Learning to Breathe

by Janice Lynn Mather

  I close my eyes. Not happening. I am not here. I am by myself, I am on the beach. Sand. And—I can’t. Can’t feel sand, can’t feel sun, can’t hear water, only ssshk ssshk ssshk ssshk ssshk. This is nothing, I tell myself. I am nothing.

  “I gotta be careful. Can’t touch a little slut like you.” He gasps. “I ain know where all you been,” and then nothing but hard counter edge cutting into my belly. His whole body shakes and he collapses against me.

  I am hollowed out.

  He steps back, breathless. Pants being unzipped. No, not that. Please, no.

  “Look what you make me do.” His words stilted. He steps out of the pants, tossing them down by my feet. There’s a wet spot near my hip, growing cold. “That’s nasty.”

  That sour salt in the air, that ugly, animal smell.

  “Clean that shit up.” Footsteps going away. And then coming back. Purple bills flutter, dead moths, one, two, three, four, land on top of the pants. Four hundred dollars. “Deal with that. Don’t bring no mess in this house. And don’t go lyin bout it bein mine. Ain nobody ga believe you anyway.”

  The back door flies open. I didn’t hear a car pull up. Neither did he. He swears as Cecile barrels in. The smile on her face belongs to a different world. She’s in her gray-and-red volleyball uniform, shirt untucked, socks half up, half down, hair messy.

  “Hey, guess what?” And she stops, sees him in his boxers and socks, the chef’s coat and pants on the floor, the money. “What happened?”

  “Ain nothin, Indy offer to take these to get dry-cleaned for me. You know how she always keep things clean,” I hear him say. “I goin in the shower, I hot from work.”

  “Wait!” She’s still by the door. Why won’t she come farther in? “Our team win today. We goin to the finals on Saturday!”

  Gary pauses. “That’s great, Smiley.” He gives an awkward smirk as he turns and heads to the back of the house.

  I bend down, my arms sore from where he held them, and gather up the wad of white fabric, the money. On the pants, the tiniest smudge of purple. I look down at my skirt. Dye rubbed off. Smiley’s head is deep in the fridge. “. . . in the last minute of the game, you shoulda seen it,” she says, emerging, nibbling on whatever was in that foil pan. Can’t she smell it, the thing that he’s done?

  “You okay, Indy?” She gives me a funny look, confused.

  “Yeah.” The word comes out heavy, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Okay, well, you wanna come?”

  “Where?”

  She frowns, impatience reshaping her face. “You don’t even listen to anything. The whole volleyball team goin out for pizza and they say parents and family could come.”

  “Where’s Aunt Patrice?”

  “I told you, she’s waiting in the car.”

  They couldn’t have been here ten minutes before?

  “See her coming now?”

  I shove the clothes and money in a plastic bag, tie them up before the back door opens again. Aunt Patrice scans the room as she comes in. “This kitchen a mess. You couldn’t clean up?”

  “She getting ready to do laundry,” Smiley says helpfully. “I ask if she wanted to come and she say no,” she says, making the decision for me. “You want us bring you anything back?”

  I shake my head. Aunt Patrice sniffs, then frowns. “In here smell funny.” Her eyes catch mine as she reaches to crank the window open all the way. “Who been in here?”

  “Gary.” I hold her gaze, anger bubbling up in me. I want her to know. I want to tell her, want her to see it, acknowledge it. Even if it means she’ll kick me out.

  She stares at me, her lips pressed together, then looks away. “Spray some Glade or something.”

  The back door slams shut, then the car doors. I wait to feel something, anything, as I watch them pull away, but I’m numb; even my anger’s gone. I don’t have time to waste—Gary could come back in here any minute. At the kitchen sink, I wash the skin under that awful wet spot, scrubbing until it stings. Hurrying down the hallway, I can hear the shower on. I lock myself in Smiley’s room and pull on a different skirt. In the living room, I push my clothes into the straw bag. One last quick look around before I head back to the kitchen. I take the bag with the pants, with the money. I don’t know why, my head’s not clear, but I’m not leaving it here, no way. I put the ruined skirt in its own plastic bag and put all these dirty things in one big garbage bag together. They can’t touch anything else. I see the old roll of duct tape on the counter and stuff it into my bag. I hear the shower still running as I leave through the front door.

  • • •

  I don’t realize how hard I’m hammering on Churchy’s door till he opens it and I stumble forward into his apartment. He catches me, keeping me upright.

  “D-D-D-Dee? What happen to you? Y-you okay?”

  I hear him, but I can’t speak for the longest time. I let him lead me in, sit me down on the sofa. I hear him pour out something to drink, then set a glass on the table near me. He sits beside me and takes my hands in his. I know I’ve come here, but I want so badly to pull my hands away. He’s holding me closer to him. It’s meant to be an embrace but it feels like suffocation.

  “Indy?” He leans back, giving me space. “Somebody hurt you?”

  I wish I’d said the words out loud to Aunt Patrice. All the words. Gary did this to me. You don’t know? Really? I don’t want to carry these things in me anymore. Churchy’s eyes are fixed on my face and I want somebody, anybody, to see me and know, really know me. To hear what’s happened to me. And to understand the difference.

  “I know you might think I just like my mummy. But before you, I never had a boyfriend. Nobody ever even kiss me.”

  Churchy frowns. “How you could get baby and—”

  “Somebody made me.” The words tumble out, but in parts. Gary’s name a hard thing I can’t quite choke out.

  “M-m-made you? What you mean somebody m-made you?” He looks at me, confused. Then less confused. “Somebody at school?”

  Shake my head.

  “Your uncle? He—”

  I open my mouth again, and let it come out. “Gary.” I wait for it to feel better, to feel lighter, having his name out of me.

  “Wh-wh-what?” He leans back on the sofa, jerky with shock. Runs a hand over his forehead, trying to unscramble my words. “Y-y-your cousin Gary? Smiley’s big brother?” His hands forming fists so clenched they might implode. “Wh-wh-when?”

  “From last year. September.” The lightness isn’t coming; why do I still feel heavy?

  “Wh-what? Wh-wh-why you didn’t tell me? Wh-when was the l-last time he touch you?” He looks straight at me, straight into me. It’s too much. I look away, focusing on his hands, the smooth brown skin, the bony knuckles, the pink tinge of his palms.

  “Now.”

  His fists open and close. “J-j-just n-n-now?”

  “Just now.”

  He walks to the fridge, opens it. A clink as he reaches for something. The fridge door slams shut, every bottle in it rattling. Then a crash, and smashed pepper sauce dripping down the wall by the microwave, orange-red guts and glass everywhere. “I goin by your auntie. I gone kill him.” At the knife drawer. “He l-l-like woman so much, I could make him into one right now.”

  A half dozen images flash through my mind as I spring up. Churchy, Gary, blood, siren lights flashing, handcuffs, those hands slack and sorry, sliding bars. Churchy in prison. An impossible thought. I get up and press my back against the door to block his way out. I can’t let him go like this. He really will kill Gary.

  Churchy opens the drawer again, puts the knife back in. The air smells of goat peppers, eye-stinging hot. Through searing tears, I watch his hands drop.

  “S-s-s. S-s-s.” His fists clench. “Sorry.” He spits the word out, a bullet.

  Did I make Churchy this way? Balled fists, knife inches away, broken glass, and pure hate? I search his face for the Churchy I know—not the awkward boy stiffly stuttering, b
ut the one perched on his bike, flying through the streets of Nassau. Sitting cross-legged in the sand. Holding out a dish of food. Making the rounds to unmarked nursing homes, asking for my grammy, asking and asking until he found her. There’s no trace of that Churchy now.

  “Don’t get mix up in this.”

  “I ain know what wrong with you. Y-y-you think I c-can’t do it? Y-you think I ain m-m-man enough?”

  “Churchy—”

  “Wh-wh-why? Y-you tryin to protect him?”

  “I don’t want you getting in trouble. I leaving, I got it handled, I—”

  He chops into my words. “What, y-you like it?”

  I stare into his hard, angry eyes, watching them turn sorry, sad, full. He opens his mouth and I know what has to come next. I didn’t mean it. I sorry. Don’t take it that way. I was only. Words Mamma’s boyfriends would use on her. I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby. I love you. I was mad, you know how my temper get. And later she would say He’s a good man, ya know. You could see he’s a good man, he only need patience, and I could give it to him. He’s a good man, he only need someone to give him a chance. He’s a good man, he only like too much woman, he only, he only. I won’t be her. I turn away from Churchy and walk out of the apartment. For once, he knows better than to follow me.

  I lean his sister’s purple bicycle up against the wall outside the restaurant. I walk to the bus stop, and thankfully, there’s the number 18 pulling into view. I get on, hold out five dollars to the driver.

  “I don’t give change,” the driver warns. I drop the money in the jar and sit down. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter anymore.

  The bus stops at the end of the road to the retreat. I walk all the way down. In the dark, I open the gate by feel. The trees stand silent and upright, dropping shadows.

  I use my phone to see as best I can. The jeep is gone, but a light’s on in the office. I glimpse Maya moving around in there as I follow the path through the trees and around to where I can smell the sea. I head toward the cabins, hoping I won’t meet people on the way. The walkways are empty, my only company the chorus of frogs and crickets that fall silent at my footsteps, then pick up behind me as I pass by.

  I stop at the last cabin. My cabin—the one I found the other day. No light is on. I turn the door handle. It opens; the place is empty. It’s been waiting for me. Yank the curtains shut so no one can look in. Everything is still there; bed, nightstand, closet. The wood floor hasn’t been swept. The door doesn’t lock, but there’s a hook. I latch it closed. Then I lie down. Sleep should come, I’m exhausted. Except every crackling twig is Gary, moving through the living room. I maneuver carefully in the dark, wedge the nightstand up against the door, and lie down again. The cabin starts to shrink. I can’t stay in here right now. So what if someone sees me? They can’t do anything worse. I push the nightstand out of the way and open the door.

  The night is growing cooler, like tea coming to room temperature. In the distance, two women laugh. A bell sounds. I step out into the grass. Every sound makes me spin around but every time, no one’s there. I pick up my pace. Moving faster, path growing wider until it spills out onto the beach, sand giving way under my feet. I gasp for air, backing toward the water.

  I hear more laughter. Farther down the beach, surrounded by torches staked into the ground, I see a group of women standing. As their laughter settles, one begins moving into a more serious stance. Upright, back a royal palm. Tadasana. Correct standing pose, Joe said that day on Mariner’s. Big toes touching, heels slightly apart, legs straight, back straight, belly in, shoulders back and down. How Joe-like to call it correct. The others fall in line, following, each in her own space. I watch their movements, illuminated by the orange glow from the torches. Arms up, then down. Bending at the waist. Legs lifting, torsos twisting, strong yet light. Each woman glides along at her own pace, mirroring the others, but on her own time, in her own way. Each herself. I bring my hand down to my stomach, firm and curved out. A flicker of envy.

  My feet shift, almost without my thinking. Why not me? Big toes together in the dry sand. Heels seashell width apart. Shoulders relax, chest rises and falls. Bring hands together, palm to palm. Thumbs at the center of chest. My chest. Inhale, bringing in air. Scent of the sea, salty, alive. I lift my own hands, then bend down. This time I’m not dizzy, though I feel the belly pressing against the tops of my legs. More tonight than a week ago. My belly. Mine. I keep moving on the beach, at first copying poses from the glittery figures a ways off, then transitioning into ones I remember from Joe’s class, from Dion, from glimpsing Susan’s instructions through the leaves that shield the deck, and finally, moving in the ways I want to. Holding one foot, the other planted on the ground, my leg shaking. Lying on my back, then raising my hips into the night, my feet firm on the sand. I stand in a lunge, and when I bring my arms up, the new bra chafes me. Reach back and unhook it. Pull the whole bra loose and out from under the shirt. I slip it off and drop it on the sand. I raise my arms again.

  And when I am tired, my body warm, my arms and legs aching, I sit, crossing my legs. Eyes closed—no need to stay open, looking for the unsafe—and my breathing slows, grows deep. The night is nothing but quiet now, waves lifting, falling, the sea shifting in sleep. My eyes start to make water. I sit there and breathe as the tears fall onto my collarbones, my hands, my legs, my belly.

  And then I feel it. A flutter. Sudden, quick, a moth scuttling for light. Inside me.

  I bring my hands to my belly; another flutter, this time harder.

  I bring my knees up, wrap my arms around my legs, and rest my head, sitting together with this thing. This thing in me. Another flutter, then it shifts away, retreating to a place so deep I can’t feel.

  The last of the fire from down the beach goes out. A half-moon hangs in the sky, painting my skin with a milky sheen. I get up from the sand, dusting the grains off my backside, my legs, my skirt, and shaking out the abandoned bra. Walking back to the cabin, my hands around my belly, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But I do know who I am. Not Mamma. Not Grammy. Not Doubles, the girl who Churchy, Gary, Aunt Patrice, and Smiley think I am. I’m Indy, and I choose to be different. I’m doing this my way.

  14

  BACK AT THE CABIN, I still can’t sleep. I check my phone. Twenty missed calls, and a bunch of messages I don’t read. I leave it on silent and use it as a flashlight as I step out onto the front porch. I sit down on the wooden floor, leaning my back against the wall. Thoughts swirl in my mind. Grammy. I told your mamma to send you here. I told her to let you go. Aunt Patrice. I have my own child to protect. The pants in that garbage bag. Don’t bring no mess in this house, Gary said, money tossed at me like he was paying for what he did. As though a handful of purple bills could cover this, could cover me. The bills are still crumpled up with those pants. I’ll never use that money. Why did I even keep that bag full of nightmare memories? Showing Gary didn’t make any difference, but maybe the pants and that dirty money will. Do what you gotta do.

  Beside me on the porch, my phone lights up. Incoming call from the house. Twenty missed calls. I can’t hide forever.

  “Hello?” I keep my voice hushed.

  “About time!” Smiley screeches back at me. I want to cry with relief. “Where the hell you been? Everybody lookin for you. Mummy ready to have your head on a stick. She been callin your mummy and all. She even called your grammy. You never told me she came to Nassau!”

  “How come you callin me on the house phone?”

  “You know how much trouble you in? Mummy check my cell phone an all to see if you send me any messages. She watchin me like a hawk.”

  “You call to tell me that?”

  “Don’t play with me.” We always joke, a mix of teasing and toughness, but it’s different this time. I’m not joking, and there’s no smile in her voice either, now. “Where you gone?”

  “Where you think?” I expect her to say something crude about Churchy, but she surprises me.

&nbs
p; “You at that retreat place, right?”

  “Aunt Patrice know?”

  “She don’t know you’s go there.”

  “An you ain tell her nothin?”

  “You ain hear me? She don’t know where you is.”

  “I mean bout anything. Churchy or—” I can’t get the words out. “Or anything. I’ll never talk to you again if you tell her. I mean it.”

  “Why you think I would tell her?” Smiley’s voice squeaks in defense. “When you comin back?” she asks, softer.

  “You could have the whole bed to yourself. Aunt Patrice should be happy.”

  She makes a dismissive noise.

  “What happen, you lonely? You need friends, ay?”

  “I only called to check on your behind.” Her voice is breezy, now, trying to sound casual. “So how come you gone, man? And the teachers at school wanna know where you gone. Ms. Wilson won’t stop bugging me. Everybody askin questions.”

  I look out into the darkness. “Don’t worry about it.” What would I tell her, anyway? Your brother is a monster and I think your mummy know what he does to me? Today I almost had an abortion and then got out of it by pretending to be somebody else?

  “Hey,” I say, because the line’s been quiet for too long. It’s not like my cousin to let any kind of hush fall. I picture her crouched down somewhere quiet, trying to talk without being caught.

  “Yeah?”

  “What Gary say?”

  “Nothin. He say last time he see you was in the kitchen, when we stopped by the house after the game. He went in the shower, and when he came out, you was gone.”

  There’s a pause—the perfect time to tell her about Gary. Except I don’t have the perfect words. I think of what happened when I told Churchy.

  “Indy, what you ga do? Mummy past mad. This a whole mess. Daddy away, and you know how she is. She ga go to the police if you don’t come back soon.”

  There’s a click on the line. Someone else has picked up.

  “Hey. I want use the phone.” Gary’s voice. I pull the phone away from my ear to escape the sound of him, but I can still hear.