Swim
A short story
“I am a good person. Good people make good choices,” Laney whispered over and over as if she was convincing herself of her own words.
It was 1 p.m. on a Tuesday and she sat idle in her car on the side of the highway. It was mid-July. The sky was a washed out blue, the heat was just barely tolerable. She was wearing a white linen dress. The one she always wore. Her dark brown hair was plastered to the back of her neck from sweat. Her face was pale. Deadly. She sat in silence. Her thighs were sticking to the leather seat of her car. Her window was open. As cars sped past, a gust of air hit her cheek in a familiar way. A way she had become accustomed to. The wind bruised her skin. But she accepted its roughness. Her hands still were firmly placed at ten and two on her steering wheel. Her knuckles were white from her grip. She was wearing Walt’s watch. Oversized, it pinched the hair on her arm. She kept imagining the sound of sirens. Safety. But it was all in her head. She needed to remind herself of that. She found she had to do that often, reminding herself of reality. For her it was easy to escape into her own mind. She was used to drowning everything out, and so she sat, with her thighs uncomfortably stuck to her seat trying to escape, to become nameless, to disappear.
Two days prior she had killed Him, Walt that is, she couldn’t refer to Him by his name anymore, saying it now that he was dead left her mouth dry. She figured it would be easy to play it off as an accident. No one would miss Him. No one would look. It would be painless. It all happened quickly. Seamlessly, without a hitch. She shot Him. That was it. It was over. She had made her escape a reality. Yet still, she felt unnerved. Sitting now in her car on the side of the highway she imagined being caught. She imagined the cold feeling of metal handcuffs scratching at her wrists. She imagined giving in. Letting herself be taken away, sitting in a concrete jail cell in the middle of the summer. Cars continued to speed past her, some honking their horns as if to bring her back to consciousness, some slowing down, the people in the tinted windows looking at her. Recognizing her. She figured it wouldn’t be too long until everyone knew. Until she was found out. But she didn’t care. She was, after all, a good person.
It happened on a Sunday. It was the only natural thing to do, after everything she went through it was the only way out, and so in many ways it wasn’t truly her decision. Again, she had her linen dress on. It swayed as she walked across the hardwood floor in their bungalow. She was waiting for the right moment. It was nearing midnight. He had not spoken to her once that day, as was usual. The way they communicated was often not with words. She felt scared. This marked the first time she had power over Him. She knew something He didn’t. Her dress was loose on her body. It had just been washed, and so the linen was wrinkled. She didn’t have time to iron. He was in bed. She inched her way to the bathroom. She needed a moment to herself. She let the water run from the tap as she leaned over the porcelain sink. The sound of the water pattering down made her feel at ease, she listened intently to its steady stream as her body contorted over the sink. She then stretched her back up and cupped her hands underneath the tap, collecting the lukewarm water in her palms. Then slowly, she brought her cupped hands to her chin, engulfing her face in the warmed water. She dried herself and turned the faucet off. He’d have been upset that she let it run for so long. He’d go on about the drought. It’d be her fault. It always was. It always is. She stood then silently examining her face in the mirror. She was tired, light purple circles enclosed her deep brown eyes, her lips were cracked. The skin on her face felt thin, she could make out her tiny blood vessels. Patches of deep blue and green littered her neck. She closed her eyes wishing to forget her appearance and reached underneath the sink for the gun.
It was wrapped in toilet paper. She had kept it there for some time now. Every day she thought of it, when Walt would drink and yell and fight and scream and hit images of the gun would flash through her mind. Sitting underneath the sink tightly wrapped in toilet paper. It was discreet. He’d have never looked there. She cradled it in her hands, before gently placing it on the top of the toilet seat. She looked at it for a moment more before she slowly unwrapped it all. She then carefully crumpled the toilet paper up and opened the toilet seat cover to flush it away. She watched it spiral down the toilet, cradling the gun in her left hand. It felt light to her. She didn’t bother to double check the barrel. She knew it was full. She felt an on slot of nausea come over her. Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed it back down. She turned the lights to the bathroom off, gently closed the door and made her way to the bedroom where He lay, mouth agape, passed out. His hands were stiffly placed by his sides, forever in fists. He was still wearing his work clothes. His face was red. On the nightstand was a glass of half-finished whiskey. She stood for a moment examining the scene before her. She knew this was the right thing to do. She knew this was her way out.
It all happened quickly, without a second thought. In that moment she knew the power He must’ve always felt.
In her car now, on the side of the highway, she can feel the weight of the gun in her glove compartment. She now understands its heaviness, it’s purpose. She takes her hands off the wheels, and gently rubs them together before grabbing the keys that lay on her windshield. It takes three tries before her car starts up again. Her foot on the breaks, she thinks of how easy it would be to just end it all. To be over with it, to just crash. She imagines the headlines. Distraught wife kills herself after husband’s sudden death. She figures that would make sense. But she can’t go that way. It wouldn’t be right. She thinks of his body and the way it lay in their bed, blood pooling underneath the crisp pillowcases. She feels disgusted. She sees a white caravan pass her by, it breaks her from her trance. Their windows are open. In the back seat is a girl, just about 13 with long flowing blonde hair and a blue paisley dress, with large, ruffled sleeves. She’s smiling. Her tan arms are loosely hanging out of the window trying to grab at the wind. Her parents sit in the front, their eyes firmly on the road. The girl turns to her as they speed past, she looks like a painting. Their eyes lock for a moment and the girl stops smiling, her innocence is lost. Her face becomes placid. The parents don’t notice any shift. Her and the girl are the same. The girl rolls up the window. The car disappears. She imagines her dead. She imagines the girl's blue dress covered in blood. Crimson reds. She imagines the girl's smile still on her face, with lifeless eyes staring into the abyss. She imagines the parents dead too, their heads protruding out of the broken glass of the windshield. She can still see the caravans license plate in the far distance. She slowly begins to merge her way back on the highway. She now has a destination.
As she begins driving, her thinking stops. All she can see is the sun. It pierces through her windows. She’d always imagined she’d feel better after He was gone. She doesn’t. She feels dirty. She looks at her hands on the wheel. Her fingers, long, pale, cracked from scrubbing. Her nails are not painted, underneath them she can still make out remnants of dried blood. She does not want to think anymore, and so she doesn’t. She watches the road. The sun-stained concrete barriers between the two opposing sides of the highway make her imagine that everyone is fleeing. She can still hear his voice in the back of her head, the way he would call her name, “my dear Laney,” would make her think everything was okay. But it wasn’t. It never will be. Images of his bloody hands flicker in her mind, bruised necks, ripped chunks of hair. Her body shudders. Her thinking distracts her, and she misses her exit.
In the distance is a resting zone, a gas station, and a payphone. Laney turns to pull in, she looks to the payphone and thinks of how easy it would be to confess, to turn herself in. She needs a moment to calm herself. Again, she whispers to herself, “I am a good person.” But this time the words hurt as she tries to get them out. If she really was a good person, could she have done what she did? She takes off her seatbelt and pulls her hair to one side of her shoulder, with the keys still in the ignition she gets out of the car and heads for the gas station. She needs a final meal. She slowly opens the glass door, and a bell rings off, she cannot hide. Inside, behind the counter, sits an old man. He looks Laney up and down. His eyes follow her every move. Laney makes eye contact with the man but quickly averts her gaze. They are the only two in the store. The man stands from his seated position and leans himself over the counter. “I don’t see many people like you around here,” says the man. Laney turns her back to him. “Where are you headed,” he asks again, a drawl in his voice. Without turning to face him she responds, “the water.” The man huffs. Laney shifts around in the store looking for something to buy. She can feel the man’s eyes burning through her skull. She can tell the way he’s looking at her is the same way that Walt looked at her, the same way that they all look at her. It is then that she realizes she can never escape. She is always under their gaze. She picks up an orange juice and a bag of pretzels. But she’s not hungry anymore. She walks towards the counter without meeting the man’s eyes and places the items before him. “A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be all alone,” the man says, his voice lowering an octave. She swallows hard. She does not respond, instead she looks the man in his eyes. She sees his wrinkles, his crow’s feet, the hair peeking out from his nostrils, his face is worn. His eyes are dull, shallow, they hold anger behind them, she can tell. He licks his lips as he places her items in a gray plastic bag. “For you my dear, these are free.” She is halted by his words, the way he says my dear. She thinks of Him, of Walt. She needs to get away. As she goes to grab the bag from the man, his hand latches hard onto her wrist and twists. She looks back to him. He looks less human than before. She is too frail to get out of his grasp. She thinks to scream but she has no voice left. The man slowly loosens his grip, “I’ll meet you by the water,” he threatens with a wink. Laney takes a breath and leaves the store. Her car is still running. She downs the orange juice and sits back in the driver’s seat. She now has control. She thinks back to the girl in the caravan from before, but she can’t picture her face, everything she imagines is a blur. Her memory is gone. It is only Him.
She gets back on the road. She needs the water. As she makes it to her exit, she slows her speed and aimlessly parks her car by the beach’s entrance. It all looks different to her. Everything feels new, as if she is experiencing life for the first time. She still feels in shock. She grabs the gun from her glove compartment and shoves it into the top of her dress. She leaves her keys in the car and begins to walk, barefoot, to the beach's shore. The wind follows her, it grabs onto her shoulder, her neck, her wrists. She feels it’s wants.
Oftentimes she felt alone with Him, as if she was the only person in the world. The only person living. Breathing. Experiencing life. She thought this loneliness was because of Him. It wasn’t. Now to it follows her. It drains her. As she walks to the beach, she is alone. She always was. She stops for a moment on her walk. She is still. She looks back and forth between the ocean and the path out to the highway. She was always bad with decisions. She thinks of the man and the girl. She thinks of her home. She thinks of nothing. Her mind is clear. It is only Him. She continues to walk towards the ocean, the horizon has changed to a dark navy blue and meets the water with perfect symmetry. She is lost in the view. The closer she gets to the ocean, the more she recognizes herself. The gun feels heavy in her dress. Her back aches with its weight. She doesn’t remember how she could’ve held it to kill Him. It feels impossible now.
It doesn’t take long before her feet hit the ocean. It is immediately calming. The water is clear. Crystallized. Purifying. It is her one true escape. She lifts her dress and kneels into the shallow water. She doesn’t bother to check if anyone is around before she takes the gun out of her dress and slowly submerges it into the ocean. She feels like she’s drowning it. She thinks then of all the other women who may have come to this shore. She asks for forgiveness, for her, for all of them. She asks to be reborn, for the ocean to wash away her sins, to annul her of her wrongdoings. She asks for it to take the gun. But it’s not the gun the ocean wants, it’s her.
For the first time she feels safe within the ocean’s current. It holds her close; the waves engulf her in its embrace. She listens to its whispers, its culling calls. She thinks of the names she has been called. Battered. Worthless. Wife. Monster. She wishes to erase those names. To be known as nothing. She lays flat now, floating above the water, carried by the waves. The gun is gone. This is the end. She made it out alive, but she couldn’t live, and she knew that. Without Him she really was no one. She doesn’t try to swim or save herself, for once in her life she can stop. She lets the ocean consume her. She lets the ocean become her. They are one. The same.