Hold Still (28 page)

“Broadway and 122nd.” Across the street from work.

She nods. “Easier commute.”

“I think it's better, Maya.”

She holds her hand up to her mouth. “Yes.”

She reaches up and places her fingers softly on his cheek, just above his chin.

His chin is warm, clean-shaven.

He reaches up and takes her hand.

“We'll be okay,” he says.

She purses her lips and then turns them up at the corners. “Stephen,” she says.

He pulls her close to him. They can do this now, she thinks, now that they don't have to anymore.

That Day

T
hey go in the evening when the beach is almost empty. It's never too cold to swim. The water's like a bathtub, it's so warm. The sun sets behind them. The sky is pinks and blues and purples. Ellie wants to be inside it. She wants to climb up over the dunes and dive into the clouds. She's taken all three of the oxys. There's no point any longer in pretending: she's fucked up now; this is who she is. Jack is with her, as he always is now. If anything, his presence makes her feel capable of more, not less. He's smiling at her, all slightly crooked teeth and short round limbs. He's excited to go swimming in the evening—his mom is at the restaurant; his dad is with clients until nine—laughing at the faces Ellie makes as they drive to the ocean. Both of them are barefoot. She has not put on a bathing suit and neither has he. It's a thrill for him; he seems as high as she is. High on wearing his shorts into the ocean, on not being forced to put on sunscreen or a hat or the long-sleeved SpF 50 shirt. Ellie wears shorts too, an oversized T-shirt. She wishes briefly it were the four of them.
She's just stoned enough to fantasize about the family they would be: her, Annie, Jack, and Jeffrey, forgetting for a minute how she might not fit. They've also not brought towels. They walk barefoot over the hot asphalt of the parking lot. Jack squeals and Ellie lifts him up and twirls him in circles. An older couple sits at one of the picnic tables on the wooden platform that leads out to the beach. They have a small basket that folds open and they smile at Jack and El as they twirl past them. They wear sun hats—red for the man and yellow for the woman—Ellie stares a minute at the spots on both their hands. Such great colors. She tries to take a picture with her eyes so she can paint it later when she's back alone inside her room. Swim swim swim, says Jack. There's a sign up on the lifeguard stand that says
NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY
: swim at your own risk. Swim swim swim, says Ellie back to Jack. She lifts him high up in the air and her mind is calm and clear and happy. The moment her feet touch the water she thinks, Yes, this. She puts Jack down so they can run out to where the shore drops and the water gets deep together. They race, and water splashes up over their ankles, then their calves, then up their knees, and then the sand drops down quick and both of them tread water, big drops splashing, Ellie wishing they could always always always stay like this. She dives down under, chasing Jack. He flails and gets free of her. She dives down deeper and he swims, quick and sure, outside her grasp. The waves are lolling in. Those big soft mounds that hardly break, just building into blue-green mountains, then sloughing back before they make it in to shore. It's so warm under the water, but not the awful stifling hot that it is back on shore. Ellie only comes up because she remembers oxygen is necessary, because she hears Jack laughing and wants to have hold of him again. “Jack!” she calls. She has his ankle. He splashes hard in her face and he's free again. Her eyes sting. She closes
them and dives down deeper. Her mind clears. She doesn't think of Annie or of Jeffrey. She doesn't think of Ben or of her dad. She lets the water rush all through her. She feels warm and full inside. She reaches the bottom, runs her hands along the sand, and then burrows her face in. She plants her palms and pushes herself back up to the surface, kicking hard, in awe of her legs' strength. When her head breaks up—she breathes in one full breath—she's facing west and sees the pinks and oranges and purples. The clouds are thin strips through the colors and she calls to Jack to look.

The Next Day

S
tephen had itemized what happened in as clear and certain terms as he could. There had been a riptide. These came often, especially that time of year. The tides were highest, least predictable, in September. The water often deceptively calm. The boy had been pulled out and under. He was small and must have struggled, panicked. Ellie'd swum in the opposite direction and hadn't seen or heard him. By the time she'd gotten to him: his brain had been too long without air.

M,

He was so wet right after. I used to carry him sometimes. He'd fall asleep in the car, or on the couch, and I loved the feel of him against me, warm and quiet, as I brought him to his bed. But he was heavier than he'd ever been.

The water tried to pull me down as I dragged him. It was windy and the tide kept pulling me back out. As we came in to shore I got hit with a wave and I remember thinking if I could just stay standing he would be okay. I kept looking forward to the moment he'd be fine again.

I think she tried to think it wasn't my fault. She held my hand in the ambulance at first. I was crying and I wouldn't . . . I couldn't let go of him. But as she watched him and once she really looked at me—I couldn't focus, couldn't get warm, couldn't make sense—she just turned away and didn't speak to me or look at me again.

Sometimes I think I want to call her. Sometimes I try to write it down. But I don't think there's language for the sort of sorry that I am.

Every day I see the therapist. We all see him every day, between the self-serve frozen yogurt most of us subsist on and avoiding talking to one another, the walks around the grounds that are too pretty, like they're trying to make up for all the awful shit that we've all done with perfect plants. The therapist says I have to re-imagine the experience. He says I have to take account of my actions, understand my culpability, situate myself within the context of this thing I've
done. He has masks along the wall of his office, big dark angry pieces of wood that I stare at when I can't look at him. He sits with his leg crossed over his knee like we're just talking about some small gripe I have with you guys, like I'm just some wayward girl who likes boys and drugs. What I want is for him to scream at me. I want him to tell me how to fix it, to fix me, even though I know he can't. I sit there staring at those masks and think fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou for not making any of it better. And then I think, fuck me.

The other day I laughed at something. This guy made a joke in group that wasn't even funny, but I laughed. It was like my body wanted to remember what it felt like, to make that sound, to move that way. I felt awful after. I hid in my room in case anybody noticed, in case anybody here cared what I did, or what I've done. But sometimes now whole minutes pass in which he isn't all I think about. I think about you or Dad or Benny. I think about a book or a TV show, random, stupid shit. I think about all the time I might still have in which I have to figure out how to keep on living. It feels almost totally impossible. It feels like all that's left.

El

Ellie has on jeans and flip-flops. She looks young to Maya, far too thin.

Ellie's mom looks scared.

Maya grabs tight to her daughter.

Ellie stands very still and breathes in the scent of
Mom
.

They drive out to the beach without anybody talking. Maya stares at El at every stop. Twice: the blare of horns behind them as the light turns green and they still haven't gone. Ellie turns to her the second time. Same eyes, same nose, but Maya's still afraid to look at her too long. She almost grabs her daughter's hand, but stops. They park at the least-used beach access Maya knows: two worn dirt spots for cars, no shower, a path straight through the dunes. Both of them are barefoot. The path is overgrown. Large flaps of leaves slap their thighs and shins. An errant branch gets caught in Ellie's hair. The ground levels off up by the dunes and then dips steeply. The water's soapy, choppy; whitecaps form and trickle in. A long time, Ellie and her mom stay far from where the water meets the sand.

“El,” says Maya. Her daughter wears a tank top and Maya watches as her shoulders rise and fall. Maya grabs her hand. She loops an arm around her daughter's waist and pulls her to her. She brings her back against her chest and holds her still.

Acknowledgments

THANK YOU
to my parents, who've loved me, always, who love so much our little girls.

To my agent, Amelia Atlas, brilliant reader, prolific emailer, extraordinary listener, thoughtful talker-off-a-ledger, most trusted lovely guide.

To my editor, Katie Adams, who knew exactly how to make this book what I'd always hoped that it could be.

To Cordelia Calvert and Peter Miller, for your meticulous thoughtfulness.

To my teachers: Rob Devigne, Lecia Rosenthal, Victor LaValle, Deborah Eisenberg, Christine Schutt, Heidi Julavits, Ben Metcalf, Richard Ford, for your boundless stores of generosity.

To Steven Luz-Alterman, for saving me.

To Bryant Musgrove, most constant trusted reader, writing soul mate, first ever champion, dear, dear friend.

To Elena Megalos, Sanaë Lemoine, Eliza Schrader, Natasha Suelflow, and Yurina Ko, baby holders, playground goers, sidewalk chalkers, subway sharers, couch sitters, dinner makers, apartment lenders, ice-cream bringers, endless versions of the first
ten pages readers, the best talkers, who taught me all community could be.

To Tara Gallagher and Rebecca Taylor, fellow drowning girls.

To Willa Cmiel, for thinking fear is useless and absurd, for how very strong you are.

To Catherine Boshe, Buggy holder, other mother, second partner, the best listener, always a place that we can stay.

To Cheryl Fabrizio, teacher trainer, constant reader, Faulkner shower, long text sender, I'm proud of you too.

To Osvaldo Monzon and Mauricio Botero and Heidi Rich.

To Ricardo Lopez, Marisa Strong Baskin, and Kara Steger.

To Mimi Fry, for beach dates, such great mama conversations, for showing up and always bringing extra snacks.

To Shannon Carthy Curry, for walks and runs and mulberries.

To Emily Joanna Bender, dorm bed listener, first book sharer, best mom friend always, one of my favorite brains.

To Kayleen Rebecca Hartman, for all those years of almost everything.

To Alejandro Strong, for calling and talking, and walking and talking, and driving and talking. For the Trachtenbergs.

To Scott Steger, who always tries.

To Kenny Strong and Cristina de la Vega, who saved our lives a million times and stuck around and made us cake, who held our babies, took our trash out, made us dinner, hugged and listened, all those rich and lovely hours talking in the kitchen, who give our children so much love and care.

To Peter, who is steady, careful, confident, who is generous and kind, who is my favorite conversation, my favorite couch or walk or dinner partner, my most trusted teammate; who taught me love, who taught me fun, who gave me a whole world.

To Isabel and Luli, who taught me joy.

Hold Still
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Lynn Steger Strong

All rights reserved

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