The Thing About Drowning
by Aidan Silverberg-Ceresne
Dear Jaime,
We didn’t know each other until that day. Sure we had cottages near each other on the beach. But that didn’t mean anything. Until that day. Afterwards I remembered you. I guess we grew up together, a bit apart. Our lives looked similar and happened at the same time without much overlap.
Once when we were six we had ice cream at Tom’s Convenience at the same time. Our parents talked about the weather (which was sunny), the big boats (which were too loud), and the blueberries (which my mom was making into jam that year). We played tag and I dropped my ice cream (vanilla with sprinkles) on the ground and I cried. Then we went home. I guess I saw you every year at the Canada Day fireworks, but we never really noticed each other. We had our own friends and our own lives. Until that day. After, I think of a million things I could have done differently to change that day. I could have put on a movie and insisted everyone stay inside. I could have agreed to go have a picnic, and packed a bag with mini peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like we always had. Would that have changed anything? Are some things so big that they’re just destined to happen, no matter how many small things a person does? Am I a bad person for wishing it was you instead of him?
At his funeral you cried more than me. And I thought, good, I hope you feel bad. I hope that your pain is in some way comparable to my pain. But I knew it wasn’t. Because he wasn’t your father. He was mine. And you had your parents. I remember thinking I hope you have a hole in your heart like I do because I can’t be the only one to feel this stark pain. I need someone to stand beside me in it, surrounded by it, engulfing the two of us until we almost drown but at the last second we don’t and that’s how we know we’re strong and we’ve made it out. But at the same time I felt like you didn’t have the right to feel this sort of pain because he was my dad, not yours, so you should fucking get over it and stop crying like an idiot.
Afterwards at the shiva house you stuck out like sore thumb. Your straight, yellow hair looked strange around all of my relatives who look identical to me with their dark, curly mess. Everyone was looking at photo albums. But it wasn’t like being at a great uncle’s funeral where all the photos are old and grainy and half the people in the room weren’t even born yet. These photos were of me, and my family, of my dad, how he looks in my mind. There were piles of food I couldn’t bring myself to choke down.
I went to the basement. In the back room that’s used as a bedroom for guests, there’s an ancient bed with a weird brass headboard. It’s pushed almost against the wall on its left side but because the headboard sticks so far out it doesn’t rest on the wall. There’s a person-sized space between the wall and the bed and suddenly that seemed like the perfect place to be. When I was younger I used to play hide and seek with my dad in this basement, when the parties and dinners got too long and boring. I would always hide under the bed and he would always pretend he couldn’t find me.
I wedged my body into the space. And it was like a hug. A really strong, safe hug. And a little bit of the pressure in my chest went away. The cement wall was cool on my face. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine something nice but everything I could think of, every good memory, reminded me of him. So instead I used my fingernails to pick tiny flecks of paint off the wall. I heard footsteps on the stairs and somehow I knew it was you and I wondered how hard I would have to bang my head against the wall to do serious damage. You didn’t call my name. Instead you knocked respectfully on the door even though it wasn’t closed. “I brought you some peppermint tea,” you said, setting the mug down with a clang on the long glass table at the end of the bed. I waited for some time, trying to decide if I should move. You did not leave. Eventually I persuaded myself to shift and I sat up onto the bed. I could see steam rising off the mug, smell the crisp peppermint. My favorite. I wondered if you asked someone what tea I liked. Or if someone sent you down with the tea. Or if you liked peppermint and so you bought it for me. I wondered if I should pour the tea on myself or you. In the end I decided it was too much work to move anymore than I already had.
You sat down on the bed, at the end. It creaked like it was giving up. You didn’t say anything. Didn’t try to explain or apologize. And in that moment I loved you. So we stayed like that until the tea could no longer be a good weapon for my grief.
I was the first one to talk. “Tell me a story, distract me.” My voice was weak, pleading.
“The other day I saw a leaf fall off a tree and the wind was really strong so it picked it up and carried it up and for a second I thought that the leaf would fly forever but then it dropped back down to the ground.”
“That wasn’t a story. It was an observation.”
“Isn’t that what stories are?”
“Tell me something else?”
“The first time I rode a bike was last year. I was so scared for years but then one day I just wasn’t anymore,” you looked at me.
This struck me as a deeply honest moment and it made me want to say something to you like I forgive you, it wasn’t your fault, stop beating yourself up but none of those felt completely true or honest so instead I said, “Eventually we’ll be okay. We have to be.”
And you said, “Everyday I wish it was me instead.”
And I said, “But it wasn’t.”
And you said, “Yeah.”
“We can’t go back.”
“No.”
“I don’t want you to be sad for the rest of your life because that’s not a life and if he can’t be alive, you have to at least have a life.”
“I know.”
“Okay.” And so I drank my lukewarm tea.
It was a beautiful night a few months later. I hadn’t seen you since the day with the tea. The streetlights gave everything an orange glow. It felt like magic. It was snowing softly too. I thought it seemed like something in a movie, where everyone sits around and drinks hot chocolate or eggnog and makes angels in the snow. But I was walking with my head down. Trying to block out the holiday cheer, trying to not be angry at everyone else in the world for continuing with their lives when I’d lost everything. My head was down and I guess yours was too because we walked right into each other. We landed back into the snow in a pile of limbs which I quickly untangled, trying to apologize to the stranger I’d knocked over and then I saw that it was you. I remember the week after he died I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry. I would look at my face: a blotchy, red, tear-distorted version of myself and feel a bit relieved. At least this face somewhat looked how I felt. Ugly and destroyed. Looking at you felt like that too. I could see someone who felt as shitty as I did and looked like it.
“Hi,” I said, my apology forgotten. Seeing how awful you look gives me a sort of comfort. But it also makes me want to cry and hug you, so I do. Did I look as bad as you?
“I wanted to text you but I didn’t have your number. Also I didn’t know if you wanted to hear from me,” you said. Your words flying out. You were nervous. I was nervous. My tears were frozen on my face. I didn’t know what to say to you so I pulled you into the park beside us. The tall slide was covered in snow. And I tried to slide down anyway. You touched the cold metal bar of the swing set with your bare hand and scream. I gave you one of my gloves. We ran around that park for 20 minutes until our jeans are soaked and we are laughing so hard we forgot for one second everything that has happened. I felt guilty for enjoying myself, for laughing but I also felt better than I had in a long time.
“I should go. My mom’s probably looking for me,” I told you, “Give me your phone. Now you can text me.” And then I walked home, my jeans freezing to my legs.
That night you texted. You aren’t like a normal person, starting with hey or hi. You said, “I always planned to get a summer job as a lifeguard. But I’m so afraid of water now I can’t even take a bath.” I call you. Sometimes a text isn’t enough. I’m not like a normal person either. I said “Same,” and started to cry.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to swim again,” you told me.
“Yeah. Me neither.”
There was a long silence. I could hear you breathing over the phone and I tried to match my breaths to your breaths. Eventually I said, “Let’s go swimming.”
“No!” you said, your voice a higher pitch version of itself.
“Come on. A public pool. Lifeguards. We won’t drown,”
“I can’t.”
“Yes you can.”
“No I really can’t. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Fine. I don’t care if you don’t believe me.”
“We grew up in the ocean. Don’t you remember what it was like to have to swim and have the waves support you and hold you up and carry you? How safe that felt?”
“I know but that was before I almost drowned.”
“And my father did drown. He drowned saving you. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t swim.”
There was another long silence. I think it is the first time we have both heard it out loud. “I’m sorry,” I told you, “I shouldn't have said that. You don’t have to swim if you don’t want to.”
“You’re right though, I do.”
“Then let’s swim.”
I invited you to sneak into the Ritz pool with me. You don’t have to have a room key to get in there and I wanted you to think I was interesting and badass. You just have to act like you belong, I tell you, and so we do. The pool was quiet. No one there. We started with our toes, sitting on the fancy tiles, slowly lowering our feet into the water. We didn’t talk about That Day. Even though we were both thinking about it. We talked about how I like dogs and you like cats and I believe they are the most evil creatures ever. We drank the fancy water with cucumbers and lemon. By the time we left I could put my head under the water and you could stand in the pool without being terrified and I knew you were the bravest person I’ve ever met.
The first time I came over to your house, I rang the doorbell. Your mom greeted me and she looked like she was going to cry. I spend enough time with my crying mother to not want to be around this. And you seemed to know this. You said, “Mom, chill,” and that was the end of it. We spent most of our time in your room watching Netflix and YouTube and arguing about which of our favourite books are better. We start buying each other food, which is, as far as I’m concerned, a sign of real friendship. We trade off bringing food to each other, compromising until we have our signature snacks that we both like: barbeque chips, Oreo cookies, gummy worms. Eventually I don’t have to ring the doorbell anymore; I just walk in. Sometimes you aren’t home and I have tea with your mom until you get there. She doesn’t look like she’s going to cry every time she sees me anymore.
Sometimes we talk about my dad. How he used to take me on walks in the woods and we would make up stories about being adventurers and about our castle which had an endless supply of freezies. How every Saturday he would bring me a book from the used book store on the corner and then we’d spend hours in silence while I read it or screamed about it when I thought it was brilliant. I would read you his favourite Sylvia Plath poems. I tell you about how I was just finally starting to see him as a whole person and not just my dad. How we could actually talk about real shit. Sometimes we talk about drowning and how sad we are but mostly we don’t. One day I wake up and I haven’t seen you in a week. And I miss you so much. I wake up and I realize I don’t know what I would do without you.
I wanted to write something for you that wasn’t tragic. Something that was beautiful and hopeful. We’ve both had too much tragedy. But I realized that what makes something so beautiful is how it defies tragedy. It is beautiful because of the stark contrast of it against a tragic background, and in spite of everything it shines. That is what you are to me. That is what we get from this. I don’t want to think that maybe we wouldn’t have each other if everything hadn’t happened, or that there had to be this tragic thing for us to find each other. Because that implies order and plan and destiny and what happened was none of those things. But we shine and we are beautiful because it’s hope in the face of everything. And that makes it okay. Or not okay. But we’re getting there.
Later,
Skyler