by Cecil Boschert
I’m not allowed near bodies of water. I see the lake from my chair and then I’m on the ground, muddy skirt, wet–faced, and scream-sobbing about how this body is dying all around me. So, Benjamin wheels me and Ramari through the northern half of the campgrounds where it’s just thick pines and concrete paths. I can push the wheelchair myself, but he likes to take me on walks, and I let him. Ramari’s wheels click on the cracks in the concrete. Benjamin’s hands, soft like chewed gum, grip the handles.
I can, in fact, walk. But only a little bit, and painfully. Thus, the wheelchair I’ve dubbed “Ramari,” after one of the whales in the book on my nightstand. Splendid Cetaceans, author’s name rubbed off. It calms me when I’m overwhelmed, which is often.
It’s the second week of the Hearst Annual Artist’s Retreat, so all the energy has gone up and out with the morning mist. Everyone’s hunkered down to finish their final gallery pieces. Benjamin and I are alone. We find our usual morning stop: the gazebo only a short walk-wheel outside of camp. Benjamin stops me in the middle and sits on the bench next to me. Beyond the gazebo, the lake is a line of sequins in the distance. My heart lurches, and I want to touch it. I’ve always had this urge and it always ends in tears. Benjamin is right, he knows more than me, and I should stay away. Still. I want to know what it feels like. Benjamin asks, “how was your appointment?” His mother, the camp nurse, checks me up each morning. I used to hide in her office when I got overwhelmed, but that’s long gone. I shrug and avoid his gaze.
“Fine. She keeps trying to get me to stand up. Says it’s to monitor my progress. But–It’s permanent nerve damage,” I bristle, “there’s no progress to be made.”
He fights with his words and finally explains, “well, you never know, Marlowe. The human body is–really, it’s fascinating what it can do when pushed.”
I look at him now. When I woke up on the campgrounds a few months ago, with winter beginning to creep in, my mind blank of memories, I saw him first. He looks the same now. Pudgy white face like mine, button nose where mine is wide. Little blue eyes and flossy blonde hair. Perpetually frowning mouth and curly little corn-white mustache hairs. I wonder what all he knows about me that he won’t say. I ask often, and he tells little stories–an aquarium date here, a senior prom there. Fluffy little wisps that don’t ring any bells, but I guess they must’ve happened.
My stomach clenches. It usually does around him. A few days after I woke up, when I was coherent again, he said he knew me before I forgot. He said he loved me in a boyfriend way and that meant I had to let him walk me around camp and kiss my cheek and touch my knees. My stomach churns around him and my hands shake–I think it’s affection. I’m sure I love him too, in some way.
“Don’t you all have your dinner tonight?”
His mother mentioned it–once a year, they have this important dinner meeting with men in suits to get funding for the retreat.
He perks up. “Yes!” he says, then deflates a little. “I’m sorry to leave you here all alone.” “It’s fine,” I reply, not knowing what else to say. I twist the loose end of one of my braids around my finger, shiny and frilly and seaglass-green. My hair has grown so long it rests next to my hands. I open my mouth to speak when I hear footsteps, far off. I turn and as a speck of light, I see my only friend. I wave and shout as loud as I can, “Jonah!” Benjamin jumps at my loudness–I don’t think he’s heard me speak above an inside voice. Accusing, he asks, “How do you know him?”
Jonah paints, he’s always covered in splatters. I explain, “I like him. He’s nice.”
He jogs to the Gazebo, and the time is silent between me and Benjamin. Jonah is Thai, with short blue hair and flowy floral shirts that the other artists make fun of. He spotted me one day during lunch and plucked me out of the retreat like picking up a shell from the pebbly lake shore.
“‘Morning, Marlowe.” Jonah nods. “Benjamin.”
“Good morning!” Benjamin extends a hand that goes unshaken. “I don’t think we’ve spoken before–I see you know Marlowe,” he explains, before laughing nervously.
“Yeah, they’re a great listener,” Jonah says.
“You don’t have any paint on you,” I pipe up, almost complaining.
Jonah laughs. “My roommate made me scrub it off my laundry,” he explains, “she’s robbing me of my aesthetic in the name of me not getting chemical burns like I did last year.”
I pout. “It’s acrylic paint, not oils, it’s not gonna give you chemical burns.”
Jonah beams and says, “Look at you, learning from all my rambles.” He holds up a hand and asks, “May I?” I nod and he ruffles the top of my head, making me laugh. “You’re a good student,” he jokes, “you’ll do well in the artist cult with the rest of us.”
Far off, a bell rings, and everyone looks to the dining hall. Benjamin remarks, “breakfast must be ready–you should go, it’s better to get there early.”
Jonah eyes him, but still throws up his hands and steps back. “‘Aight. See you there.” He retreats and waves goodbye to me. I lean forward in my wheelchair to watch him walk away. I like how he talks to me, it’s different. Light the foam on the lake. Benjamin is so stone-heavy.
Benjamin sits down and chews on his cheek. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. Rinse and repeat for a long minute. I watch him because I like how teeth look, sharp and blunt all at once. His mom once said it looks like someone took a nail file to my teeth, all pointy.
“I don’t want you hanging out with him,” he speaks slowly. My jaw drops.
“What the hell, Benjamin?”
He looks at me like a kicked dog. “I’m so sorry, Marlowe, I’m just…” He chews again. I hear his jaw working and the flesh being bitten–his mom also says I have the ears of a hound “I’m just concerned about your progress. I don’t–I don’t want them to muddy the waters.”
I breathe open-mouthed. I can’t form words. He takes the chance from me when he smiles. “I’m sorry. Do you want breakfast? It’s eggs, your favorite.”
I grip the arm rests of my wheelchair and fume. I chew my lips and look away from him. In the distance, the lake sequins white-silver with the rising sun, and I have an idea.
Benjamin doesn’t let me near bodies of water. The chlorinated pool behind the lodge, baths, the lake. When I need to be clean, he or his mom will sponge-bathe me on the covered back porch. I want to touch the lake. I want to see him mad–not just pitying, but truly furious.
“No,” I say, “I wanna go back to my room.” At his raised eyebrow, I add, “I’m just feeling a little nauseous.”
He springs into action and begins wheeling me back to the sprawling Hearst lodge. “Are you feeling anything else? Dizziness, shortness of breath? You felt those before, y’know,” he spouts off questions like a fountain, “do you want me to stay with you? I can stay home from dinner tonight–”
“No,” I insist a little too quickly, “I’ll just sleep it off. I won’t be a good companion.”
He frowns down at me. “I know you’re upset,” he says, “I’m sorry. I’m just doing what’s best for you.”
My stomach clenches again. “Please just take me back inside.”
I’m supposed to love Benjamin. I look at him and my heart races away from me. He has flossy blond hair and likes applying lotion to the eczema patches on my legs. He has pink skin and little blue eyes. Button nose and thin lips. He rescued me. He writes poetry and I don’t like his poetry but it’s something he does. He says he loves me and then lists things about me. He wheels me around the campgrounds. He shies away from the other artists. He keeps me here.
I listen to the family leaving. When the sun is almost completely gone, nine PM, Benjamin knocks on my bedroom door. I tell him to enter and he peaks in, wearing a black suit and shiny plastic name tag. Cold sweat breaks across my forehead and back. I should tell him he looks nice, it’s the thing partners do. I don’t.
“I hope you’re feeling better, Marlowe,” he says, “it hurts to leave you here when you’re not feeling well.”
I can’t look directly at him. “I’m just gonna sleep it off. I won’t be entertaining.”
He chuckles and walks over to my bedside. “I don’t need you to be entertaining, I just need you to be Marlowe.” He cups my cheek and smiles. “Goodnight, my Galatea.” he kisses the top of my head, and then he’s gone. My stomach–doesn’t clench, more cringes. Which… is new.
I count the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling once, twice, thrice after I hear the whole family leave. I listen to the nocturnal animals’ conversations for a spell. I count how many patches on my quilt I can feel without moving or reaching my hand. I count the stars again. I study the texture of my skirt–lake-colored and silky–and when I’m sure I’m safe, I picture the layout of the house. I reread Splendid Cetaceans. I go over how close I am to the nearest bath.
I shuffle to the edge of my bed and plant my feet on the ground. They’re mostly numb, and when I stand on them I just feel prickling needles of pain. I heft myself to standing, wince at the sharpness and wobbly half-sensation crackling up my legs, and brace myself against my bedside table. I shuffle forward the three steps towards Ramari and ease myself down.
From there, I wheel myself out of the room and into the hallway. The warm browns of the lodge go moldy green in the cool night. Moonlight presses fronds in through the slip in the curtains, like rays of sunlight through water. The thought makes me pause. I’ve never been underwater, not that I can remember. I don’t know what that looks like. …I shouldn’t know what that looks like.
I have better things to do. I make my way quiet and quick into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. It’s a guest bathroom, small for the lodge but still nice and spacious. I like the fuzzy green towels and the moist smell. I come up to the abalone edge of the bathtub. Finally, and without any thought or pause, I close the drain and turn on the bath.
I don’t feel anything unusual as the water fills up, which in and of itself almost makes me excited that Benjamin was wrong about something. Here I am next to a pool of water–funneled in from the ever problematic lake, no less–and I’m fine. No screaming, no crying, no blacking out. I reach my hand in to feel it against my skin and it’s downright pleasant, hot and ticklish between my fingers.
I wiggle out of my skirt and boxers first before peeling off my socks. Then goes my t-shirt and cardigan. I lift myself out of ever-loyal Ramari and lower myself into the water.
At first, the hot water shocks a laugh out of me, light and burbling, and then I can’t stop laughing, even when I shut the faucet off to keep from overflowing. I’m jittery. My heart races but it’s so different than when it does for Benjamin, my stomach tickles, I flap my hands from the shaky excitement. This feels right, I feel right. I can even swish my legs around with ease. I’m submerged in the water and it’s amazing until the crying starts.
I think I’ve splashed water on my face until something breaks in my chest like a frog egg ripping open. I’m shaking for a different reason and my lungs are betraying me, hitching and jumping, and I’m crying. The water goes from blankety warm to overwhelming in an instant. For a moment, I hate that Benjamin was right about something.
I feel like I’ve swallowed a whale and it’s stuck in my ribs. I lay back and stare at the ceiling. And because I’m home alone, I wail and sob openly. I fill the bathroom and surrounding hallway with the noise. I recall the Splendid Cetaceans page on the 52 hZ whale; an audio signal thought to be “the loneliest whale on earth.” I’ve swallowed this whale and the beast is singing through me. I writhe with the horrid noise, I buck and gasp, through the haze I hear the mirror shatter a few feet away.
I’m brought out of it by a memory. Me, in this same bathtub. Flossy blonde hair and guilty hands. Green sequin leggings–I think?–and knees curved backward, feeling porcelain on whatever flesh is occupying where my feet should be. Scissors too close to my hair, too close too close. Bloody button nose and ears. Screaming. Singing. “Whale song is powerful enough to be fatal to humans at close range.” Splendid Cetaceans, page 39.
I don’t know where it goes in my memory–it’s a scrap of a scene out of time. It feels wrong but it’s mine and I have so little that is. I decide this isn’t to get back at Benjamin anymore, and I couldn’t care less how pissed he’ll be. This is for me. This is mine.
The surprise of it interrupts my breakdown, a distracting sense of what is this? I relax. I’m in the bath and drifting back down to enjoying it. Though small, I have a little more of myself tucked away in my brain for safe keeping.
And in the green-gray of the unlit bathroom, the eczema on my legs looks like fish scales.
Cecil Boschert (he/him) is an undergraduate student majoring in Entomology and minoring in Creative Writing. He was born in Texas but grew up in Owasso, Oklahoma. He likes collecting insects and is currently a performer at the Castle of Muskogee Renaissance Festival.