After a while, she called me in to eat. Felt like a kid, you know, when your mom calls you in when you’re playin’ outside. Only I wasn’t playin’, I was doin’ nothing. Well, she called me in and the table was set in the kitchen. For one.
“What, you’re not eatin’,” I asked her. And she shook her head. Then she asked me if I would just put my plate in the sink when I was done, which I said I would. And she left. Said she needed to get home for Tish. Okay. I can buy that part of it, but I can’t buy not havin’ dinner and for a minute I think to myself that I’ve done something wrong, or stupid, or both. But she says g’night like always and lets herself out, real quiet-like.
No, it’s not me, it’s somethin’ that happened at Grace’s, and I don’t know what it is. So I picked up my plate and went to eat in front of the television because I don’t like to sit alone at the table. And when I finished I put my plate into the dishwasher, ‘cause that’s where she REALLY wanted me to put it.
It was early, then. I had nothin’ to do. Surfed some channels, dozed in front of the TV. I thought about goin’ out, then thought that my foot didn’t feel up to the drive. The doctor said lay off it for a while yet, but the stitches can come out after the weekend. Then things’ll be like they were before. I thought about playin’ a video game, and decided against that, too. Then I thought I’d just go to bed. Got myself up to my room, there’s the bed all laid out, with candy. It’s like this runnin’ joke now. I never say anything about it and she never says anything about it. But it’s always like that when I come up at night, the sheets and comforter folded back, three hugs lined up on my pillow.
And there’s flowers, too, now. She started doin’ that last week, when Sarah came by. I like it. There are three of those big, white, whadayacallems, lilies, yeah, in a huge glass vase.
I turned out the lights and got undressed and that’s when I heard her out in the backyard. I got down on the floor, near the bottom of these big ass windows that overlook the pool, and there she was. And I’ve been here since then, watchin’ her.
And she’s still cryin’.
Fuck.
I knew that somethin’ was wrong. She’s been like that for about an hour, cryin’ off and on. Not loud, but the breeze is catchin’ the sound and bringin’ it right up here through the windows.
I can’t really see her, it’s dark in the yard. But she’s this white, like, shadow, at the far side of the pool, away from the pool house. I guess she didn’t want Tish to hear her. I guess she doesn’t really want anyone to hear her, and I should close this window and go to bed, but if I do, she’ll hear me and I know, in my gut, that it would be bad for her to hear me. Worse than me hearin’ her.
Right now she’s sittin’ down, but she’s been wandering around the pool, walkin’ around it. Smoking. I see it when she lights her cigarette. The breeze makes the flame flicker. It makes everything sort of flicker: her hair, her nightgown, or robe, or whateverthehell she’s wearin’. She really does look like a ghost, when she’s walkin’ through the grass, ‘cause she looks like she’s floating then. She’ll walk, and walk, then stop real sudden, like and the cryin’ will start again.
Maybe she really is upset that her ex is gettin’ married again. Maybe that’s hard to take. I know that it would be hard for me to take. Even if you don’t really want that person in your life, you don’t really want them in another person’s life, either.
I wish there was something I could do for Shi. I really do. I know what it’s like to hurt that bad. And she didn’t even fuck this up herself. At least I don’t think so. She doesn’t seem like the ‘fuck-up’ type, although, ya know, sometimes you never can tell. If I’ve learned a damn thing through all this shit I’ve gone through, it’s that sometimes you just don’t know who the fuck ups are. Sometimes the fuck ups looked like anyone else; they seem reasonable and all, they seem ‘normal’, and then you find out that they have these massive, massive problems, or they’ve done something so terrible to someone, or themselves, that you can’t hardly believe it when you hear it.
But Shi doesn’t seem like that. She seems...
You know, I don’t know how she seems. Efficient. And organized. And she’s funny when she wants to be. She looks like a good mom, like she cares, and Tish and her seem to get along. I know, I watch them. Not, you know, like staring at them and shit, or lurkin’ outside their windows, but just how they talk to each other. Shi always sounds real interested in Tish. And Tish always seems to be, well, not like a lot of other kids you see, or that I see. She’s never jumpin’ up and down, she’s never hysterical, she’s kinda her own person.
That’s about it. I don’t know a lot about either one of ‘em, though. They live here, and I see them ‘bout every day, and I don’t know anything about them. And I get another feeling, a strong one, that Shi wants it that way.
She would not want me to see what I’m seein’ right now.
Well, I can pretend real good. REAL good. Tomorrow I’ll pretend that I didn’t see any of this. Tomorrow I’ll pretend like it’s just another day. ‘Cause it will be just another day.
Well, holy shit.
Get lost in a thought and miss the show; Shi’s in my pool takin’ a swim. Naked. I see the white of her nighty on the ground beside the edge of the pool. She just slipped in while I wasn’t lookin’.
Holy shit.
THAT’S somethin’ I didn’t expect. Not at all. Damn. I don’t know ANYTHING about this lady. She’s the last person on earth I’d guess would jump naked into a dark pool at night. I mean, you can’t see shit down there, but there she is, back and forth, over and under. I’d crack my fuckin’ head on the edge, for sure.
I know I should get up now. My ass has fallen asleep, I want a smoke, and I shouldn’t’ve been down here in the first place. This isn’t very nice, spying on her like this. She wouldn’t like it, I’m not sure I like myself doin’ it, but I did and now’s a good time to stop, before I see somethin’ she REALLY doesn’t want me to see. Not that I can see, you know, anything. Not really. Just shadows. Light and dark. But still, I have enough bad deeds on my personal slate already. Catchin’ an eyeful of Siobhan’s bare ass doesn’t need to be there, too.
I crawl on the floor to the bed. No point in standin’ up and givin’ HER an eyeful, either. Might scar her for life or somethin’ worse, like, she might laugh. Not that I would blame her, but I don’t need THAT.
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The water feels good. I’m empty now, I feel hollow and worn out, but I didn’t want to go back into the house feeling that way. So I just got into the pool, and I think it was a good idea.
I know that crying was childish. I don’t care. I kept it in as long as I could. I certainly wasn’t about to cry in front of Tish. No. Instead, I told her all the good news, about camp, about Florida. About her father. I didn’t go into details about Errol getting married, I’ll let him to that, it’s his story to tell, not mine. Besides, I might say something, or say something the wrong way because of how this is making me feel, and that wouldn’t be fair to Tish. He’s her father. It’s not for me to come between them any more than I have, if I’ve done that at all.
She was ecstatic, and that was enough for me, enough to sustain me until the lights went out in her room, and the lights went out up at the house. Because I wasn’t about to go outside and have Mr. M be out there, or even still wandering through the house. No. I don’t want him bothered by this. It’s none of his business, anyway, like his business is none of MY affair.
Well, I’m done now. I’m done with crying. I’m not going to cry about this anymore. There’s no point. Crying won’t change things. Crying won’t make me feel better. It won’t repair what I willingly let break. It’ll be up to me now, and that’s what I wanted. I understand that, at least I want to understand that, I was a part of the problem in my marriage. And because I was, the marriage failed. It died. I thought I was doing my best, but I was drifting along with it as much, maybe more, than Errol was. Not that I’m wishing him well, at least not yet, or that I’m about to send him a wedding gift, because I’m not. I just need to put that behind me. That part of my life is done. Errol will always be there. I will always have to ‘deal’ with him, because of Tish. And I will. I can do that; for her.
This water feels tremendous. The pool is heated. It’s warmer in here than it is outside at the moment. It’s going to be a shock getting out, and I don’t have a towel, but it’s okay, I’ll just wipe down with my nightgown and change inside.
For now, it’s nice to swim. It feels good to stretch my muscles, to reach with long, long strokes as I work my way from one end of the pool to the other. I don’t think I’ve been this aware of myself in years. Aware that I’ve got a body, that it can pull me back and forth, that it can feel anything like this, like the warmth of the water, or, or the cool of the air.
I’m not sorry about moving here. I’m not. I’m not even sorry about the divorce. Not really. I’m sorry that Errol and I didn’t make the marriage work. I’m sorry that we lived a lot of years together and didn’t even know each other. A lot of years. Not wasted. Never wasted. And we made Tish and she’s a miracle. But I’m sorry that I let all that time go by and never took a moment to understand the man I was living with.
I’m not going to be that person anymore.
I don’t have to be. I’m in a new place. I came out here to make a clean break and a new start. You don’t get chances like this often, if ever. You don’t. That’s a fact. If I screw up this opportunity, then I’m hopeless. Then I deserve to be miserable and to live with that misery.
I’m lucky. I have a good job, I have a nice place to live, and I’m making more money than I ever have. Tish is in a good school. She’s making friends. I’m making friends. I can do things I couldn’t before, like send her to camp. She’ll have a good month of time with her father, in an exciting, new place, and I’m happy for her. One of these days, I’m going to be happy for Errol, too. Just not today. Not tonight.
Tonight, I’m not Errol’s ex-wife, and I’m not Letitia’s mother. I’m not a daughter, a mother, a sister, or a housekeeper. I’m not any of those things. I’m not anything at all. Tonight, right now, I’m just me, Siobhan Murray. I’m an empty vessel. I’m a blank slate, fresh and clean.
Tomorrow might be a different story, but I’m not worrying about that, either. I’m not looking that far ahead. I’m not looking any farther than the end of this pool, and when I surface and turn around, I won’t look any farther than the other end. It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth the pain and aggravation I’ve felt today to keep putting myself through it over and over, day after day, until I’m either insane with it, or bored with myself. It’s not worth it because feeling crappy about something I can’t change won’t help anything. Not me, not Tish, not Errol.
To quote my inimitable employer, fuck that.
“Fuck that,” I say. Not too loud though. Just loud enough.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
