virginia murdock, [four]. fin

cw; near drowning



dreaming of a time and place
where you and I remain the best of friends
even after all this ends
can we pretend?

Face down in the bathtub, less than a year old. This is the first time Gin nearly drowns. It's one of the things that comes out at the custody hearing later, the horror that had stricken poor Nicky when he walked into the bathroom and found Gin on her belly in the tub, submerged in just a couple inches of lukewarm water. The marriage was almost as young as the twins, but neither of them was surprised by this. Nicky finding her zonked was part of the regularly scheduled programming, as was her finding him in equal measure; they were in it together back then. She can't remember when it turned to the mess of he said, she said that it did. There is only the sense of disorientation, the feeling of something going off-kilter, out of balance. The world spinning on a new axis, never seeing Mom again after all was said and the case was laid to rest. Mom had "fallen asleep." It did not take Gin long to figure out that this was a euphemism, but once the hearing was over, she didn't like to linger on it. She doesn't have time to spare trying to work forgiveness into her heart. The best she can muster is to try and forget. Years later, when the rain hits the roof above her room, she thinks she remembers the sound of her Mom's voice, hears a lullaby to quiet the sound of the rain. The silent company she keeps is the stuffed black bear Attis gave her when they were kids; clutching it to her chest, only then does she think maybe, just maybe, she'd like to remember. ✮ It takes months of trying to wear Nicky down before he agrees he'll teach her how to swim. Attis offers over and over to help, but Nicky, Dad—god, it feels clunky and strange rolling off her tongue every time—insists he's going to teach the younger twins himself, that he's going to do it soon. Attis is still only six. He says it just like that, emphasis on the only. Funny, how some of the things he says have just stuck over the years. Gin hears this weekend, monkey, what felt like a million times. It's always the same story, soon, in a bit, when I finish this thing, after I go fishing. Gin and Cade are five in a few weeks, but Nicky, Dad, forgot to do their registration for kindergarten before the deadline, so it's not like they're doing anything else. First day of kindergarten rolls around, and after Nicky shuttles Attis and Aria down, he takes Cade out fishing with him. The back of her eyes go zingy when he starts loading their stuff into the bags, pulls out Cade-sized versions of the things Gin has tried to help him with time and time again. She waits and waits and waits for this to be the moment Nicky, Dad, says that this is what she's been waiting for. He's going to take them out, teach them how to swim. But Mrs. Walters comes, and he and Cade go, and Gin is left alone to have "girl time" with their neighbor and the twins mom. Their mom is nice, ish, but she definitely doesn't feel like Gin's capital M Mom either, barely feels like Aria or Attis's Mom. She does a lot of staring at the sea in the distance, and looking down at her lap—sometimes she pretends to read, or knit. And she never leaves. If she does, she's back within an hour or two. Gin will always give her that. Mrs. Walters from up the road is kind, shows up when Nicky is gone, and she brings Gin a cinnamon roll that she baked herself, but she calls her Ginny, which catches like wildfire, and Gin hates the stale smell of her clothes, but more than anything she hates that she's sitting in this drafty house while Cade is out there with Nicky. Dad. The ocean is right there. All she has is time on her hands, time to wait until no one is looking. It's sooner than she expects, but she should've known she wouldn't have to wait for long. Mrs. Walters is a crying mess at the kitchen table when Attis and Aria wander back from the school drop off later that afternoon, her eyes swollen and her head in her hands. She cries that she can't find Gin, she searched everywhere. When they find their mother upstairs, she points out the windows and they follow the line of her gaze to the small stretch of beach, and the lone empty dock that stretched out across the water.  A few minutes later, Attis splashes into the cold, low rolling surf and pulls Gin out of the water by the back of her shirt, as if picking up a kitten by the scruff. A coughing, spluttering mess, she started laughing as soon as she got her feet in the sand. Attis just kept saying her name over and over, asking if she was okay. "Did you see?" was all she could think to reply. "Did you see how long I held my breath?" Covered in sand, still wearing her day clothes, she grinned like a shark. ✮ Five years later and she has Attis beat. They don't have the spare cash for her to join the swim team all her cousins are on right now, but she heard Blyth and Raff talking one morning before first bell about their times being posted on the bulletin board so she starts paying attention to it. She starts making a habit of measuring herself against them, getting up when the sun rises and trying not to wake everyone else with the creaking floorboards so that she can creep down to their tiny stretch of beach. The ocean is a hell of a kickstart though, and the icy slick it leaves in her chest keeps her settled for the rest of the day. Attis gets a stopwatch and helps time her sometimes. He calls her a badass when she hits a full minute for the first time, and surprises her with a misshapen cake to celebrate after dinner. A couple weeks later, Nicky, Dad, docks his fishing boat at their tiny little mooring instead of its usual home in whatever harbor he chooses. Gin is already swimming laps when they sail up in the morning, and she bursts out of the waves, clambering up the ladder she and Attis had installed at the end of the wooden planks. "Dad!" She watches Cade come out of the cabin, pack slung over his shoulder. A beat of jealousy that never goes away flares, but she stomps it out with a mental version of her blue converse. "I have something to show you!" Cade gives her a thumbs up and a way to go before going up to the house after she tells them she can hold her breath for a full minute now, that Attis timed her and everything, that she has to show them and she's so glad to see him. Nicky is all smiles, distance in his eyes, but he encourages her, show me, show me, show me! While she's under, Nicky hears something ping on the navigation system and disappears back inside the cabin. She holds herself there in the cold and the muck, eyes squeezed shut, and pushes herself until her lungs feel like they are about to burst and every blood vessel is on fire. Gin breaks the surface and searches for him, spinning in the water, confused, wondering where he went. When she gets back up on the dock and finds him in the boat's cabin, he says he's sorry, and she says she understands, it's okay, she'll show him again later. He kisses her temple, and sends her to get ready for school. She doesn't see him again for weeks. ✮ Mrs. Walters get her a job working for a friend who owns a diner. Things spiral after that, as if Gin entering the work force is all the permission the world needed to start falling apart around her. The year starts with a Nicky sighting, and then another, and that would be unsettling except Gin doesn't leave herself much spare time to ponder on how often he's suddenly around or how stupid he looks walking around with Attis in those clown shoes. "You do not have enough hopes and dreams to fill that jacket out," she didn't sit down across the table from Attis, even though she definitely wanted to. She had to get to her shift at McFarley's. She paused only long enough to grab a fistful of the cherries she and her friends had found when they were out foraging the other day. Delicately, precisely, she lobbed one at Attis, right between the eyebrows. "Eat a steak." ✮ Only with hindsight does Gin realizes what almost happened, why Nicky was around so much more for a few weeks. She spends mornings before school training, has shifts after school at the diner, walks some dogs whenever someone can get ahold of her, and plays bingo with Mrs. Walters and the other senior citizens at the home every Saturday. She tacks one on after another, adding them on top of her workload at school  like layers in a very elaborate cake. Somehow, she stays standing through them all, but the day she comes home and hears Attis and Nick whispering about a social worker in the kitchen, she stops to listen to their hushed tones for a long time before slamming the door, loudly and on purpose, to make her presence known. She didn't want to hear anymore. Both rounded the corner, and gave her a warm smile to welcome her home. Attis looked so much like Nicky in the dim light. She is struck with the worst sense of deja vu a few years later, when they both round that same corner, but the light has gone from their eyes. "Hey Monkey. We were wondering when you'd be back. We need to talk about Cade."

in my blood, in my blood
memories burn like a forest fire
heavy rain turns any funeral pyre to mud
in the flood