Learning to Breathe

by Janice Lynn Mather

  It’s a life vest being tossed at me; I grab ahold. “Since y’all did my laundry, and you kinda gave me a ride and let me use the phone, maybe I should help out or something.”

  Dion lowers his leg. “Joe ain big on people wandering around here, though.”

  “The bathrooms are still pretty dirty.” Wouldn’t take more than half an hour. Then I could sneak back to this rock. Hide out. Forget everything else.

  “Let me get this straight. You volunteering to clean our bathrooms. For free?”

  I can’t explain that right now, this peace—even with the risk of Joe popping out, yelling like an angry-drunk Chihuahua—is more than payment enough. “Unless you’d rather do it yourself.”

  He holds his hands up. “Fine. Just don’t take or break anything. And try not to let Joe see you.”

  “Dion!” As if on cue, Joe’s voice cuts through the calm from a short distance away.

  “Duty calls. See you . . .” He trails off, his eyebrows raised, waiting for me to fill in my name. I hesitate, but his face is expectant and open, and if I’m here, he might as well know who I am.

  “Indy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Indy.”

  “If anybody else ask what I’m doing here?”

  He climbs over the wall. “If anybody catch you scrubbing the toilets and says anything other than praise the Lord and pass the patchouli, you send em to me.”

  “Where you keep the supplies?” I call after him, but he’s already out of earshot. Behind me, the water faithfully laps, making sloshing sounds. I can’t sit here, waiting for Joe to appear, for more memories to flood my mind. I pull myself back over the wall and make my way to the big pavilion, a large open-air dining hall with rows of benches and tables sheltered from rain or sun.

  “Hello?” I call as I pass behind the empty buffet. No one. I step into the kitchen, a free-standing structure at the back. The windows here are proper—wide squares, screened off to keep flies out. A skylight above me welcomes in the sun, and an almond tree filters the light through, making it dance between the leaves. There’s a second entrance, closed off with a screen door. The space smells of thyme and sautéed onions and garlic.

  “Anybody here?” I call again. No one answers. The room has been tidied—obviously someone other than the newly fired cleaning lady and whirling dervish Joe is in charge back here. On metal shelves pushed up against one wall, I see huge jars of brown rice, bay leaves, tan and brown and red dried beans, creamy barley kernels, their dark eyes winking at me. Flour . . . sugar . . . aha. Baking soda. I grab the box. Empty glass jars are stacked on the top shelf, waiting to be put to work. Garlic hangs from the ceiling in an elaborately woven net bag, as if to keep vampires at bay. Bunches of herbs—thyme, basil, rosemary, fevergrass, cerasee—hang upside down from the ceiling, too, drying, same way Grammy used to do. A massive plastic bottle of vinegar stands in a corner.

  “Let me start this dinner,” I hear someone say from outside. The voice is low and rich, a chocolate-sauce, extra-piece-of-pie voice. I’m betting it’s Maya, the woman who brought the switcher last time I was here. I snatch up the vinegar, two jars, and a bunch of half-dried thyme, then dash out the back door, clinking glass and sprinkling aromatic leaves.

  5

  I ATTACK THE RETREAT’S bathroom the way Grammy taught me to clean: cussing and scouring my way through filth fast to get to the other side of boring. “I am halfway through Pride and Prejudice, and I want to reach the jokey part with that Mr. Collins coming to dinner before time for our dinner,” she would say, barreling through the living room, rags in one hand, vinegar in the other. “Get up off that chair, come help me.” Or, “If this old nasty stove keep me from my Psalms, it’s gonna be Armageddon in here.” Outside, the rest of the vinegar sits in the jar along with the still-green thyme, left together in the sun to infuse, the liquid gathering strength from the herb. I can’t understand how Grammy let Mamma send me here, how she could give me that pregnancy book. Even so, I can’t get her out of my head as the vinegar’s scent fills the air. It’s like that, with real family. Can’t get away, no matter how hard you, or they, try.

  I am small, so little that I still live with Grammy always. Above my head, Grammy has just set a jar full of vinegar up on the counter. The kitchen is flooded with midmorning light. She drops the squeezed-out lime halves from the switcher we just made into the jar, adds a big branch of thyme. The leaves have already been taken off and dance now in a pot of peas soup. The kitchen smells of onions and sweet pepper being sautéed, of tart citrus and earthy leaves. I pick up a stick of thyme off the floor and stretch up to put it into the jar.

  “Now, be careful!” Grammy warns.

  Then Mamma is stumbling in through the kitchen door, and I’m running to her. “Mamma!” and the jar wobbles. I stop. She’s walking funny, a man following close behind her, his face hidden by a cap. “She ga be arl . . . awl right, mum.” His words bump into each other. Mamma laughs strange and silly, clinging onto his arm.

  “Indy, go in my room. Go.” Grammy’s voice is angry. What did I do? I didn’t mean to make the vinegar jar wobble. But her back’s already turned to me, reaching for Mamma. “Come in here, Sharice.” Then lower. “Stand up straight, you want your daughter see you all mess up?”

  Mamma’s eyes find me peeking around the doorway. “Hi, bay . . . baybee!” What’s wrong with her voice?

  “Ain I tell you go in the room, girl? Git!” Grammy swats at me, too distant to make contact. “G’on!” Gathering Mamma into her arms, even though Mamma is bigger, Grammy changes her direction easy. Mamma’s limbs are sheets in a slow breeze, flapping everywhere and hard to catch. The back door hangs open; the man is gone.

  “Let’s dance, we could dance. Baby, come dance with ya mamma!” Holding her arms out to me as Grammy whispers to her, too low for me to hear. Mamma’s arms sweep side to side, caught in a gust made just for her.

  “Mind the vinegar!” Grammy warns, too late. Mamma’s hand smacks into the jar and there is clattering and glass breaking and fumbling feet sliding and crying and cussing and the hard smell all through the air. The infusion’s too young to have taken on the thyme’s crispness, the lime’s fresh tart. Grammy hollers one of the bad words I get a soapy mouth and two swats for saying. There’s red leaking into the spilled vinegar now and I run to the back room and bury my face in Grammy’s pillow and wait, but no one comes even though I must be in trouble cause I didn’t go in the room like Grammy said, and then the jar fell and someone got hurt. I hear Grammy loud, rowing, and then hear water running, and then nothing. Finally I get up and tiptoe to the back room, Mamma’s old room, my room now, except for when she comes and stays and the two of us curl in that one single bed and I pretend we are sisters. I peep in. Mamma’s laid out on my bed, in one of Grammy’s old nighties, and Grammy’s on the edge, sitting there, and she has the book she’s been reading open. The Old Man and the Sea. Grammy’s back is turned but I know from how Grammy’s leaning in that she’s reading to Mamma, reading aloud, but so soft only Mamma can hear the story. She’s reading to her the same way she reads to me. I can see Mamma’s feet are bandaged up. The smell of spilled vinegar is strong. Part of me wants to be there with them, to hear Grammy read and curl up beside Mamma, because she’s quiet now. But part of me feels there’s no room for me in there, feels this moment is a secret, Mamma’s and Grammy’s. In the end, the secret-believing part of me wins. In Grammy’s room, I lie down alone and pretend to sleep. But I can still smell it, spilled vinegar, in the air.

  I pour more baking soda into the bathroom sink. It froths up, agitated. With a handful of that still-fresh thyme, I scrub it until it bleeds bitter green.

  • • •

  Dion’s jeep is a hubbub of magazines, old newspapers, empty water bottles. When I look at it properly, it reminds me of a cavern inhabited by a particularly slovenly troll. “Want a ride home?” he’d asked a minute earlier. I wanted to say no; I’ve walked from the dock to the house many times before,
and besides, I don’t take rides from people. Now, though, all I want to do is lie down and sleep. I scrubbed the first bathroom within an inch of its life, then found the bigger bathroom, farther from the office and closer to those little cabins, and scoured two of the four filthy shower stalls. After, I poked around the retreat’s footpaths, winding between the cottages and trees.

  “You could get in,” Dion calls from the back of the jeep. There’s a clatter of metal tools. I see him drop the cutlass and a pair of shears into the back. He sees me staring and grins as he tosses in some kind of huge hammer with a wide, flat edge on one end of the head and a long point on the other. “Pickaxe,” he says. “Found a young bay tree growing in the bush down the road. Gotta see if I can dig it out and bring it back. Maya’s been nagging me to get one so she can have her own fresh bay leaves.” He climbs into the driver’s side, tossing an empty water bottle into the back. The air smells faintly of citrus, and I see why; he rummages around in the backseat and emerges victorious, holding up an orange.

  “Want piece?”

  I shake my head and he bites into the peel, then tears it off in fragrant chunks. Here goes nothing, I think. If he had something in mind, he’d have tried it by now. I climb into the passenger seat as he starts up the jeep. As we pull off, I keep my fingers close to the door handle, though. Just in case.

  “So, what you think of the retreat?” He drives casually, swinging down the path several meters before he slams his door shut.

  “It’s nice. Except, your bathrooms are dirty.”

  Dion laughs. “You sure don’t mince words, hey? So that mean you’re coming back to finish the job?”

  “Maybe. Who stays in those cottages?”

  “Out-of-towners. In-towners who want someplace to get away for a bit.”

  “With Joe on the loose?”

  He laughs again. “She ain all bad.”

  “Really? You two always arguing. I don’t know why you work with her.”

  “You caught her on a couple bad days. She gets a little protective, is all. This her place, you know. And she stays here too, over on the far side, way behind the pavilion. Makes sure the guests all right in the night if any emergency comes up.” Done with his orange, he tosses the peel out of his window. “Everywhere needs a Joe. Someone hard, but with a good heart.”

  I don’t know about that, but I’m not going to fight with him in his own car. “I didn’t think you would litter,” I say instead.

  “It’s biodegradable. Turn here?”

  I nod.

  “So, you sure ain nobody ga come out with a gun when I drop you off?”

  “You think I’s cause that much excitement?” I laugh.

  “What? A girl?” Dion grins back at me. “You know y’all mothers keep y’all locked up.”

  I snort.

  “You know I right.” He glances out of his window, his left elbow propped in the open space. “Most times a boy, he can come and go however he want. The girl? Lockdown. Curfew. ‘Where you goin? Who you goin with? Who you meetin when you get there?’ ”

  I can’t help but laugh. “So you know my grammy.”

  “You live with her?”

  “No, she’s still in Mariner’s Cay.”

  “Oh, that’s where you from?”

  I nod.

  “You stay with your mummy, then?”

  We’re passing the dock. I look out, half expecting to see Gary’s truck parked there, waiting. “Not anymore.”

  “I hope you don’t live with that cousin.”

  I stare out the window. “Next left.” I make my voice sound nonchalant, but I’m sure he can see through the calm I’m trying to squeeze into like a too-small shirt, see the belly pushing out, even in this skirt and loose top. “Seventh house on the right.”

  “No problem.” If he minds me ignoring his statement, he doesn’t show it, turning slowly down Aunt Patrice’s street. “Well, hey, I saw the bathrooms after you cleaned, and they look great. You graduate this year?” He glances over at me, curious rather than judgmental.

  The lie slides out unplanned. “Yeah.”

  “You know what you want to do?” As if it’s the most natural question in the world. If I was Smiley, I’d have a thousand answers. “Speaker of the House, so I could wear that sexy blond wig. A brain surgeon. Owner of my own beauty salon.” Her dreams are wide and light with room in them to breathe, and space to twirl. What I want? To have nobody touch me. Have people stop seeing Mamma all over again when they look at me. Beyond that, I can’t think too far into the future. Can’t think about where I’ll be in five, six months. What I’ll be. Can’t think about what’s inside me.

  I slouch against the car door in answer.

  “Your exams done?”

  I shrug.

  “You got a lot of secrets, girl. It’s okay, we all have secrets,” he adds quickly. “Me, my secrets don’t go no deeper than that pickaxe in the back and a bay tree in the bush with my name on it.”

  We’re here, pulling up outside the yard. As the jeep rolls to a stop, I see Gary in the driveway, polishing his truck, his bald head glistening in the sun. The hose is snaked around his ankles. “This you?” Dion looks past me at the truck, at Gary.

  “Thanks.” I reach for the handle. Time to get out. That’s what I’m supposed to do. Gary’s turned, looking right at me. His expression hardens. My legs weaken, refusing. My stomach is a clenched fist. All my fears come flooding back; what will Gary do if his truck’s got even one scratch? What might he do, even if it doesn’t? Leaving the jeep, messy and orange-scented and safe, is impossible. “I forgot. I was supposed to get something from the store. Can you drop me out on the main road?” My voice is faraway, as though I’m hearing myself from the end of a tunnel. I see Dion’s mouth move and I manage a nod before I close my eyes. The jeep’s tires screech as he turns around, the sound nearly drowned out by the drumming in my chest. I can’t go back there. I can’t go back. What’s Gary gonna do? What’s he gonna tell my aunt? What if those girls told Ms. Wilson about the book they caught me with, and Ms. Wilson calls the house and tells somebody? What if I’m here by myself with him and he tries something? If not today, what about the next time? In that house, his house, there’s always a next time.

  When I open my eyes, we’re almost at the main road. I fumble for the door.

  “Here’s fine.”

  “But you said—”

  “Let me out!” I feel, more than hear, my voice. The jeep stops at the curb and I open the door, the ground surging up to meet my feet. The fresh air should feel good but my head doesn’t seem to belong to the rest of me. I can hear children’s voices, distant, as though they belong in another world. A layer of sweat on everything. Air isn’t getting into me. I try to pull it in, fast and hard, through my mouth. My head spins. I close my eyes again.

  “Indira?”

  The voice, the touch on my shoulder, nearly sends me out of my skin. I jump, eyes fly open. Dion, his face inches away from mine. I try to shout “No!” but no sound comes out.

  “Indira.” He leans back a little, giving me space. “Listen to me. Indira. You gotta breathe. Deep breath in and out. Again, okay? Keep going. Focus on something. Focus on—the Super Save sign. See it there down the road? Look at that. You ain gotta think about anything else. Just look at that. And breathe. Close your mouth, breathe through your nose. Deep breath in through your nose. Deep breath out. Breathe slow. I’ll do it too.” Dion stands up straight. “This way, Indira. Look down at your feet. Feel how you standing on the ground? That ground ain goin nowhere. Bend—hey, hey, I ain ga touch you—bend your arms so your hands touching, press the palms together. Yeah, like when you having prayer time in primary school. Listen.” I can barely hear him, let alone follow along—his voice is fading away, distant against the rushing in my ears, an ocean rising in me. Massive waves lift, crashing down, turning over, lifting again. “Come on, breathe in,” his words an inflatable raft. I hang on, clinging to them. I pull air into my lungs. “Ju
st look at that red sign, look at that red. Breathe out.”

  Slowly, slowly, the panic starts to drain away from me, a flood tide receding. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dion’s arms go up to the sky, before he changes direction, reaching down to his toes. Right there on the sidewalk, he goes into a lunge. Then into a push-up, and next, hands and feet flat on the ground, his bottom in the air. I’m watching him now as he carries out his routine, a slow rhythm, his breath steady and loud, through his nose. Fingers touching his toes again. Standing and reaching up. Last, hands back at his chest. And again. Third time, he looks at me, nods. I should follow along. I should start lifting my arms and stepping forward, back, stretching up and down. Here, in the middle of everything. It’s so effortless for him, like walking, his breathing steady and deep the whole time. I want to join in, want to feel that ease and certainty, want to feel as though my body belongs to me.

  I stand there and watch him, I don’t know for how long, three minutes, five minutes, maybe. While I stand there, a throng of kids appears on the way back from the store, hands full of candy. They stop there, on the sidewalk, watching him. Dion slows his motions at last, coming into that funny position he did on the beach, standing on one leg, the other leg bent with his foot tucked into the top of the thigh. A little girl, wide-eyed, smooth-skinned, hair in a bunch of stumpy plaits, studies him intently, then copies him, lifting her stringy arms to the sky, a pink lollipop clasped between two fingers.

  Dion brings his feet together again. Then he lowers his hands, holding them at his chest. “Namaste,” he says, and bows slightly to the girl. She bows seriously and runs off, her friends trailing behind her. “You still need to go to the store?” Dion asks, turning to me. I shake my head and he leaves it at that, just gets into the jeep, waiting for me to climb in. We drive back to the house in silence. When we pull up, the driveway is empty. The only trace of Gary is a trail of dirty water draining down into the street.