Breathing Water (17 page)

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Authors: T. Greenwood

Tags: #General Fiction

BOOK: Breathing Water
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“Oh God, no. I was looking for my friend's dog, Policeman. He's named that because he yelps like a police siren. Mr. Tucker had to go to the hospital and Policeman got out. I'm looking for him.”
“Maybe I can help,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “Sometimes he likes to go into the woods.”
We walked along the edge of the lake whistling and shouting “Police” until we got to the Foresters' camp. Suddenly Policeman's siren went off behind some bushes. It sounded horrible.
“Stay here. He might be hurt,” Devin said and walked into the woods. I stood in the road and listened for their return.
Just as I was beginning to fear that he too had disappeared, they emerged. Devin was holding Policeman in his arms. Policeman's front leg was twisted and bloody. “Looks like he got in a bit of trouble,” he said. “We need to get him to a vet.”
“I'll take him,” I said. “I should go check on Mr. Tucker anyway.”
“You want me to take you?” he asked as I got into the car.
“That's okay. I'll be fine.”
My hands were shaking as I started the car. Devin helped put Policeman in the backseat on an old blanket.
“Good luck,” he said, waving as I backed out of the driveway.
My brain was still a little fuzzy as I drove into town again. The day felt divided into halves. The first half, with Magoo and the hospital, seemed far away. The second half, of Devin and Policeman, felt sharp and new.
The Animal Hospital in Quimby was just like the emergency room except that it smelled wilder. It was noisier too. The vet's assistant took Policeman in to be examined, and they came out an hour later, his leg bandaged and one of those ridiculous cones on his head to keep him from chewing on his leg.
I put Policeman in the front seat; the cone was too big to fit him in the back. He was sedated and sleepy next to me. By the time we got back to the camp, it was dark outside. I felt even more disoriented, as if I had spent a whole day inside a room without windows.
I carried Policeman into the camp and made a bed for him out of more old blankets. I took the cone off, trying to give him some dignity, and fell asleep on the couch, listening to the gentle whistle of his doggie snores.
 
The next day, I finished painting the shutters and window boxes. The geraniums from Devin had opened their red palms to the light, so I transferred them from the terra-cotta planters to the window boxes on the front of the camp. Gussy came with news of Magoo's progress and a box of Grampa's things for me to go through. She said it was a box she didn't know what to do with. It had taken her a year to whittle it down to this. That I was welcome to anything inside.
When she left, I stared at the box for almost an hour before I could bring myself to open it. At dusk, when the public radio station started to fade like it did every night, I decided to go through the box. I sat down cross-legged on the living room floor, petted Policeman's sleeping head, and peeled back the lid. Inside, on top, was Grampa's wool suit. Suede patches on the elbows. When I lifted it out of the box, a red bow tie unfurled like a ribbon. A pair of black wing tip shoes, the bottoms scuffed. Three ivory chess pieces: queen, pawn, rook. A fountain pen. Two unlabeled cassette tapes. His pipe.
When the sun was almost gone behind the hills, I turned on the oil lamp on Grampa's desk. Inside the soft wool suit, I felt safe and warm. From the deep front pocket, I pulled out a grocery list in Gussy's careful cursive and a half roll of wintergreen Life Savers. A rusty tin with some loose tobacco inside. I packed the bowl of the pipe with my fingers, trembling despite the warmth of his clothes. I found a box of kitchen matches in a drawer and lit the pipe. It made me cough, and I didn't know how to put it out. As I tried to regain my breath, I tossed the pipe in the sink and ran water into the smoldering embers. I went back into the living room and looked at the pile of my grandfather's things. I pulled up the pants, which had fallen down, and reached into the jacket pocket, loosening a Life Saver from the roll. It was familiar and cool on my tongue.
“Hello?” The screen door creaked open.
I froze, the Life Saver numbing my tongue. “Hello?” I asked back.
“Effie? It's me, Devin.”
I looked down at the pants that were threatening to make a puddle of gray flannel at my feet.
“Hi,” I said, still not moving.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
And then he was standing there, filling the doorway. The kitchen light behind him made him into a strange silhouette.
“I . . .” I stumbled.
“Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm looking for Effie Greer. Little tiny thing, have you seen her?”
“These aren't my clothes.” I laughed nervously. “They're my grandfather's.”
“Quite flattering,” he said. “You could use a good tailor, though.”
And then he was sitting on the love seat, holding the fountain pen that I handed to him to keep him busy as I changed back into my own clothes.
“I'll be down in a second,” I said from upstairs as I struggled to put my jeans on. “Just a minute!” I looked at my frazzled reflection in the cracked mirror over the bureau.
When I came down the stairs he was still there. I was afraid I'd imagined him.
“Hi.” I smiled.
“Hi.”
“I didn't hear you coming,” I said. “Did you drive?”
“Not tonight,” he said. “There's a truck in the garage at the house. Part of the rental, I guess. But I can get just about everywhere on my bike.” He motioned for me to sit down.
“I am terrible at riding a bike,” I said, my hands fluttering in front of me. I wished for pockets, a cigarette, something to keep them occupied. “I fall. I mean, I used to fall a lot. When I was a kid.”
He smiled.
“Do you want something to drink?” I asked.
“No thanks,” he said and set the fountain pen down gently on the coffee table. “Listen,” he said and I listened so closely I could hear him swallowing. I could hear the brush of his fingertips on the cotton of his shirt. “Thank you for the butterflies.”
“Thank
you,”
I said.
We were both silent. I looked out the window, trying not to seem so nervous.
“Do you want to see the frogs?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said and followed me to the porch where Lenny and George were paddling about in the aquarium.
“The others died.”
“Hey, little ones,” he said, bending over and tapping on the glass. Lenny hopped quickly away to his hiding place by a large piece of slate I found in the lake.
“I made you something,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. My voice sounded like an accusation. I didn't mean to sound so angry. I looked at his eyes for the first time since he came in. The flame from the oil lamp leaped across the dark pools. “I mean, you didn't have to do that. Already, you've done so much, and I don't understand why. You don't even know me.”
“That's not true.” He smiled and touched my arm so gently I could have imagined it. “I know that you're here this summer because you've come home. That you haven't been home in a long time.”
I looked at him for an explanation.
“It's a small town, Effie.” He grinned.
I blushed. And then I worried about all the other things he might know. It didn't seem fair that I didn't know a thing about him.
“I know the way the sun looks when it touches your hair in the morning,” he said. “I know that you're left-handed, that your back hurts when you paint for too long without taking a break. I know that when you swim, you like to lie on your back.”
I looked at him and watched the fire travel across the whites of his eyes.
“That's not the same as knowing someone. That's just knowing somebody's habits, somebody's characteristics,” I said. I sat down on the edge of the daybed and he walked to the window.
“Our habits can be pretty revealing.” He grinned.
I scowled.
“Well, then I should probably really get to know you,” he said, clapping his large hands together decisively. “What's your first memory?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your first memory. The first thing you remember. It's a very important question.”
“I don't know,” I said, trying to remember. “I guess it would have to be the time my sister Colette shut the car door on my hand.”
“Do you have a scar?”
“Uh-huh,” I said and pulled my hand out of the sleeve where I had been hiding it. The scar was small. It looked like a sliver of moon across my knuckles. He traced the scar with his finger. His nails were clean and dark pink, his cuticles white against the dark charcoal of his skin. He moved his fingers tentatively to my face and touched that place by the corner of my eye that was still tender in my dreams. “And this one?”
As his fingers touched the old scar, I recoiled, shaking my head.
“I'm sorry,” he said and took his hand away.
I nodded.
“What is
your
first memory?” I asked, eager for him to stop looking at the scar on my face.
“I think it's probably of my mama washing my hair. When we lived in Virginia she used to collect rainwater during storms to wash our hair with. I remember being inside some sort of washtub and her pouring cold water over my head. It was so hot in the summers then. I remember it felt so good, like it was raining all over me. That was the best thing about living in the country. No— body thought anything of a woman washing her babies outside in a bucket.” His laughter was as deep and full as a washtub filled with cool water.
We sat for a while, watching the clouds move across the dark sky, listening to the sound of the loons. When he went to the kitchen, I thought that he was going to leave me there without saying good-bye. I suddenly wanted to do something to make him stay. I wanted to hear his voice again. I wanted him to keep startling me with his fingers. I started to get up and follow him, but then he was walking back out onto the porch.
“This is for you,” he said, handing me a small wooden box.
I took it from him, and looked at him for an explanation.
“Just open it,” he said.
The lid was attached by two brass hinges, a delicate clasp holding it shut. The wood was stained dark. Cherry, I thought. The color of trees at night. There was a glass window to the inside protecting the contents from careless fingers. But it was so clear, it seemed as though you could reach inside.
The Dusky Wing was flying against a backdrop of a thousand blues. The inside walls of the box were lined with bits of paper (metallic, slightly patterned, textured, torn) made into a sky. I couldn't see how the butterfly was suspended. It was like a magician's box. Like an illusion. And no matter how close I looked, I couldn't see where its wings had been pierced by the two pushpins.
August 1991
E
very day I meet the mailman at the mailbox in front of the camp. Today it is raining, but as Max sleeps, I stand barefoot in the rain waiting for the postman to drive up and deliver me my future. I can see Mrs. Forester struggling to get all of her children into the station wagon, to go into Quimby for swimming lessons. I don't understand why she insists on taking them to the public pool when we have a perfectly good lake right here. But every morning at nine she piles them all into the car, fussing and arguing, and drives past me standing at the mailbox. Today when the Forester clan drives by, I wave. Keisha sits in the backseat with her face pressed to the glass. Mrs. Forester has put bright pink ribbons around her two pigtails. One of them has come loose and curls against her dark cheek. She smiles a small smile at me.
Magoo walks by with Policeman about ten minutes later, puffing smoke into the dewy morning air. He nods his head at me, but keeps walking purposefully down the road. It's understood that we can't converse while Magoo is walking Policeman. He doesn't allow Policeman to converse with other dogs. It's only fair that he shows some restraint as well.
I am shivering and think about going inside for my shoes. I decide to wait a bit longer rather than risk waking Max up. When I left him this morning, he was sleeping deeply, his arms across his eyes to shield them from the bright white sky pressing against the windows.
I shift my weight from one foot to the next, trying to keep my feet from going numb in the cold grass. Every morning since the middle of July I have waited for the letters that come for me. Of course Max knows that I have been accepted into graduate school in New York for the fall semester. He knows that I will be leaving. But he doesn't know that I have already found an apartment, a roommate with a name that sounds like an exotic flower. He doesn't know that she has written to me about the plants she keeps in her rooftop garden, about the small room with big windows that will be mine, about the coffee shop on the first floor of the building. He doesn't know that her thick creamy stationery looks like paper buttermilk. He doesn't know that I've been hiding the letters in my grandfather's books after I bring them inside each morning.
Today I stand shivering in the rain cursing the sky.
Rain, sleet, or snow, my foot,
I think. After a half an hour, I run back inside, my hair dripping puddles onto the kitchen floor.
“Hey,” he says. He is sitting in the breakfast nook drinking coffee. His hair is disheveled, covering one of his eyes now, his hair uncut since we arrived at the beginning of the summer. “What're you doing out there in the rain?”
“Waiting for the mail,” I say.
“What's coming in the mail?” he asks.
“Stuff from school,” I say, testing him.
He raises his eyebrow but doesn't say a word. He sets his coffee cup down and stands up. He opens the refrigerator and grabs three eggs in one hand, pulls out cheese, mushrooms, fresh green chilies from Gussy's garden, a bright red bell pepper. I pick up yesterday's newspaper, sit down in the breakfast nook, and pretend to read.
He quietly makes the omelettes. The sweet smell of onions and peppers and chilis makes me feel nauseous. He grates the cheese and sprinkles it on the runny eggs. I stare at the paper, but I don't comprehend the pictures or headlines.
“Here,” he says, setting the plate down in front of me. “Breakfast.” He starts to eat, and I hold the paper in front of me like a wall.
“No thanks,” I say and push the plate toward the edge of the table.
“Why don't you fucking eat? You look like a goddamn skeleton,” he says, looking up from his own plate.
“I'm not hungry,” I say. “I don't feel good.”
“That's bullshit,” he says softly.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“This is your way of punishing me. Turning away everything I offer you. Am I right?”
“No,” I say, staring at the mountain of eggs and vegetables on my plate. “I'm not hungry!”
“You're fucked up, Effie. It's not normal to starve yourself. Especially just because I'm not playing Mr. Enthusiastic about you leaving me.”
“I'm not leaving you,” I say. “I'm going to school.”
“Same thing,” he says, spearing a slippery brown mushroom.
“It's not the same thing at all,” I say.
“Jesus, Effie. You're pathetic.”
“Fine,” I say, bile rising up the back of my throat in a familiar tang of grief and anger. I grab my fork and scoop up a heap of eggs and cheese. “I'll eat.”
I begin to shovel the food into my mouth, swallowing the salty forkful despite the now instinctual gag reflex. “Is this what you want? Are you happy now?” Tears are running hotly down my cheeks into my mouth. Everything is salty. Everything is blurred.
When he grabs my wrist, the fork scrapes the roof of my mouth and I can feel the salt of my own blood. Metallic.
I pull the fork out of my mouth, but he doesn't let go of my wrist.
“I'll stay!” I scream. “I'll forget about school. I'll stay here with you. I'll give it all up to be with you. To do
this,”
I say, motioning to his hand, which has completely enclosed my wrist.
And then I feel the thrust of his releasing me and the fork tines piercing my skin. Blood runs into my eye, and I stare at him, blurry and emotionless, through all the liquid in my eyes.
Later, when I walk to the water, the Foresters return from the public pool. I am sitting on the big rock at the boat access area in the pouring rain. Mrs. Forester slows down and rolls down her window.
“Effie, you look like a drowned rat. Let me give you a ride back to the camp,” she says. Her chubby elbow hangs out the window and her children sulk in the backseat, towels wrapped around their wet, chlorine-saturated bodies.
“That's okay. I'm just enjoying the rain,” I say and wave her on. I concentrate on the circles each drop of rain makes in the lake. Circle upon circle, widening and disappearing.
“Suit yourself.” She shrugs. “Tell Gussy I've got a new recipe for all that zucchini she's got growing in her backyard.”
“I will,” I promise.
And Keisha is still looking at me through the back window as they drive away. Her hair is wet too. The bright pink ribbons are wilted, and her face softens when I don't return her smile. I touch the butterfly tape at the corner of my eye and she waves at me, pressing her pink palm against the glass.
I stay on the rock until my clothes have soaked through and my hair is flat against my face and arms. It is not raining hard, but steadily. I don't hear her until she is standing next to me.
“What are you doing?” she asks. She is wearing a yellow rain poncho with a hood.
I shrug.
She bends down and picks up a rock.
“Swimming lessons got canceled,” she says.
“The rain?” I ask.
She nods and rolls the stone in her small hands.
“I hate swimming lessons,” she says and throws the rock into the water. It splashes and sinks.
“I didn't like them either,” I say. “What level are you?”
“Dolphin.” She frowns and looks at the sandy shore for another rock.
“I didn't even make it past Frogs,” I say. “I couldn't tread water.”
“Yesterday they made us do the dead man's float for almost a whole minute. It's so stupid.” She finds another rock and chucks it into the water.
I crawl down off the boulder and join her on the shore. I search for a rock to throw and settle on a good-size chunk of quartz. I throw it hard, but it doesn't go far.
“At home nobody goes to swimming lessons,” she says. “You just cool off with a hose or something. I learned how to swim already at my gramma's. Me and my brothers would go swimming there all the time. Then she died. That's why they sent me here.”
“Who?” I ask.
“My mama and daddy. Mama's got my little brothers to take care of and Daddy's at work. He brings me with him sometimes and sometimes I stay with my big brother in his apartment. I like that. He makes stuff with me.”
“What kind of stuff?” I ask.
Her eyes light up and she stands up with a new rock. “All kinds of stuff. Like this rock,” she says, holding it out in her hand. “It looks just like a stupid rock, but he could make it into something else. He might paint it or glue stuff to it or smash it up so the insides are showing. He can turn all sorts of old junk into something pretty.”
“That sounds neat,” I say and inspect the rock she is holding. “What do you think he'd do with this one?”
She peers at it for a long time and then closes her hand around it. “I dunno.” She hurls the rock into the water. “I can't do that kind of stuff. I'm not like him that way. I don't know how to make something good out of something stupid.”
Quietly we stand at the edge of the water throwing rocks into the water until my arm is sore and all of the good rocks are gone.
“I gotta go back now,” she says. “Mrs. Forester's gonna have my hide.”
“You tell her that you were with me.” I smile. “She can have
my
hide then.”
I watch her walk away, a small duck waddling through the rain in her yellow slicker. I wait until the sky is dark before I find my own way home. I stay until the cut by my eye doesn't sting anymore.

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