“I don’t know,” I said.
“The new thematic scaffolding creates a much more sound dialectic,” said the chick.
“Great,” I said.
“Having said that, we regret to inform you that the departments will no longer be able to fund this project,” said the nose.
I was stunned.
“What? Why?”
“To be frank, with this new infusion of personal thoughts and feelings, it can no longer be considered a scholarly text,” said the nose. “This sort of personalized narrative just isn’t what we do around here.”
“The truth is, as readers, we are genuinely glad you’ve pivoted,” said the chick. “Your prior thesis clearly wasn’t working.”
“But unfortunately, the departments only receive funding for projects that further scholarship—not hybrids of scholarship and creative writing,” said the nose.
What was I going to do for money? How was I going to live?
“Can I reapply for it somehow?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to instate it,” said the nose.
“Can’t or won’t? Don’t you decide what gets funded?”
“To some extent, yes,” said the chick.
“But we can’t deviate too much from what the university has traditionally focused on,” said the nose. “We have to retain a tonal continuity.”
“So what you’re telling me is that this version is much better than the last version. But you were willing to fund the last version and not this one?” I said.
“That’s right,” said the nose.
“Well, what if I just go back to the old version? Hammer away on that?”
“Unfortunately, that isn’t going to work,” said the chick.
“Why?”
“We were always skeptical of the original premise of the thesis and now you’ve convinced us that the reasoning was faulty.”
“Plus, we want to encourage your creative breakthrough.”
“Great,” I said.
“We suggest that you seek out a mainstream trade publisher, or reapply to a program with a more creative bent than Southwest State,” said the chick.
“But you won’t pay for it?”
“No,” they said at the same time.
52.
I returned to the rocks. I knew I belonged there. If there was going to be desolation, no number of terrestrial men could fix me. I needed to go to the ocean, the primal tap, where the catalyst of my illness swam freely. If I was going to be alone and full of despair, let me at least be desolate here. Let me go cold turkey in the place I now loved most. Maybe it wouldn’t be so cold turkey after all? Maybe the fumes of memories could bring me down more gently. Only once in that week of waiting by the rocks did someone bother me. A lifeguard drove by in a jeep and asked me if everything was okay. I wanted to say, Well, actually, if you really want to know… but instead I said that I was fine. Then I told him I was a scientist conducting a study of the waves.
“You know you’re not supposed to be out here this late at night,” he said.
“I know. But it’s for the good of the tides.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Then everything fell silent and he drove away.
I took this to mean that I was supposed to be there. I was surely being tested, to see how strong and devoted I was. It was like I was part of some ancient worship ceremony, only instead of leaving candles, food, or wine at the altar, I was leaving myself. And instead of an altar there was the ocean. I would look out into the waves and for a moment I would really believe that I saw him. I had never seen him out in the waves, he never swam close enough to the surface, but now I constantly hallucinated him. Usually he was a bird skimming across the water. Once he was a dolphin. And every time, when what I thought was him would turn out to be only seafoam, or the wind blowing on the water, I wondered how much of everything I had seen or thought I’d seen in my lifetime had been only illusion like that. I wondered if anything was really living or if anything had ever lived.
53.
One night, asleep on the rock, I awoke to two hands on my shoulders. They were his hands. I was not dreaming, because they never moved or loosened their grip. I was not dreaming, because I had just dreamed that I was alone, back in the desert, and the dream still vaguely lingered in my mind. I dreamt that I was in a diner outside of Phoenix trying to choose a cake from a glass spinner case of desserts. I was having difficulty seeing the cakes. They were blurry, crumbling, old, and stale. In their staleness they were turning into dust right in front of me. They were turning into nothingness. But the waitresses insisted they were there. The waitresses were all members of the group: Diana, Sara, Dr. Jude. Everyone was urging me to pick a cake. They had formed a circle around me and they were cheering me on. But I couldn’t choose a cake, because I couldn’t see them. And when I tried to explain that I couldn’t see them, the group would echo in unison, “But they’re right there.”
When I awoke, I thought that I was still in the diner for a moment. Then I felt his hands and I knew that I was on the rocks, by the ocean in Venice Beach. Immediately I knew whose hands were on me. It was as though I had become the rocks and this was the first time we met, when I saw his hands on them for the first time. Only now, some other part of me was witnessing the whole thing and his hands were on me. Then his face was in front of my face, a wet lock of hair in his eye.
“Hi,” he whispered.
He had always been there.
He kissed my forehead and kissed my mouth.
“Hi,” I said.
There was a surge of euphoria, a deep peace inside me, but also a return to normalcy, fixed, as though I were supposed to feel this way all the time. This was how junkies described getting well. There had been a missing piece and now the piece was back. It felt good to have the piece back, but also just normal. The sickness that had overwhelmed my head, my heart, my guts was gone. It didn’t matter what nature had intended for me. It didn’t matter that I had ever lived without him. He was not an extra part, but the thing. This was the new nature.
He pulled himself up onto the rock and we sat there, hugging. We stayed in total embrace and didn’t speak. I forgot where we were, and that seemed most normal of all: to be nowhere. I could hear the ocean, but forgot that it was the ocean. I forgot that I hadn’t always lived at the ocean or that it was even a separate entity. This was the only life I had known.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, but he hushed me.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve seen you every night on this rock.”
“You have? But where were you? I came here and came here and never saw you.”
“I was far away. I was in a deeper part of the ocean, much deeper than you have ever been. But I could see you there. I could see you there and I just hoped you would keep coming. I wanted to go to you every night. All I wanted was to swim to you and be with you. But I was afraid. I needed more nights. I needed all these nights before I knew. But tonight, you looked so finished. You looked so finished with the Earth, so surrendered. I could tell in your sleeping that you were finished. I could tell that if I came back you wouldn’t return to the desert. I knew that you no longer had it in you. That is good. It has to be your choice. It has to come from you. I saw it in your face that you would never speak of the desert again. I knew you were finally mine.”
“I never want to live apart from you,” I said. “I will live on this rock, I don’t care. I’ll sell mango on the beach, or bad jewelry. Those shitty crystal necklaces they sell on the boardwalk. I don’t care.”
“Would you give up your dog?” he asked.
“Yes!” I said. “He isn’t even my dog!”
“What about fire?”
“Fire?”
“Yes, fire. Would you give up fire? Would yo
u give up walking around?”
“YES!” I said. “I hate fire. I hate walking. I don’t like any of it. I would give up anything you ask me to give up. I don’t need any of it. Whatever you want me to give up, I will give up.”
“I want you to come under the water with me,” he said.
When we had been fighting, when he said that he was going to invite me to live with him in the ocean, I didn’t understand what he meant. I wondered if he thought I had gills. But now I knew exactly what he meant. I knew what he meant in the sense that suddenly I envisioned myself with him in the infinite depths, infinite blackness. But this time I was not kissing his eyelids or his forehead as he slept. This time I was the one with my eyes closed. I was dead.
Or maybe he didn’t mean death, not completely. I couldn’t bring myself to ask, What does this entail exactly? What does it mean, me following you under? Do I become a mermaid myself? Do I drown? What if when I followed him into the ocean it was only death on one level, but on another level it was eternal life? Maybe I would grow a tail. Maybe I would become immortal, or close to it. I was scared not to know the journey before I took it, but I was more afraid to ask. I feared my questions would break the spell again and he would disappear. If I conveyed a lack of trust I might never see him again. And then what? I would be flinging myself into the water with rocks in my pockets soon enough anyway. Or quietly eating all the Ambien. I couldn’t show any doubt. I couldn’t show any hesitation.
It is said that Sappho became so devastated by Phaon’s rejection of her that she could no longer stand to live. So she threw herself into the sea, believing that she would either be cured of her love for him or she would drown. She drowned. That was only one story. But in every Siren and mermaid myth I had read, it always meant death for the humans who followed them under. Men diving off the backs of ships at night. Men walking into the water with rocks tied to their ankles. Many men. This was the choice they made if they wanted to be with their mermaids forever. Perhaps it wasn’t a choice at all? Once you had made love with one of these creatures you couldn’t go on living on land without them.
Did this mean he wanted me dead? It wasn’t exactly the romantic scenario I had envisioned. If I was dead and he wasn’t dead, did that mean he had all the power? If I died for him, it was kind of like him not texting me back on a cosmic level. Or maybe the one who died had the power, as the other person was left to live without them. When Romeo cried for Juliet, because he thought she was dead, it was Juliet who had the power. But then she cried for him when he was really dead, and he had the power. It’s the dead one who is most cherished in the end.
“I want nothing more than to be with you,” I said.
“I’ll hold your hand the whole way.”
“Could you give me a little bit of time before we go? Maybe we can just keep meeting on the rock a little longer?”
“So you aren’t going to come.”
“No, I want to. But I need to straighten out some things for my sister first. I just need a little time.”
“How long?” he asked suspiciously.
“Just a few days. Until Thursday maybe?”
He was silent. I kissed him on the forehead.
“You can’t tell anyone you’re going,” he said, pulling away from me. “They will think you’re crazy and lock you up.”
“I know. I won’t tell them anything,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
“In the meantime, how about you come stay at the house with me for a little while? As I’m preparing. The dog is asleep. I’ve been making him sleep every day now just in case you were here so I could bring you home with me.”
“No,” he said. “I’m finished with the land.”
“Oh,” I said.
“This is as far as I can go. I hope you understand why.”
I didn’t want to understand, but I did. He had sacrificed for me. The thought of him dragging himself back across the beach that night, the danger he put himself in, was scary. Now he wanted me to sacrifice for him. But hadn’t I done that? What had this whole week been?
“I’ll meet you here each night until Thursday,” he said. “And you can tell me whether you are still coming.”
He looked different to me now, more bloated in the face and jaded. His eyes looked darker. I didn’t know how I felt about the fact that he needed me as much as I needed him. It scared me to be needed.
“I’m coming,” I said.
“Good.”
We brought our faces together and kissed gently on the mouth. He put one of his hands at the base of my neck, under my chin, and tightened it—not enough to cut off my air supply, but just so I could feel him pressing a bit into my larynx. My throat felt full of pleasure and emotion. I opened my mouth wider on his and made an “ohhh” sound. We kissed wetly.
“I wish we could live the rest of our lives on these rocks,” I said. “Why isn’t it possible to just live at the edge of both, the ocean and the land?”
Of course I knew why. The edge was an uncomfortable and dangerous place for both of us. The rocks were nowhere to live. I had wanted him to come to my world for that same reason.
“One day these rocks won’t be here,” he said. “The ocean will waste them away.”
“Then we could find new rocks,” I said.
“Eventually you have to choose,” he said. “That’s how the story has always been and that’s the way it will be forever.”
“But why?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, thinking, “I guess because the choice is always there.”
54.
When I got back to the house, Dominic didn’t bark. This was odd, because he always smelled Theo on me. I went into the pantry to check on him. He was lying there on his side, perfectly still.
“Dominic,” I said. “Domi.”
Then I saw his face. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth. His eyes were open, hazy, as though they were made of plastic. He looked like a grotesque stuffed-animal version of himself. The floor was covered in vomit and drool.
“Oh no,” I said out loud. “Please, no.”
He was motionless. I didn’t even have to touch him. I didn’t have to feel his flank or check for breath to know he was dead.
The whole summer came flashing in front of me: each of the men and behind them sweet Dominic, waiting for me in the background the whole time. What had I done? I had poisoned him. I’d been dosing him heavier and heavier, because he seemed to be getting more resistant.
“Please come back. Please,” I begged, kneeling beside him.
His eye seemed to be looking at me, or through me into space. His ear was flapped up over his head and I adjusted it so it faced downward again. It felt cold when I touched it, and detached from anything living, like a piece of loose suede. I began to cry. I thought of how he didn’t like being stroked on his ear, but he always let me. The rest of his body was cold too, heavy like stone.
I shook him a little. Where was he? How was his body here but he was just gone? Everything about him had been warmth, softness, the most gentle parts of life. But now he was the opposite: rigid and empty.
“I never wanted you to suffer,” I said. “I only wanted you to be comfortable. I didn’t want you to be scared of Theo.”
But a quiet voice inside me said, No, that isn’t the truth.
The truth was I’d wanted him out of the way so I could wander the labyrinth of my fantasy life. I had been given pure love in the form of this dog and I had destroyed him.
I sat there and waited. I waited as I had waited for Theo, because I didn’t know what else to do. And sitting on that floor, the truth was further revealed to me that I was not capable of love for anyone. I’d always imagined that there was a subjective reality. But there was nothing subjective about this. I was objectively selfish and cruel. Suddenly it occurred to me that there
really were gods who could smite us. The gods were just nature itself. If you didn’t follow the gods, you blew it. I had gone against nature. I had done it all wrong.
I’d been wrong about death too. There was no gentle escape. When I had taken those Ambien in Phoenix I thought there was a peaceful way to just kind of disappear. But death wasn’t gentle. It was a robber. It stole you out of yourself, and you became a husk. Dominic’s warmth was all gone. But his spirit had to be somewhere. Where was his spirit now? Was he still in the room, hovering over me and his body? I hoped he couldn’t see himself like this. Was he watching me, angrily? Or was he already with Annika in Europe? Could she feel him?
What was I going to say to Annika? I couldn’t tell her. She was going to be devastated and blame herself. Worse yet, what if they performed an autopsy and she found out I’d killed her child? Though there was the diabetes. Maybe that was what had happened, something with his blood sugar. But I’d neglected him horribly. And Annika never had a chance to say goodbye.
I remembered my first group therapy session, when Claire had said to Dr. Jude, “Who cares what I’m doing? I’m only hurting myself.” And Dr. Jude had told her that wasn’t true. She said there would be casualties, that there were always casualties. This was what she meant.
I was too scared to get in touch with Annika right away. I decided I would go to the hospital to see Claire before contacting my sister. I cleaned up the vomit and drool, then wrapped Dominic in the blanket I had used to smuggle Theo on the wagon.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said to the poor baby, even though it wasn’t.
I sat with the dead dog on my lap and stroked him through the blanket for a long time. It was the most care I had given him in weeks.
* * *
—
This time Claire looked alive again—not overly drugged.
“My darling,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.”
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