I ran that night. As far as I could. At first, I had no destination. Not that I understood. But something seemed to beckon to me like a siren, calling me to the darkness of the sea.
I reached a bridge over the inlet between the ocean and the Delaware Bay. The water surrounded me, buffering everything that stormed inside. Quieting the tempest.
At the next town, I turned down a narrow side street and followed it to the coast. When I got out of the pickup, I heard the faint murmur of the surf. Like a sandpiper, I followed it until my shoes sank into dry, soft sand.
The beach was wide and empty. I stopped, listening to the water and smelling the crisp, salty air. It was the exact spot where the party had been years before. A reminder of the last time I tried to run. But on that night, I was utterly alone.
Slowly, I moved closer to the ocean. A few feet from where the sand was darkened by the surf, I sat. Running my hand through the sand, I saw the tip of the moon rising over the horizon. It sent jagged light reflecting off the choppy surface like a thousand mermaids cresting and diving in the night. Calling out to me with their cloying laughter.
Then I saw my mother’s finger. The light hairs of the gypsy moth vibrating as it climbed onto my young hand.
I could be free.
The thought invaded. It came uncalled-for and unexpected. I pushed it back, unwilling to believe it. But it came back with each slap of a wave breaking, with each hiss of the ocean returning into itself.
Could I?
I hung my head, resting it in my sandy hands. As my eyes closed, the sound flashed through the murmur of the waves. My brother’s voice.
It’s not right.
You shouldn’t be treated like that.
You shouldn’t just take it.
I have your back, bro.
The surf reached my feet. In an instant, the water soaked through shoes and socks. It had to be frigid but I felt nothing. The waves rolled in, crashed, and hissed up and down the sand. But I heard nothing. The salty air stuck to the heat of my cheeks, but I smelled nothing.
Mom.
That word might as well have been some primordial gear, grinding and pushing one foot forward, and then the other. I walked slowly, purposefully, out into the Atlantic. Muscles fought the push of the ocean. My heart raced and the blood pumped harder and harder. Yet the last shreds of myself, the core of me, that damaged pit hidden so deeply and darkly inside of my being, did nothing. It succumbed to the weight of it all, and my feet moved ever forward.
I did not scream out in rage. I did not pull at my hair in pain. I simply moved slowly forward, deeper and deeper into the ocean. Everything I had done in this life came back to me, and my decision—if you could call it that—made more and more sense. I was not meant for this existence of balance and order. I was chaos, like the storming ocean. I was chaos like the swirling waters. I needed to be stopped. It needed to be stopped.
The water rose above my waist and my chest seized. A wave hit my face and I staggered back, almost losing my footing. A sound pulled out of me, a keening that rose above the surf. I dug through the water with my arms, needing to keep going forever.
I don’t know if I wanted to die. That desire seems simplistic. What I wanted to do was escape the truth. But that can’t be done. It follows you like a dormant virus, lying in ambush. It remains inside you, waiting, watching. You can’t run from yourself. There’s only one way to kill that kind of virus. You have to kill the host.
The water reached my face. My feet floated off the sand. I held my breath, frustrated, paddling against the force of the water. It should have been easy. I should have been able to simply walk away and never come back. But something pulled my body to the surface every time I tried to stay under the water.
So I dove. I put my hands out in front of me and cut through the water. I reached the ocean floor. My fingers dug into the sand. I tried to hold on. All I had to do was breathe. Take water into me. Then I would sink.
I opened my mouth, ready to drown myself.
Mom!
I so wanted to be with her again. Just to sit beside her. Touch her hand. Listen to her voice as she spoke softly, sweetly to me. Her absence continued to be such a gaping wound inside me that, in the moment, only the ocean seemed to have the power to fill.
I closed my eyes. Through the briny water, I swear I felt her fingertips brush across my face, run through my hair. My hands opened and I reached for her. Willing myself to drift away from this world and find her in another.
The icy water quieted time. I found peace in that moment, a peace so foreign to me that I would never have been able to call it that. I just felt so close to her. Like I was floating slowly, gently into a future that never could have been.
My lungs burned. I opened my mouth as if the sea might douse the raging fires inside me. One breath, and it would have been over. One breath, and I would have joined my mother forever.
Then I saw her. Not Mom, but Patsy. And I saw her finger brushing away a stray wisp of hair. Her hand slipping across her stomach protectively.
No . . .
My eyes shot open. The realization pierced the cold and my fleeting peace. My brother was going to be a father.
Suddenly, I knew why I had walked out into the ocean. Why I had tried to end it all. It wasn’t the anger I saw on Patsy’s face in the bar. It was not the thought of her enduring my nightmare. I had so many chances to stop that, to turn her away from my brother, but I never had the strength. This time, though I tried not to accept it when I first saw it, was different.
I knew she was pregnant. I knew the second I saw her hand move. I just couldn’t let it be true. I couldn’t stand up to the thought of the cycle continuing. Of an innocent life stepping into my childhood shoes.
My mind had blocked Patsy’s truth. It wouldn’t let me face it. Yet a sliver of courage that could not be extinguished completely sent me shooting to the surface, sputtering and coughing. The cold hit me then like a stab through my lungs. My arms flailed, sending water splashing out in wild arcs.
A wave picked me up. The break caught me, pulling me under, throwing me against the ground. I took in more water when my shoulder slammed into the sand. Then I was in shallower water. I found my footing and staggered toward the shore, falling twice before a wave hit me from behind, throwing me forward onto the beach.
I crawled. Pain shot up my neck. Water poured out of my lungs. When I felt dry sand, I fell to my side. Everything left me then. I felt empty and alone. And worst of all, I was still alive. But I knew what I had to do. And I finally had the courage to do it. The next day, I would tell Patsy everything.