Like a Woman (23 page)

she is in the sea

and I can't find either of the two dark dots and I am scouring the area around the rock, searching for sight of her. To the left I see something with dark hair floating underwater about twenty yards offshore and I dive in, swimming impossibly toward her body. Gasping air I go under to grab hold of her and then my hands clasp down and I am holding onto Luna. I open my eyes underwater and stare at the limp silky dog that looks like a furry seal. I am happy to be holding something but shocked that it is not Leah. Then I think,
Well, if she lives, she will be really happy that I saved her dog
, and I start back for shore, arm tucked under Luna's chest, swimming effortlessly with a wave which carries us both in. The dog is fine, standing on her own, sucking air, puking salty froth, shaking sprays of water and sand and

I am on the shore and she is in the sea

and I can't find her. I remind myself to breathe now that I can. I try to calm down, will myself to be able to see her. Finally I spot her far to the right of the rock. Somehow I know that she is still alive but she is not calling to me anymore and now I curse the lack of cries for I know this means she is weakening. She is closer in, but still way too far out for me to get to her. My eyes fix on her body, straining to re-establish the shimmering cord, searching for her breath. I think,
Can I really just stand here and watch someone die?

and I cannot. I can't just stand there and watch as she dies. And I do not want to die. I do not want to fucking die. I think of all the large and small survivals, the beatings, the rapes, the johns, the pimps, the cops, the car crashes, the gay bashes, the falls, the fights, the flights, the fear. And the funny thing is, before I didn't care but now I do and I do not want to die. I do not want to fucking die. I rage and my throat fills with grief but I am at peace with my answer. I tell myself that soon it will be time and I will go in

I am feeling utterly calm. I take off my soggy tennis shoes and socks, lay them carefully on the rock, fold and gently place my glasses on top. I think of those who will find our bodies, trying to make sense of the situation, friends coming back to the beach to search for clues. Looking at my little pile, I think,
Perhaps this will tell them of my intentionality. Maybe that will help
. My toes curl into the sand, gripping a small, gritty rock. I feel my throat constrict and swallow. Soft wind touches my cheek. I start to take off my heavy jeans so I can move less encumbered in the sea, but when I look up to check on Leah, I see that she is suddenly floating face down in the water and I run into the surf, screaming, “Leah, no!” At the same time I am sending silent apologies to those whose love has kept me so far in this world. And I am leaping, tripping, diving into this white frothy hell.

A wave slams me down and I see my mom running crookedly onto the Santa Monica Freeway. My mom's boyfriend stands stupid under the streetlights, holding her car keys, confused, thinking he had finally won a battle. I dutifully race up the onramp, tackling my mom before she makes it into oncoming traffic, grieving the asphalt I know is tearing into her face and I guess my arms. I roll us over and over until we are off the shoulder and into the dirt, rolling until the cyclone fence pushes into my back. My arms clench around her chest, pinning hers, refusing to release. I wait for the boyfriend or the sirens, whichever comes first. I don't really care. Sobs rack my mother's body, pushing into my chest. “Just let me die. Please, God, just let me die,” she cries over and over, though she makes no effort to break free.

The wave pulls me under and I fight my way back up, gasping for air, searching for Leah, cursing this ocean, swimming impossibly toward the dark, bobbing head. Somehow I reach her and grab the back of her hair and yank her head out of the water, screaming for her to breathe. Her hair is like seaweed. She is blue cold like stone with popping veins etched across her brow. For a moment I see David's pale face in the open casket, dead, waxy as if someone painted it with crayons, and then I am yelling, “Leah, I've got you. I've got you now. I'm not gonna let you go!” and I am swimming with more than all my strength toward shore, fighting to keep her head above water, feeling her limp legs bump, bump into my violent kicking ones just like David's used to do at the city pool. But we are both going backward, pulled further out to sea.

I am in the sea

and cursing the ocean and screaming and swallowing water, somehow imagining I can ride my fury back to shore and save us both but instead I am thrown backward, helpless as a twig and I'm worried that Leah can't breathe and I'm not sure which way is up but I know I'm not gonna let her go and I am so angry at this ocean for making me feel my weakness. My mind makes one last grab for the rational.
We're caught in a riptide
, I think.
“When caught in a riptide
,” I hear a robotic voice say, sounding like an airline stewardess giving oxygen mask instructions,
“do not fight the current. Simply swim parallel to the shore until you are out of the riptide and then swim safely in
.”

“Fuck you,” I scream as we get dragged under again, spinning around, somersaulting backward desperately up for air. “There is no fucking parallel out here!” I feel my right shoulder tear as we get twisted around and I struggle to hold on to Leah, wondering if I could shift her body over to my stronger left side. But I need that side to swim and I don't dare risk such a maneuver. Mentally I make sutures in every tear the ocean rips through my muscles. At first they are stitched in golden pink filament, then twine, then rope, duct tape, baling wire, anything I can find as I feel my body break apart. I see Jo-Jo and her pink little nursing kit and whiskey, sewing us all back together. I see Mike standing under the tree in North Hollywood Park, ready to break my fall as I plummet from the sky, hollering at me to grab on to that last goddamn branch. Soon my thoughts reduce to: Hold on. Air. Up. Breathe. Shore. God?

And I am in the sea and there is no help.

The numb grip on my mind breaks and I am again fighting with everything I have. I am not calm. I am pissed off. Once a wave brings us close enough in that I can touch bottom I dig desperately in with my toes only to get swept back out again and again and I'm spitting and cursing and telling Leah that I'm not gonna let her go, I'm not gonna let the ocean take her away from me and then we get washed up far enough that I can stand and she is kneeling and I feel her gripping my arm and so I know she is still alive and I try to pick her up like they do on Baywatch and trot pectorally up to shore so we are finally safe but I can't even budge her. I use all my arm and back strength and then try to lift with my legs but my body is too weak and she is not even moving and I wonder if maybe she thinks she is finally safe because she feels sand and my arm but she is not safe so I scream at her to help me. “We have to get out of here,” I yell. “You've got to help me. We're not safe yet and I can't carry you. Please, anything, just try to crawl.”

My grandmother has fallen in the hall. I know what I have to do. I've done it before. Put two of the tiny white nitroglycerin pills gently under her tongue, careful so she doesn't choke. Get her to her bed. Careful. Carry, drag her if she can't help. Take her dress off, careful so it doesn't rip. Unsnap each one of the thirty clasps on her corset, releasing her chest, letting her breathe. Call the doctor. Call my mother. Call the ambulance if it's bad. I spill the bottle, tiny pills scattering. Shit. I pick up two from the orange shag carpet. “Grandma, can you hear me?” I ask, turning her head, prying open her mouth, closing it gently over the two white pills. “I'm gonna get you to bed, okay?” She doesn't move. I try and lift her. She is five foot ten, not fat but big boned, a “woman of substance.” “Thick with grief,” says my mom. I am eleven. “Grandma, can you help me get you up?”

I know what to do. I've done it before. Why can't I lift her now? She is so heavy. I pull her partway up the wall, then slide down after her into a heap. I want to cry. Why am I so weak? “Grandma, can you help me? I need to get you to bed.” I'll have to drag her.

Slowly we make it down the hall, my grandmother waking up enough to help push with her feet. “The bicycle?” she whispers. “Do the bicycle?”

“That's right, Grandma. Just like you're riding a bicycle, only backward. Just keep peddling. I got you, Grandma.”

We make it to her bedroom, but when I pull her top half up against the bed, her butt still on the floor, I feel her dress give way. Panicked, I want to run when I see the long tear under her armpit. But I make myself stay, get her into bed, pull off her dress, undo the corset, wipe her brow with a clean damp cloth first, check her breathing, then call the doctor, then call my mother, then wet the cloth again, then wipe up where she's messed herself. She breathes more easy, then starts to cry.

“Oh, child, just look at me!” she says as I tuck the sheets soft around her chin. “I came here to take care of you kids. I'm supposed to be taking care of you. Oh, just look at me.”

“Shhh, Grandma. It's okay. You take real good care of me, Grandma. I love you so much. Just rest now. Dr. Mandle will be here pretty quick. Mom's comin' too,” I add.

She puts her hand real gentle against my cheek, rubbing my chin with her big thumb the way she knows I like, the way that makes me feel like a cat, the way that makes me feel so good I forget to hide her dress. Then when my mom and Dr. Mandle get there of course my mom spots it right away, glaring at the tear, shaking the dress, giving me one of her
you' d better be gone
looks, but Dr. Mandle is there so all she says is, “And what happened here, young lady? I swear you cannot be trusted with anything. I don't know what I'm going to do with you. So damn careless. Always breaking things, tearing them up. I don't know what I did to deserve a child like you.”

She leaves the room and Dr. Mandle looks up and says, “Don't worry. She's just upset, that's all. You did a real good job here. Your grandma's just fine.” But he gets to go home and I know my mistake was settling all in to my grandma's thumb stroking my chin, making like I was a cat what could purr instead of a girl that needed to be sewing up her grandma's dress like I knew I should.

The next wave knocks me over, but I hold onto Leah, dig my feet into the sand, refuse to let it drag her back out to sea. I grab hold of the back loop of her jeans with my right hand, put my left hand under her shoulder and pull but there is no movement and now I understand the meaning of “dead weight” but she's not dead and I can't go back into that sea again and I yell to her, almost sobbing I am so weak, “Crawl! Goddammit. Please crawl.” Amazingly, she raises her head and says in this calm, soft voice, “I think it might be better if I walked.” I want to laugh out loud in relief and disbelief at her actually uttering words much less suggesting walking—”Fuck, yes, please, let's walk. Hell, let's two-step”—but we are not safe yet and the ocean is still trying to steal her back. She raises up a little and I put her left arm around my neck and lift, hoisting her up on my right hip. I cannot feel my right side, but I look over and see my right hand snaked around her on its own, tightly gripping her waistband. Knowing if I fall now I won't have the strength to stand again, I carefully wobble us up onto shore, toes gripping into sand, relaxing, inching forward, gripping again.

Thirty feet from the surf, still we are not safe, pinned between sea and cliff. I close my eyes and begin a slow shuffle up the beach, cursing the thunderous crashing of waves, the roar that shakes the ground we walk on, threatening my tenuous balance. Finally we reach the place where the river cuts through the cliff and we limp as far as possible up the creek bed, away from the sea. When we are finally safe I take off all our clothes, even though Leah is wanting only to curl up and be still and is irritated as a cranky child at my messing with her stuff. Finally she is naked and I hold her up against the remaining warmth of my body, her back against my chest and belly, my arms wrapped around her, facing her toward the sun. Burgundy scrapes lace across her cool, white skin, telling stories of frantic legs, forearms braced against oncoming rocks, protecting her precious, unmarked skull. I watch the purple and gray gathering of bruises as her body warms and the blood begins to flow. Soon she will spit sand, grumble at Luna, hold her exploding snow cone frozen head, double over with cramps, and finally hobble her way behind me toward the truck, holding my trembling hand and wincing over a stickery path. But for now, she is safe and all I really know and care about is the fact that

I am on the shore and she is with me

and the sun is almost warm.

III

We spend the next three days huddled in a Big Sur hotel room, clinging to each other, eating hot soup and crackers. Leah doesn't want to go to the hospital; she just wants to get warm and dry. I can tend to her cuts. Her bruises will be bruises. Amazingly, she has taken in almost no water. Luna and I are both still spitting up the sea. She barks each time I cough, wags her tail fiercely, leads me to the corner of the bathroom floor where she has made her own little frothy pools of yellow ocean. I clean up after her, then throw up in the sink. The sign on the front door says no dogs allowed in room, but there is no way I am about to be separated from either of these two creatures I've just pulled from the sea.

Leah and I begin to tell the story to one another. “It was incredible,” she says. “I could see you so clearly on shore. At one point I saw this amazing tunnel of light coming from you, filled with little strands of gold and silver light. I felt like you were sending me breath, sending me a lifeline. You made me feel so strong, like I could maybe save my own life. Before that I knew I was going to die. I thought, ‘How strange. So this is how people die.' I thought, ‘I'm probably going to die.' Funny what a drowning mind can invent,” she says, looking away.