station wagon—three days looking out the window at other cars, highway, the caverns I’d never seen—and when we get to Florida, fling the doors open on another military base, it’s warm. We’re near the sea. I can breathe again. All I want to do is get into the ocean. I’m thirsty for the salt. It’s like coming back from an alien planet where even the main attractions are underground like graves—stalactites, water made of rock.
In July 1965, I was the flower girl at the wedding of my mother’s brother on the Cape. I had just turned four. My mother drove me to Boston and bought me a beautiful blue dress that touched the floor, spilling out in waves; I wore the ocean in the shape of a girl. When I walked alone down the church aisle, my dress carried me. It was like coming home to the ocean after those months in the desert—I felt like myself. Everyone turned to see. What Pauline had said a child wants most. It means I’m here.
When the doctor in El Paso had turned to me when I was fourteen years old, asked me to speak, I’d started to realize that my voice could matter in the world of adults. That I didn’t have to be powerless and dependent. An energy had spiraled up, but it wasn’t something I knew how to do on my own. I felt amorphous, like a cloud or the ocean. At home, in school, with relatives, my passivity seemed a good thing. I was no trouble. But five years later, when I’m pregnant, I won’t tell anyone my fears about hurting my son; when he’s dying, I won’t be able to call my aunt and uncle and ask to see him, or even ask if I can go to the funeral. Even later, when I’m researching the city where my son lived, concerned about environmental hazards and any possible link to his leukemia, I’ll be quiet in my asking. Almost apologetic. In El Paso, for the first time, I had tried to speak up for myself.
Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t a city that killed my son, or even my giving him away. I wonder if what killed him was my silence. All that falling backward into myself, unable to face anger, annoyance. Unable to try. Here, take it, my voice, my life, my child, here, take it.
Space City
My family moved from El Paso to a Florida beach town in 1975. I enrolled at the junior high. Luckily, a few kids my age lived on the base. A little circle of girls to hang out with.
It was still warm enough in the dark to swim naked in the ocean. A ravenous sea bird looks no different at night. No moon. There would be reports at school, but who cared. We were in the water. In daylight, someone is always trying to catch and tie you, rope circling overhead. A wave folds back on my chest like a lapel. I’m small enough to be held in the hand of the ocean, so the ocean holds me. Laughter just a way to orient ourselves in the dark, a jubilant echolocation. No one had yet aimed a knife at me, diagrammed an entrance. My grandmother said the salt water could heal anything. I never went so far that I couldn’t come back, the ocean full of crosses. Beneath the waves there is only one song.
We live on a barrier island, surrounded by river and ocean, floating—the only way off is a bridge. Some nights we stand beside the baseball diamond built between our streets. The yellow vapor lights make the field like day. The boring game, the boys in uniforms. The stadium is something to climb, boards wobbly. Below, the women’s bathroom is a cave engraved with drawings. Four girls and a bottle. A boy must have given it to us, someone’s older boyfriend. It’s just beer, but I’ve never had alcohol. I’mafraid of losing control. So when it’s my turn, I pretend, hold the bottle between my lips, lean back, and block the bitter liquid with my tongue. “You just took a sip,” someone says, suspicious that I’m not participating equally in the beer drinking. It’s supposed to be exciting. I think I take the bottle back just to please whoever spoke. Lean back, block. I’m afraid if I don’t watch out, I’ll climb to
In July 1965, I was the flower girl at the wedding of my mother’s brother on the Cape. I had just turned four. My mother drove me to Boston and bought me a beautiful blue dress that touched the floor, spilling out in waves; I wore the ocean in the shape of a girl. When I walked alone down the church aisle, my dress carried me. It was like coming home to the ocean after those months in the desert—I felt like myself. Everyone turned to see. What Pauline had said a child wants most. It means I’m here.
When the doctor in El Paso had turned to me when I was fourteen years old, asked me to speak, I’d started to realize that my voice could matter in the world of adults. That I didn’t have to be powerless and dependent. An energy had spiraled up, but it wasn’t something I knew how to do on my own. I felt amorphous, like a cloud or the ocean. At home, in school, with relatives, my passivity seemed a good thing. I was no trouble. But five years later, when I’m pregnant, I won’t tell anyone my fears about hurting my son; when he’s dying, I won’t be able to call my aunt and uncle and ask to see him, or even ask if I can go to the funeral. Even later, when I’m researching the city where my son lived, concerned about environmental hazards and any possible link to his leukemia, I’ll be quiet in my asking. Almost apologetic. In El Paso, for the first time, I had tried to speak up for myself.
Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t a city that killed my son, or even my giving him away. I wonder if what killed him was my silence. All that falling backward into myself, unable to face anger, annoyance. Unable to try. Here, take it, my voice, my life, my child, here, take it.
Space City
My family moved from El Paso to a Florida beach town in 1975. I enrolled at the junior high. Luckily, a few kids my age lived on the base. A little circle of girls to hang out with.
It was still warm enough in the dark to swim naked in the ocean. A ravenous sea bird looks no different at night. No moon. There would be reports at school, but who cared. We were in the water. In daylight, someone is always trying to catch and tie you, rope circling overhead. A wave folds back on my chest like a lapel. I’m small enough to be held in the hand of the ocean, so the ocean holds me. Laughter just a way to orient ourselves in the dark, a jubilant echolocation. No one had yet aimed a knife at me, diagrammed an entrance. My grandmother said the salt water could heal anything. I never went so far that I couldn’t come back, the ocean full of crosses. Beneath the waves there is only one song.
We live on a barrier island, surrounded by river and ocean, floating—the only way off is a bridge. Some nights we stand beside the baseball diamond built between our streets. The yellow vapor lights make the field like day. The boring game, the boys in uniforms. The stadium is something to climb, boards wobbly. Below, the women’s bathroom is a cave engraved with drawings. Four girls and a bottle. A boy must have given it to us, someone’s older boyfriend. It’s just beer, but I’ve never had alcohol. I’mafraid of losing control. So when it’s my turn, I pretend, hold the bottle between my lips, lean back, and block the bitter liquid with my tongue. “You just took a sip,” someone says, suspicious that I’m not participating equally in the beer drinking. It’s supposed to be exciting. I think I take the bottle back just to please whoever spoke. Lean back, block. I’m afraid if I don’t watch out, I’ll climb to
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