The First Time She Drowned (5 page)

Back on dry land, according to Matthew, no one heard the small splash of my body hitting the water, which was more than enough proof as far as he was concerned that I couldn’t cannonball for shit. My mother, so disturbed by the scene of her family, grabbed him and headed out the back gate as my father followed, calling, “Wait!”

They were in the car, Matthew said, my mother hunched over herself and my father gunning the engine when Billy knocked on the glass, holding up my life preserver.

“Cassie forgot this.”

My mother rolled down the window to grab it. But it was Billy who noticed, Billy who glanced into the backseat and said, “Wait. Where
is
Cassie?”

• • •

I thought I was dreaming and in the dream my mother was screaming, “This is all your fault!” Then I heard my father say, “How is this
my
fault?” and I opened my eyes and wondered why everyone was staring at me.

“Welcome back, Sailor,” Uncle Billy said. His wet curls were dripping on my face. “Did you have a nice trip?”

I went to smile and coughed up a lung full of pool.

“She’s okay,” someone said, and the next thing I knew I was being hauled over my father’s shoulder, watching the gate to my grandmother’s house swing shut.

My mother was behind us, and her angry face appeared to bob up and down with the motion of my father’s footsteps as he carried me.

Suddenly she drew back and chucked her damp towel through the air. It hit me square in the face. “Sorry, Cassie,” she said. “That was meant for your father.”

My father swung around and now I was looking in the direction of the car. I wanted very much to be in it and heading home. I didn’t feel so good.

“That’s not nice,” my father said.

“Don’t talk to me about nice! I can’t believe you just sat there like that.”

“Well, I would’ve jumped in, but Billy got to her first.”

“I’m not talking about her, you imbecile,” she said, and her voice sounded like it had been put through a cheese grater. “I’m talking about how you sat there and laughed with those assholes and let them get stoned in front of my kids!”

“They weren’t getting stoned,” my father said with a straight face. At times, you really had to respect him for his awe-inspiring capacity for denial.

“You’re out of your damn mind,” my mother muttered.

“What was that?” My father spun around again.

I was getting dizzy.

We reached the car and my father unloaded me into the backseat. My mother climbed into the front and slammed the door.

“And you,” she said, swiveling in her seat to face me. “What were you thinking, going into the deep end without your life vest? You just made me look like the worst mother in the world! Well . . . second worst.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I said.

She looked at me hard for a moment as if she was trying to decide if she believed me. Then her face crumbled and she began to cry. “Oh, kids,” she said. “Don’t ever let me be a mother like her! It’s my worst fear . . . It’s . . . Oh God, promise me I won’t. Promise me you won’t let me turn out like her.”

“You won’t!” Matthew and I both assured her at once, believing with all our little hearts.

“Really?” She wiped her face and looked hopefully into Matthew’s eyes.

“Yes,” he told her, “it’s impossible!”

“But how can you be sure?”

He thought about this very seriously for a second. Then he said, “Because, Mom, you do the worst British accent I’ve ever heard.”

My mother giggled, then did a double take. “But wait a second! So does she!”

“Oh well,” Matthew said, shrugging. “I guess we’re screwed then.”

They both laughed at this and she grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, Matty. You always make me feel better.”

Then she turned to my father and her voice turned colder than I had ever heard it before. “I’m telling you right now, if you don’t get me out of this hellhole for a proper vacation—”

“Yeah, Dad!” I said, shoving my head through the space between the front seats. Already I was learning to want only what my mother wanted, to want it with life-preserving desperation. “Let’s go somewhere fun!”

My mother turned and stared silently out the window while I continued to plead with him all the way home, believing somehow that a vacation could fix things, that my father, of all people, could save us.

TWELVE YEARS LATER,
there is no Uncle Billy to rescue me as I move farther and farther from the shore, wondering if this is really how I’m going to die. It’s like I’m watching the whole thing happen from outside of myself, completely detached and not terribly surprised.

I’ve always had this vision of how my life would end. I wonder if everybody has an idea of their worst imaginable death, an image so explicit you could almost wonder if it is prophetic.

Back when things were really hairy, I used to have this story play out in my mind so often that it feels like I have already lived it: Someone is drowning, someone I love, and I race out to help them. I’m a good swimmer, unafraid of the ocean, confident in my ability to rescue. I reach them quickly but the victim is panicked. Their arms lock around my neck and in their desperation for air, they try to climb me, pushing me under. I shout at them to stop, but the word itself gets drowned. I go under and they follow. We are almost face-to-face. I grab at their arms to calm them, to make them look into my eyes and see what is happening. But they can’t see past their own distress, can’t see me as anything more than a buoy to put their weight on, do not care that in their efforts to survive they are killing me. I try to kick them, punch them, but it’s no use. I can’t get free and there’s no more air and we sink into
the darkness, fighting each other the whole way down. It’s not like I made that up either. It’s something that really happens to people. I just never imagined the person I’m trying to save would be me. Somehow, I always thought it would be her.

I start to swim hard, remembering what I’ve been taught about riptides: to move parallel to the beach, away from the channel. Only when I try, I can’t do it. The current is too strong, too fast. I paddle desperately, but the Atlantic has an umbilical hold on me. I tell myself not to panic. The panic is what kills you. As soon as I start thinking about the panic killing you, I start to panic.

The wind is up. A fog sits. The brick buildings of Dunton College disappear behind it. My mouth fills with salt when all I want is air. My hair is in my face, eyes and mouth. I tilt my head back, frantic for breath, for someone on the shore who can help me.

No one sees. No one is there.

My thoughts spin in a whirlpool, sad and angry and frightened and pointless. Mostly, I just want to go home. Mostly, I’m just wondering why I always screw everything up.

The ocean has me by the legs. I can barely keep my head above water. That’s how quickly the fatigue of drowning hits; it hits all at once, like I’ve been swimming my whole life and I’m just too tired to take another stroke. I want to cry, but know it will only make me drown faster. I think of how easy it would be to surrender, how drowning would take me like sleep. They say it’s quite peaceful once you stop fighting.

Then suddenly, I hear a voice in my head again. Only this time
it’s my own—a little, quiet voice that somehow breaks through the chaos and struggle and self-flagellation and tells me quite simply that I will be okay. I have no reason to believe it, but my thoughts quiet anyway. And in the momentary quiet of my mind, I remember something else I once learned about riptides: that sometimes, the only way out is to quit fighting, to let it take you back and back and back until the current emancipates you.

I bring my legs up and let myself float, watching the reach of shore expand with terrible regret, an aching good-bye in my chest. Back and back and back I go, being asked to trust that this will save me when every part of me wants to do the opposite, to break free by moving forward. I think of my suitcase sitting on the sand, waiting for me to return to it.
At least someone will know I was here.

Then it happens so slowly that I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but I start to feel the sea releasing me, like a roller coaster easing gradually into the gate. My arms are both heavy and without bones, and I’ve swallowed so much salt water, I could puke up a whale. But as I start to move inch by inch diagonally across the ocean, I see the arch of waves in front of me, the brick buildings of Dunton College reemerging beyond that, and this new hope lifts me out of myself, shifts my perspective. I can hear birds and the lap of sea, the distant roll of breaking water. I find new energy to swim, which drains and pulses again and again. The distance is so much farther than it looks, and it is not until I feel the catch and the rise beneath me that I’m sure I am among the waves. One carries me, delivers me into a dump of white water where I am buried again, fighting to keep my chin above the whirlpool of froth. Another comes and I am drilled into the sand.

The sand!

I crawl and am knocked down, clawing my way to shore. Even in two feet, the current, so insistent, tries to suck me back.

Finally, I am on the beach. Gasping and happy. I collapse and cough and throw up water. I consider what a colossal failure my little baptism was, though it is a thought uncharged with feeling, likely to be revisited when I have more strength to hate myself. Instead I am taken by such a blissful state of peace, unlike anything I’ve ever felt, that it seems rooted in something bigger than just my relief. It is a bone calm, a soul calm, as if the unnamable but constant rattle inside me has been silenced for a moment, given a source to express and extinguish itself. I think back to that saving voice in my head and I wonder how I can find her again—the me who is wise and unafraid, who believes I will be okay.

Upwind, the sound of another human voice shatters my serenity. The rattle inside me stirs. I glance up. It’s one of the homeless guys now standing on the bench, a hand cupped to his mouth while the other waves the pack of cigarettes in the air like a rescue flag.

“You okay, girlie?”

I start to laugh, but it feels like crying so I stop. I raise my head, triggering more coughing. Eventually I manage a limp wave.

“I’m fine,” I call back, though my voice has no sound.

I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.

Because just like all the other times I’ve drowned in my life, I’m determined to keep paddling forward, to believe that none of it has affected me at all.

I SPEND THE
next hour in a dirty gas station bathroom changing out of my clothes, blow-drying my wet hair with the hand dryer, reapplying my makeup—trying to make myself perfect so no one will be able to guess what’s underneath, see the girl who can’t stay afloat. I light a cigarette from the new pack I’ve just purchased and immediately start coughing again. I’ve been hacking almost nonstop since I left the beach, trying to eject something lodged deep in my chest. The moment my lungs settle down I check my reflection once more. No matter how many hours I spend in front of the mirror, I can never hold on to what I look like the second I turn away. I’m like a vampire’s opposite, existing only in the glass.

I leave the gas station and walk toward the brick buildings of Dunton, dragging my suitcase behind me. The campus appears to be straight down the road. I can’t tell how far exactly, but I don’t mind the walk. I’m still adjusting to how strange it feels just to be able to move through the world without supervision, to light my own cigarettes, to know the wind on my skin won’t be taken away from me. Besides, I’m in no rush to get there. I’m scared shitless.

Forty-five minutes later I am at the main entrance to the Dunton campus where a big sign hangs, welcoming incoming freshmen. I stop and look around, taking everything in. The sun has come out over buildings so large and old and Gothic that everyone looks
misplaced in time beside them. The ocean is present in the hang of salt in the air and in the coastal breeze that tosses the hair of both girls and trees. All around me, kids leap out of minivans and station wagons like they’ve just arrived at a party while their parents organize missions to unload their crap into the dorms. I stand alone with my suitcase and try to figure out where I’m supposed to go. A small voice in my head keeps saying, “I want to go home.” I have no idea what I even mean by “home,” which somehow makes the refrain harder to ignore.

Finally I take a deep breath and drag my suitcase across the lawn toward an orientation booth, threading through preppy parents and their loud, happy teenagers. Everyone around me is wearing T-shirts and shorts in the latest styles, while I am in my oversized jeans and sweater. Already I feel like I’m advertising that I don’t belong here. I push my shoulders back and lift my chin higher, trying to appear cool and confident, like I don’t care.

After standing in a long line of eager, boisterous freshmen, I eventually get my student info packet, which includes my dorm assignment, key code and meal card. Then I wander around until I find my dorm—an industrial-looking building with interior cinder-block walls and a concrete staircase. A disturbingly cheerful resident adviser greets me at the door, checks my name off a list and then points me toward my room. I reach my hallway and see a blond girl and her mother at the other end, struggling to hoist a huge picture frame through their doorway.

I summon the courage to say “hi” when I reach them, but in the same moment, their frame slips and crashes to the floor and they both erupt in hysterical, exclusive laughter. I turn and punch the
pin number I’ve been given into the keypad on the door, push it open and step into silence. The room is painted stark white and contains a broken window shade, a single bare bed, a small desk and a chair.

Instinctively I assess my surroundings, calculating the distance between the bed and the door, the number of windows, the type of locks, the quickest escape. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a deep-seated fear of being trapped, and it’s only gotten worse since I got locked up.

On the wall above the desk, I notice a fire alarm. I climb up and pull out the battery and then flick on my lighter, watching for a moment the vitality of the flame, feeling the heat of its nearness against my thumb. Then I spark up a cigarette and plop down on the bed. There is a phone on the floor beside me, but when I pick it up, there’s no dial tone. I have no idea why or what to do about it. I imagine my mother helping Matthew with things like this in his first year of college. I stuff the phone under my bed so I don’t have to see it.

The coughing starts again, so deep and persistent this time that little diamonds of light flash across my vision. The taste of seawater scorches the back of my raw throat and I feel kind of light-headed, like I can’t get enough air.

I lie down on the mattress without bothering to put the sheets on and stare out the undressed window until the only light comes from the embers of the cigarettes that I light back to back and ash onto the floor between coughs. Music and laughter and the sounds of new friendships developing float under the door. I fall asleep questioning my decision to get a single, wondering whether it’s
worse to be with other people and have nowhere to hide or to be so alone that no one can find you.

At dawn I wake up coughing violently and dimly recall having done so throughout the night. When I stand, the room spins wildly. I sit back down and cough specks of blood into my hands. It kind of freaks me out, but I tell myself I’m fine, that if I ignore it, it will eventually go away. I eat half a Snickers bar from the vending machine down the hall, drink some water from the tap, lie back down and pass out.

• • •

Early evening again. My clothes and the mattress are drenched. My teeth chatter nonstop. It hurts to breathe. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I barely have the strength to get out of bed, but all I can think about is the pay phone down the hall, how much I want . . . well, not
my
mother, but
a
mother, and if not a mother then someone. But I can’t think of anyone to call. Then I remember the piece of paper with the hospital pay phone number that James gave me. I find it in my still-unpacked suitcase, then stagger over to the door and sit against it. I don’t want anyone to see me like this, so I press my ear to the wood and wait for the hallway to quiet, wishing I had a cell phone like everyone else in the free world. When I’m certain most everyone is at dinner, I slip out and stumble down the hall.

As soon as I reach the phone and start to dial, I feel better. I can picture James slouched in a chair in the main room with his feet on the table, his arms behind his head, flirting with the
nurses as they walk by. All I can hope is that he’ll be the one to answer.

The phone picks up. “Hel-hel-hel-lo.” It’s Brian. The stutterer.

“Bri,” I whisper as if somehow the nurses might hear me, “it’s Cass. Can you get James for me?”

“Oh, sh-sure,” he says. Then he shouts at the top of his lungs, “Ja-Ja-Ja-Jaaaames!”

I wince, in part because my eardrum has just been blasted and in part because I am sure his yelling has alerted the staff, thus ruining my chances of getting to talk to James, the one person who could make me feel less alone. But then I hear, “Looney Tunes Institute. This is James speaking.” The sound of his voice is so comforting and familiar, I want to cry.

“Hey,” I say and lean my head against the cool cinder-block wall.

“Cass!” He sounds so genuinely happy to hear from me that I grip the phone cord, wanting to hold on to his excitement, prop myself up with it.

“What’s wrong?” he says when I don’t respond right away. His voice is so full of worry that I can’t bring myself to tell him the truth.

“Nothing!” I start coughing again. “Everything is great!”

“You sound like hell.”

“It’s just a little cough.”

“It sounds like you need a doctor.”

“I’m
fine
,” I say. “Quit acting like I’m dying of cancer.”

On the other end of the line, I hear Nurse Kay bitching at James for being on the phone outside of calling hours.

“I bet you don’t miss that,” he says to me. To her he says, “It’s Cassie. She has cancer.”

I laugh, and he whispers, “Quick, tell me everything. What’s the first thing you did when you got out of here?”

When I tell him about my little swim, he is not amused. “Were you
trying
to kill yourself?”

“I was baptizing myself!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, stop,” I say, though my voice comes out sharper than I mean it to.

“Cass,” he says, his tone serious. “Please don’t be a statistic.”

It was something we talked about often: the high rate of suicide after release. With twenty-two troubled kids on the ward, we knew there were bound to be ones who wouldn’t make it. I wonder how he could think I might be one of them.

“Anyway . . .” I say. But before I can continue, I start hacking really badly and look down the hallway, worried that someone might poke their head out and see me like this. “I should probably go.”

“Promise you’ll see a doctor,” he says. “You need to learn how to take care of yourself.”

“I promise,” I lie.

Then I hang up the phone, go back to my room, climb into bed and go to sleep.