The Salt God's Daughter (29 page)

My hands swept across the waves as I drew the horizon toward me.

There was no line between the sea and sky now. No separation between skin and bone.

My cheek hit the sand.

I stared up at the mist rising above the sea, willing myself to reach Naida, letting the harsh wind cut icy picks into my flesh. If her spirit slipped out, mine would go, too. I stayed there like a small fire, choking back the swells of salt water that covered my face, my ears and nostrils. This was how I took her back. With my gripping heart, with my fingers pulling back the blue cover of night. Suddenly, I felt fingers in my hair and on my shoulders. Dr. B. was taking my arm.

“Come now, child. Get up,” Dr. B. said, and she tried to pull me from the water. I had bruises on my arms and on my legs. My palms were raw as Graham's had been on more than one occasion, as if a rope had been ripped from them. Noticing my nightgown stained with splotches of red, through ragged breaths I said that it was time to bring my daughter home.

 

WHEN WE ARRIVED at the hospital, Naida was sitting up, her face lustrous. “I was hiding with the animals,” she said. She started to cry, saying that her throat hurt. Later, she would tell me that they loved her.

I took Naida's hands in mine and kissed them, weeping.

One of the young doctors said that for Naida to have found her way back, given the unknowns, she must have really wanted to be here. Her tests were clear. The hospital social worker, in her white button-down shirt and tan twill pants, had been observing me from afar. Why hadn't I been watching my daughter? she now asked. How could a four-year-old child have wandered out into the night during a storm, unnoticed? Why didn't I have a lock on my front door, a baby gate, an alarm system, and a baby monitor to keep her from getting out? I had all those things, but I was so beside myself with relief, I told her what I understood as truth—Naida had only been looking for her father, who was at sea. Luckily, Dolly appeared just then and talked to the woman in the white shirt. Then the woman disappeared. My magnificent sister.

I watched Naida playing with her blue dog. With her hair parted slightly, I could see the only trace of anything different about her, a faint pink scar across her forehead.

 

EAGER TO MOVE on with our lives and start fresh, I hung wallpaper throughout the apartment, a yellow tea rose print that I found at a Laura Ashley seconds sale. I had almost enough to cover all the walls, but for one spot in the hallway, which I
filled using mirrored tiles. I felt proud of myself, of the new life we were creating. We were far from rich, but I had made a nice home. I baked fresh challah a few times a week, and I started having Dr. B. over on Wednesday nights again to pray.

I bought furniture at a garage sale: a shabby-chic ivory couch with a tear in the back that I sewed up, and a small matching chaise. On either side, I placed a standing red lamp with beads. I had refurbished a wooden coffee table that Mrs. Green had kept in the storage room. Dr. B. had given me the one remaining plastic palm tree from the days of the Twin Palms Motel. I put it in the corner of Naida's bedroom. All my books were shelved in white painted bookcases and baskets throughout the house, a few of which Dr. B. had given to me, too.

In the corner of the living room, next to the porch, Naida had an easel and art table positioned so she could paint the sea. Her markers and crayons were displayed in little cups along the sides. I now had two photographs on the wall. My mother's and my daughter's. In the photograph, Naida is standing on the beach, hands on her hips. She has sand covering her cheeks. Her long black hair hangs in salty clumps, falling across one pale eye. She is looking off to the right with the slightest smile, as if pressing a secret between her lips, just as the girl in the painting of the naiad had done.

I bought Naida an entire wardrobe, which included dresses, striped leggings, princess sneakers with a tread that lit up when she walked, sea slippers, and five pairs of ballet shoes, which were still the most comfortable thing for her feet. It would be another couple of years before she'd become embarrassed about her foot, when she saw the reactions of other children.

I had been walking around in the same gauze shirts, faded jeans, and worn leather clogs with busted buckles for years. Now I wanted to burn everything and start anew. I tried on a bright blue dress with heels, turning in the mirror. I had lost some weight over these last few months, and I was catching up
on sleep. At twenty-seven, I peered at my face in the mirror, my fingers pressing the skin around my eyes. I'd begun to see the faintest wrinkles in the corners of my eyes and on the sides of my mouth, welcome signs of hard-won battles.

I ate avocados and sprinkled flax seeds over yogurt with honey, and in time my hair recovered its original fullness. Once in a while, I even put on lipstick, a pale peach color that brought out my freckles. I didn't look terrible, I decided.

It was a second chance. Naida had a chance to be just a normal girl.

It was clear what she had inherited from my side, the dominant genes for rebellion, stubbornness, and creative rapid-fire swearing, which she demonstrated while at brunch on her fifth birthday, stunning Dolly and me with the mention of “damn-ass eggs.” This had all started with my mother.

I continued to watch Naida for any early signs of trouble.

I saw trouble all over the place.

T
HE FOLLOWING YEAR, under the Lenten Moon in March, the last full moon of winter, a time when the past could return to meet you where you'd left it, I heard a knock on my door. I had been in bed, sick, for two days. I peered through the peephole and sucked in my breath as I stared at him.

Graham, as out of the blue as he'd come the first time.

He looked old, weary, dressed in a black turtleneck sweater, torn at the shoulder, and jeans. His brown beard had streaks of gray in it now, and his complexion was sallow. His pale green eyes were distant. He held out his palms, showing me he had nothing. I grabbed the cell phone and threatened to dial 911. “Ruthie, I have no one,” he said, through the door.

“I have company. There's a man here,” I lied, hoping he'd go away.

“Ruthie. Nobody's with you.”

“Go away,” I called.

“I need help.”

My fingers unbolted the locks I'd installed after Naida's accident. I left the chain on and cracked open the door.

“I asked you not to come back,” I said quickly, noticing how weathered he looked. He was different, not the burly gentle giant of a man I remembered. He had wrinkles around his eyes and a deep groove between his eyebrows. His lips were badly chapped, and there was a gash on his forehead over his right eye.

I shut the door and pressed my back against it. Naida was asleep. That's how I wanted it to stay.

“Ruthie,” he said.

Gathering my navy blue robe more tightly around my body, I opened the door. He said nothing. Not at first.

“Thank you,” he said, watching carefully. So carefully, in fact, that I was afraid he'd see that I sometimes remembered him. He was carrying his wetsuit, just like always. “I've been thinking about you both.”

“You missed your damn window of opportunity,” I said, as I watched him set his wetsuit over the chair on the porch, just as he always did. Some things never changed.

“I have a right to see her. She's my child, too.”

“You're too late.”

“You've gotten tough with age, Ruthie.”

In my mind, I slapped him. “What do you want, Graham? Why did you come back?” I smoothed my hair. It was long and curly. I hadn't cut it in years. Now I wished I'd cut it short, that there was nothing about me that even hinted at femininity. But no, of course I would not hide in boys' ripped clothing as I once had. I would not disguise myself. I would not be silenced, or become a watered-down version of myself. Not again.

“I just needed to see her, you,” he said.

“I will call the police. I mean it.” I stood with my hands on the back of Naida's art chair. Her drawings were now of the beach, or the ocean, or just the Sisters. No longer of the green waterhorse.

My legs shook, and I hoped he wouldn't notice. But of course he would. Graham noticed everything about me.

“You've done a nice job,” he said, looking around. “You've made a good home for the two of you. You have no idea how good it is to see you,” he said, reaching for me, his eyes hazy. I kept my distance and told him what had happened to her. He had a right to know. “I know you're a good mother.”

“No, you don't. I might be a shitty mother. I might be the shittiest mother there is. My daughter escaped into the ocean while I slept. She barely made it back.”

I noticed the blood on his knuckles. He had been in a fight. He walked toward me. My body was moving toward him, but my mind was working hard, searching for a concrete thought to anchor me. The table. The easel. The red sippy cup Naida still used and had left balancing on the arm of the couch, with its chewed spout. His fingers dusted my cheek. In my mind I was reaching for him, until I caught sight of the look in his eyes.

“She's sleeping,” I said. Before I could get another word out, he put his arm around me. I twisted away. I had not been with a man in five years. It took everything I had not to be touched.

“No. No more. You have to go,” I told him. Then, Naida's voice.

“Mama?”

I ran to Naida and picked her up, kissing her cheek.

“Who is he!” said Naida, struggling to see Graham over my shoulder. I couldn't just spring this on her. Of course, it would take time to introduce the subject. I didn't want to think of it. Not yet. Not until I had to.

I told her he was a friend of Mama's from a long time ago. Graham gave Naida a little pinky wave before we disappeared.

I tucked her back into bed for the second time that night. “When did he come? Is he staying here? Where will he sleep? What will he eat? Will I see him tomorrow? Can I show him my tree in my bedroom?” I replaced the red bulb in her plastic
horse-shaped nightlight, the reason she had gotten out of bed in the first place.

“That's my daddy,” Naida said, as I was getting up to leave. I stared at the red hues spilling across her bed. Her hair fell across her eyes and she pursed her lips in disapproval, just like Dolly. “It is him,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “I know it is.”

“We'll talk tomorrow, honey,” I said quickly, for Naida could pull me into a conversation too easily. Just as I was about to shut the door, I heard her.

“He wants me to go with him, Mama.”

I shut the door.

 

GRAHAM WAS GAZING at Naida's photograph on the wall. He'd made himself at home, his glass of whiskey on the counter.

“Go now, please,” I said.

“I remember,” he said, pointing to the wall. “Six years ago, the only photo you had—”

“I know, I know. Now I've got two.”

“I noticed her foot.”

Defensively, I told him that the surgery was painful. I told him all about the recovery time, and about the chance of infection and more surgeries. We'd already been to two surgeons who both said the same thing: If the benefits didn't outweigh the costs, leave it alone. It appeared not to be a problem for her. She could decide when she was older what to do.

He looked at me with despair and then nodded in agreement. There was blood on his shirt. “The child shouldn't suffer,” he said finally.

“The child has a name. Naida.”

“Naida, Naida,” he repeated. “What kind of name is Naida?”

“Water fairy,” I whispered. “Fresh water,” I said, in my best “fuck you” tone. “She is my everything, Graham.”

I told him to leave. He didn't move. It was a condition that every cell in my body remembered. “Just go. Do you want her to remember this, our fighting? You shouldn't be here.”

“Ruthie. There's more to say. Did you keep them under the mattress, the dagger and the bible?” He grabbed my wrist.

“Let go of me!” I said. He did.

“I'm the child's father,” he said.

Calm. Feel the ground beneath you.
“Y
ou left your child and the mother of your child. What kind of father does that make you?”

At that, he hurled his glass at the wall. I watched the golden liquid spill across my beautiful wallpaper, and the broken crystal scatter across the carpet.

He stepped back. “Jesus, I'm sorry,” he whispered, his eyes pleading. “I don't know how to do this with you,” he said, picking up the glass. He tossed the shards in the trash. I imagined little pieces of hiding in the shag rug, waiting for Naida's bare feet to find them.

I cleaned off the wall and grabbed the DustBuster to vacuum up the rest of the mess. After, he stood in front of me, shoulders squared, feet planted apart, waiting for me to do something.

“Ruthie, I know I didn't give you what you wanted.”

“No, neither of us got what we wanted,” I said, opening the door.

As he walked away down the hallway, his shadow dissolved into the light.

 

THE FIRST RAYS of dawn shone through the window. I was a person who had once been superstitious. I'd made meaning from things. I liked it that way, couldn't help it. Somehow, none of it mattered because Naida was here. And like it or not, the threads of first love could never be broken. I had strengthened them with my fear and my hatred, and with my worry. The molecules that existed among those threads, incited by
love and by fear, formed the bonds that connected one living thing to another. Peak emotion created waves of energy that remained long after an inciting event. Perhaps those molecules would spread out everywhere, could travel through all matter, carried on the waves of the oceans and in the breezes. They could never be destroyed, only changed. They could change and become forgiveness. I wondered. Had I really drawn him back to me? Stepping back from the mirror, I took off my glasses and set them on the vanity. Then I splashed my face with cold water.