Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

I stared at Teddy’s pained face. I could see that his rush to numb himself had a higher purpose and I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want him to see me as a mother; I knew that was not the way things worked.

The question of a child of my own was taken care of quickly with Jeffrey. He simply could not have another, his choice was irreversible, and came well before me. I didn’t know until I was in my late thirties, when I saw the smiling mothers, doting on their children, and panic hit because my choice would soon be gone. That’s when he told me, when I had decided that I had a lack to fill.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said.

He stared off into the water and we watched motorboats in the distance. I asked him if his friends still came home in the summer, if he told anyone about the accident. He stared at me blankly.

“We have different interests.”

He had spent most of his time in private school, so he hadn’t roamed the streets like the boys from the neighborhood, who strayed from the public school, but they had all grown up together, so I thought there would be some kind of lingering affection.

He said, “What do they want with a cripple, anyway?”

We sat in silence for a while, until I said, “Don’t say ‘cripple.’ ”

“What’s the polite way of saying it?”

“I don’t know, but just not that.”

“We’re not PC here, remember?” he said.

“Don’t put yourself down is all.”

“What now?” he asked.

“You get better.” I wanted to believe that my actions would not be irreversible.

“No, I mean, where do you want to go?” he asked.

“Should we sail home?”

“Let’s keep going. I don’t want to go back,” he said.

I held on to the rope and kept the mast steady. We pressed on toward the horizon.

• • •

I had sunburn and windburn from sailing with Teddy all day. My back hurt from being hunched over for hours, keeping my attention on the flapping sail and sturdy mast. It was so freeing to be on the water, the only thing to guide us was a desire to be as far away from Little Neck Cove as possible, even if just for a little while. When we finally decided to turn around, neither of us anticipated how long it would take to sail back. The water felt endless and curled beneath us, sending the front of the boat jutting up and jerking. We oriented ourselves carefully on the boat and I was in control of this fast-moving vessel. When was the last time I could say that I had been in control? Now I understood why Teddy would spend endless hours on the boat, why he sometimes chose to drift. For a moment, you could feel no tethers to anything. You just had one distinct purpose — to keep yourself righted.

At home in front of the mirror, I thought about how close I was getting to fifty. A few more years I wouldn’t notice passing. What then? Eye the young ones with more venom? I didn’t want to feel this way anymore. I wanted to be the one to benefit from someone’s youth. My face had always been a bit pudgy, and looking at myself now, I saw the kind of thin face I had dreamed about as a teenager. I didn’t think I could possibly feel worse than my fourteen-year-old self, but here it was. I couldn’t bounce back like I used to and it made me think about all the mistakes, the chances I didn’t take, the changes I had been afraid to make. What was I going to do now? The biotin treatments I had purchased at the drugstore in town didn’t seem to be working. Perhaps I should have bought the ones not on sale, the more expensive brand with the dark and serious packaging. I pretended my creams and jars were the expensive kind, so I could justify the money I was setting aside to send to my mother. I did more with less, so she could have the money. I was the closest child, the youngest daughter, and I was the one with the obligation.

How many times a day would I spend my time standing in the bathroom hoping to find someone better there? I opened the bathroom drawer and found lipsticks and shiny bottles of foundation and blush, and mountains of samples. Eye cream, face cream, serum, whitening toothpaste, samples of perfume ranging from exotic smells to ho-hum tuberose. I had slickly-decorated squares of shampoos and conditioners and hair mud masks. I hadn’t touched any of them; I just kept them in piles in my drawer. There were small plastic bottles of lotions and shampoos from the hotels Jeffrey visited, piles of them. He had deposited them along with my samples and had slowly been using them, not buying his own shampoo in years. He lived out of these small bottles, even when he was at home.

It was a way of tracking him, making sure he was actually where he said he was. After each trip he’d pull his small black carrying case out of his luggage and tug at the collection of plastic bottles and arrange them in my drawer. Some he placed inside the shower, in a line around the edges of the square shower. I made a space for the plastic bottles that he would soon be depositing but didn’t throw away my own, even though some had started to leak and I’m sure it upset him.

I moved my hand deeper into the drawer and pulled out Teddy’s diazepam and fondled the bottle, touching the orange bottle with the paper label almost lovingly. I hadn’t felt the pull or strength of something this strong since I first met Jeffrey and couldn’t stand to be away from him.

I put it back for later, deep inside, so Teddy wouldn’t find it.

But that didn’t work at all, so I took one and then I put the bottle back. Just one.

I looked at myself, at the makeup I had previously applied, smoothed out my outfit, and waited for the pill to take effect. It was small and unassuming in my palm when I was holding it, like candy. They even had them in pastel colors to make them more pleasant to look at. I thought that Teddy probably had other ways of getting stronger medicine than diazepam, so everything was fine.

As soon as the pill began to work, I would be ready to go to the clambake and face them. Teddy was going, too.

“You ready?” Teddy asked, walking into the bathroom.

I looked at him, madras plaid shorts, boat shoes that needed to be thrown away, and a long-sleeve button-down shirt, I assume to cover his arm. He’d wandered around the house for weeks in his gym shorts, so this was a significant change.

“I think so,” I said. “You look good.”

“Thanks, this is me trying.”

“I can tell,” I said. “Do I look scared?”

“What are you so scared about? You didn’t do thousands of dollars of damage to the place,” Teddy said.

“No one remembers that anymore. Not since Nora’s ex-husband got drunk and naked and jumped into the pool,” I said.

“That’s true. At least I keep my dick in my pants in front of other people.”

He scratched at his head with his good arm and laughed. I stared at his limp arm and he caught me staring at it and turned away and I heard his shoes walking quickly down the hall. I looked at myself and applied blush once again. The pill was working; I didn’t care about anything, really.

• • •

Teddy and I walked along the seawall, once again ignoring the signs that said no trespassing in bright red.

“Soon the whole horizon line will be covered with these signs,” he said.

“They want to make sure there’s no room for discussion,” I said.

He walked in front of me and dangled his arm down next to him. I stared at the long scar on the back of his head and wondered where he’d gotten it, if Jeffrey had hit him. He was certainly capable of it. I saw the scar for the first time when I shaved Teddy’s head but didn’t think to ask about the jagged divide between his head and neck. Teddy turned to look, almost like he was making sure I was still there. I smiled at him, tried to radiate some kind of bravery for him. A crowd of seersucker had formed on the lawn and we both hesitated for a moment. Finally, he jumped off the seawall and opened the latch on the gate, which had its own tasteful sign reiterating that no one should be here.