My Own Body of Water

I'm finally doing it. My brother-in-law, Shane has decided to take a walk down the pier and has started to peel off his shirt and kick off his sandals. I look at him like he is out of his mind. "Seriously, right now?"

"Why not? I'm burning up. Okay, watch my glasses," and he puts them on top of his messily folded shirt sitting on the ground. He stands on the edge of the concrete border and jumps off the edge. I gasp and look over just as he hits the water. 1…2…3…finally, he pops up. There are three local kids hanging out at the edge of the pier as well and I vaguely hear one of them say, "Wha, meh san. Dat white man crazy."

Shane climbs up the rusty ladder on the edge and is dripping. "So, are you going to do it?" he asks. I look at him like he's crazy. The local kids look at me like I have just been dared. And then suddenly, something takes over. Maybe it was the mama juana at the Domino Club or the two painkilling cocktails, but I suddenly find myself putting my camera down and kicking off my sandals. Fully clothed, I am standing on the edge. I look down into this giant abyss. Some people say it is 120 feet down due to the trenching for cruise ships and submarines that can only dock at this pier on the island. I look down again at the dark blue sea and the wind is whirling in my ear and as Shane is yelling at me to beware of the current, I jump.

I was, and my friend, Sara was right: in some aspects it was just better to know. We left the student clinic after they handed me all of my paperwork, which I told them was unnecessary – I had just finished an internship with Planned Parenthood and knew all of my "options." I was dropped off at my dorm where I went inside where I called my on-again boyfriend and did a shot of whiskey. Yes, I did a shot of whiskey and while it is not the most admirable or well heralded idea, sometimes your sanity becomes fleeting and you need a strong nip to keep it in check.

*

Looking back, I remember my boyfriend sitting on my bed as I smoked what would be one of my last cigarettes; my room began to close in and I started to hyperventilate. The only

rational thing to do in my mind was to quickly throw everything in my car and run away – from the boyfriend, my father, my infertile sister and from all of the disapproving glares that would soon follow from friends. Either the boy-friend sensed this or was simply afraid of this, but he suddenly said, "Well, why don't we just get married then?" The actual words escape me to this day, but it was all so casually spoken that I simply turned my head and looked at him as if he were a crazy man. I think I declined the offer at first. The idea seemed preposterous at best and horribly bad, at worst. But I'll never forget the look on his face. He believed this could possibly be the thing that would return me to the living.

*

My sister, Kelly told me that when I chose the name "Max," I stole the name she was going to use for the new puppy she was acquiring. I didn't have the heart to remind her that during those months, she barely spoke to her just turned 23 year old knocked up sister. I felt that maybe one should just pretend that didn't happen. That she didn't reply "But you? You think you can raise a child? You're one of the most selfish people I know." I just said I was sorry for stealing "Max" and I would relay my "names" past her when we tried for our next one.

*

The first birthday party was a pirate party. Everyone teased me how I gone overboard – huge cake, a treasure chest piñata, balloons, ridiculous swords, hats and anything else I could find that was pirate oriented. Sure, I understood – he was only turning one, but that little boy saved my life and he could have anything he wanted.

*

My father now jokes how he didn't want to show up at my wedding and I should thank my new step-mother for making him go. I had met her once prior to marrying my new husband. My father stood to the right of my husband and brother-in-law as I said my vows. My father sobbed painfully during the ceremony – he looked over at me as I said "I do," and it

appeared as if someone told him I had just died.

*

Max received a motorized truck from "Grandpa Bill" for his third birthday. My father commented on what an amazing kid Max is. I looked at my father incredulously and smiled. I pretended none of it had happened. I watched my father and my son playing in his bluegrass yard and as much as I tried to enjoy it, I remembered the response:

"So, you're getting married? Why do you have to get married?"

"But dad, I want to and we think it's a good idea. I'm pregnant."

"You don't have to keep saying it. Do whatever you want. Go ahead. Ruin your life."

"But dad,"

"Your mother would be so disappointed in you." And he hung up.

*

I married my husband on Thanksgiving weekend in 2003. I wore a purple dress in honor of my mother – her favorite color. It was the last thing I had seen her wearing as well -- the silk purple suit she was buried in that I had to pick out for her. Purple was her signature color – a sign of nobility, royalty and in my eyes, happiness.

Mom had been dead a little over a year when I married my husband while I was eight weeks pregnant. My god mother warned me this new life I was jumping into wouldn't bring my mother back.

"But something needs to bring me back, Lesli. I feel dead inside."

*

I was put into induced labor July 19th, 2004. 21 hours later, after two of pure pushing, our son Maxwell Keegan Birchfield was born. His name means "Great Spring of Fire" – a third

generation red head, to boot. Lying in a hospital, with only my sister and husband, I brought my son into this world. And somehow, she was there.

*

I quit going to school full –time while I was pregnant. I couldn't stand the looks of disapproval from those who knew of my previous bad habits, who knew of my nervous breakdown, who questioned why a pro-choice club president would keep a baby while a senior in college. I gave up and hid. I wrote for six months, took a few part-time classes and disappeared. I would run into people while I baby shopped by myself and they would remember how cool I used to be or how "fun."

"Boy, what happened to you?" they would ask.

I would stare blankly and feel rejected. Only now do I know how to respond.

"I chose to live. I jumped."

*

When my father met my son, he held him uncomfortably and commented on his red hair, the result of my father's gene pool. He posed for pictures as my sister, Kristin acted as a buffer between us, and he asked for my plans.

"I don't know, Dad. My husband is going to grad school next year. I guess then I will go after that."

"Well, good luck. You're on your own now." And he drove away from my apartment in the ghetto off Versailles Road.

*

Before my son's third birthday, I returned to St. Croix to visit Kristin and Shane and to check out their new place. My husband claimed the trip to be a Mother's Day vacation and so I went by myself. Everywhere I went, people were disappointed not to see the baby, but

happy to see our family doing well.

"We knew how hard your mother's death was on you. Oh and your poor father. We were afraid he wasn't going to make it after she died. Thank god he had you girls." I always smiled smugly and looked away. Yeah, it must have been hard to leave your daughters and live 2000 miles away. It must have been so difficult to send the one daughter cocktails of medicine to "fix" her and then to say, "Get your shit together."

I respond to these people, "Yes, thank god he met Annie, I guess." The woman he remarried a mere year and a half after the mother died.

*

Coming up from the ocean, I'm gasping for breath. My anxiety is creeping and then I hear Shane shout, "How does it feel? Great, isn't?"

I swim to the ladder and, still in the ocean, I look out at the abyss I just jumped into. The unknowing blue ocean that can either cushion or kill you. I climb up the ladder and respond, "I feel like a new woman."

And I really do. I jumped into the abyss and I survived.