“Germans,” you say as if it’s an explanation, jutting your chin at the woman and clapping sand from your hands. I laugh, maybe too eagerly, lapping up this first taste of levity in weeks.
“Totally,” I say, just to say something, but you’re already walking away. I watch you disappear up the steps and around the corner. I shouldn’t have laughed, shouldn’t have said anything at all. Or maybe I should have said more. And now it’s not clear if you’re coming back.
—
I throw the blankets to the floor. The clash of midnight waves resounding through the open window. Lit with terror, I feel around desperately in the sweaty sheets.
“Where is she?” I push you aside, bracing myself to find her there, flattened and blue in the moonlight.
“Natalie! Calm down. Calm. Down.” You pin my arms to my sides, your hold more like a straitjacket than an embrace. “Breathe.”
The panic still fizzes on my skin long after I realize she’s in her crib, asleep.
—
The German woman squints at her novel, periodically rubbing her pedicured big toes together. I dig a hole in the sand and fill it with water for the baby to splash, noting, from the corner of my eye, how the German’s cellulite doesn’t look so bad because it’s tanned through. I wonder how many months it would take to get a tan like that, how many day after day after days of exactly this it would take. She lays her book down beside her and closes her eyes and lets her feet flop out to the sides.
Corpse pose, I think. The very attainment, the very attainment of peace.
I dig another hole, and another, and fill them with water that just gets absorbed. The baby cries out so I fill them all again.
—
We let the seafoam lick the baby’s toes. She is still learning to walk and has never felt sand beneath her feet until now. It was a long winter. She holds our fingers as we run up and down the edge of the sea.
“The ocean kissed your toes! The ocean kissed your toes!” we cry out, acting joyful. She stops to watch, to feel it wash over and recede. Her chubby little feet. One time a wave comes further in than we expect and she gets splashed in the face. The salt, the wet shock of it. The betrayal. The knowledge now that even if we’re right here, even if we’re holding on, something bad can happen. This makes me feel worse than the water and salt in her eyes, and that is why I scooped her up and held her like that, against your protests. The German husband is out now and both of them are on their loungers squinting at their books, unspeaking, acting like they can’t hear us. I’m mad as I wrap her up in the towel and pull her against my chest, marching back to the villa as you yell at me over the clamour of the sea. You say I’m overreacting and that she might as well learn that shit happens. I don’t want to respond but that pierces right deep into the mess of it all and I stop and glare at you over my shoulder because, really, really, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Our eyes meet for a flash before I take off again for the rented apartment we’re supposed to call a villa, and I see you see that you hurt me. I look for regret in your expression, and maybe there’s a shard of it there somewhere but it’s impossible to tell if it’s about what you just said or everything else. I press her against me and accidentally kick up a lot of sand as I tread by the Germans, noticing as I pass that their loungers aren’t even close, aren’t even parallel to each other.
The very attainment of peace.
—
Everyone said:
Make sure you go away on your mat leave! Go when she’s still a baby. She flies for free! And, oh my gosh, she’s so transportable. Just wait, just wait until she’s a toddler! Haha. Just wait until you have two! Hahaha. Then you’re screwed. Haha. And anyway, you’ve got all this time now, a whole year!
What they didn’t say is that she’ll scream and cry and shake the bars of her rickety rented crib for hours every night until she goes hoarse and collapses with defeated exhaustion because no, this isn’t her bed, and no, this isn’t her room, and no, this isn’t the way the light is supposed to be or the heat or the sounds or the smells or anything, any part of this.
Get me the fuck out of here! it sounds like she’s screaming as we lie in the dark on our gigantic bed, watching the uneven bamboo fan wobble and click round and round and I agree, I completely agree, and when I start to cry too you get up and punch the sheets on your side over and over with both fists, your face contorted, your bare feet slapping against the tiles as you stomp off to the balcony.
“I can’t deal with this,” you shout over her screams. “I’m not dealing with this shit.”
I make myself believe you’re just talking about the baby because otherwise
Otherwise what?
Otherwise would be impossible. Otherwise would be unbearable.
The din of the ocean roars through the open balcony door and mutes again when you slam it shut. I lift the sobbing, arching child and say Shhh, shhh, and bop around, dancing, pretending to be in control, until her head is heavy on my shoulder and all of us are quiet again.
—
In the morning, you come out onto the balcony where the baby is splashing in a roasting pan and I’m watching the waves roll in toward the Germans dozing on their loungers below. You drag over a chair and take my feet from where they rest on the ledge and lay them on your lap. I don’t know how to react. I don’t move.
“Paradise,” you say after a minute.
I nod. “Yes, it really is.”
“Can you imagine waking up here for months?” You peer over the ledge at the Germans.
“No, I can’t.” I am crushed by my desire to be these people we’re being right now.
“Paradise,” you say, more thoughtfully this time, putting my feet back on the ledge.
You lean over to kiss the baby’s blond curls on your way back inside to get coffee or take a shit, and I can hear Bob Marley on the stereo as you open the door. I’d put on the same album when we packed for this trip, “Three Little Birds” playing as we silently folded T-shirts and bathing suits, stuffed our toiletry bags with razors and toothpaste and sunblock. I’d finally sat down on the edge of our bed and said, “Why are we doing this? Forget it. This is crazy. Let’s just cancel.”
“And what? Throw four grand down the drain? No thanks.”
You still couldn’t look at me then. You went back into the bathroom to get your shaving cream.
I see you hunched over your phone through the balcony door, checking your email or looking something up. You fade into the dark of the hallway, your head down.
—
“Nat?” you call from the bed. “Natalie?”
You’re trying to be quiet so the baby doesn’t wake up.
“What are you doing?” you whisper-call.
I’ve been sitting on the toilet too long. Everything about me feels different. My skin, my hands, the smell of my pee. I want you to get out of bed, to come in, to squat down in front of me and say Hey, hey, come here, come here and hold my teary wet face and then hug me as I finally let go and cry into your bare sunburnt shoulder. I’ll tell you how scared I am and you can then say, Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, it’s really going to be okay.
“Natalie?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t fall asleep in there or anything.”
—
By four on a Wednesday I still hadn’t heard. I called the doctor’s office.
Please hold, all our agents are currently helping other callers.
Please note, test results won’t be given over the phone. Please book an appointment with your doctor to discuss test results.
A receptionist picks up. I tell him I’m waiting for test results.
He looks up my file. I can hear him typing. He’s quiet for a few long seconds, the rhythm of his breath changing. I try not to read into it. He says my doctor isn’t in today, but the supervising doctor will call me back.
—
The baby naps for an hour in the m
orning, and when you find me hovering over her crib, stroking her head, you say, “Enough. Just go down to the beach or something.”
“Okay, maybe.”
“Give me your phone.”
“But—”
“If it rings, I’ll call you. Just go.”
I don’t waste time pulling out a lounger. I carry my bag and beach towel past the German wife, who’s lying prostrate with her eyes closed. I’m aware of her disapproval even though she can’t see me. Lying on a towel right on the sand is for locals. Not for villa tenants. I flap out my towel, trying to get it to lie flat despite the wind off the ocean. It keeps getting blown in a wrinkled sandy heap. I smooth it out with my hands. The wife rolls over. I take out the Hello! magazine I brought from upstairs, my iPod, earbuds, put them all beside me, then I just sit there, looking out at the clear sky, the waves, the way they disrupt the pebbles. A vicious tsunami every few seconds, from the pebbles’ perspective. After a while, a tiny crab emerges from a hole in the sand and skitters sideways away from us.
—
“The baby is fine,” the supervising doctor said. “Her blood work is completely normal.”
“Oh my God, thank Christ.” The tears bursting through a dam. “And thank you, I mean, I know you’re not supposed to give results on the phone—”
“We’re going to need you to get tested again. We think your sample may have been compromised in the lab. We’ve sent in a requisition already.” Papers rustled in the new quiet between us. “They’re calling it inconclusive.”
A ringing in my ears, an unwavering high-pitched tone. My saliva dried up.
“But what…what does that mean—inconclusive? It’s negative, right? I mean, my husband is negative. The baby now, like you just said…” I let that evidence hang out there, to convince him.
The doctor paused. He seemed to be reading something. “There was an error in the lab,” he said. “They’ve asked us to send you back in. I’m sure it’s nothing to be overly worried about.”
The baby started to cry upstairs, her nap over. I glanced over at the time on the microwave. Twenty minutes early. I felt like my lungs were shrinking.
“I’ll have Dr. Myers call you when she’s in tomorrow. I’ll tell her you’re coming in. Some time over the next couple of days?” He was beginning to sound rushed. “And you’ll be able to move forward from there. Sound good?”
“We’re leaving for Barbados,” I said. “We leave on Saturday.”
“Well, the lab’s open tomorrow. Or you can just leave it until you get back. I mean, at this stage…” Rustling papers again.
“At this stage…?”
He cleared his throat. “You’re in a committed relationship?”
“I’m married.”
“And your husband’s been tested?”
“Negative.” I started to shake. “I mean, he’s negative.”
“Well, that’s a good thing. Isn’t it?”
—
I walk out into the water. I wish I’d brought one of the inflatable rafts from the storage cage that belongs to our unit. I’d like to ride the waves. The surfers are coming out now. I watch the youngest ones with their sun-bleached hair and their wiry brown bodies paddle out beyond the rocky outcropping. I kneel down on the shallow ocean floor and let a wave crash into me. It’s warm. I’m all wet now, my hair in my face. I let another crash over, and the next, and the next. My body tenses, as if I’m holding on to something. Like if all my muscles are clenched, I can’t get taken down by the undertow that’s tugging hard at my legs. I stand tall again but the next step takes me deeper than I expect. I lose my footing and the undertow is a whole other ocean beneath the one I entered so thoughtlessly a minute ago, its powerful and unpredictable current swayed by some mad underworld moon. Another wave crashes over me. I didn’t see this one coming and it knocks the air from my lungs. Salt water stings my eyes, my nostrils, the taste of it in my throat. I lose sense of when and where to gasp for air, the tenseness in my body futile, holding on to nothing but itself.
—
We were watching Downton Abbey when I got the call. My legs were on your lap. The youngest daughter was campaigning with the suffragette movement and falling in love with the wrong kind of man. The Irish driver. My phone rang and the number was unaccompanied by a photo or a name, but for some reason I picked it up anyway.
“Hello?”
“Natalie.”
I knew who it was right away, even though it had been years. His voice gravelly, unmistakable, urgent.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound like it was one of my friends, hoping the rush of colour to my cheeks was unseeable in the TV light. Like it was just Vanessa or Jill or Camille. Not the Drummer. Not the guy I’d fucked in the bathroom of a Parkdale bar (and the balcony of his apartment, and the studio where he rehearsed) when I’d only been married six months. Not the reason for the airless black crater into which we’d tumbled and out of which we’d barely been able to scratch our way.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I said, kicking my legs off your lap, trying to infuse my voice with both a breeziness for your benefit and a bored malevolence for his. I picked up my water glass and casually headed for the kitchen.
“Want me to pause it?” you said, holding up the remote.
No, I mouthed. Gesturing I’d be right back.
“Natalie,” the Drummer said.
The Drummer whose nose you dislocated with your novice yet impressive right hook when we ran into him outside a different Parkdale bar, who was out having a smoke on the sidewalk between sets, his drumsticks in the back pocket of his ripped jeans as he chatted up some wide-eyed smirking brunette a year after I’d followed him down the narrow stairs of the dive three doors down, the brick walls on either side painted night with constellations.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’d cried to you, literally on my knees, when I couldn’t not tell you any longer because I realized I wanted to be with you after all, despite the unexamined years that had led to an unexamined marriage and its unexamined quiet hostility and I said it was because of my father being sick and the stress of everything but still now I don’t know why really, why I let it all go and just said fuck it. You, how you stood there silent, unknowable, with your forehead resting on the fridge. You left for two days and when you came back I didn’t ask why or where, and couldn’t even handle the possibility of a who—all that mattered was that you came back. Oh, the soaring relief of it all when we stood at the door, crying into each other for radically different reasons. I felt like someone had lifted a lead X-ray blanket off my body.
My hand quivered as I turned on the tap. “Why are you calling me?”
The Drummer took a deep breath. “I’m calling because I have a responsibility to tell you something.” The words sounded official, practised.
I truly thought right then that he was doing the 12 steps. That he was calling to make amends. I truly thought that I would hear him out and forgive him for almost fucking up my marriage or whatever it was that he thought he had done and then you and I would go back to watching Downton Abbey.
—
Strange things happen when you’re drowning. Body parts flail on their own accord, your lungs, heart, brain going into some kind of survival overdrive. Fight or flight. The sea already had me in its grips so I couldn’t flee, but I could fight, hence the flailing, the punching at water. But in the midst of the panic there’s a quiet rippling so deep below the bedrock of consciousness it’s less thought than wordless possibility and from there rises the idea: Why not just let go?
—
After we survived what we thought was the worst thing—the infidelity, the invasion of another body into our sacred union, etc. etc. etc.—we swore to complete transparency, believing it was the only way we’d make it. And until that moment, we’d more or less followed through. No secrets. Sunday night tête-à-têtes wherein everything was on the table. Minor crushes that pulsed at work, irritants between us that threatened to
ignite if left untended. Uncertainties. But when you found me crumpled on the kitchen floor, my face in my hands, my phone thrown to the other side of the room, I had no answer for you as you asked over and over, What? What is it? Who was that? Natalie, please, sweetheart, what’s going on?
Because, tell me, what are the words for that? There wasn’t a verb, an adjective, a person place or thing that could convey the horror, the loneliness over which I was perched, the vacuum of it. The absence of even an echo.
“Natalie—what?” You held my shoulders. “What about her?”
Only then did I hear myself repeating the baby’s name.
—
In the churning, the flailing, the fight, I thought of her in the way that thoughts can span years in an instant. I thought of her grown up, in her twenties, standing before grey crashing waves, hurling tearful unhearable insults at a pitiless sea. Would that be better? I wondered, gasping, gulping lungfuls of salt water. Better than growing up with a marked mother whose hand no one would shake? Who’s whispered about in grocery aisles as she pushes her child in the cart, perusing the cereals, each step closer to the grave? A veil of tragic beauty draped over the child’s head, the motherless-child-to-be, oblivious, kicking her legs, pleading for Frosted Flakes. The child who could instead become the drunk and high twenty-something dancing in spinning circles on some godforsaken beach, tears in her eyes as she looks up searching for her mother in the stars. A lover, craving her from the periphery, waits without interfering because he heard somewhere that her mother drowned long ago. The beauty and her mother, a star. A fucking star. And she would be so beautiful, wouldn’t she? With that sadness always just there on her skin, that absence so present. Motherless. Me, the mother, a dreamy kitchen dancer, barely preserved in warped flashes of memory. Isn’t that how it goes? Or not even that, not even that, because what do we remember from before we were one year old? And you, you.
The Dead Husband Project Page 5