Swim to Me

by Betsy Carter

  “Sometimes it’s more about doing than talking,” said Rex. “If you’re going to work with her, well then, that would be the way to let her know who you are, to get to know each other again.”

  WHEN MOLLY ASKED DELORES how it had gone with her father, Delores told her that he was smaller than she’d remembered. “When I was little, he was always flying off the handle, fighting with my mom. He seemed scary and so much bigger to me then. He’s actually a little guy with a lot of muscles. He was shy around me. He wouldn’t say anything, even when I said something stupid like, ‘Hey, remember me?’ But then, this guy who’s his boss, Mr. Hanratty, came up with the most amazing idea and we all kind of got swept up in it. Even Thelma.”

  Delores told Molly about the elephants and the mermaids in the water. Then she paused. “Here’s something I thought about, and you have to cross your heart and swear to God that you won’t tell anyone. I’m secretly hoping that somehow Westie can be part of it. Maybe he could come down here for a while, or something. We could teach him to swim. He could be in the show. My mom’s always complaining about how hard it is to raise a kid by herself. Who knows? Maybe she’d even like the idea.”

  The whole time Delores talked, Molly never looked up from the shirt that she was ironing. Even when Delores said, “You think I’m off my rocker, don’t you?” Molly kept her eyes fixed on the shirt. “Not really,” she said.

  Twenty

  When the call came from her mother, Delores was out at the Springs working with the elephants. For the past three months, Wulf the elephant trainer had taught the elephants to swim downstream in formation: Nehru in front; two behind her; three behind them; and four at the end. Despite their heft, the elephants had taken happily to the water, sometimes squirting it through their trunks. They had learned how to swim with the mermaids around them and didn’t seem fazed by the occasional manatee or turtle that joined the procession. In order to house the elephants at the Springs, as Hanratty had decided they should, some of the woods in the back of the park had been cleared and an Elephant House was being built. It was to be a large cement structure with overhead fans and big openings, so that it would be airy and cool in even the most desperate heat.

  Roy followed the progress of the Elephant House avidly, eager for its completion. There would be room for the elephants to wander, which meant no more shackles. Nehru’s freedom felt personal to him, and he did what he could to convey to her that it was close at hand.

  Sometimes the little sayings from fortune cookies put into words feelings he had trouble articulating himself. He’d tuck them into his wallet or slip them into his pocket and it could be months, even years, before he’d find them again. Just the other day, he’d found one in the back of his Dopp kit that said: The things that are the most precious are not the things we own, but the things we keep. That was exactly how he felt about Nehru. Of course he didn’t own her, but he felt it was an honor to be her keeper.

  Delores would watch her father with the elephant, how he leaned in close to her and murmured things that only the elephant could hear. Nehru had a peculiar stance—knees bent as if she were lurching forward. It seemed as if the two of them might fall into each other. This morning, Delores had pointed them out to Wulf: “They look like they’re telling secrets,” she said. Wulf was German and, by nature, practical. “Ach no. Nehru came from India on a boat. She was packed in the container very tight—this is why she stands in such a way.” Maybe he was right, but Delores saw what she saw and it gave her a pang to realize how at ease and intimate her father was with the elephant.

  The sight of Adrienne running toward her momentarily distracted her. Adrienne ran like a girl, hands flapping in the air. She was so out of breath, she couldn’t complete a sentence. “Phone call. Thelma’s office,” she panted in her reedy voice. Delores climbed the sloping hill toward the office. It was one of those days in early August when, even if she had tried to run, the punishing sun and humidity would have pushed back at her. By the time she picked up the phone in Thelma’s office, the sweat was dripping down her arms. The last thing she felt like doing was talking on the phone.

  “Hello,” she said flatly.

  Her mother didn’t bother with a hello, she just launched right into what she had to say.

  “Listen, hon, I need help. I could really use you to come up here for a few days. Between the jobs, and trying to find babysitters for Westie, I just can’t cope. Just a few days so at least I could find someone for Westie.”

  “Sure,” said Delores, already filled with dread. “I haven’t been home in ages.”

  THAT NIGHT, DELORES sat in between Lester and Molly at dinner. She pushed her meatloaf from one side of the plate to the other, finally giving up trying to eat.

  “You okay?” asked Molly.

  “I don’t know, I guess I am,” she answered.

  There was so much that wasn’t being said right now. She hadn’t told any of the others, except Molly, that the short, quiet guy who took care of the elephants was her father. Every day, she saw her father, and still they hadn’t spoken. That was ridiculous. If he wouldn’t initiate it, she would. But good grief, what was she supposed to say?

  In her preoccupation, Delores hadn’t noticed how Lester had been watching her. She could hear concern in his voice when he asked, “Wanna go sit out on the rock? It’s pretty out there this time of day.”

  “Good idea,” she said, looking at the clock. “I have a half hour before I need to get to WGUP. Let’s get out of here.”

  They climbed onto Lester’s rock and sat silently watching the sun set. The past few weeks the temperature had been steadily in the midnineties; the humidity, the same. It was the kind of heat that got inside you and festered and Delores was beginning to dread her weather reports, describing “sizzlers” and “scorchers” night after night.

  They sat in silence until Delores turned to him. “I have something to tell you that I hope you won’t tell anyone else for now.”

  “We don’t tell each other’s secrets, remember?” he said.

  “Okay then, here goes.” She told Lester the whole story about the circus, and how her father was the short, stocky guy who cleaned up after the elephants.

  Lester did a double take. “The guy with the baseball cap? That’s your father?”

  “Yup, that’s him,” she said.

  “The one who’s built like an Airstream? Holy cow! I mean, you’re hardly built like an Airstream. Well, you know what I mean.”

  “In any case, the woman who took care of my little brother died,” Delores said, and then whispered: “Breast cancer. And I promised my mother,” she continued, “that I’d go up there for a few days and help out, which I’m really not looking forward to. Except for one thing. And you’ve really got to cross your heart and swear to God not to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.” Lester nodded solemnly.

  Delores told him her idea to bring Westie back to Weekie Wachee, just for a little while. As she spoke, she studied his face, waiting for him to laugh or raise an eyebrow or do something to betray how her words struck him. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” she asked, when she had finished.

  “No, I don’t,” he answered. “I think you’re the boldest person I’ve ever met.”

  “You are so great,” she said, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek. “So, you really don’t think I’m crazy?”

  Lester’s face reddened. Delores thought about how Scary Sheila had called him “Lester the Lobster” behind his back. She had thought it cruel at the time, but it did make sense.

  “Well, while we’re on the subject of crazy,” said Lester. “Here’s a really crazy idea. Why don’t I come up to New York with you? I’ve never been to New York. Plus, I’ve got a birthday coming up, so this could be the perfect present for me. My father’s been bugging me to ‘widen my horizons.’ That’s what he’s always saying, ‘Being a merman is not an occupation for a young man. You need to widen your horizons.’ Going to New York would certainl
y do that, don’t you think? I don’t know, maybe you think it’s a bad idea. Of course, if you do, I won’t come.” Lester looked away, so as not to read any rejection on her face.

  “New York in August,” she said. “It can get as hot as here, only the air gets trapped and there’s nowhere for it to go.”

  “You forget, I like the heat.”

  She remembered the first time he’d told her about how he was counting on the sun to cure his acne; he’d confided in her as if he knew she’d keep it to herself. And then he’d told her all about Thelma’s history at Weeki Wachee. She’d never repeated a word of that, not to anyone. Lester was a true friend. He was on her side and meant the best for her. She couldn’t even count on one hand the number of people in the world who made her feel safe the way he did. He’d probably even be nice to her mother. It wouldn’t be so bad to have him come along. It might even be fun.

  The night before, her mother had called her and told her how cheap the airfares were that time of year. There was a 10:20 Delta flight out of Tampa that would cost thirty-five dollars. The more she thought about it, the more she thought how Lester might be the perfect buffer between her and her mother.

  “The airfares are pretty cheap,” she said. “You could stay with us—I’m sure my mother won’t mind. It’s not real fancy, to say the least.” She gave a little laugh.

  “I’d like that,” he said.

  She shook her head and told him to book the 10:20 Delta flight for the day after tomorrow. She hadn’t the slightest idea what would happen once they got to New York, but the wave of relief that came over her was enough for the moment.

  SINCE HER FATHER had shown up four months earlier, Delores hadn’t known what to call him. “Dad” was too intimate; he didn’t feel like a dad to her. It was too strange just to call him “Roy.” So she resolved it by calling him nothing. Whenever she wanted his attention, she’d say “Ummm,” until he realized that she was addressing him. On the morning before she was to leave for New York, Delores went down to the Springs just as Wulf and her father were taking the elephants to the water. She walked behind him saying “umm” for a while before he noticed her.

  “Good morning,” he said, then kept walking.

  She caught up with him. “When you have a minute, I need to talk to you.”

  He looked toward the ground, took off his sunglasses, and wiped them with his T-shirt.

  “Right now?” he asked.

  “Pretty soon.”

  “Walker, over here with the bucket. Now!” snapped Wulf. Delores could see her father get tense. She worried that there’d be a scene like so many she had witnessed at home. Her father looked down at the ground and kicked something in the grass. “In a half hour, at the snack bar,” he whispered to Delores, before doing what Wulf had asked.

  Thirty minutes later, she was sitting at a wooden picnic table drinking a Tab when he came up and sat across from her. Between his Yankees cap and his wraparound sunglasses, she could see only the bottom third of his face but she knew without seeing them that his eyes were not meeting hers.

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that we haven’t talked about anything but elephants since you’ve been here?” she asked, as he sat down across from her.

  “What else is there to talk about?” he asked, with a hint of a smile.

  “That’s a joke, right?”

  “Really, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Hmm,” she played with her hair. “How about why you left us.”

  He turned away from her and looked toward the water.

  “I thought you’d take me with you. Then, when you disappeared, I thought you’d send for me. Here I am, more than two years later, and I’m still waiting. You could have at least written to us, or called. Sometimes we thought you might be dead or something. But the worst thing was that after a while, we didn’t even care.”

  He rested his forehead on his knuckles. She saw him swallow, and for a long while he said nothing, as if he were trying to digest her words. Finally, he looked up and turned toward the Springs where Wulf was working with the elephants. “Nehru,” he said. “She’s sweet, don’t you think?”

  Delores shrugged, and thought: That’s it?

  “The thing about elephants is that they can be so gentle, but they can also get so angry that they destroy and kill anything and anyone around them.” He took off his sunglasses and cleaned them again with the bottom of his shirt. “Your mother and me, we were always fighting, about money mostly. She’d tell me I was stupid, that I did everything wrong. And our personal life . . .” He put special emphasis on the word personal. “Well, no need to go into details about that, but when you don’t have at least that, it can make you feel like you are nothing, a nobody.”

  He stopped talking and used Delores’s napkin to wipe the sweat from the back of his neck. She nodded. “God, she can be such a nag sometimes,” she said.

  “Sometimes it would really get to me,” he continued. “The thoughts I had. I can’t describe them, but they were ugly. I was afraid that I’d do something I couldn’t take back, something really bad.

  “And then, do you remember the night I left?”

  “The night of the liver?” said Delores. “How could I forget that?”

  “Yeah. I went out and had a couple of beers, then drove to the Chinese restaurant to get some food. It was dark out. I stopped for a red light and there was this family crossing the street right in front of me. The wife was wearing a brown wool coat. I remember that; it was very windy. I couldn’t make out her face, but she was small and I guessed she was very pretty, and the sleeves were too long for her, which made her look even smaller. The husband put his arm around her to protect her from the wind, and he held her close like she was a teddy bear. She was pushing a carriage with a baby about West’s age in it, and their daughter, who was a little younger than you were then, was holding her father’s hand. They seemed happy, as if they were one piece instead of four separate ones—or so it seemed to me.” He stopped talking and shook his head. “I’m talking too much,” he said.

  “You?” She laughed. “Never.”

  He closed his eyes and clasped his hands in front of him. “This awful feeling came over me, like I was going to step on the gas and run them down, all of them. I could feel what it would be like to do it, could feel the bumps underneath the tires, could hear the cracking sounds. I got so scared that I turned off the ignition. When the light changed, I was still sitting in the car with the ignition shut down. People were honking, and I guess I was crying or something because some fellow pulled up next to me, and he asked me if I was all right. I finally got myself to the Chinese restaurant. While I was waiting for my food, I thought about what I had just done—or not done. I stayed at the restaurant a long time. I was too scared to get back in the car. I drove home real slow thinking about that family, about what it must be like to come home to them. By the time I got to our house, I had this fantasy that she—your mother—would be happy to see me, that maybe you’d all be happy to see me. Well, if you remember how it was, just the opposite was true.”

  The awful memory of that night made Delores wince. “Yeah, there was a lot of screaming and food throwing, I remember that,” she said.

  He nodded. “West and your mother were crying. You yelled at us that we were both crazy, and she and I had an awful fight. That’s when I shoved a fistful of the Chinese food into your mother’s face and she smacked my hand away. There were bad thoughts racing through my head, things that I might do. I said to myself, Roy, you are acting like a crazy man. If you don’t get away from here, surely you will hurt someone, or even worse.”

  “You mean like you’d kill us or something?” Delores sat up straight.

  “I’ll tell you this,” he said. “That night I saw how a man can cross the line, if you know what I mean. I never want to see that possibility so clearly again.” He shuddered as he said this. “I had to get out of there, so I got back into the car and started driving south, the same
way we did when we went to Florida. That’s how I ended up here, and then I found this job.”

  “But you didn’t even write or call or anything. Even if you hated Mom and wanted to kill her, what about me and Westie? We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “How could I explain this to you or West? You were just kids. So I took the coward’s way out. To tell you the truth, I don’t like myself very much. The best I can do is to try and make up for it in the way I live now. It’s a quiet life. I like it; I like working with the animals and, for the most part, people leave me alone. I’m not as angry as I used to be. Don’t you see? If I wrote or called you, there was the chance I’d get dragged back there. I just couldn’t do it, couldn’t go back. So I stayed hidden. And now look what’s happened?” He threw his hands up in the air, the way people do when they check to see if it’s raining.

  “Yeah, what’s happened is that we had a father, then we got used to not having a father. Now he shows up and what are we supposed to do? Pretend that we have a father again? Oh, and by the way, we call him Westie, not West,” said Delores, her voice flat. “He walks now and he looks a lot like you. Weren’t you a little curious about how your children were growing up?”

  “Yeah, always,” he said. “But I guess not enough to risk it.”

  That was how it was. Her father, with the bulky arms and flash-flood temper was a scared, guilt-ridden man trying to make up for what he’d done by sweeping up animal shit and taking orders from people like Wulf.

  He took off his sunglasses and stared at his daughter staring at him. Whoever she thought he was, he knew that he had just scrambled the picture. Did she understand what he was trying to say, he wondered; would she ever forgive him? He squeezed his eyes shut a few times, then wiped under them with the back of his hand.