As She Grows (12 page)

“Well, let’s see.” I crush the remains of my cup up into a little ball and chuck it across the room. “She’s a crackhead alcoholic who lets her boyfriends fuck her, hit her, then leave her. I’ve had to clean up after her barfing all night, undress her when she’s shit herself, and make up excuses when I call the ambulance. That’s just part of it, but that may be why I don’t like her.” Of course, he already knows that. He’s read my file. But it buys me some silence in our hour time slot.

Eric’s tone changes. “Was she always like that?”

“No. Only during my lifetime.”

“That’s a lot to deal with.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t deal with it anymore, right?” I stare at the corner of the table, chew the inside of my cheek.

“You think that because you don’t live with her anymore, it’s in your past?”

“Yes.”

His silence tells me he disagrees. He is funny like that, arguing with the absence of words. It paralyzes me.

“And what about your birth mom. Do you know much about her?”

“No.”

“Do you think much about her?”

“No.”

“We could talk about it more if you like,” he says, getting all comfortable in his chair. And suddenly I hate him. I hate him with all the hate I have inside of me.

“Can I go now?” I ask, getting up and not waiting for his answer.

I thought after missing three lessons Greg would cancel my swimming class. But when I explained to him that I moved into a group home and that my life was pretty crazy for a while, he said he had a gap in his schedule and could squeeze me in on Tuesdays at seven.

It is the only part of my week I look forward to, though today I feel different about this liquid dialogue with my mother. I arrive at the pool deck early, arms folded in front of my stomach, exposed in my swimsuit. I sit on the side, hesitant toes in the water. The lights at the far end of the pool deck are not working and the water appears cold and deep and unforgiving. I look down to my stomach to inspect the slight swell disappearing almost entirely when I sit up straight and suck it in. My breasts, pressed flat against me, are sore and hard, marked with sunken streaks that bend and twist like woodworm paths. A few days ago I had considered these scars a tolerable exchange
for late blooming. And now, a hostile infestation devours the person I want to be.

I smooth down the edges of the large patch Band-Aid that covers the scars on my forearm. I have prepared an elaborate excuse to tell Greg, something to do with a curling iron, a ringing telephone, and a slippery floor. This struggle is new to me, me against my body. This constant battle to bury the truths that keep surfacing from under my skin, rising from some unknown depth in me. But things like this happen. I’ve seen it on Discovery Channel. In England, an entire prehistoric village just surfaced one day in a farmer’s best field, after a terrible storm. And the man didn’t know what to do. He tried to keep it a secret, his cows munching around the crumbling stone walls. Until the neighbours started talking and the archeological protection people took it over.

There is another girl in my lesson today. An annoying eight-year-old who tells me her name is Kati and then points out her new Tommy Hilfiger swimsuit. She keeps trying to push Greg into the pool while he’s explaining the lesson. I can tell he’s irritated, holding firm her arms, but he pretends he’s amused. Then she starts squealing, annoyingly high pitched, and I just know this little princess is some rich family’s spoiled brat. Greg turns to me and in an apologizing tone explains it’s just this one time, a favour for his friend who’s been sick all week and can’t come in to work.

“Just keep her away from me,” I blurt out, regretting the words as soon as I hear them aloud. It’s obvious from both their expressions that they’re taken aback by this. Greg’s brow creases with disapproval, and he takes a quick second look at me, as if checking to see that it’s really me.

I slip into the shallow end. At first the water is cold and angry, but soon it’s buoyant and weightless and forgiving. We practise
floating on our backs and then on our stomachs. Kati’s body skims the water like a leaf down a river. Greg and I silently stand in water and watch her flutter around like a pinwheel, her hands making little precise circles. I dismiss her natural buoyancy. At eight, you have nothing to weigh you down. Greg taps her on the head and she bolts up, embarrassed. Then she dunks under for a second to fix her hair, and gives Greg a wide smile. “Looks awesome,” he says to her. “See if you can roll from back to front and front to back, like a rolling log.” And she plunges back into the water like an excited puppy wanting to please.

I move off to the side to try a few reckless rolls on my stomach, until I inhale water and start choking. I burst up, coughing and spluttering, frantically reaching out and then clinging to the side of the pool.

Greg turns to me and his smile disappears. “Before you can learn to swim, you must float, Snow. You’ve gotta trust the water. If you fight against it, you are going to gasp and struggle,” Greg explains patiently as I try to catch my breath. “You need to trust it. See—” he places his hand on the surface of water—“the water wants to hold you up, not pull you down.”

I nod my head but I don’t believe him. I don’t have his faith, his simple trust in water. The cradling fluid we are born in, a cool drink on a hot summer’s day, the shallow depth in a holy bowl. I know the danger of just a few drops in a gas tank, in a lung. I question Greg’s trust in something that has the power both to give life and to take it away. I question why water is so easily forgiven.

But instead of saying all these things, I say, “The water’s too fucking cold.” Which makes Greg roll his eyes and leave me alone, clinging to the side.

As much as I want to be with Mark, I am afraid to call him. Afraid of what he’ll say, that he’ll blame me for getting pregnant. He thinks I’m mad at him, ever since a few days ago when he took off with his friends, leaving me waiting at his doorstep for three hours on a Saturday night. As if I didn’t have anything better to do. So I try to make myself busy with Jasmyn, tagging along with her to parties I don’t care about, just so I won’t be home at night, if he calls, which he never does. Finally, he does phone, and even though I pretend I’m busy, he begs me to come over in his sweet baby voice, telling me he needs to see me and that he misses me. And hearing this, my stomach swirls and I can’t wait to drop the phone and get over there. Jasmyn was right: ignore a guy for long enough and he’ll come crawling back to you, all sweet and horny.

“Hey, babe,” he says when I arrive, leading me to his room and then pressing me against the closed bedroom door, Spliff’s paws
scratching the wood on the other side. He kisses me hard. “Hmmm,” he moans when he pulls away, as if he’s just tasted a good meal. “Where’ve you been?”

“Out with Jasmyn,” I say, still cold.

“And guys?”

“What do ya think, we’re nuns?”

“Oooo, feisty. I like it.” He playfully pushes me and I push back. He catches me in a headlock and I untangle through his legs, laughing. He flips me to the ground, my elbow slamming against hard wood and I give out an exaggerated scream as he rolls me over onto my back and pins my arms above my head.

“That hurt,” I whine to his smiling face. He fakes like he’s about to drop spit down on me and I start to laugh. “Don’t! Don’t! You better not!” I try to wriggle out of his grip but his hand is tight on my wrist, burns my skin, and when I think he’s going to let go, he squeezes tighter.

“Ow!” I squeal.

“Come on, wimp,” he growls and I escape his grasp. Mark’s knee comes up and hoofs me in the stomach. I grunt and reflexively kick his chin.

“That fuckin’ hurt!” I yell, clutching my abdomen.

He laughs uneasily. “Just tryin’ to toughen you up, princess,” he says, and cradles his jaw, moving it back and forth.

“Well, fuck off!” I yell, getting up. I walk to the bathroom, close the door, and look down into my underwear to see if there’s baby on it.

When I come back out of the bathroom, Mark is waiting by the door. He pulls me close to him and gently rubs his hands up and down my back.

“You’re different,” he says.

“What?” I pull back.

He shrugs his shoulder. “Nothing. You’re different than you used to be. I don’t know. Harder.” I push him away and squirm out of his arms to leave. I don’t need this. But he pulls me back and then he whispers in a sweet voice, “Stay a while. I want you to.” And I can’t stand how he can always make me feel so good like that, especially when I’m most hating him: how just the tip of his finger can let the air out and deflate me into absolution.

“Okay. Till curfew,” I say, still cold. He then releases me and walks past me into the bathroom. And I stand there, wondering what I’m doing. Because even though I’m not sure I want to stay, there’s also no place I feel safer. It’s as if his arms lock down on my sleeping body, freeing and trapping me all at the same time.

I lie down on his bed. I push aside his clothes and flick hash crumbs off the mattress. The little black specks that make me think of the cockroach shit on his kitchen cupboard shelf. Mark shouts over the running water as he shaves, laughs about his landlord’s eviction notice that he and Josh are now using as filters for joints because the paper is nice and thick. Then he laughs about his buddy Jake who got busted tonight for B and E. “He walked right out the front door with the fucking TV. What a dick.”

He comes out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist.“Hey, beautiful,” he says, and I get all warm even though I’m not sure if he’s saying it to me or the mirror he’s flexing in. He loves his muscular body as much as I do. It’s not like the boys’my age, with their struggling chest hairs and pimply backs.

Even though he’s had a shower, he still smells of alcohol and smoke. He nuzzles my neck I start thinking about the baby, and I cry as soundlessly as I can, but I know he can feel my wet face. Still, he doesn’t say anything; pretends not to notice but moves his lips down to my shoulder. I tell him anyway.

”Well, what are you going to do?” he asks casually, not even pulling back.

“Me?” I question. He stares, oblivious to what I’m trying to say. “What are
you
going to do? What are
you
going to do?” I repeat his words until his face gets it.

“Well, it’s in your body.”

I look at him in disbelief and then curl away to face the wall. “Babe.” Mark lies back down and strokes my stomach. Then he pulls his hand away and strokes the back of my neck. “What I’m saying is, you’re going to have an abortion, right?”

“Ya,” I say, but don’t tell him it’s too late for that.
Stupid, stupid,
stupid
. I grate my teeth together, biting hard, cursing myself for leaving it so long.

Mark’s body relaxes and he slides his arm tight around me. “Even if you had kept it, I’d be here for you. One hundred percent.”

He rolls me over and we have sex, real hard, like he’s intentionally ramming the baby. And I let him, pretending I’m really into it, pulling him deeper, thinking the whole time,
It would just be an
accident
.

Jasmyn and I are squatted behind the house, under the laundry vent that blows a cloud of clean above our heads. She is trying to convince me to go out tonight. I don’t want to let on like anything is wrong so I pretend I’m up for it. Jasmyn isn’t like Carla, in fact, she’s almost opposite. She’s hard and angry and says she’d be a good lawyer because she says she can get her way with anyone. I’m not sure I could ever call Jasmyn a friend, like Carla was, but it doesn’t matter. That’s what’s nice about Jasmyn and me: this funny acceptance that we are each other’s last choices.

“Come on. It’ll take your mind off things,” Jasmyn says, taking a deep drag of a joint. She can tell there’s something wrong with me. Something probably about Mark, but she doesn’t ask. High-pitched screams come from the kids playing in the backyard next door. “Brats,” Jasmyn hisses dramatically. She extends the butt out in front of her for me to take hold. I inhale, watching the flutters of red and blue through the holes in cedars, flickering like the last few spotty frames of an old home movie.