I Can’t Swim

I tell people I can’t swim, but I can. I remember exactly when I was taught. I remember the smell, tepid and soggy fish water. I think the real problem was that it wasn’t off-putting—that meant I was used to it. For those that know, Cotile Lake, bless its heart, is the closest thing we’ve got to Cabo. I’m pretty sure there were beer bottles, fish bones, and an old tire on the beach front. I felt right at home.

The place didn’t matter so much as the company. My daddy was there. I’m not sure the reason now that I’m older, but then in my child’s mind, I drank up his presence. Better that than the fish-water, I suppose.

I was told if my daddy wanted to see my sister and I he knew where we lived and our phone number never changed. I can still remember it almost thirty years later, but I’m guessing he didn’t. I believed my daddy didn’t really want to see me. Because I believed it, it felt like that big ole beach tire was dry-rotting right on my insides. I was hurt, but I was still thirsty. I just wanted my daddy.

Shelby had a daddy, Mr. Frank, and from what it looked like to me from the school bus window, he seemed like a good one. He lived there so that’s a start.

My mama had a daddy. Paw Paw loved the hell out of me. He bought me a whole dang horse because I said it was pretty. I had to embarrass my daddy into buying my sister and I some shoes. I’m not really sure what he would’ve done had we just asked. Maybe we did and he said no, but I remember going into that visit thinking he owed us at least a pair of boots.

William had a daddy. My uncle worked hard for a living and bought him racing four-wheelers that were fast as hell and just as fun. He even came to Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.

But on this day, the day I learned to swim, I had one too.

I remember his laugh when he threw my sister and me up in the air. He’d hold our hands, he’d take a deep breath, go under water, come up and shoot us just about five thousand feet in the air. All arms and legs and hollers completely weightless, flying for just a second, only to come down and be eaten by the water. That damn fish-water.

I didn’t know it then, but my daddy was in the Navy. It makes sense to me now why I’m a good swimmer. He knew how to swim better than anyone in that lake. He told me, “Megan, you hold your breath when…” I don’t remember the rest. I just remember watching him stick his face in the water, come up, turn it one way, another breath, and face the other way.

Breath. Turn. Blow. Breath. Turn. Blow. Left arm slice. Breath. Turn. Blow. Right arm slice. Breath. Turn. Blow. Slice. Breath. Turn. Blow. Slice.

He moved so fast. He said it was because of his feet. Kicking silently, invisibly underneath the wake. Damn boats. I should’ve yelled at them, but I didn’t know they weren’t supposed to be so close. I know now they could’ve hurt us. I know alot of stuff now can hurt us. Would’ve been useful to know it back then.

My other sisters were there that day. I’m the youngest of five girls, but the first three are half siblings. My daddy was cute and I think he knew it. Hence all the offspring.

It was nice having all of us on one nasty beach. I think we might’ve eaten chips and sandwiches at one of the picnic tables, but I can’t remember a lot of the details. I remember going back to the gas station where Mama would pick us up. All of us but the oldest piled in the bed of the truck. Pretty sure it’s illegal now, hell, it was probably illegal back then, but I think most things that are go unnoticed or unpunished so what’s a little truck bed-riding?

One of my older sisters, she was really cute with her 90s bob cut and glasses, little round face, chunky cheeks. I remember the hot air blowing at the back of her head. Her hair kept covering her glasses. If it bugged her she didn’t let on. That would be one of the last times I’d see her before she died by her own hand. She would be about fifteen then. I would be seven. I’m not sure if I was old enough to really miss her. I miss the possibility of her now.

I’m not sure why I didn’t see my daddy much growing up. I’m at the age now where I don’t care to know, and if I did I couldn’t ask him. He passed away almost ten years ago. That’s really sad isn’t it? I guess it’ll have to be alright.

I didn’t let him leave me alone though, before he died, I mean. I’d written him a letter, shoot, I don’t know maybe three or four years before that. We’d become penpals. It was nice. I remember the first line of his first reply. He told me my letter was an answer to a prayer he wasn’t sure he’d see come to fruition. He never said he was sorry in those exact words, but my grownup ears caught his meaning. I never told him, but he’d known about my problems growing up. Self harm and other more permanent attempts. I don’t know that he knew about the men, the monsters I didn’t know would hurt me. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t know that I could tell anyone.

But my daddy and I became kind of friends before he passed. One of my favorite things he ever wrote to me, gosh I wish I had it on hand so I could scan it and post it, was when he asked about my husband. My daddy was a plumber and apparently a damn good one. He’d worked with my husband one summer whenever Kristopher was off from school. My daddy said he’d hoped Kristopher and I were doing well, and that I could cook well for him. Maybe he asked me if I could or something, but either way, he asked about our domestic life together. That’s not the good part. The first and only time in the years of our correspondence did he mention my mama was to say that she “never was real good at cooking.” I’m dead. That’s still funny because it’s still so true! Now no hate to my mama because I can’t cook worth a flip either, but she can still fry up the best dang white perch I’ve ever tasted. The only other person I’ve met that can come close is my brother, Robbie. Obviously he’s not my blood brother, but when you’re a bit of an orphan like myself, you make up your own family and you snatch up the good ones when you can.

Yeah, my mama can’t cook, but neither can I. I’m not sure if my daddy could. All I remember of his cooking was him laughing as he stuck a beer can up a chicken’s ass. He laughed that cackle-y laugh he had, and told me it added flavor while he flipped it around and around on the grill. I was completely bumfuzzled and I was hoping the ash from his cigarette wouldn’t fall onto the chicken’s butt can.

My daddy died before I ever got to see him shove anything up the ass of another chicken. Maybe that’s the real tragedy. He never got to teach me how to cook beer chicken. I suppose what he did teach me kept me from ending it all.

Breath. Turn. Blow. Slice. Breathe. Turn. Blow. Slice.

When I get bound up in the memory of it all I find myself - breath. turn. blow. slice, and it helps. I can kick my feet under the fish-water of my past and move out towards the good I’ve now found. My husband, my sons, my dogs, even the dang cat that I’m slightly allergic to and that I’m pretty sure is plotting against me. I’ve got lots of good now that I don’t know I’d have made it to had my daddy not taught me to swim.

I tell people I can’t swim, but that’s a lie. There’s proof that I can.