Inland (17 page)

INLAND, THE VOICE OF THE SEA GROWS DIM.
It dies away, in your ears and in your heart, replaced by the breath of the arid wind, the skittering chorus of grasses that plant their feet in the sun-cracked earth, the soothing hum of machines that live indoors. The air turns dry and thin, the ground is hard underfoot.

Inland, far from the crash and spray and squall of the coast, the voice of the sea fades away. You forget how it sounded, forget that it even had a sound. You look out your doorway and see land. Forested, rocky, mountainous, or just simply there, flat and dull and solid, stretching like a yawn out to the place where the sky touches down. Inland, water is a thing to be contained: in sewers and reservoirs, in hoses that lie untouched during times of drought. Water is what you bathe in; what you drink; what sits, still and dull and flat in a glass vessel or gleaming pipe, patient and under control. You forget that somewhere out there, the earth becomes soft and then disappears, dissolving under the lacework edges of the waves.

But it does. Seventy-one percent of the earth is covered by water. Start out in any direction, and if you go far enough, you will come to the end of the landlocked world. You will step off the edge and find yourself swallowed, up to your ankles, your knees, your neck, by the pliant mouth of the sea.

And out there, beyond the breakers, when land has faded from a gray mass in the mist to an outline in your memory, you’ll remember. You’ll look to all sides, and see only ocean. Directionless, endless, everywhere the same. And as you slip below the surface, as you leave no trace behind, you’ll remember: that the sea has a voice. That it whispers, laughs, roars.

That if you let it, if you trust it, it will hold you in its arms.

I lie back in the water.

When the waves lick at my ears, it sounds like laughter. It sounds like a love song. It sounds like they’re saying my name.

—

The kissing had gone on and on, until my shoulder blades and elbows began to ache where they pressed against the platform. How long, I didn’t know; I kept losing focus, gazing out at the tossing sea and letting my mind drift away, only to suddenly surge and slam against the immediacy of his mouth, his hands, the feel of his leg pressing down between my own. I was sweating again, and my lips had begun to swell.

“Hey,” I’d said, pressing him back, and then pushing again when he ducked in to kiss me again. The muscles in my shoulders tensed with strength that surprised me, and him too; he lost his balance, rolled back, his hands tightened and gripped against my skin. One at the small of my back and the other gently grazing the strap under my T-shirt that wouldn’t budge any lower, no matter how he pulled and pulled. Instead, he’d pressed his hands against my back, pressing his body harder against mine, moaning softly against the skin of my neck. I felt unexpectedly grateful for Nessa’s decision to buy me a one-piece bathing suit, thankful to the firm elastic for being its own barrier and sparing me from having to say yes or say no, for letting me say nothing at all. For saving me from having to think, speak, decide, when the thing I wanted, the only thing, was what I’d come here for.

“Come on,” I said.

“Come on where?” he’d asked. His plaintive voice felt like a splinter, scraping at a raw spot I didn’t know I had, and I shook my head and stood.

“Callie, where are you going?”

“In.”

I hadn’t waited. I couldn’t wait. I’d left him two steps behind me, then ten, twenty, peeling away my shirt and jeans and stepping into the water. It snapped at my ankles, colder than I’d thought, until the next moment when the gooseflesh disappeared from my body and I didn’t think it cold at all. Air bubbles flecked in the narrow lines between my toes, freed themselves and disappeared. I looked at the place where my legs stopped and then started again, broken in two refracted pieces at the shins, feeling the waves rise and fall like colorless silk on my skin. Behind me, Ben had given up on asking me to be reasonable, given up saying “Hang on” and “Wait, are you sure?” He groaned, and began shedding layers.

“There were warning flags back at the beach, you know,” he muttered. “But I guess we don’t care about that.”

I’d turned around, and looked at him with eyes that didn’t feel like mine. The black presence opened wide, danced into the foreground, moved to press itself against the windows of my eyes. For a moment, I saw him from two perspectives. One clear and bright, thrown into sharp light-and-shadow contrast as the sun broke briefly through the clouds and blazed briefly on his face. He smiled, with familiar sweetness, and for a fleeting moment I thought of stepping out of the water, of leading him back to the platform, of lying with him as the sun went down and our naked bodies were blanketed in shadow.

And then, as I watched, the view changed. Darkened. A shade had fallen, over the sun and inside my head, and I saw him again—the unseemly glare of his white ankles against the sand, the ungainly splay of his legs, the way he grunted as he dug through a backpack for his swimsuit. Small and slow, and not worth waiting for.

As if any man was worth waiting for.

As if any man could be.

I had turned my back on him and thrown myself into the waves.

—

Ben calls my name again, and I look back in irritation. I am jealous of this moment; I don’t want to share it with him or with anyone. The sea changes directions and slaps my face, gently, teasing me. I close my eyes against the spray and drop below the surface, pulling myself through the dancing, shifting light that pierces the deep green world below, leaving the shore behind. Over and over, I dive and drift and surface. My body is sleek and perfect in the water; I slice through it like a knife. Why should I look back? There is nothing there for me to see.

There is nothing there for me.

Somewhere, I hear Ben splash and splutter as he tries to keep up. Somewhere, a distant voice that sounds like mine whispers,
You should turn back. He’s not a strong swimmer.
But that voice is far away, muffled, barely even there. Like someone shouting underwater from the shallows by the faraway shore. It’s easy to ignore her. Easy to forget him.

It’s easy to forget everything. I understand that now. What she felt, my mother, when she stripped the sails and slipped over the side. I lie back again in the salt embrace, treading lightly, feet pedaling and pushing against the endless azure nothing below. She used to tell me that it was so lovely. So light. That the sea is like a cushion, a bed made out of sun glimmer and spray. That one day, someday soon, I would be old enough to swim beside her. That we would dive down together, cutting the water like quicksilver, our hands reaching for the deep and our feet tipped toward the surface. Fluttering like pale wings in the sun-dappled blue. Swimming down deeper, down into the dark, until it all turned black. She said I couldn’t imagine it, how wonderful it feels.

I close my eyes.

But I can imagine,
I think.
Mama, I can.

The splutter has turned into a shout. The sound of Ben’s voice tears the fabric of my thoughts, breaks through the mesmerizing babble and murmur of the waves, and I startle, disoriented, my eyes peeling away from the sky overhead and seeing for the first time just how far away I am from the shore. Just how far we’ve drifted down the beach, and out to sea, and how the peaked roof of the old lifeguard stand is only a silhouette in the distance. Just how tiny Ben looks surrounded by the water, a small, scared face peering out from between the waves. The water is growing rougher, the wind stronger. Overhead, columns of rising clouds are clustering on the horizon. I swim a few strokes back toward land and feel my muscles strain against the moving sea. We are caught in water with a mind of its own, with a destination somewhere far out in the gulf. In my head, I hear Nessa’s dreamy voice warning of rip currents and undertow, saying, “We should wait until you’re a stronger swimmer.”

But I am. I am stronger, I am strong. I pull harder, and the water pushes back, until I realize that I’m swimming in place. That I can equal the strength of the current, but not overcome it. That my only hope is to let myself drift, follow it where it leads me, and hope that the sea lets me go. And it will, I think. I only have to wait, only have to be patient. I have the strength to make it back to shore; I only have to save it.

But Ben doesn’t. I look at his face, and the guilt hits me with near-physical force. He’s not a beach person, not a sea person, not a sailor or a swimmer. Ben hasn’t learned Nessa’s lessons—about trusting the water, letting it hold you. He will fight it until he drowns. Why did I let him follow me? Why didn’t I turn back?

“Callie!” he shouts again, only this time the shout is a scream. Raw and bright and unfiltered. The sound of a person who’s abandoned all pretense of being brave, a person who’s scared and in over his head, who cries out at the feeling of panic climbing atop his shoulders and digging its claws in deep.

I stare back at him in horror.

Ben is scared.

Ben is struggling.

I have led him out too deep.

I knife my hands into a breaking wave and pull, kicking furiously, closing the distance between us. The sea is drawing him away from me even as I charge against it; I can see his arms floundering, can see the water trying to sneak in at the corners of his mouth.

“Stop!” I yell, and his head snaps around to look at me. What I see makes my stomach turn: not just fear, but exhaustion, painted in purple half-moons underneath his eyes. He is struggling, growing weak, and has been for a while. Maybe even since the moment we began to swim. I can see it in the quiver of his mouth, the way that his lips have gone purple and his teeth have begun to chatter. How can he be so cold in the same water that feels like blissful nothing against my skin? How can his voice be hoarse with effort, when he’s barely even spoken?

“We’re too far out,” he says weakly, and tries to stroke toward the shore. He can’t even lift his arms out of the water, and it seems to mock him in response, throwing up a white-capped eddy that strikes the back of his head and then shoves him back even farther. The beach has receded, the sunbathers are anonymous specks scurrying for their cars. One stands at the water’s edge and looks out toward us, toward the horizon, shielding both eyes. A storm is coming, and we will be alone in the water.

“Listen,” I say, and my voice breaks. I try to remember Nessa’s words, try to make my reassurance firm and low like hers. For all the terror in Ben’s eyes, my heartbeat is slow and my mind is clear. I still believe, I realize, that everything will be all right.

I ignore the voice inside me that whispers,
Your mother was sure, too.

I can save him, I can help him save himself, I only need him to trust me. I kick closer, treading water.

“Ben, stop pulling. This is a riptide, you can’t swim through it. We’re going to move”—I lift a hand above the surface, point at a barely there angle across the water in the same direction as the current is pulling—“that way. We’ll make our way back a little at a time, do you understand? We can’t swim through this, we have to swim
with
it, okay? And we’ll stop to rest whenever you get tired.”

The weak laugh that bubbles from between his lips makes me more nervous than any panicked scream.

“Oh, sure,” he gasps between kicks. “We’ll just lie down . . . on that sofa . . . you brought for the occasion, right?”

I close the distance between us and reach out to grab his arm. I can feel him trembling under my hand.

“I’m serious. You get tired, then you lie on your back and breathe, okay? You can stop and float any time you want. And if you can’t, you can hang on to me.”

I can tell that he doesn’t believe me. I decide not to give him a choice. I turn, saying, “Let’s go,” knowing—hoping—that he’ll follow my lead. He’ll see that I’m right. And everything, everything will be okay.

I feel a rush of relief as I take one stroke, then another, kicking behind me with legs that feel like well-oiled pistons. Swimming this way, without fighting the current, the water is a gentle support instead of an impenetrable obstacle. It’ll be fine, easy even, and I call over my shoulder to tell him so.

“See?” I yell. “It’s not bad, it’ll be fine.”

He doesn’t answer.

I turn to say it again, and the words die on my lips.

Behind me, the sea ruffles indifferently in the strengthening breeze.

Water, gray and grim and unbroken in every direction.

Ben is gone.

I scream and plunge forward, down, spreading my arms wide and pulling with everything I have into the deep blue-green world below. The light is weak, but I see him immediately, his skin cadaver-white against the murk, drifting deeper even as he struggles in waterlogged slow motion. He kicks and waves his arms, useless, going nowhere but down, his chin straining toward the sky and eyes bright with terror. I reach for him, and his fingers close around my wrist. A cascade of bubbles pours out of his open mouth and fly upward; I feel them dance along my body as they chase each other toward the surface.

His next breath, if he takes one, will not be made of air.

I keep my grip and try to flip my body lengthwise, to use my legs and kick us both to safety, even as his weight pulls us both down. Mentally, I calculate how long it’s been since I dove; how long since that last breath streaked silver out of Ben’s lungs. Too long. Too long. I heave his body upward as I snap my legs closed.

I feel air on my face, hear the cough and heave beside me as he drags air into his lungs.

His hand disappears from mine.

The roar of water in my ears subsides long enough for me to hear the wind, the screaming of the gulls. And something else: shouting. A white speck veers sharply toward me, growing bigger, becoming a small boat with a man waving frantically from the helm. My shriek for help, metallic and tearing out of my throat so hard that my eardrums rattle, tastes like salt.