Chapter 1.

CHAPTER ONE

People who have witnessed a tidal wave, the ones who survive it, say that the first sign of the destruction to come is the “drawback.” The water along the shoreline recedes to a point much farther out than usual, exposing areas of beach normally unseen. The raw and rarely revealed seabed lures those souls curious as to what the ocean usually hides under her murky covers. For once, the ocean’s secrets lay uncovered and on display, inviting all to come and discover. Feet sink into dark virgin sand that has never felt the caress of human skin. But the sea is a siren, claiming these souls as her own.
            “I’ll show you, but I’ll have to kill you,” she says.
For too much has been revealed: a blanket of dark and churning water swells and expands to cover the shore, smothering anyone trapped underneath.
           
Faye almost drowned once. Not in a tidal wave, but in a rip current on a sunny day at the beach with her family two years ago. She’d always loved the ocean; its shadowy vastness remained a constant mystery, impervious to time and human concern.
Faye preferred the days when the water was fierce and choppy, those days when turning her back to the deep was impossible for fear of the towering waves. The sea is impossible to predict- perhaps that was its appeal. To stay above the waves on those rough days was a fight; each oncoming wall of water a small battle requiring constant vigilance. No feeling matched the satisfaction of emerging from the ocean on days like that: warmth finally caressing skin made raw and hair become tangled from the skirmish. She would flop on a towel and catch her breath, letting the sun turn the salt water into a thin crust baked onto her skin.
            The day Faye almost drowned was not like this. On the last day of her vacation the sea was disappointingly calm and the water was crowded with swimmers enjoying the peace. Floating was possible today, and Faye found relaxing on the waves rather than fighting them to be a strangely pleasant sensation. She lay on her back and felt weightless. Boundless. The water pulled at her dark hair, splaying it out like a fan on the surface. The bright sun scorched her retinas and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
On this day, the ocean stole every sense but one. Her closed eyes and submerged ears were useless but she smelled everything, and everything was ocean. Salt water invaded her nose and pores and every opening until she felt she became water herself, drifting along with the current. How long she lost herself in the water, Faye did not know; she could have been floating for minutes or hours.

Later, she would scold herself for relaxing; she should have known better. The ocean is unpredictable: Faye knew and respected this trait. So when she felt the tugging at her toes, strong enough to interrupt her daydreams, she should have realized immediately what was happening. But the ocean already had her. 

          Faye did not think of this incident again until her freshman year of college. In those first Dark Days she could feel her head slipping underwater but could not remember how to come up for air. To drown daily but never die was the worst possible feeling—held underwater by her own mind and flailing but losing strength. Or perhaps worse was that no one saw her struggle, or knew how to save her if they did. Time had no meaning or control over her life: days and nights blended into one long Darkness. Faye looked but could not see, and heard but could not listen as the world she once loved and understood flickered before her vision like a fast-forward movie.

One night during the early Darkness, Faye found herself sitting next to her mother on her worn couch. She could not remember why or when she had sat there, but those details, like most, did not matter to her. The Bad thoughts were at the worst they’d ever been: they echoed endlessly in her mind, burning into her brain and clouding her vision. She closed her eyes and wished to sleep. A brief respite. 
But her mother was talking. She opened her lids and looked around the room- she was the only other occupant. These words were for her.

“Can you believe what happened to that poor young man? What a darn shame.”

Confused, Faye looked up at the images on the television. She hadn’t even noticed it was on. Deliberately concentrating on the screen required painful focus and attention, but her mother was waiting for a response, so she endured. The program was called, “I Shouldn’t Be Alive.” In this episode, a couple on their honeymoon in Japan had unknowingly wandered too far out on a receding coastline, only to be crushed by the tidal waters. The man survived. He never found his wife’s body. The blue screen illuminated the dark room as water; water everywhere, crushing everything, flashed again and again. Her mother was talking, muttering meaningless words drowned out by the roar of the crashing waves.
Faye watched the widower cry, unable to take her eyes off of the screen. She had forgotten what interest felt like. The man twisted the wedding band on his finger as tears spilled from his dark eyes. The tears fell and fell and she wished to hold a bowl under them, collecting the drops so the man could sink into the salt water to join his dead wife.

“This show should be called, ‘I Don’t Want to Be Alive’.” she said finally.

Her mother studied her with a slight frown.

“Why? He’s lucky to have survived that tidal wave.”

Lucky. Faye looked at the man and thought that he was anything but lucky. No, the lucky one was the wife, the one who escaped the sadness and emptiness she was sure the man was drowning in.
Drowning. A memory pulled at the edges of her mind, demanding attention. The waves roared on the screen and suddenly she was back in the ocean, and she was dying. But damnit, she was fighting. Faye sat on the ugly couch but her mind was in the sea, back to that day two years before. Grabbed by the tide and dragged to the bottom, she’d kicked furiously against the waves, searching for the surface but finding only water, water that filled her mouth, nose and ears with its briny fingers.
Faye assumed she was going to die. Her rather rational brain quickly calculated the chance of winning against the infinite strength of the ocean, and the odds were not good. Her mind knew this but her body did not accept and it searched for air; legs tangling in arms and hair and seaweed, until it too realized she was dying. So she stopped; struggling and let go of the fight. Her lungs burned for air but she let the ocean have her.
And a few moments later, it spit her out on the shore. Bleeding, bruised, and weeping, but alive.

Past

Once, a long time ago, I was content.

I remember those times when the days were long, so long. I would wake to the sun streaming in my window and at night I'd sleep deeply on clean pink sheets.

I remember yanking the green coats from ears of corn, tearing off its hair and feeding it to the backyard cows. My hair, too, was the color of corn silk and it blew long and free and tangled in the summer wind.

I never saw my Amish neighbors as different from me. They were, and still are, my people.
My first friend, Katie, was Amish and her and I would lay in bed and giggle-- her hair in a tight knot and a long black dress wrapped around her legs. I lay beside her in pigtails and cotton shorts, but we felt no different.

I read my first books in a green-curtained room of my Amish babysitter. They were all faded Dick and Jane volumes from the sixties and they smelled gloriously of old paper. If I think hard enough I can remember the distinct scent and it always, always makes me happy.

My babysitter would make me sandwiches: the most delicious sandwiches smothered in jam and thick cheese on fluffy bread. I'd sit in her barn for hours, sneaking the horse bits of feed or chasing down the feral cats that never took a liking to me.

My next-door neighbours had a trampoline. I'd begged my parents to get me one, but my mom was deathly afraid I'd break my neck. She disapproved when I snuck next door to jump, but I was obsessed. I'd bounce for hours, sometimes alone, but often with my sister. We'd start in the heat of the summer day and watch the sun go down beyond the corn fields at night. Even now, it's easy to remember what that hot black plastic felt like under my feet, and how free I felt to fly for a few seconds.

I realize now how alone I was. Other than my sister, I had but one friend nearby. I spent much of my time roaming the fields and meadows and backyards like a tiny nomad. I had no boundaries.

"I wished we lived in a neighborhood. You need friends Erin," my mother would say, over and over and yet I saw suburbia as a concrete hell. To separate myself from the rusty swings in the Amish schoolyard and the crow of the roosters would be unimaginable. Lethal.
I was alone but not lonely. My world was the strangely comforting stench of cow manure and the sharp, clean smell of grass from my fathers' lawnmower. My feet were dirty and my skin was tanned, kissed by the sun.
My childhood was perfect.

Here.

"I don't want to drive," I said. So I sat myself in the passenger seat, squashed beside him in the bumper car. Our friends sat around us, waiting to be released, our excitement palpable. I squirmed eagerly in my seat.
It was dusk; the light was fading fast.
How strange we looked, dressed to the nines in our suits and dresses and heels and shiny shoes and yet we grinned like children as we careened around and around in circles. We collided into friends and strangers and our heads snapped back as we laughed.
I was screaming with laughter; with mirth or joy or exhilaration or whatever you want to call it: this moment was freedom, pure and sweet.


The pink and blue and yellow lights blurred around us as our knees bumped together. We screeched with laughter, He and I. Carefree and perfect.


Over a year later, a different He and I drank beers in a sprawling backyard lit only by headlights. "I'll go first," I said. I ran then, pumping my legs furiously before throwing myself on the wet, soapy tarp. It was cold and the water sprayed into my contacts but it took me down, down, delightfully fast. I spilled out onto the grass and the blades cut into my skin but I didn't care. He slid behind me, much faster and more graceful. His muscles rippled under his skin when he stood, grinning and covered in grass.
We stood there like childish fools, drenched in soap and green weeds. When I grabbed his hand he let me thread my fingers through his and we ran back up the slippery blue tarp, skating on the beads of water and dodging the other slip-n-sliders. His hands were big and dark and mine were small and pale and yet I remember we laughed alike as we skidded together in the black and blue summer night.

This may sound strange, but I used to think that when I died, I could ask God to show me the greatest moments of my life over again. I always wondered what those would be, but I've decided that perhaps these would be the moments I wish I could have just one more time.