Out of Breath

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Out of Breath

Alyssa

Here’s what I see: a closet, like a time capsule, holding clothes I’ll never wear again. My teacher’s wardrobe, blousy and in a bouquet of color, crammed up against the left side of the closet where they’ve remained untouched for over six years. Nothing, especially a job, would get in the way, I told myself, of being the perfect mother of my two children. What other lies have I told myself to see what I needed to see? Alongside my discarded kindergarten teaching wear is my wedding dress—not the traditional, puffy sleeves, sequins or pearls. Seth and I would have none of that. No, I strove to match his blue Hawaiian shirt with a soft, cotton, white sundress and strappy sandals. I rip the dress from its hanger and feel my face flush.

My breath quickens as I sift through my maternity clothes: an over-sized flowered overall get-up, cotton leggings, and thick, stretched-out wool sweaters. All of them are a reminder of what they covered: you. My legs give way, and I land hard on the carpet. I punch the ground as if my tantrum will somehow stomp out the fiery pain in my gut. The whole room haunts me of the life that I had only two weeks ago: a framed photograph of the four of us together up for a picnic on the redwood trail, and a picture of Seth and me, tan, windblown, passionately in love, standing in front of our long boards on a surf trip to Costa Rica.

I call out, just as I did that night, Where are you, Nevaeh? Why, Seth? My screams go unheard, echoing through the house.

There is nothing here for me. I shake until my teeth chatter. I have to get out of this house. I’ll have Oma pick up something black to drape over me, and then I’ll tear it to shreds and bury it.

Keep an eye on her. She’s a busy one. Why did I trust him again? If I’d only thrown him out after the first relapse, or kept you by my side all night. You’d be here, with me. Right now, with your face pressed up against my breast, and I could smell the sweet scent of your sweat. Nevaeh! I call out. All I hear is the pounding of my heart as it threatens to blow apart.

I’m startled by the sound of keys jiggling in the front door, but not enough to actually move. Alyssa, it’s just Oma. Daisy’s staying at Carolyn’s for the evening. Thought it’d do her some good, I hear my grandmother call out in a high-pitched, nervous voice. She’s my anchor, but even anchors get ripped up in storms.

I’m in here, I say in a raspy voice. My throat is sore and parched.

She appears in the doorway, slightly askew, favoring her hip that is starting to give her trouble. Nevaeh’s death has caught up to her all at once, and she finally looks all of her seventy-seven years.

I thought you might need this. She pulls out a fitted, black skirt and long-sleeved black blouse—my funeral dress.

Thanks. I don’t have anything, I reply, pointing to the closet. Her eyes look over toward the wedding dress that is crumpled beside me. She cocks her head and purses her lips together.

Everything is much bleaker at night. I know that she’s referring to my marriage with Seth, or rather, separation from him.

Oma, it’s not the night that makes it bleak. I can’t see any hope. Nothing. I wish that I’d died with her. I grab my knees and pull them tightly against my chest. My back muscles ache from night after night of wakefulness.

Oma squats beside me, grunting on the way down, then pulls me into her warm, soft body. As a child, about the only thing that comforted me was the feel of what I called the lumps of my grandmother—her oversized bosom and rolls of doughy flesh are my security blanket. I let her comfort me, wanting to crawl inside her and disappear. Shh, now don’t say such things. God needs you here for our Daisy.

Daisy. Poor Daisy. My five-year-old hasn’t spoken a word since the night of Nevaeh’s drowning. Her last sound was a shrill scream.

I sob, wipe my face across my sleeve, and come up for air. Oma, how much can a person take? All I see ahead of me is a huge string of demands. Counseling appointments to make, court dates, social service visits… I start to hyperventilate. …I mean, I can’t take it. My baby just died! All I want to do is curl up and—

Oma cuts me off, We take it a step at a time, she says, patting my hand. Tomorrow, we go to the funeral. The sound of that word sends shards of glass through my veins. We cry, and weep, and do that some more. You and Daisy stay with me as long as you wish, forever, if that’s what it takes.

I wasn’t asked to leave the home. Seth was. Daisy and I can stay here, but my old life mocks my pain. A finger-painted picture of Nevaeh’s is magnetized to the refrigerator. Her stuffed animals wait for her and Daisy to set up another tea party in their room. The stain of pink fingernail polish dots the rug in the bathroom. Just three weeks ago, Nevaeh locked herself inside to paint her toes, fingers, and half her hand and foot. She’s everywhere and yet she is nowhere.

I’m going to my daughter’s funeral, I say, my voice oddly foreign. I dreamt of proms, showers, her wedding. Oma squeezes me so hard that I could crack, but the pressure is soothing, like being swaddled.

Untimely death, parental grief, out of sequence—all of these terms swim in my head from the night at the hospital where a social worker held my hand and handed me pamphlets that would help me cope. What no one knows is how Nevaeh was mine. I don’t just mean mine, as in my daughter and not Seth’s; Daisy and she have the same father. But Daisy is all Seth, right down to the color of her skin to the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, to her evasive temperament that keeps people at arm’s length.

Nevaeh is all me: blonde, blue-eyed, dreamy, as if time doesn’t exist. Our idea of the perfect day is cuddling, taking a walk down on the sand and letting the waves touch our toes, then more cuddling. I feel her absence like a limb, no, more like half of me is sheared off.

Oma gets up on her knees and holds out a hand as if to assist me. I grin through my tears. I should be the one helping you up, I say as I take hold of her arms and help her right herself.

She smiles. Thank you, Alyssa. Even in your grief, you are full of light. She always sees the best in me, even at my worst. As a child, I thought the worst was when my mother went back to work all day, leaving me at Oma’s full-time, often night after night. As it turned out, I wasn’t left at all—I’d come home. Then I thought the worst was when my mother let me know, via a letter, a letter, that she’d fallen in love again and was moving to Germany. I’d had 48 hours to adjust to the idea. It wasn’t the worst. I threw myself into my teacher’s training, vowing to be just like Oma, the most wonderful kindergarten teacher alive. I thought the worst was waking up in Seth’s apartment, still fresh with the smell of our sex, and watching him get high before sunrise. It wasn’t the worst. I grew numb. The worst is knowing that in growing numb to his behavior, my baby was sacrificed. That’s where Oma is wrong—my light went out the night that Nevaeh died.

Oma and I lock the door to my house. Most of Daisy’s and my clothes are now at Oma’s. As I walk down the driveway, I look back one last time. In closing the door tonight, I ask myself, am I closing the door to our lives? Then again, Seth made the choice for us… Oma squeezes my hand as if reading my mind. Gregory called earlier to say he’d be by around 9:30 to take us over to the cemetery for Nevaeh’s funeral, Oma says, eyes brimming with tears. I follow her out to my beat-up Toyota beside her old Ford.

Cemetery. Nevaeh. Funeral. How can these words be in the same sentence?

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Chapter One

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in..I am lost..I am helpless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

-Portia Nelson

Chapter 1

Two weeks before

Alyssa

Santa Cruz in the fall—there’s nothing better. All summer, a thick blanket of fog huddled overhead, letting through only a few hours of sunlight at a time. Oma says this fog reminds her of the days when she and my mother lived in West Germany and the winter skies nearly drove them mad. People come in droves to northern California beaches in the summer, but only we locals know that fall begins a stream of sunny days.

I sprinkle a palm full of broccoli seeds in several holes I’ve dug and push my straw hat back into place. Finally I’ve gotten organized enough to plant a winter garden. I overturn the dirt clods that litter the yard hoping to transform it into a garden of color and sustenance. A tubful of bulbs—orange and pink tulips, yellow and white daffodils, purple irises—is perched against the fence where my one-and-a-half year old daughter, Nevaeh, is content spooning shovels of dirt across her pudgy legs. I’m running close to D time—that’s what Nevaeh says when I say her older sister is on her way back from kindergarten, D-time! D-time. The bulbs will have to wait until tomorrow morning.

It’s our family’s fifth year of depending solely on Seth’s income. It’s rough. As popular as his surf shop is, it still gives us only a meager monthly salary. Most of the profits are pumped right back into the business and the huge expense of living here. I know, I should be grateful. Daisy’s in a school that teaches mindfulness as well as academics, the weather here allows us to be outside nearly every day, and my grandmother and a handful of friends support us. Paradise, right?

Yet I feel empty and lonely. I wrestle with the deep, familiar ache of Seth’s absence. His presence in our family is intermittent at best, and not just from working long hours. My stomach sours recalling how he missed Daisy’s first day at West Side Arts Academy. The waves were incredible, and I just lost track of time. Don’t be mad, babe, he’d offered, as though his absence were a novelty.

Daisy will be home in just minutes. Time flies by, and by the looks of the room, I’ve accomplished nothing all day. A mountain of dress-up clothes litters the family room. Unstrung wooden beads dot the scuffed kitchen table. Duke, our chocolate Labrador Retriever, continues to lap up bits of homemade Play Doh that are scattered across the kitchen’s peeling, yellow linoleum. Looking around at the constant disarray, I wonder, where am I in all of this? I love being a mother, but at the end of the day after the girls are tucked in, I ache for more.

I organize my days around Seth’s work schedule, Daisy’s school hours, and Nevaeh’s naps. Seth would barely see the girls at all during the week if I didn’t pack up a picnic, and take the three of us down to his shop. In the last three weeks, between squeezing in surf lessons, waiting for equipment to be returned, and catching a few sets himself, he hasn’t been home before 8:00; well after the girls are asleep. His high school intern is back in school, and Jeff his assistant…well, Jeff is about as dependable as Oma’s old Ford Pinto.

Wiping my brow, I push down these nagging thoughts. Come on, baby, let’s give you a bath before Sasha drops off Daisy and Fiona, I say, surveying my baby, whose blanket and body are covered with dirt. Nevaeh smiles up at me with her teeny white teeth and mop of blonde curls blowing in the breeze. All of the angst about my sense of purpose melts as I bury my nose into Nevaeh’s neck, kissing her moist, baby skin. Oh, Nevaeh, Nevaeh. You are truly the air that I breathe, I whisper as Nevaeh plants a wet kiss on my cheek.

The afternoon is a whirlwind. Daisy and her friend Fiona’s boisterous laughter result in Nevaeh’s being awakened. She screams and is inconsolable. I rock her in the rocking chair by the fireplace, softly singing lullabies, but it’s useless. Each time she drifts off, another chorus of giggles or the screech of excited little girls startles Nevaeh out of her sleep once more.

By 4:30, Fiona’s been picked up, Nevaeh continues to wail, Daisy is ushering a string of demands for juice and a puppet show, and I’m plastering on Rescue Remedy like lotion. I want you to play with me, Mommy, Daisy hollers from her bedroom.

I put Nevaeh down on the rocker, telling her to sit still for a minute, and march into Daisy’s room. My face grows hotter with each step. That’s it, Daisy! I’ve had it! I might have had time for a story or puppet show if you didn’t wake your sister up every five minutes. Now, go sit on your bed.

Daisy’s big brown eyes grow even wider, and her lip quivers. Even I am startled at the volume of my voice. She races off to her room and slams the door. This just adds to the chorus pouring out of Nevaeh’s mouth. Gently, I lift Nevaeh from the rocker and mutter to myself, I love my screaming baby. Even after hours of crying. I love my screaming baby. Laying her down on my bed, I summon all of my conscientious teacher training and patience and whisper, Nevaeh, I need to go talk to Daisy. I hurt her feelings and made her sad. Could you please lie in Mommy’s bed and get it all warm for her?

Nevaeh inhales. Her breath is choppy from so much crying. She nods yes, and promptly grabs her filthy, pink blankie, pops her thumb in her mouth, and lets out a big sigh. I want to crawl in bed beside her and sleep the rest of the day. There it is, that special bond we share. Even though she’s just a baby herself, we know each other’s heart language. With Daisy, I pray for peaceful moments. She’s not a snuggler or one to settle by my side with a book and lazily let the hours pass. Seth and I joke that she’s his first-born son. When Seth does have a free moment, he’s suiting her up in her miniature wet suit and teaching her how to paddle and stand up on small waves.

Seth wanted a boy. It was the way he talked about Daisy when she was in the womb: the trades that he’d teach her, how they’d hang out down by the water, go on surf trips. I told him that girls do that, too. Knowing Seth, the thought of a daughter scared him, she’d be fragile, in need of protection, maybe secretly worrying that someday a guy would treat her the way he treated women in the past. Luckily, Daisy came out kicking. Even a tumble onto the concrete hardly fazed her. By two years old, she was begging to be with Daddy out in the water.

Gently closing my bedroom door, I hear Daisy crying. It sounds like the mews of an abused alley cat. Guilt. Shame. I knock on the door. Daisy, can I come in?

No! I want to talk to Daddy.

Ouch. I probably deserve that. Then again, if the tables were turned and Seth yelled at her, would she refuse to speak to him? Actually, I can’t remember a time when he ever yelled at either of them. Or me. It isn’t his way. Walk away and walk out, yes.

I struggle with what to say. I’m very sorry I yelled, Daisy. When you are ready to open the door, I’d like to give you a hug.

Go away! she screams.

After several minutes of lying down on the couch to recollect myself, I hear her footsteps behind me. Her eyes are downcast. She wriggles her way under my arm and lets me hold her. If I could freeze time, I would. Thank you, God. As I bathe in our truce, the back door from the garage swings open. It’s Seth. Daisy scrambles out of my arms, and leaps into his. Any newfound relaxation drains away.

I listen to their chatter about her day and how Seth saw a pod of dolphins when he taught a surf lesson this morning. I wander into the kitchen, feeling out of place, and pull out a saucepan to boil some pasta. Each day after Seth arrives home, I anticipate a nibble on my neck or his hands to trace my back, trailing down past my waistline. Lately, I’m lucky if I get a head nod before he grabs a beer and takes off down the hall for a shower.

I peer over my shoulder and watch Seth pull a Heineken from the six-pack in his hand. He sits in my rocker and pulls Daisy onto his lap with one arm. His arms are muscular and brown from day after day of paddling the surf. I miss the feeling of being inside them, and yet, I want more…a soul connection.

Tell me a story, Daddy, Daisy says.

It’s a ritual he keeps with Daisy whenever he’s home at night. He’s a master storyteller, weaving tales that could silence Huck Finn. Often he embellishes stories of his childhood in Santa Cruz, toning down the scandalous parts to make him and his friends look less like hellions and more like saints. I wonder if he’s tamed all of his wild hairs or if he’s just learned to comb them differently.

So, there I was, surfing down at the Hook, when all of a sudden, something was pulling on my leash.

It wasn’t a shark, was it? Daisy asks, nearly bouncing up and down with anticipation.

I thought it was a horrible sea monster some fisherman found 100 years ago. But after I looked around, I saw this amazing mermaid with long, brown hair, just like yours.

I watch Seth play with Daisy’s hair. A smile slowly spreads across her face and her eyes brighten. Really?

Really.

My heart grows warm. I want to be a part. I leave the water to boil and walk back into the family room to listen. I decide to move in closer, feeling forgiving of Seth’s shortcomings for the moment. As I drape my arms behind him, I draw in a deep breath when, wham, it hits me—that scent—damn it, that familiar, home-wrecking, sweet, smoky scent. Not resin, or the smell of kelp. God, it can’t be. He promised me that we were his top priority. I want to scream as my temples begin to pulsate.

Seth, I interrupt, Umm, I need to see you in the garage. Now.

Both Seth and Daisy stare up at me as if I’ve just told them that garbage is for dinner. Mommy, he’s not done, Daisy whines.

Seth ignores me and continues his mermaid story. No. Seth, this can’t wait. He nudges Daisy off his lap.

Honey, go on down and play in your room for a minute. Mom and I will be there in a sec. Daisy pads down the hall with heavy feet.

We step out into the garage. Seth runs his hands through his hair. Bits of sand fall to the already gritty floor. What’s so important that it couldn’t wait?

I want to slap him for insulting my intelligence. Seriously, Seth. Like I’m not going to notice. I can’t believe this is happening again. When did you start getting high again?

Seth glares at me. You know, it’s like I’m talking to my mom rather than my wife. He turns to go back in the house. You need to back off, he continues.

Before he can walk back in, I grab the shoulder of his sweatshirt. He turns and shoots me an angry look. You can’t walk away from this. It’s too important and I can’t do this by myself. I’m alone night after night. What the hell is going on that you won’t even… I struggle to find the words, …be with me. My eyes pan the garage that is stuffed with the six years of our lives: old clothes, pictures, baby toys. What’s it going to take, Seth, something to happen to me or one of the girls to get you to wake up?

Seth holds up a hand telling me to stop. We’ll talk about this later, Alyssa. We need dinner, and Daisy needs her bath.

I’m fuming. As if he ever thought about what any of us need. It’s just a way to get me to shut up. We proceed with the evening—dinner, bath time, and tucks into bed. Nevaeh sleeps through it all. Seth escapes to the garage, leaving me alone to sip my tea that promises calm while I wonder who will break the silence first. But then I know that’s a ridiculous thought. It’s always me. Our whole relationship has been punctuated by moments of silence and great passion.

I think back to the time we moved in together. We’d known one another for only three months. I was giddy, in love (or lust), and totally out of touch with the voice inside me that was tapping at the glass to get me to pay attention to Seth’s erratic behavior. Looking over at Seth’s empty beer bottle on the mantle, I remember this one winter morning, a week into living together. Beer bottles lined the counters from late nights with Jeff and his other buddies. Dirty laundry mounded in the corners of the bedroom and bathroom. Surf wax, invoices, and Zig Zag rolling papers cluttered the desk. I cranked up one of my retro-disco CD’s, opened the windows, snapped on a pair of gloves, and started a deep clean.

I was singing along to Earth, Wind, and Fire, when I heard the front door slam and saw Seth’s keys skid across the freshly polished counter tops. Seth scowled, hitting the off button of the stereo. What the hell’s this? he asked, referring to my music. Who even listens to this crap anymore?

A week later, I found my CD in the trash, cracked in half. When I’d asked him how it got that way, he made up some lame excuse about one of his tools bumping into it. It was the start of Seth chipping away at parts of me that he found unacceptable.

If I hadn’t wound up late for my next period, I wonder if I would have stayed at all. Any hesitation I had was pushed aside when Seth brought home a cradle that he’d hand carved along with an armful of flowers…daisies. I was carrying our first daughter. Let’s call her Daisy, he’d whispered in bed after making love. I was reeled back in, telling myself everything would be better after the baby.

Daisy’s asleep and the house is finally quiet. I don’t know how to get Seth to open up. Oma, cluing into Seth’s and my distance with one another, has given me the name of a therapist in town—Katherine Middlebrook. She said that she specializes in grief, but does a fair amount of couple’s work. Her specialty suits us fine. In college, I’d seen a therapist for nearly six months about my abandoning, erratic mother. The counselor’s revelation was supposed to be life changing: I looked for men who abandoned me just as my mother had. I quit after that session.

I throw off the blanket that has failed to take away the chill. Opening the garage, I stand in silence and watch my husband. He’s in the early stages of crafting a custom surfboard. Saws, glue, resin, sealants, and dust masks litter the expansive table where he’s working. Sweat is pearled across his nose and along his creased forehead. It’s the same spots where Daisy’s sweat pools when she runs non-stop on the beach or playground.

Seth is beyond good-looking to me—he’s breathtaking. His defined, muscular arms work back and forth in an angry, sexual way. He’s completely involved in his work as though nothing else in the world matters, something that drew me to him the minute we met. I always feel that there’s a quiet, brooding storm, ready to erupt, contained in his movements and stares.

He doesn’t hear my footsteps over the angry lyrics of Kurt Cobain. I slip my hands around his waist. Seth startles. He reaches over and lowers the music, takes a drag off his cigarette, and blows smoke off to the side. The garage is the one place that he’s allowed to smoke at home. I thought you were pissed.

I am, I reply. I stroke his arms and trace his tight abdominal muscles.

Seth stubs out his cigarette and his eyes squint the way they do when he’s furious or turned on. He leans in and kisses me deeply on the mouth. I fall into his dirt, sweat, and the mess between us. I breathe in familiarity, exhaling forgiveness.

Remember how I used to visit you at your shop when we were first together? I undo the top two buttons of his Levis. His hipbones are prominent over the lip of his waistband pointing to his sculpted abs.

Yeah, he says.

Seth yanks off my shirt and pushes me down to the sofa. He kisses me all along my back, down to the word dream that I had tattooed this year for my 30th birthday. I grab his mound of brown curls and pull him into me. I taste the sweeter, simpler times when it was just the two of us. My ache is temporarily soothed. As I lay naked in his arms, I get part of what I’d come for.

I miss this. I miss you. Where have you been? I say, hoping he won’t pull away.

Seth is very still and quiet. Have I pushed too quickly for answers? He reaches over to his jeans that are tangled up with my clothes, and pulls out his pack of Camels. He slowly lights his cigarette, and draws a long drag as he sits up. I know I screwed up. I can’t even talk about it right now. He’s standing above me. His 6’2 frame towers over me. He’s running a hand through his hair again. My mom is totally messing with my head, and I’m thinkin’ about how I’m going to make enough to add to our inventory for the holidays. I don’t even know how you put up with me. I just needed somethin’ to calm me down."

Seth is split wide open, the way he was when I first met him and we’d make love until one of us would drop from exhaustion. I’ll