon shavings. I needed to move the ladder over to the left-hand side of the camp. I almost tripped on the wooden steps that led up to the unused front door. I started to cuss, and then something caught my eye.
I knelt down and saw a robin's nest with a tiny blue egg inside. I picked up the broken shell, in two perfect pieces, and looked over my shoulder for a clue as to how it had arrived on my step. Nothing. I would have noticed if a robin had made the steps its nesting place. It must be a gift from Magoo, I thought. He used to do things like this for Gussy and Grampa all the time: a story found in the newspaper, a feather, jars of marmalade. But it was still too early for Magoo to be up. He didn't start splitting wood until after he had his morning pipe and a full breakfast. He probably left it for me the night before, after I had gone to sleep. I turned back to the nest and picked it up gently in my hands. It was the size of a saucer, the egg even smaller inside.
I forgot about painting and carried the nest inside. I set it on the windowsill above the sink next to three green tomatoes. I went back outside and walked down the road a ways, looking for something to give Magoo in return for this odd gift. But as I walked away from the camp, all I could find were pebbles and ferns tickling the edge of the road.
When I got to Magoo's house, I could see that his curtains were drawn. Rather than wake him up, I decided to go to the tree house. Maybe I would find a gift along the way. The path was overgrown. I wrestled through the waist-high foliage until I could see the ladder. As I climbed, I remembered the feeling of wood in my hands. The urgency of climbing quickly to get away from Colette and her friends below. When I reached the small wooden landing, I stepped off the ladder and opened the door. It was warm and stuffy inside. This will be my next project, I thought. Fresh paint, maybe new hinges on the door. No one but me fit inside here anymore. When I was a child, Tess and I made all of our plans here, made pacts and fabricated dreams. There weren't any children anymore, though, and everyone else would bump their heads on the low ceiling. Max and I tried to spend the night here once, but his legs were too long for the bunks. We walked back to the camp in the middle of the night so he would be able to sleep.
The bookcases built into the wall were empty and dusty, the books probably in storage in the shed. The bunk mattresses were also gone; only the bare rusty frames remained. No curtains, and I recognized the blackened wood where a careless candle from my adolescence left its scar on the windowsill. Through the window I could see Magoo's house. He opened the door and waddled slowly toward his mountain of wood. He sat down on a tree stump and began to load his pipe. Then as he puffed, he took off his thick glasses and rubbed them with the soft corner of his flannel shirt. When Grampa was alive they would sit together for hours by the woodpile, smoking quietly, occasionally gesturing toward a new cabin going up across the lake or to a family of loons. Earwigs on a plant, skid marks from a teenager's car.
I closed the door of the tree house and crawled back down the ladder. It seemed so much higher up when I was small. I started walking toward Magoo's house, waving and smiling.
“Good morning, Heidi,” he said, waving and squinting at me.
“It's Effie, Mr. Tucker,” I said.
He put his glasses back on and smiled. The air smelled sweet around him.
“Effie Greer. You've brought sunshine with you today.”
“For you,” I said, motioning to the sky.
I thought of thanking him for the robin's egg, but I was a bit afraid that it would ruin the magic. I decided, instead, to bring him something later.
 
I could hear my mother's car coming up the road. I went into the camp to make lemonade. I needed something to keep my hands busy.
“Hi, honey,” she said. She was holding a big cardboard box.
“Hi, Mom,” I said and stirred the powdered lemonade with a wooden spoon.
She set the box on the table in the breakfast nook and stood awkwardly in front of me. I stopped stirring and let her hug me. Her back was stiff, her skin cold. When we parted, I smiled nervously.
“It's sticky today,” she said, tugging at the long sleeve blouse she was wearing.
“You want some lemonade?” I asked.
“Sure.”
I opened the freezer to look for ice. I filled two plastic tumblers with ice and lemonade.
“The camp looks great,” she said. “How long has it taken you?”
“A couple of weeks,” I said, handing her the glass. “I'm pretty slow.”
“Well, it looks good. And there isn't any hurry. I think Gussy is just grateful that you are helping out.”
“How's Daddy?”
“Good. He's teaching two classes this summer. A light load.” She sipped the lemonade and though her lips puckered, she nodded. “This is good.”
“What's he doing today?”
“Grading papers. He said to give you a hug though. He's planning to come visit you soon.”
I drank my lemonade quickly and stood up from the table to get more.
“He was asking if you've thought about what you'd like to do this fall yet.”
“No, Mom. I haven't. I just got here.”
“I'm sure Daddy could pull some strings at the college. Maybe you could start the graduate program. Part-time even.”
“That's not why I came back here.” My heart was racing, and her face was getting red.
“I know, it's just that we're so worried about you. What happened to all of your plans?”
“I leave my boyfriend. Three years later he dies of a heroin overdose, Mom. I guess maybe some of my plans don't seem too goddamned relevant right now.” My hands were shaking. I dropped an ice cube on the floor. I could feel the cold against my bare feet.
My mother was staring at her hands. “It's not your fault, honey,” she said looking up, her eyes pleading with me. What she wanted was for me to stop. If she could, she would have put her hands over her ears.
“I know it's not my fault. That's not exactly the point,” I said softly.
She held the empty glass to her lips; I could hear the ice cubes hit her teeth.
“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.

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