Her mother’s breast sagging underneath the pale salmon t-shirt, the carefully placed jade beads dripping off her neck, closing in on her own death, dangling above the white buckets of delphinium stems. Her mother will die. She will die.
The flowers are perfect. As a baby, Lucy didn’t breastfeed her daugh-
ter. Stan, her husband, had just died and she thought the best thing to do for Olive was to make her resilient, self-sufficient. Not attached to a particular breast or taste of milk. Too afraid to invite another human to become dependent
creeping white water. Waves roll up and turn it over, roll it back the other way as they recede. A huge stick impaled on one side, its head gnawed off. Out beyond the body, the immense body of water. Infinite. And beyond the water, the famil- iar lumps of the Channel Islands. Familiar bodies, bodies of water.
“I didn’t find him in the desert,” Olive says. “You won’t find him there,” Lucy says. “I keep thinking he drowned. I mean, I know
he drowned,”Olive says. “Maybe he’s out there now,” Lucy says. Olive’s mother points to the ocean, the is- lands clear out there.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE LAST STROKES OF SUNLIGHT
HITTING HER MOTHER’S GLASSES PUSHED BACK ON HER HEAD, THE GRAYING RED HAIR, HER MOTHER’S CAREFUL ATTENTION ON EACH STEM, LOVING.
on her. Afraid of the inevitable consequences. But years and years and Lucy lost her resolve and learned to open herself up, to be vulnerable again. Now Lucy sees Olive crying, takes her arm,
leads her to the Grinder up the street. Returns with two iced blended mochas. “I hate to see you sad.” “Can we walk to the beach?” “Of course.” Linden Beach, where the street
hits the Pacific, six blocks down. Lucy places the floppy straw hat she’s been holding on Olive’s head for her to hide behind and walks her arm in arm to the shore. Walking along in the low tide, standing watching the ocean, like two sea wid- ows from the 18th century scanning the shore for ships. “He’s not coming back,” Lucy says. “I know,” Olive says. Then silence again. Come upon the decaying carcass of a ten-foot long seal, splayed out in the
Olive pulls her arm out from her mom’s hold.
We watch her approach the seal, her image reflected in the wet sand. The wave sucks down, just as Olive walks up, the foamy thin water un- doing the seal. Olive pulls the stick, the smooth- ened driftwood, out from the seal’s body. It’s an oar, remnants of an oar, shellac and varnish worn away to graying wood. She pulls out the splinter- ing wood, and hurls it back into the body, a new flesh hole sunk deep into the decaying wound. Crying again now. The sensation in her missing arm flares up once perfectly, her two arms com- plete for a split second and then vanished, as she holds the stick thrust into the seal. Then she loses the feeling, knows it is gone
forever. Cries for real this time. Cries and cries, seven days and seven nights, all the tears of the world creeping out until her whole body is com- pletely drained of fluid. How tears and sea water share the same chemistry. How this is only the beginning, losing him.¢
SUMMER2011 97
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108