Page 23 of Waters that Drown Us
“What kind of adventure would you like to go on?” I ask as she pulls the sleek little car out of the dock parking lot. There’s a nervous smile playing at her lips.
“You said that you go cliff jumping,” Emily hedges, her fingertips drumming against the steering wheel. “I know it’s probably too late to do that now, but I thought we could sit on the cliff and watch the ocean and eat something.”
She nods toward the back seat, where paper bags are filled with discount store snacks and takeout food from the burger place in Port Oxford.
“You went all the way up there?” I don’t ask Emily what she does with her days when we’re not tracking sea nettles. Partially because I assume she’s working on her dissertation, compiling the data we collect or whatever, but also because it feels wrong to ask. I can’t ask for more from her than what she’s alreadygiving. Knowing what she does when I’m not around would feel somehow more personal than all the intimacy we’ve shared, and would only serve to make my guilt worse.
“I finished the methodology portion of my dissertation, so we deserve to celebrate,” she says with a little shrug, brushing off what I assume is a fairly significant achievement. Without my direction, she navigates the car off the main road and up one leading to a hiking trail. Well, more of a glorified dirt road with a faded wood signpost at the trailhead.
“You’ve been here before?” I ask as she parks along the side of the path, the car tilted slightly sideways on the slope.
“Googled it.”
Right. Most people have computers and phones and internet access. Luxuries I do miss. Every once in a while I wonder how my favorite television series ended, or what music is popular in Vladivostok now. The only times I’ve been online since I left Russia were to book bus or train tickets at public libraries using prepaid gift cards.
Emily gathers the bags from the back of the car, refusing to let me help, before leading the way up the trail. This isn’t the area I usually jump from—the rocks jutting up from the ocean are a clear enough warning to stay on land—but I have followed this trail before. It’s peaceful, the thicket of trees buffering the sound of the ocean until you find their break. The sensation of stepping through the treeline is like raising a curtain on a stage. The entire world opens up in front of you, the murmuring of the crowd no longer muffled by red velvet, but filling your body like the crashing of the waves below.
The horizon is endless here. Emily sets up our dinner as close to the edge of the cliff as she probably feels comfortable, I stand a few feet closer, letting the adrenaline of the height flood my nervous system. It’s a high that, before a week ago, I thought couldn't be matched. The hues of the sunset reflect onthe surface of the water, the oranges and pinks bleeding like paint spilled on an eternal canvas. Golden sunlight flickers in the motion of the waves, shimmering like glitter. A beautiful, messy piece of art.
“I assume you’re afraid of heights as well?” I ask as I turn back to Emily, blinking back the tears welling in my eyes. Sometimes I hate that this world has so many beautiful things, like the ocean and pistachio ice cream and blackberry mojitos and sunsets and Emily, and I get so little time with them.
“Falling from this height would be instantly fatal. I think this fear is both reasonable and healthy.” If Emily notices my tears, she doesn’t say anything. She pats the spot next to her on the blanket she’s laid out for us.
“So are you afraid of heights, or afraid of falling?” I ask, joining her in front of our meal and crossing my legs beneath me. “Or maybe you’re afraid of dying?”
A muscle twitches in her cheek, and I wish I could take the words back. I don’t want to know if she’s afraid of dying. I don’t want to face the fact that, sooner rather than later, I’ll likely be the one to force her to face that fear. That my selfishness will be the reason she will be afraid before she dies.
“I think dying is the only thing I’mnotafraid of,” she admits with a humorless laugh, and somehow that makes my guilt even worse. “It’s inevitable. There’s no point of being afraid of something you can’t escape.”
My tongue is stuck in my throat, and I stare at the ocean again to avoid her gaze. I can’t say I agree. I’m afraid of lots of inevitable, inescapable things. Dying, sure, though I hope I might be lucky enough to see my mother again in whatever afterlife exists. Ilya finding me. Even though I’m prepared, and I know what I have to do, I can still hear his voice in my head telling me the words that pushed me to escape. I know seeing him will be terrifying, that he might torture me as punishmentfor embarrassing him, or on behalf of my father for my treason. I’m afraid of the unavoidable pain.
Before my mother’s family gave me hope of escape, I was afraid of being trapped in that life. Of dying like my mother did, for the simple crime of no longer being useful to the man who owned me, and of being a liability to his ego. I thought I knew the course of my entire life, and it was terrifying.
I’m afraid of losing Emily, even though that is also an inescapable reality. Even if, by some miracle, she doesn’t become collateral damage in Ilya’s path toward me, and even more so, if I survive my confrontation with him, I will lose her. One day I’ll be a faint memory, a footnote in her recollection of her PhD process.
I’m terrified she’ll forget me. That if I die, no one will remember who I truly was. That the only memories I will live in are those of my father.
“Tell me something about you,” Emily requests, pushing a foil-wrapped package in front of me. When I unwrap it to buy time, I unearth a turkey burger. I don’t even remember mentioning my preference.
“You seem to already know quite a bit,” I hedge, waving the burger between us before taking a bite. So much better than the diner in town, which I’m convinced purchased all its frozen meat in the twentieth century. “What do you want to know?
“Anything,” she says. And I think she means it. She’s got this look in her eyes like she’s apologizing, and I have no idea what for. Maybe it’s a projection. Maybe I want to apologize for telling her anything about myself, for forcing her to know me when it will end her.
But I want to. Every day I spend with her, it gets harder and harder to lie and obfuscate. Perhaps this is how everyone feels when they’re intimate with someone for the first time. You share your body, and it’s natural to share your heart and mind.
It’s selfish. But we’re past the point of no return anyway. I’ve already damned her and myself by accepting the extra work and spending so much time with her. Nothing will make this better, so I can make it far, far worse.
“When I was a little girl, my room was decorated like a fairy tale castle. My father used to read them to me before bed, said his mother brought them over from Russia.” I have to continue the lie that my father moved to Estonia with my mother, rather than the truthful reverse. There’s no point in rectifying it now.
“Did you like them? The fairy tales?” Emily asks, her voice soft and blending with the gentle sounds of the ocean.
“Not really. They were honestly a little frightening, which is pretty standard for Russia.” I feel my lips pull into a grimace against my will. “Stories with my father were always about teaching lessons, not soothing me to sleep. He was a very practical man.”
“You must miss him.”
“Not in the slightest.” The words slip out of my mouth without thought, but I can’t find it in me to care. He doesn’t deserve to be glorified, even in my lies. “He was a hard man, and a lot of things came before me. I was cared for, of course, and I recognize how lucky I was to grow up in comfort. But it came at a cost.”
It’s the closest I’ve come to admitting aloud to anyone other than ???? Mikhail that I know who my father truly was, what he was capable of. That even though I believe he loved my mother, it wasn’t enough to stop him from killing her. And that I knew his love for me wouldn’t stop me from becoming a victim to the same fate.