by Cheryl Reid
“But you could see the ocean for miles.” I tried to convince him. I wanted to go high like my mother, who had climbed the tower in her hometown. I wanted to see far away. “Maybe we could see whales or sharks.”
“One loose screw and you plummet to your death.” He lit a cigarette and pulled into the diner’s parking lot. “I don’t like being high.”
We ordered our breakfast. The waitress moved slowly with the coffee and I watched the rain pounding the sidewalk outside. Elias lit a cigarette, and instead of opening the morning paper, he said in a pensive tone, “You make me nervous.” I had seen that look on his face when he came to talk to me at my father’s store, his green eyes bright and a small curve on his lips. I had wanted him to look at me like that again. He was flirting.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I wondered how I could make anyone, much less him, nervous. He was ten years older, my husband and boss. He was the one who came into my bed and did as he pleased.
He shrugged. “I worry,” he said. He looked at the cigarette between his fingers, then his green eyes fixed intensely on me. His dark hair was thick and slicked back with the rain. “You work so hard, like a mule tied to a plow.”
I felt a chill run down my spine, and my cheeks burned. “And you don’t?”
“What I mean is”—he paused—“I don’t know you very well.” He held the cigarette between his thumb and middle finger and rolled the tip around the ashtray. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say more, so I waited for him to explain. “I’d like to know you better.”
“What do you want to know?” I could not help but smile.
He touched my hand. “What is your favorite flower?”
I looked down at his long fingers over my palm. He had never asked that sort of question.
“Peonies,” I said. “They start out small and boring. Just a tight ball. Then they open and never stop changing until they are this big glorious thing.”
“Okay.” Elias smiled at my answer. “We will plant peonies.” He shifted in his seat and scratched his chin. He seemed nervous. “But what makes you happy?”
It was a hard question to answer. “I don’t know.”
He said, “I see you walk the path by the river.”
“I like it there,” I said. “It’s a nice way to go to Papa’s.”
He nodded and touched my hand again.
“My mother used to take me walking there every day,” I said. “Even if it was raining.” I looked out at the gray rain hitting the cars. “We took umbrellas and we went. She looked up into the trees in the rain. She’d say, ‘Look how very green the new leaves are against the gray light.’”
“Your mother was an artist.” He lit another cigarette. “Or a poet.” His cheeks blushed and an awkward silence fell between us. We had been married a year, and for the first time, we were having a meaningful talk.
“Why are you sad now?” he asked.
The waitress slid plates of eggs, sausage, and biscuits in front of us. He removed his hand and began to eat.
He had asked what made me happy. I did not know. I was young and newly married and I should have had some joy. He was right—I worked too hard and I seemed sad. I wanted to be happy, but the kind of happy I wanted was a mystery to me. I felt blood in my cheeks. I looked out the window. I said, “I’d be happy to go swimming in the ocean.” For some reason, I felt I wanted to cry. “But the rain.”
Elias heard me, but he continued putting jelly on his biscuit. “If you asked me what would make me happy, I’d say that I want to drop this mom-and-pop stuff. Do something else.” He took a bite of eggs and thought for a moment. “I’d live on a farm, or in a big city, for that matter. Anything different than what I’m doing now. I don’t want to make small talk with customers when there is nothing to say. I want to build things. Work with my hands.” His face looked soft and hopeful.
I understood. “I loved English in school,” I said. “I always liked reading and I thought one day I’d open a bookstore.”
He laughed at my suggestion, and I felt the truth of how he saw me, young and naive. “Anna, you don’t need to sell books to read books.” He motioned the waitress for more coffee. “People who read go to the library. Anyway, you’ll be raising children soon.” He slurped from his cup and then lit another cigarette.
I clenched my jaw. Why did he ask what I wanted and then tell me how I was wrong? He assumed I wanted babies, but I did not. He knew nothing of my fears, that I would die in childbirth, or if I survived, that something would happen to the child. How could I tell him my morbid thoughts? I swallowed down my feelings, because I could not stomach being laughed at again. I told myself that he was trying in his own way, and I had to forgive his clumsiness.
“Travel.” I sipped the hot black coffee. “I’d like to go back to the old country and see what it is like there.”
“Ivie and me went after Papa died. Beirut, the big city, was okay. The cafés were fine. The coffee was good.” He scratched his beard and looked out the window. “But I like flat ground. We rode on donkeys over narrow roads in the mountains. I looked down into a ravine, and the donkey’s hoof sent rocks falling. I thought it was my end.” The rain had slackened to a gray drizzle.
“Didn’t you feel anything? Being there?” I was disappointed that his version of the old country was opposite my mother’s.
“I felt hot and dirty,” he said. “The shluq blew in—this hot, dusty storm from Africa—and I could not cool off. It was worse than the rain here.”
“If it would stop raining, I’d like it here,” I said. I poked at my eggs with my fork.
“I’m tired of sitting around.” He swallowed his last bite of eggs, pointed his fork at my plate, and said, “You finished?”
I pushed my plate across the table. He opened the paper and read it while I drank coffee and watched the rain through the window.
At our cabin, he let me out and drove on. The rain was letting up to a sprinkle. I strolled down the beach not caring that I got soaked and cold. He came back after dark and I pretended to be asleep but he did not notice. From the smell of him, he’d been drinking. The next morning he lay in bed and asked me to make strong coffee. I floundered in the kitchenette until I noticed the quiet. The sound of rain had stopped. With the coffee percolating, I quickly dressed in my bathing suit, gathered up a blanket, a hat, the rubber inner tube, and before he could ask for anything else, I was gone.
For an hour, I floated far from shore. The sun was hot, beating down on my skin. I dipped in the cool water until I had a chill and then I climbed back on the inner tube and lay across it, covering my face with my hat. At times I worried the tide had taken me out too far, but then I did not care. My hair dipped into the ocean and I felt my curls weighed down with water and streaming out in all directions.
My eyes feasted on the sea and how it kept going and going, how deep and strong. The sea had rolled in and washed out for eternity and it would keep on forever. My mother must have known this, and Papa too. They had watched the land disappear for weeks and the distance of blue sea as far as their eyes could see. That was why she insisted on settling by the river—the reminder of water, of their home and the larger world.
I looked out from under my hat and for a moment could not see the land. Then the water bobbed me up, and there it was, the white sand shore and dark cabins. The saltwater beaded on my skin, already a deep olive from one morning of sun. The rolling motion of the sea soothed me, so far away I was from my responsibilities. I was alone and I felt peaceful.
The days of rain had calmed the tide, and the sea was tranquil. I took the inner tube in and then swam along the shore and past jellyfish and sand dollars. I saw rays scooting along the sandy floor. The Gulf was clear and golden green, and the white sand reflected light through the water. I turned on my back and floated. My eyes were drunk on the blue sky, the single white cloud, hanging as if from a string. I never wanted to leave the beauty of that morning. After I swam, I took the inner tube
out again and floated on the quiet bobbing current.
I felt comfort in my smallness, floating on the sea, like one of the stars in the sky or a grain of sand on the beach. If I disappeared it would make no difference in the great scope of things. The idea did not make me sad. I felt calm to know the world was greater than myself. There was comfort to think about a world without end, like we said in church, or like the Druze beliefs my mother told me about. That a soul did not die, but was born another soul, that my mother’s bird was a bird without end, that life would go on with me or without me, like the ocean rolling onto the sand. It made me happy, really, to think the world was big and my life small. It did not matter if I drowned, or if I ran away, or if I trudged along cleaning up after Elias and bearing his children. My life was part of a larger scheme and one day my life would end, but life would go on. I wanted to tell Elias my thoughts and see what he would say, if my ideas would make him laugh or angry or if they would pique his interest and start a debate.
Between the seconds the water splashed and my body flew in the air, I held my breath. I was certain a shark had found me. But it was Elias. I came up, my hat floating near him. He laughed and tugged me on the inner tube to shallow water, where he catapulted me into the air. I tried to swim away, but he grabbed my ankles and pulled me to him. The sand gave against my feet and he wrestled me back into the water. He was strong and playful and I could not stop laughing. My nose was cleared by saltwater and my throat was scratchy and dry. But I was having a good time.
He smiled at me with his handsome, bearded face and green eyes, and I felt like he saw me. So when he said, “Let’s go inside,” I gave up the beach and followed him. I expected he wanted lovemaking. He had not touched me the entire week and we were leaving the next day. In the shower, we rinsed off the salt and sand. As I twisted my hair into a towel, he lay in bed and greedily finished off a pack of cookies. He sucked down a Coca-Cola and belched.
“Come here,” he said and patted the mattress. He wore a clean white T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. He rubbed his feet together and I took it as a sign of contentment. He stretched his legs and pointed his toes. “You looked too peaceful out there.” He grinned and looked at me from the corners of his eyes. “I had to rile you up.”
His chest expanded deep with breath. His legs were white as paper, unlike his dark face, neck, and forearms. He closed his eyes. His lips parted and he yawned big and loud. He seemed altogether boyish, lying there, as exposed and harmless as the lion often seemed to me on a cool fall day when the sun beat down on her flanks and dark-brown belly.
He opened one eye and lifted his head from the pillow. “What’s taking so long?” He slapped the bed with his open palm. “Come here.” Wrapped in my housecoat, I sat on the edge of the bed and combed out the tangled curls of my wet hair.
“Don’t worry with that,” he said. “Come here.”
I felt attracted to him. For the first time in our marriage, we had been ourselves. We had laughed, and there was no one pushing. I felt as if I was in my own skin. I’d had time to think thoughts of my own. I had done something I wanted to do. Content, Elias had joined in, and we had a good time, a good day. More than anything I wanted to stay. I did not want to go back to the store or his mother or his aging lioness.
“Let’s stay here,” I said as he pulled me close.
“That would be nice.” His voice was sleepy. He draped his heavy arm over me. “But we have to go back.”
I listened to his breathing. “Not if we don’t want. We can go somewhere else. Do something else, like you said.”
He snickered. “Don’t be stupid.” He put his finger to my lips to hush me. “Be quiet now. I’m tired.”
In a short time, he was snoring. My shoulder ached from the deadweight of his arm. My exhilaration vanished, and I knew after the long, quiet car ride tomorrow, my life would resume back to the long, lonely days. I felt with certain dread that I would soon become pregnant and our lives and duties would be cemented under the pressures of the store and family and what we were supposed to do.
I pushed him off, and for the rest of the afternoon I let the sun bake my skin as I sat on the shore and the waves washed up over my feet. My skin got so dark from one day at the beach that two days later, in our store, a man would call me “gal” in an unfriendly voice. When I faced him and he recognized me, he had blushed and begged my pardon.
My senses were fixed on the sea, the warm wind blew my hair, and the gulls dove in and out of the water. A woman walked past me with her three young children. I listened as their chatter, like chirping birds, drifted toward me and then away. I could hear happiness in their voices, and I envied them. I thought of my mother and her stories of Beirut. I thought of the photograph Aunt Elsa had given me on my wedding day, of those three young girls smiling, the sea behind them. I thought of my mother and my father and their crossings. I had never done anything so bold. Nelly was right about me.
I had the notion to pack my bag, take the remaining money in Elias’s wallet, and sneak off. I could take the car, but then he’d surely find me. Papa and Gus would worry, and so would Elias. I knew of no one in the world to run to, and what kind of life would I have alone? I looked at the beautiful water and reminded myself not to be grim. There would be more good days and there was hope to build on. Elias seemed happier than I had ever seen him.
The sun set, and I went in. Elias buttoned a starched shirt. “Hungry?” he asked. “Get dressed and we’ll go out.”
We drove to a steak house and he ordered his meat rare with fried potatoes. He ordered me the same and I did not argue, even though I wanted something different. On the boardwalk, he bought ice cream and I held his hand as we strolled toward the garish Ferris wheel lit against the night sky. The music of the Ferris wheel whizzed and droned in my ear. I wanted to ride it. I watched it go up and around. I was twenty years old and my life felt like a law laid down outside of my reach.
“It’s been a good day,” Elias said. He’d said the same on our wedding day. His tone was hopeful, prodding me to stop sulking, to find the good in the moment.
I smiled and agreed.
He kissed me by the Ferris wheel. His beard, the kindness in his voice, the soft expression on his face—I felt I was kissing a stranger, not the man I kept shop with in Riverton.
Elias made love to me that night and fell to sleep. I could not close my eyes for the burning feeling I had in them. After midnight, I walked out expecting darkness, but the night was lit with the full moon and stars reflecting on water. I remembered Mama, and I wondered if this salt air was what she’d breathed on the ship. Was this the smell of Beirut? My eyes burned with longing. I stayed in the same place until morning. Elias found me sitting on the beach and staring at the tide.
“Let’s get a move on.” He looked at his watch. His beard was gone, and the sight of his clean-shaven face saddened me. “We have a whole day’s drive and the store to open tomorrow. Knowing Ivie, he’s screwed something up.”
“Okay,” I said. It felt as if a rock were lodged in my throat.
“Are you okay?” I heard concern in his voice. He thought I was sad because we were leaving. I was, but for different reasons than he thought, reasons I could not explain then, maybe not now, except that I had rushed into marriage, not aware of what marriage could be or what troubles we would face. I had decided on a life before I knew the possibilities. I had jumped blindly in with someone I did not understand.
“We can come back,” he said.
I nodded. I thought it was generous of him, but even if we did come back, the reprieve I hoped for would be beyond my grasp.
It rained on and off on the long drive home. Elias’s body grew tenser with each passing mile. His shoulders tightened and his expression fell. As much as I’d wanted to stay away, I missed the lion greeting me and my routine of working the dough, the smell of yeast on my hands, the heat of the oven, and the trip to the store with the loaves and rolls packed high in boxes. I had given Ne
lly my starter to feed and she would have taken good care of it. I would feel relief to have my mind and hands busy again.
The sky was dark and misting when we arrived home in Riverton. “I know it’s late,” he said. “Is it okay if we check on the store?”
“That’s fine.” I was surprised he had asked my permission. Lightning streaked far off. We had driven through spring storms all day.
He wanted to size up the mess Ivie had made. He pulled into the alley and around to the back of the store. The car lights shined on her.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no.” She lay, a heap of fur, no movement, no rising or falling of her sides. Guilt flashed through me. She had given out from the loneliness and boredom of the cage.
“Stay here,” he said. He ran toward the cage.
I stepped out of the car. The mist hit my face and a cool wind blew.
He saw that she was dead. “I just want to go home,” he said. “I don’t want to deal with this shit.” He hit the hood of his car with the palm of his hand. He wasn’t talking to me, because I had no power to change things, but having a corpse to greet morning customers would not do. He threw his arms up and cursed. The headlight beams shone on him and the misty rain. He yelled, “Go in and call Ivie. Tell him to get his sorry ass here.”
I fumbled with the lock.
“She’s been shot, Anna.” Grief was in his voice. “Someone shot her. I should’ve known better than to leave Ivie in charge.”
He fired up his blowtorch around ten o’clock at night. Elias was digging in knee-high mud when Ivie, drunk and stinking, arrived.
“It was sick,” Ivie said. “I had to put it out of its misery.”
“Maybe you need to be put out of yours,” Elias screamed. “What’s wrong with you?” Ivie shrugged. Then Elias sent him to round up some men to help bury it.
I held an umbrella and a lantern while Elias dug. When Ivie stumbled up with men to help, Elias sent me in. I watched from the open door of the storeroom. The lantern sat on the earth beside them. They dug until the grave was shoulder deep. Then the rain started to pour and the lantern flickered to nothing. I ran out and held a flashlight over the grave.
