“At Water’s Edge,” the selkie story

Finally, I finished a version of The Selkie Girl that I liked, and it was just published. Published (that amazing word) under the title “At Water’s Edge” by Rising Up Press. Read the full story by clicking on “more.”

“At Water’s Edge”

Woe is me! Ah, woe is me!

I have seven
bairns on land,

And seven in
the sea.

                               —from “The Selkie Girl,” a Celtic tale

I
remember those days, stuck on a small patch of beach, splashing in the same
little waves, confined to a tiny space bordered by the baby, the snacks and the
seaweed line. If I swam out any distance at all, I would hear urgent cries of
“Mommy! Mommy!” and I’d have to return to address some small, imagined crisis.

I would gaze
down the length of beach, out to the ocean depths, and ache to be out there. I
always came back to my true self in deep water.

          The ache was more than restlessness. I
married too young. My first children came fast. My husband was gone all the
time. It was worse when he was home. I had three shiny children, but inside me something
was terribly wrong.

That
final morning, I woke with my teeth clenched. I heard the baby whimpering. and Ronan,
the oldest, trying to talk to him. A little boy felt it his job to calm the
baby, because he knew his mother was not able to do it.

Meara,
my fierce second, was always agitated. I hear her now, her high voice
escalating— “No, Ronan! Don’t touch that! That’s mine! I need it right now!”

          I was afraid to get up. If I could
have just had a few moments to myself, I might make it through the day. But I
heard Meara headed for my bed. The baby’s wails increased. I felt a roar inside
my head.

          “Mommy, you didn’t listen to my song.
You said you would!” Meara planted herself beside me and stared accusingly as I
struggled to sit up.

          “Mommy, I’m so hungry. I can’t wait any
more,” from Ronan, just behind Meara.

          Screams from the crib.

          I tried to smile. Any other mother
would be glad to see her children in the morning. Another mother….

The
night before, my husband had spent the evening criticizing me, accusing me of all
manner of stupid decisions, moral wrongs, neglect of him and the children. He
was furious that I was unhappy. He wrapped up by announcing that he was going away,
again. “I have to go on business, Danu.” He must have thought I was deaf and
blind. His “business” was a very sleek young beauty. Everyone knew. My sisters
knew.

          I got up and tried. I did. I said I
was sorry to Meara. I made breakfast, but the food tasted stale and Meara and
Ronan wouldn’t eat. I got the baby up.

          I don’t remember much of the rest of
that morning. I know I yelled at the children. I said things like, “Shut up!”
and “I can’t stand this!” They were my responsibility, but waves of misery kept
rushing through me. This is the great shock of motherhood:  I cannot. I must. I cannot. I have to.

I
called my older sister. She had two children of her own and had already done much
too much babysitting for me. She had plans for the day. But she must have heard
the desperation in my voice. She suggested we take our kids to the beach. She
even called our younger sister and got her to come along, with her two little
ones.

How
I got us all there I do not remember. It hardly matters now. But I managed it,
and if the world were fair to mothers, it would be seen for the great act of
heroism it was.

But
my heroism, such as it was, could not stand up to the things that were in store
for me that day.

My
sisters were kind and concerned. We lay next to each other on the sand, skins salty
with sea water and perspiration, while I tried to tell them what was happening,
straining to find the words to describe it. And the children kept running over,
pouring sand or seaweed on us, arguing, asking for food. Mine, in particular,
could not leave us alone.

My
younger sister saw the bruises on my upper arm, with the distinct blue/black
pattern of fingers and thumb. A look of pity crossed her face.

“Would
you like to take a long swim by yourself?” she asked. “Let me take your kids to
my place for dinner.” She knew me well. I nodded gratefully and said goodbye to
them. I watched them disappear.

And
then I swam and swam. It felt wonderful, though I think I was weeping into the
ocean. But I kept going for probably a couple of hours before I finally flopped
down on the beach.

I
was lying on my stomach, squinting into the setting sun, when I caught sight of
a stranger approaching, unmistakably male.

He
had a camera. I had the feeling he had already taken a couple of pictures
before he approached. I think I felt anticipation. I was crazy then.

His
red hair was striking, as was the way he moved, his concentration, his
expressionless face.

I
sat up to face him as prey would turn to keep an attacker in sight.

“Lovely,”
was the first thing he said, as he came close.

I
don’t think I said anything.

“Did
I frighten you?” he asked. “I didn’t mean to. My name is Douglas.” He squatted
on his haunches near me and picked up sand and shells as he spoke.  “I come here often but I’ve never seen you in
this cove. I’d remember.”

“My
sisters and I come here many afternoons. “This is our secret place,” I said,
and regretted it immediately.

He
reached out and touched my hand. “I’ll keep your secret,” he said. It
electrified me. Not his words but his touch, the coarse dryness, the hard
warmth of his hand.

“I
must go,” I said, starting to get up.

He
made no move to rise. “And where are you from?” he asked.

“I’m
a sea creature,” I said idiotically, but he laughed.

 “Why are you here?” I asked.

“I’m
an artist,” he said. “I come here to take in the beauty of this beach.” He
rose. “Maybe you’d like to see my studio. It’s just around that bluff there.”

Somehow,
we were standing in front of a small cement cottage. Had he carried me or had I
walked? I can’t recall. There was a little wooden walkway over the sand, and a
door, painted blue, with a bench on one side. He must have taken my hand, and I
went in.

Light
came in from a small skylight. The color of the air in his place was cool and
sheer. There was a paint-spattered worktable, three or four easels, and
canvases facing one wall. There were photographs tacked above them. Under the
skylight was a wide bed, draped with a quilt.

He
started showing me around, turning the paintings around and talking about them.
I didn’t know anything about art. “Thank you for inviting me, but I have to go
home.” I said something like that.

“No,”
he said, “stay awhile now. Let me see you,” and he guided me to a spot under
the skylight, holding my shoulders. “Let me have you,” he said.

I
felt a surge of desire and then it was as if I blacked out, the way my body
gave way. I was aware only of sensation and hunger. He smelled intoxicating,
his shirt smelled of wood smoke and paint and sea. I was drowning but I was
happy to drown. I would have drowned continuously forever.

It
was like rain after a drought. Everything in me came into bloom, filled up and
turned a shining face to the sky. I cannot describe—I don’t want to go on, but
to recall my story I must understand that afternoon. As if a sea creature, too
long on land, is returned to the ocean, or a land creature, close to drowning,
finds at last a rocky perch. Breath returns, gulping breaths, then the most
unexpected tranquility and relief and pleasure in everyday things.

Douglas
rose, finally, and went to his easel. He turned it so he faced the bed and
picked up a brush and palette. I watched him watching me. Like fish and visitor
in an aquarium, we were locked together across a transparent wall. I turned my
head in profile, and I remained there for minutes, maybe hours. I remained
there, really, for weeks and weeks.

Of
course, my family learned where I was, having a sordid affair with some mediocre
local artist. It must have fit with what my husband thought her knew of me. I
didn’t care at all.

Douglas
gave me a new name, Diana. I didn’t use Danu anymore. He said I was his new
model. While he painted me, I was to remain fixed, scarcely breathing. In the
evenings, he would make dinner. We talked very little. I looked forward to
lovemaking and sleep.

What
was in my heart I cannot say. In the long hours of holding still, I thought of
my children. They were with my younger sister. That much I learned. My husband
ensured I would have no contact with them. I tried to send messages, but they
were like notes in a bottle, bobbing on the waves. I never heard anything back.

 Douglas moved us inland, saying it would
prevent the sea from distracting me. “Distracting me?” I was incredulous. “The sea
is like breath to me.”

But
Douglas said it wasn’t safe by the water. “What if your husband found you?”

He
sold several paintings of me for a good sum and bought a house. It had everything:
bedrooms, kitchen, living room, windows. Trees hid it from the road. He made a
studio for himself.  He bought me clothes,
though I didn’t need a lot. His place became my new world. I felt I was drying
out inside those walls.

When
customers came, Douglas was gregarious and charming. After they left, though, he
would say that they bought his “less challenging” work, his landscapes and
nudes, and couldn’t understand his abstracts. I couldn’t either. When gallery
owners came, friends of his, I would put on my robe and go outside to watch the
sky. Douglas complained I wasn’t hospitable. But I didn’t like these people for
my own reasons. They knew I was the model and they felt free to look at me as
if I were still undressed.

Douglas
could be alive and pulsing, but he was also moody and remote. At first I liked
that, but after a while it made me lonely. He didn’t want to talk while he
painted. He didn’t want me to touch the paints. I was invited to see how his
paintings came out, but honestly, I didn’t care. It was just his vision of who
I was. I never saw myself in them.

“Tilt
your head up a little, Diana, no, down some, okay, good, hold still.”

I
held still because I had nowhere else to go.

* * * *

When
our daughter was born, she arrived with a bit of luminescence. Her birth kicked
something open in me. The presence of this new child, her tiny feet and fingers
blue-ish with the transparency of her skin, was like an invitation of spirit.
She seemed ethereal, made from something other than the usually sturdy stuff of
babies—half anima, eyes roaming, hands opening and closing, touching me.

Douglas
named her Elizabeth, after his mother. When she was a week old, I took her outdoors.
It was late March and windy. The big sky over the woods was marbled with
fast-moving clouds. “Look!” I said to Elizabeth, “See the sky?”

And
then Douglas’s voice pierced the wind, calling me, insistently. Worried, I rushed
back to the house.

“Are
you mad? The baby will catch her death of cold,” he said accusingly.

“She
is well wrapped up,” I answered, with more assurance in my voice than I’d felt
in months. I was an experienced mother. The child was fine.

“Come
in. I don’t like this,” Douglas said, holding the door open so I had to duck
under his arm. “You do things without thinking.” Douglas was often in his own
world, lost in his painting. But this was something I’d learned about him. He
was frightened by things he couldn’t control.

I
shrugged and went into the house.

By
then Elizabeth was hungry and I began to nurse her and sing to her. Douglas
didn’t come in. I heard his footsteps fade and knew he would be gone on one of
his long walks. I could have taken Elizabeth out then. Instead, I lay down beside
her while she slept and watched the sky. The storm clouds and glimpses of blue
reminded me of the ocean, and I grew more and more agitated.

Like
all babies, Elizabeth pursued independence. She learned to roll over, to crawl.
When she was 10 months old, she started teaching herself to walk, pulling
herself up the leg of the table and dipping and straightening her knees. When I
had seen this several times, I offered my two index fingers and let her toddle where
she wished. I did this with part of my mind enthralled and part of it closed
down, trying so hard not to remember the others.

When
I was pregnant with our second, Douglas’s paintings made me look like the
Madonna. He all but painted a halo around my head. But that was him again. There
was no saintliness in me. That pregnancy stoked the old misery. Instead of
feeling like I was giving birth it felt like something was eating me from the
inside. This baby absorbed my blood, my senses, my strength.

Indifferent,
I let Douglas name this one too, Eric. I nursed him, while Elizabeth played on
the bed next to me. I watched the top of my baby’s head firm, closing its soft
opening. I spoke nonsense with them. But that was about all I could do. I did
not know how I could open the world for them. I felt heavy and drained. At
night, when Douglas was asleep, my eyes remained open,

This
new baby provoked more memories, dim like watercolors but occasionally with spots
of vivid color. There would be murky depths, grey and brown, with bright white
shapes darting through it. I saw red and blue creatures in the water, and heard
the calls of whales. After all this time, I saw my sisters’ faces.

I
resolved to tell Douglas what was in my heart.

I
rehearsed a beginning: “There is something wrong.” But I couldn’t find any
words after that. How to say that I felt ripped apart?

Then
one day, casually, one of Douglas’s clients called someone “a fish out of
water.”

I
thought, that’s it!

Elizabeth
was sitting up at the table in her booster chair, and I was feeding Eric in the
highchair, when I told him. “I feel like a fish out of water, Douglas.” He was
startled at first; then he laughed. “I would say so, Diana. I’d say that’s
pretty obvious to everyone.”

I
stared at him. “It’s not a laughing thing,” I said.

“What
is it, then, Diana? Am I supposed to return you to the ocean?”

“Yes,”
I said.

“Shall
I throw the kids in after you?”

“They
can’t swim yet.”

“Oh,
I see. You will drown them in your misery first.”

I
didn’t know what he meant but I knew the look. He was angry, “They will learn,”
I said to him.

“Maybe
you should learn to drive,” Douglas shot back, “before you start giving
swimming lessons.” He picked up his plate and marched to the sink.

I
didn’t answer, but feelings battered me. I squeezed my hands together. Maybe color
rose in my eyes, because when Douglas came back for the platter, he stared at
me for a moment with a curious expression.

“There
is something wrong.” I said to him. He turned his back. “I am not whole.” He
remained facing the sink.

When
he finally turned, he exploded. “What the hell do you want, Diana? I’ve given
you everything!” His face was red and his head was trembling. “You haven’t
tried to meet people or fit in, I can’t do it for you!” His fists came down on
the table, starting both children howling.

A
final wave of memories broke over me. My husband’s anger exploded like that. I had
fled from it, let myself be “rescued” by a seemingly gentler man, taken to a
place where I could not be found. But only part of me went. Where were the other
parts? Where were my other children, my furred and soaking skin?

I
stood up, keeping the table between us. “No, Douglas,” I said, “you haven’t
given me everything I want.”

“What
fucking thing haven’t I given you?” and he began to come around the table. I
lifted Elizabeth from her chair and reached an arm for Eric until he pushed it
away. “What are you in need of, Diana?”

“I
have to leave here.”

“If
you go, you go without the kids, hon. Because you’re crazy and I could prove
that to a judge in a heartbeat.”

And
then the last memory hit me. Their voices were even similar: “You go without
the kids.”

Douglas
stormed off on one of his walks. I watched him until he disappeared below a
rise in the road. Then I went into his “off limits” studio. A palette knife was
lying on an easel tray. I picked it up and felt its weight. Then I stopped
feeling. There were three paintings of me propped against the wall, the ones
where I was pregnant with Eric. I cut long gashes in them. In the closet I
found the older paintings and sketches of me and sliced them into strips as
well. Carefully, I returned the knife to its place.

 I went back to the house, packed what I could
carry, and left with Elizabeth and Eric.

I
walked three miles to a bus station, and we took a long bus ride to the water’s
edge. Once there we walked a long way down the beach, to a remote spot I knew. We
stopped at last, Elizabeth beside me, Eric in my arms.

The
sun was high and bright and the beach cliffs were blooming with ice plants, grasses
and scores of sand crabs. Elizabeth screamed with laughter at the touch of the cold
water, and Eric clutched me with fascination and apprehension.

The
wind blew stronger. We climbed out to the end of a rock jetty that stretched
into the water. And there, beyond the breakers I saw three wet brown heads. I
thought I might.

They
played and dove and came to the surface as I watched. It was the happiest I’d
felt in ages. But then they pulled themselves onto the rocks and stretched out
in the sun. I called urgent warnings to them, “Beware! Beware!” but my voice
was lost in the wind.

I
drew Elizabeth and Eric to me. What if I could change their jackets to sealskins?
“Come,” I’d say. “We’ll swim out. Would you like to meet some other children?” Is
there anything that could coax them into the ocean?

What
if this wind, filled with sand, could polish our bodies to sleekness so we could
pass through the seaweed and floating driftwood until we reached the open ocean.
What if my new children grew gills?

The
sea’s vastness can hold anything. I will start teaching my new ones to live in
water. They’ll meet the others, Ronan, Meara and the baby. One day I will tell
all of them my story. They will understand. “You had no choice, Mama.” I don’t
know if children ever understand such a thing. But they might find a way to
patch the rips and tears, regard each other’s differences with affection.
Children can give us a second chance. One day, one day, I could be whole.

END