That baby girl wasn’t mine, and I knew it soon as I saw her pale skin, luminescent green eyes, and seaweed hair.
My wife, Anna, looked up at me, sweaty from the effort of childbirth. “Don’t you say one word, Walter.” The little girl latched onto her breast.
I didn’t say a word. What was there to say? A shoe factory worker like me didn’t have much place to complain about a kid that wasn’t his. My high school championship wrestling trophy wasn’t doing me many favors ten years out. It made sense that she’d been with another guy. Lucky she came back to me at all.
Anna glowed with that little baby clutched to her breast. There’s a certain shine a woman gets after childbirth. Dark bags hung under bright, luminescent eyes.
“Grace,” Anna said. “Grace Nicole Jones.”
I stroked the little girl’s seaweed hair. Gracie was beautiful.
Sure, I was upset. What decent man wouldn’t be? But Gracie was as good a daughter as I could ever expect to have. Did it matter who the father really was?
I swore then that I wouldn’t say one word about it. Not ever.
I nearly said a word.
Three months of Gracie crying, fussing, and not a bit of sleep wore at my nerves. Anna stopped breastfeeding when the baby’s wicked sharp tooth cut her a bloody mess.
An old trail ran from our house along the banks of the Mississippi. Anna said there was magic there. Sometimes she took Gracie down there. Once, she took me.
Gracie’s seaweed green hair had faded to a golden blonde. The green only showed as a wispy halo of emerald in the sunrise or sunset. Her green eyes still sparkled. Skin, pale at birth, had transformed to a nearly translucent white. She was like a porcelain doll when she held still. Not that she did. Stay still. Ever.
Gracie fussed in that special place, so I picked her up out of her stroller and carried her. Anna was to go back to work the next day. We needed the money. Anna would work third shift at the casino, so that we could avoid having to pay much for daycare. I wanted to assure Anna that her baby was in good hands.
“I love you like my own,” I said as I patted Gracie’s back.
Anna scowled. “Don’t you say that,” she said. “Not now, not ever.”
Frustrated, I sputtered. then did what I always did—I shut up. That evening, Anna was cold to me. Colder than she’d ever been.
Gracie was a brilliant, beautiful two-year-old girl. She never really learned to sleep through the night, transitioning from midnight feedings to regular night terrors. Her teeth came in all sharp, but straight, and her green eyes glowed in the moonlight.
I’d wrestle with her every day. Getting an elbow lock on me thrilled her every time. She’d giggle and laugh. Anna would frown and shake her head.
Gracie and I were home together when she fell down the steps in front of our house. She cried and cried. The little girl didn’t know many words, but “ow” and “hurts” were two of them, and she used them plenty.
But she cried so much. It tore my heart out to hear her cry so hard. She wouldn’t listen to my voice. That was the first time I noticed how she wouldn’t look me in the eyes.
“I love you, Gracie,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.”
It wasn’t okay. When Anna arrived home that night she blamed me for what happened. She didn’t say it, but it was in her eyes when she glared down at me.
“We need to take her to the hospital,” Anna said.
Her arm needed a cast. As she healed, Gracie would shoot distrustful looks my direction. It pierced my heart, seeing in her in pain, but seeing her distrust was far worse. Anna wasn’t much better. It seemed neither of them were going to give me much respect. So I got a dog.
After that Gracie would never make eye contact. It was hard for me to remember if she had ever done it before.
By the time she was four, Gracie’s doctors were using words like “autism spectrum” and “attention deficit.” All I knew was that Gracie was more difficult than any other kid I knew. She had a rigid adherence to strange rules that only she understood.
Rufus, my dog, took a liking to the girl. He was a Lab mix, and his energy was nearly enough to keep up with her.
One psychiatrist went on and on about obsessive behavior being a sign for autism. “Your daughter certainly loves fish,” the doctor said. “This is just one sign.”
Gracie loved eating fish, catching fish, drawing fish, sculpting fish. She drew the most beautiful fish using all sixty-four crayons from her box, and I only wish it hadn’t been on the dining room wall.
She would sit still with a fishing rod in her hands for hours. How could this girl have attention deficit problems? Any time either of us caught a fish she talked to it, called it beautiful, and asked it where it had been and what it had seen. She learned from them about the man under the water.
“Who is the man under the water?” she asked me.
I didn’t have an answer for her.
She loved eating the fish she caught, though it’s not good to always eat fish from the mighty Mississippi. When I explained how dirty the river was, she looked very sad and thoughtful.
“But why?” she asked.
Again, I had no answer.
Once, when we fished the Mississippi near Anna’s magical place, the water went placid, despite a stiff wind. The area around our boat became like a mirror, reflecting the bluffs.
Gracie leaned over the edge. She smiled. Waved. By the time I got up next to her, the stillness had dissipated.
“What did you see?” I asked.
She smiled. “It was the man under the water. He waved at me.”
Gracie’s first day of Kindergarten did not go well. Halfway through the day I got a call and had to leave the factory.
“She bit one of the other students,” said the principal. “We don’t stand for that behavior here.” Her voice was stern, as if she were scolding me for the transgression. As if I should have raised a better little girl who wouldn’t do such things.
Gracie grinned sheepishly from her seat across the room. Her smile was jagged with her wicked teeth. I wondered if her behavior was due to her real father or just some aspect of being a little girl who didn’t fit in. I still didn’t say a word.
The principal sighed. “She can come back tomorrow, but I think it’s best if you take her home today.”
It wasn’t best, but I didn’t argue. I wondered if Gracie had drawn blood with those teeth of hers. Probably.
Missing work was bad, but they could afford to go without me for the afternoon. Explaining to my boss would be easy, but having to explain to Anna terrified me.
Gracie spent the rest of the day wrestling playfully with Rufus, and I spent that night curled up on the sofa, head in my hands. Weeping.
It was Valentine’s Day and Gracie was eight.
Used to be that Anna and I didn’t involve ourselves in traditional Valentine’s Day gift-giving. For that day, and every day, she would have my love. My whole self. Everything and all of it.
That year I only gave Anna flowers. I was too exhausted to give anything else. Anna smiled sadly at the arrangement of lavender and roses as she placed them near the window.
When I looked later, they were in the garbage.
I asked Gracie why they were there.
“They’re not good flowers,” she said. “They’re stinky.”
I sighed. Gracie’s rules, again. It wasn’t an allergy, but rather a sensitivity to certain smells. Lavender was, apparently, offensive.
She stuck out her chin, her whole body tense and ready for a fight. I didn’t give it to her. Rescuing the flowers wouldn’t make anything better.
She was ten when I said those words.
Gracie was terrible at school. She barely tolerated it. Most days went without injury, but even the special arrangements we had for her didn’t alleviate her wild nature. Every day could be the day they finally kicked her out. The day something happened that made them give up.
But I would never give up. How stubborn I had become.
Then, one day, she wanted to participate in the Science Fair. She came up with her own project, varying how she fed some otherwise identical fish and measuring their outcomes in size and color.
Anna didn’t help at all. Due to her working second shift, I hardly ever saw her. Even on weekends we were like passing barges. This had gone on for years, so it hardly seemed strange. It almost didn’t seem bad.
The experiment worked perfectly. Gracie worked so hard on it. It wasn’t the prettiest project, but her numbers were good.
It was fine.
I was so proud.
On the way to the Science Fair, Gracie sat quietly with the folded project board on her lap. She had pulled her blonde hair back into a long braid and she had long ago learned to smile with her mouth shut. The girl almost looked normal.
“Are you excited?” I asked.
She didn’t respond for a long time, and I wondered if she heard.
“No,” she said.
Gracie was an honest girl.
Soon after we set up her display, the boy assigned to the next spot set up his. His experiment involved watering mint plants with various substances.
Gracie reacted the second he came close. He lined up his tiny flowerpots, each with a fresh, abhorrent plant. She shook her head, silent at first.
“It’s okay, Gracie.” I put my hands on her shoulders to steady her. I tried to meet her eyes, but she wouldn’t do it. “I’ll talk to the people in charge. We’ll move our display.”
“No, no, no.” She vigorously shook her head. “Move him.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I gave an apologetic look to the boy’s mother. I wished so much that Anna had come. But, no, I could leave Gracie for a few minutes, couldn’t I?
It took time to track down someone in charge, and the results were less than helpful. No, we couldn’t move. Why would anyone want to move? Her voice said, “I’m afraid I can’t change the rules.” Her eyes said, “That’s not a good reason, and you’re a bad parent for asking.”
But Gracie’s special, I wanted to say. She’s different! She’s not like the other kids and she’s so smart and wonderful and you’ll never get it because you only see me as a bad parent and her as a bad kid.
I didn’t say those things. I should have.
Gracie shoved the boy, her face red with anger. I pulled her off. Tried to help pick up the project. Gracie flailed, out of control. Without a word, I hauled her out of the fair and to the car. Some random parent trailed behind us with her project. I don’t even know who it was.
It mortified me. Ashamed me. Devastated me.
Anna woke when we burst into the house. Gracie went to the back yard and started tearing apart her project in a fit of rage.
“Oh,” Anna said. Nothing more.
“What?” I snapped. “What could I do? I didn’t see you helping and she sure tried her best.”
Outside, the red-faced little girl cried huge tears and tore her cardboard in half. She ripped at it with her pointy teeth. Rufus watched from a safe distance.
Anna said nothing.
I slumped, energy gone out of me. “I wonder sometimes if she gets this from her real father.”
Gracie’s shouts ceased. Had she heard? No, she wasn’t in the back yard anymore.
She was gone.
Anna broke into tears. “No,” she sobbed. “You said it. I told you not to.” She thumped her fists into my chest. “Why? I thought you understood.”
Then, I knew then what I had done. The unspoken thing between us shattered. A weight lifted.
My little girl was gone.
Anna touched my shoulder, as if she didn’t know how to comfort someone in so much pain. I buried my face in my hands. Sitting next to me, she pulled me close.
“Why?” I asked.
After a time, Anna answered. “I was so lonely back then. He was there. He came from the river. He said if we ever spoke of it, she would go live with her true father.”
“He said it, so that makes it true?”
“He’s magical, Walter.” She put a hand up to stop me from commenting. “He lives in the river. It’s his river.”
“And now he has our daughter.”
“There’s nothing we can do. She’s his daughter.”
But I was done doing nothing.
Anna followed me to that magic place on the shore of the Mississippi. The melting ice was open, and a ripple of waves lapped at slush.
I felt a sealed plastic bag from my pocket. I must have pocketed it at the Science Fair. It contained a few sprigs of mint. “She probably gets her dislike of this plant from her father. I’ll cram it down his throat.”
Anna blinked. “Give that to me.”
I did.
“If you have it,” she said, “Gracie won’t come to you. I’ll hold it. She wouldn’t come to me, anyway.”
“This is what you’ve always done, isn’t it?” I asked her as we walked down to the shore. “You kept me from saying anything by driving me away.”
She didn’t answer.
As the sun peeked over the treetops of the Wisconsin shore, the river became unnaturally calm.
“Walter,” she said. There was fear in her voice. “What do we do? What if he won’t come out?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Then, shouted, “Gracie!”
A minute passed, with nothing to show for my hollering. The river sat eerily calm, and the man; Anna’s lover; didn’t emerge.
“This is the place?” I asked.
Anna nodded.
“All right, then.”
I shed off my coat; threw my hat and gloves to the ground. My boots I kept until the mirror water lapped at my toes. Then, I slipped out of those, too.
Maybe if Gracie had been an easy kid, I wouldn’t have done it. If every day hadn’t been an exhausting struggle for sanity, maybe I’d have let her live with her father. As the water numbed my toes, I realized that this was the first time I had fought for her, but I had always fought for her.
I was her father.
The cold of just-melted river is not the cold of ice. It did not bite like ice—it penetrated. The frigid grip sank so deep, so fast that I stumbled as muscles seized.
But I kept going.
“I’m coming for her,” I shouted to the river. “I’m her father, and I’m taking my daughter back.”
The slope was steep. My legs sank deep into the muck. Breath burst from my lungs as my middle went under. I stopped. Pulled in another breath. Went under.
Time did not pass in such cold.
A fish passed in front of me, silver and quick. A Northern. Its emerald eyes flashed. It swam around me, nipped at my face.
Green rays streaked through the ice, giving everything a dull glow. Mud sucked at my feet as I struggled forward. My arms—sluggish and slow—propelled me forward.
Then, he appeared out of the murky depths.
His seaweed hair drifted around his sleek body. His eyes were piercing green, sharp, even through the blur of murky waters. The man was muscled. Strong. He was fast. Much faster than me.
I could not speak to him, but he knew what I wanted.
The fish swam between us, then the man and I wrestled. Our arms locked. He was strong and lean, but I had weight.
Not that weight would do me much good underwater.
I ceded his strength, sank low and twisted to gut-wrench him. He slipped loose, avoiding an elbow lock. We separated.
He looked at me, his green eyes dancing across me, sizing me up. My lungs tore at my chest. I needed a home run move.
I would get my daughter back or I would die trying.
We closed again. His hands shot through the water almost faster than I could see, but I grabbed a wrist. He snapped with sharp teeth, but I was too quick. We parted.
Again, we locked together. My fingers, stiff from cold, barely held as he squirmed and fought, but I had him. I twisted his arm and locked his elbow.
Our eyes met. The green in his eyes flashed anger. Frustration. Hatred. Fear.
Then, he stopped. He looked away.
I let go, and the man under the water swam away, defeated.
My vision darkened, and the cold took me. Air bubbled from my lungs.
Slender arms wrapped around my body and clutched me tight. The last thing I remember was Anna coming to meet us in the water. They pulled me out.
Gracie and I still fish the Mississippi. Whenever we do, the man under the water greets us. He never tries to take Gracie. He knows who her true father is.
So do we.
About the Author
Anthony Eichenlaub’s short fiction has appeared in Kzine, Asymmetry Fiction, and Kobold Quarterly. He has two novels in the Metal and Men series, and he spends his time in Rochester, Minnesota, teaching writing classes and gardening. His website is anthonyeichenlaub.com.