Sinking Vs. Drowning (For We Cannot Swim)

By early morning, his hands no longer shake.

The world smooths out, a canvas painted over with a base-coat of white; all the cracks filled in, waiting for the first splash of color. Right now he feels a little unsteady, but the sun hasn’t quite risen. He has time. He pours himself some coffee and makes it extra Irish, presses both hands against the warm mug as if it could spread its heat all the way to the ends of his toes before he even takes a sip.

By the time Josie and the kids stumble, bleary-eyed and yawning into the kitchen, he’s on his second cup and has enough eggs and sausage links for all four of them simmering on the stovetop. Maya, their youngest, smiles wide when she sees breakfast is almost ready.

“Good morning, Daddy!” she says, the last dregs of dreariness leaving her as the smell of toast reaches her nose. “You made breakfast!”

He grins and reaches down to pick her up, hands steady enough now to hold her tightly. He kisses her cheek, blowing raspberries until he elicits that perfect little giggle he loves. “I did, honey. Tell Willy what you want to drink and then you can grab us some napkins. How’s that sound?”

“Okay!” Maya agrees easily, allowing herself to be lowered back down. She runs to the pantry where she knows the napkins will be, grabs entirely too many and begins compiling little stacks of them around the dining table in the next room. Willy, with his wild hair and vivid freckles, pours the drinks without needing to be asked twice, and Josie watches the scene with a wistful look. Her husband leans in for a quick kiss, and she tastes more than coffee on his lips. The wistfulness remains, now laced with something else.

She waits until Will and Maya are gone, waves to them as they clamber onto the big, yellow school bus. Then she faces him in the cool, gray kitchen, watches him try to maintain the smile that doesn’t quite stretch as wide as it used to, doesn’t curl in all the same ways she remembers from back when she loved him most.

“Baby…” she starts, then stops. She’s said all of these things before. She doesn’t know any more words. The English language hasn’t invented the right ones for this: the conversation after the conversation.

“I know,” he says, the same way he’s said it so many times before. Like things will change. Like they’ll bypassed the ending, rewrite the story to say something different. But they won’t. They can’t. Josie knows that by now.

“I don’t think you do,” she says anyway. She holds her own mug of coffee now. Just coffee. Sighs long and deep and hollow, the way the air sounds as it whistles in the space between a forming wave and the rest of the ocean. “He’s different, you know.”

“Who, Willy?” her husband asks, his left eye shifting just a little off-center from her face. It’s how she knows he’s past his third drink. That and the steadiness of his hands. “Baby, Willy doesn’t understand…” he tries.

“Not Willy,” she interrupts. “You. Him. It’s two different people. It’s not…” she has to stop again, has to run a hand down her face and remind herself that this is what she has now, even if she used to have something else. “I miss him. I miss you.”

He sighs like he has the right to be impatient. “I’m right here.”

“You’re not.”

He doesn’t answer. He just moves himself a little closer so that he’s leaning across the counter from her, and then he looks her in the eye, trying to say something the way they always used to be able to. If she doesn’t stare back too closely, she thinks it might almost be the way it used to be. She tries. She searches, thinks maybe she can see a little of that glint he used to have in his gaze. But then that left eye twitches again and there’s nothing behind it and she blinks and turns toward the sink and the window where the school bus isn’t anymore, where the small breeze is rustling the newly-green leaves.

“You don’t want him back,” he says, finally. There is something past sadness in his voice, and Josie can’t look at him and his twitching left eye, because then she really might lose it. “You think you do, but you don’t,” he insists. “He’s different than he used to be. He’s….his hands shake and he can’t pick up his children and the air around him is too full of static. He’s afraid of everything. He’s angry at everything. He yells. Don’t you remember how he yells?”

She’s close to crying now. Just a few tears welling up behind her eyes, though they haven’t fallen yet. She turns back around to face him because it doesn’t matter if he sees. He’s seen it all before and he’s still in the same place he was a five months ago. “And you think this is better?” she asks, gesturing to the man who stands in front of her, his fingers steady and his face flexing and pulling like wax-paper, expression warped beneath a layer of something else, something that doesn’t belong on him.

“Yes,” he says, lowering his eyes to the countertop. He drums his fingers along it, a dull thumping.

“Prove it.”

He looks up at her, a question in his uneven gaze.

“Give me tomorrow,” she clarifies. Her eyes are steady, even with the tears still resting against her lashes. “Give me tomorrow, and then we’ll see which one you are. Which one you want to be.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His hands are shaking.

The world is all rough edges, a canvas that’s been splattered over with a million different colors and patterns, messy and unfinished and terrifying. He feels more than a little unsteady, and the sun is already up. He doesn’t have time. Josie pours him a coffee and makes it with extra cream, helps him curl both of his shaking hands around it as if she could spread her warmth all the way to the ends of his toes before he even takes a sip.

Breakfast is just cereal today, and Maya smiles the same way she did yesterday, though she doesn’t understand why Daddy doesn’t pick her up and gobble at her cheek until she giggles in the way he loves.

“Good morning, Daddy!” she says, pushing her face against his knees instead. He pats the top of her soft head and smiles, and it seems to stretch further than it did yesterday, seems to curl his lips in all different ways. Josie watches, wistful as she was the day before.

Maya gets too many napkins and Willy gets the drinks, looks up at his Dad with a little bit of milk dribbling down his chin and a piece of cereal stuck to his lip. “You okay, Dad?” he asks, eyebrows scrunched together the same as when he’s trying to do his science homework.

“I’m good, kiddo,” he nods, hands still wrapped around his half-drunk coffee mug and eyes blinking a little more than usual and smile still stretched wide. “Why do you ask?”

Will shrugs, licks his lip so that the Cheerio resting there drops onto the table. “Seem different,” he says.

“Huh,” his dad shrugs back, biting his lip against a small wave of nausea.

He and Josie watch from the kitchen window as Willy helps his sister carry her lunchbox onto the bus, settles into the seat beside her and pushes back a little piece of her hair that’s fallen away from the rest of her ponytail.

As the bus pulls away, he and Josie face each other in the cool, gray kitchen. She takes his hand, feels it tremble in her own.

“Baby…” he starts, then stops. He’s said all of these things before. He doesn’t know any more words. The English language hasn’t invented the right ones for this: the atonement after the atonement.

“I know,” she answers, the same way she’s answered so many times before. Like things will change. Like they’ll manage to turn back the clock, rewire the machine to make something different. But they won’t. They can’t. They both know that by now.

He sighs, long and deep and hollow, the way an echo sounds when it travels the expanse of a gaping forest.

The next morning, his hands are steady.

His left eye twitches, and there is no glint behind it.