Something in the Water

Something in the Water

I didn’t know what to do with Derek’s remains. I hated people who displayed urns on their mantle pieces like trophies. Also, our house didn’t have a fireplace; it had a television set. I could have put the urn on that but it might have slipped off the sloped back, and what a thing for our son to see over his Saturday morning Cocoa Puffs. I didn’t want to dispose of it at the service, though, because -- well, it seemed morbid, I supposed, or something like that, to treat what came down to intimate garbage disposal like a prop in a circus performance. The Magical Derek Eats Fire And Escapes This World.

So after talking it over with his mother and my son the Tuesday following my husband’s death, I walked to the riverside carrying a balsawood box provided by the crematorium. Nice and poetic. And in the shadow of a bridge I crouched down and flipped it over so that the lid fell open. The ash slumped out in a mess of dead matter after I tapped the bottom twice.

It dusted my fingers with gray, hit water without a sound, barely breaking the scummy surface. The spill had been so fast, but the sink was so slow, as if through tar or treacle, flakes lowering by merciless degrees.

I brushed myself off and leaned over the curb, the better to watch him ripple away.

It would have been a long wait at that pace of dissolution, but the rain started and the water sealed itself up. I told myself that if he was still there after the rain his presence would have to be measured in parts per million, in saturation constants, not in something I could hold vigil over, so I got to my feet.

By that time my short hair was as wet as the knees of my jeans: strands of it clung to my cheek unpleasantly, scattering droplets. I tucked the strands behind my ear, but the droplets stretched into cold lines, and the muscles of my face ached under my clammy rain-pinstriped skin, which felt like it might have congealed into a papier-mâché mask while I was waiting.

I thought: I do not want the mess of a face that I saw in the mirror this morning caked on my bones like plaster, but rubbing at the lines with the heel of my palm made my wrist numb.

Besides -- sometimes, after a shower, he’d dragged his wet bitten nails diagonally from the corner of my mouth to the edge of my ear while I settled against his side. Surely the analogue, lines to lines, counted for something, was worth something.

I thought: I do want to hold details of him like that in place, to sew his past to my eyelids; but the memory, so startling in its clarity, was already fading.

Two unfulfilled wants, those thoughts, curling somewhere in my gut. Maybe they hurt: wobbling, familiar pains. I wasn’t too concerned, I was happy to keep my eyes raised to the high shop fronts, the peeling white paint and pinkish gray stone of the city’s upper levels, and I walked home in the rain, not listening to the echoes in my empty head.

Our son was in the living room where I’d left him, eating slices of cold salmon from the funeral reception while my mother-in-law threaded her fingers through his thin fair hair. She was trembling and William’s head bobbed up and down like a toy, but he didn’t seem to mind.

They were watching a commercial for expensive shampoo, and they’d slid off the faded sofa and onto the floor, piled up against the foot of the coffee table, far too close to the screen.

“Hey, you two,” I said, turning on the light because shadows crowded the room with story-tale grief, although the humming of the fluorescent bulbs almost made me wish I hadn’t. William looked at me with his big frog eyes, pupils surprised by the shine. The rims of iris were too thin around those darkness-swollen pupils to resemble his father’s, though I knew William’s were the same pale blue, the color of deoxygenated blood.

There was a scrap of salmon skin on his lower lip, dark patterned brown against smooth pink. “Hi, Mom,” he said, and sucked it off, a flash of milk teeth.

His grandmother said “Adelaide,” like it was a greeting. She’d liked my name when Derek first brought me home. Such a pretty name, she’d said.

She looked dead, much deader than her son did before I had him burned. Her face fallen in, a false partition that had hid a space cluttered with unwanted secrets. She‘d stolen my son’s blanket, which was probably why he was hugging his knees. He hadn’t changed out of the flimsy blue shirt he’d worn for the reception, either.

“You all right, honey?” she said, sitting up, hand still on him. “It’s done?”

I wanted to tell her to get out, to stop caressing my son‘s skull. Gently, so gently, I said, “I’m all right. I… said goodbye.” Again. It came as news to me, that there was so little finality to funeral rites. Just a series of small deaths.

“That’s fine. That’s just fine. It’s what he would have wanted, you know. Maybe he’ll make it all the way to the ocean, huh? Wouldn’t that be nice?” she said, apparently to William. “The circle of life. Have you seen the Lion King, Will?” She was one of those who believed that most important lessons could be taught via Disney animation.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did you like it?”

“Yes. I liked the part with the bananas, and the big flaming balls of gas.”

“It’s almost five,” I said, a little louder.

“Oh.” She let the blanket slither off her. It uncurled like a fat caterpillar. William edged away. “I should get back to the hotel. Richard will be waiting.”

“Yes,” I said, and helped her up, patting her on the back when she was vertical. Her shirt was weirdly sheer, and the callused stretch of skin between my thumb and forefinger caught on the fabric as I steadied her. I’d meant to squeeze her narrow shoulder, but I didn’t like that catching roughness. Instead I gave her a quick, awkward, one-armed hug.

“Thank you for taking care of him for me, Mary,“ I said. Even I wasn’t sure if I was being ironic.

She stank of soap, detached herself from my ribcage reluctantly when I withdrew.

“It was nice,” she said. “You should send him to see me more often. He looks so much like Derek.”

“I know,” I lied. “And I will.”

“I’m right here,” William whined.

“Yes you are,” she told him, and bent to kiss him on the forehead, thin mouth hollowing in a loving O that blew his bangs up, that did not leave any shining mark. “And we are all glad for that. Stay safe, darling.”

She unbent to kiss me on the cheek. “We’ll both be by tomorrow morning to say a proper goodbye before our flight, Adelaide.”

I nodded and clasped her hand. “Stay for brunch,” I said, because my husband would not have asked me to, because I would have done it for him. Habit like a second mind, a second mouth, which was just as well because my own faltered like I breathed, often and desperately.

“We certainly will,” the old woman said, and walked out door I‘d left hanging open when I stumbled in, which she closed behind her, conscientious. She was the kind of woman who had never had a library fine and I envied her precise, fidgety recollection, her exact grief.

William scooted over to me and hugged my leg as soon as we heard the latch snick shut. “I don’t want to go to Grandma’s,” he mumbled, pressing his face against my jeans. My shins were bruised from kneeling and his sharp little nose hurt, but I was glad not to be alone in my unreasoned dislike: so I picked him up, although he was eight years old and surprisingly heavy for all that his delicate bones almost poked through the thin flesh of his wrists.

He relocated his face on my collarbone, unperturbed by the altitude change, and snuffled against the hollow at the base of my throat, while I shifted his weight so that he was sitting over my arm. I rocked him sideways, his toes skimming back and forth across my thigh.

“You don’t have to go to Grandma’s,” I murmured, kissing the top of his head. Another time I would have made disapproving sounds and swatted him, but if there was ever a time to indulge him and me, it was now, right? Now, when I could feel his heart stuttering through his concave chest.

“Thanks,” he hummed; I felt it more than I heard it, vibrating through my ribs. He seemed content to stay suspended. I was starting to feel like a set of monkey bars, though -- a sore set of monkey bars -- and he was milky-sour in my nostrils, I could see traces of sweat on his folded eyelids. There was indulgence, and then there was indulgence, although it took me a minute to work out what it was I had to do about his filthiness, a practicality that forced its way through the fog.

“You need a bath, kiddo.”

His mouth slanted unhappily while I rubbed circles between his shoulder blades and made a beeline for the stairs. “But Dad gave me baths,” he said, which was true, which was why I hadn’t remembered before. It might or might not also have been a clever ploy to escape the unwanted ministrations but either way it paused me there, on the bottom step.

My husband had liked washing things: dishes, windows, countertops, kids. He’d kept bathing William long after he should have, really, claiming that he never got to spend time alone with him, otherwise. He babied William. We’d argued about it. And I wasn’t sure that it was okay to recall the late-night arguments, the jittery words and broken dishes, that it was okay to use the fact of his absence to do it my way. If I even had a way. Christ, I hadn’t washed dishes since college. I’d never washed William at all, not even when he was nursing -- that was when I gratefully passed him over to his father. I wasn’t even sure I remembered where to scrub. Behind his ears? Hadn’t scientists proved that scrubbing behind the ears damaged hearing, years ago?

The boy had pulled away. He stared at me, trembling with the complex, helpless defiance of small children.

I stared at him, trembling with something else entirely, and backed up against the wall and slid down until I was slouched across several blessedly carpeted steps and William was sprawled over me, his round arms wrapped around my waist, chin digging into my belt. I closed my eyes for a while. There was a headache coming on, a pounding knot in the hollowed bone above my right eyebrow.

“Sorry,” William mumbled, when I opened my eyes.

“It’s okay. Let’s get you cleaned up, huh? You might have to help, since Dad isn‘t here. Can you do that?” Can you tell me how to wipe off all this grief, I asked, with my fingertips. I doubt it carried through his downy skin.

“Yeah,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “I can take a bath by myself, even. Honest.” I eyed him dubiously. “I was only being silly.”

“Thank you, William,” I said. He straightened up and balled his left fist and tried to salute, the gesture sharp and ludicrous. “You know I’m proud of you.“

His eyes were fever-bright, and he shrugged at my intent expression, looked down at his socks. Blushed. That fragile stain of veined red, so lovely. He was paler than either Derek or I had been as children, paler and more inclined to embarrassment.

I looked at our worried son and climbed after him when he trotted upwards. The back of his head was silhouetted against the light of the landing, and it rose like a balloon.

He was stripping down when I caught up with him, pants pooling lopsidedly on the broad tiles. His left foot caught in the tangled trousers, he stood balanced on one leg as he kicked at stiff corduroy, mouth bunched up. He seemed reluctant to finish stripping off any one garment; he moved anxiously, unfocused, trying to undo his buttons and free his foot at the same time.

I stopped his small bird hands and said, “Let me help you with that.”

He flinched.

“I told you I can do it, Mom.”

“I know you can,” I said, sketching nervous nonsense patterns like fish on his breast pocket with my twitching fingers as I dropped to his level. “But you don’t have to do it all.”

“Dad’s gone,” he started.

“And I‘m not,” I finished, before he could shatter my delicate equilibrium.

He nodded, and let go of his collar. He didn‘t say anything more in all the minutes I spent undressing him. It was warm and bright in that small oddly-shaped roomful of porcelain and polished brass, and I could see the goosebumps on his calves, delineated by heavy gold light.

“Why don’t you put on a towel while I run the water,” I said, carefully.

He did. The towel was too small for him, hanging like a poncho; it didn’t cover his skinny legs, but he didn’t shiver, and seemed content to perch on the closed toilet seat, drawing the rough cloth up to his chin. He looked like a moth, huddled under milky wings. I ran the water.

When he did speak up, it wasn’t what I’d expected.

“Where’d Dad go?” he said, as I rolled up my sleeve and dipped my arm elbow-deep the hot water, luxuriating in how the warmth blotted out the soreness.

“Somewhere nice,” I said wearily, hating myself a little. “Heaven. Didn’t your grandma talk to you --”

“Not that,” he said, dismissing cupids and clouds and sugar-sweet metaphysics with a shrug. “The ash. After you put it in the water. Where’d it go?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What do you mean?”

He said with an air of much-tried patience, “Grandma said it would go to the ocean, but Mrs. Lewinsky --”

“Who?”

“My geography teacher. She said that the river goes to the reservoir, it doesn‘t end up at the ocean at all. So that can’t be right.”

“Oh.” He’d been wondering about that since she’d left? “So it’ll end up at the reservoir.”

“Okay. Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What’s the reservoir, again?”

I stuck my other arm in the water, too quickly, viciously, because I wasn’t sure how many more questions I could take. He was staring up at the ceiling, and he didn’t pay attention when I pulled back as quickly and sucked on my knuckles. I added cold water until I suspected any more would make it lukewarm. “You can get in now,” I said.

He hopped off the seat and padded over, pausing for just long enough to let me bundle the towel away before easing in. There was no hesitation. It was hard to tell whether that was because he trusted me or because he was eager to prove -- something.

“Is this okay? Do you want me to stay?” I said, while he lay back.

“I can do it,” he said, but continued speaking when I pushed myself to my feet. “So what’s the reservoir?”

I sighed. “It’s a man-made lake. Like Crystal Springs. Reservoirs are where we get tap water. We went for a walk there once, you remember.”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling a little. “Okay. We could go again?”

“Yes, we could. You‘d like that?”

“Yeah.”

The silence bloomed around that secret curve of a smile, reshaping the slack contours of his face. He glowed like a deep-sea jellyfish, there in the water, glowed like walking around an artificial lake would bring his father back.

“Will you be okay?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, not turning his head from where it was pillowed on a wash-cloth. “You don’t have to stay.”

“Maybe I should.”

He blew on the calm lovely green water, the color of glass viewed at a slant, and his reflection turned glassy as it fell apart, then vanished. But in that instant of distortion, the mirrored face elongated, and the wet mirrored hair was dark blond, almost someone else’s brown, and the mirrored eyes were very blue.

“Tap water,” he said. “Is this tap water?”

“Yes.”

“Tap. Water.”

He gazed at me in mute horror and I understood what he was picturing, the nightmare he’d conjured to fend off a far realer horror. I understood, yeah. Maybe too quickly, as if I'd been pregnant with the idea, desperate for it to be articulated, cut out of me. That old guilt.

“William, there are filters they use before any water leaves the reservoir. You are not washing with your father’s ashes,” I said, slowly, enunciating each word so that I would hear.

“I know that,” he muttered. “I’m not stupid. I just -- I don’t know. I thought maybe. His… ghost. Maybe he’s not gone.”

And he was waiting, brimming with the question.

“There is no such thing as ghosts,” I said (to myself).

I had to catch my breath out in the hallway. I had to cling to the paneled wall, a leaf betrayed by wind and sudden frost, thrown off-guard by just how much I wanted to live that fantasy. Ghosts. For god’s sake. Apparently I was desperate enough for Derek that it didn’t matter if he was present only in the water, as long as he was there.

“I can’t do this,” I said to the landing as I descended. The landing made no reply.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, I glared at the dirty dishes, stacked like moons in the shade of a raised cabinet. I filled the oversized mug he’d once made his morning coffee in with tap goddamn water, thank you very much, and drank too deeply.

Please, I thought, choking down liquid that overflowed from my sore mouth.

Two observations:

The hard swallow tasted quite ordinary but for a sweet edge of regret.

When I threw the cup at the wall, it cracked. Sounded like ripping silk. I watched the dust settle for two minutes and seventeen seconds. Then I watched the treacherous light glitter off glazed ceramic and linoleum and water spreading across the sticky floor for exactly eleven minutes more.

And then I went back upstairs to knock on the door, an apology in my knuckles if not my voice.

“William,“ I said, “are you ready to come out?”

“I guess,” he called, though I came in to find him still rinsing out his hair; I glimpsed streaks of shampoo, white lace on his hairline, blending in with the translucent blond roots. Eventually he wiped that off with his thumb, and turned to greet me with a small gleaming face.

“All done?” I said. I was shaking.

“What?” he said, water dripping out of one ear.

“I said, all done?”

“Yeah.”

“You should get out now. The water will get lukewarm, and then you’ll catch cold.”

“Okay,” he said, and obeyed. “I’m sorry I said that. About ghosts. I was sad, that’s all.”

“I know,” I said, handing him the towel. “You don’t have to say sorry. I was upset, but not at you. Never at you. What a stupid thing to get upset over, right? Tap water.”

He dried off while I pulled the plug and watched water spiral down the drain.

In our room, later still, I lay on the unmade bed and tried to find whatever peace William had seen in the ceiling. I counted three stains there, where the brownish water damage was shaped like other worlds, and thought of the one damp spot on my pillow, which was shaped like my skull. I’d taken my stiff jeans off, and my jacket, with its zipper that dug into my stomach where my shirt had ridden up, and its sleeves rolled tight around my elbows. I’d even put aside the towel hanging off me. Discomforts so familiar, so reliable, that it was a shock to find I could rest without them, could disintegrate into a shallow sleep, sand in my eyes, the insectile clatter of rain on the roof in my ears.

Drowsing, I thought: Reservoirs. They’re where we get tap water. And bathwater.

But rain, too.

Drowsing, I dreamed:

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” I said. Derek leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead.

“I’m melting,” he said. And he was.

When I woke, the sky was gray and pale in contrast with the cool fat darkness of the bedroom. I touched the center of my forehead. My fingertips came away wet. I reached over, pulled the lamp-cord, and glanced up to see a leak overhead.