Tatamagouche, parts 1 to 6 (Patreon)

1.

My mother took two cinder blocks from the garden, carried them by hand along a moonless road, past the lobster traps, to set them on the pier. She left us two notes back at the house, knocked onto the floor somehow, under her computer desk. She left the car in the driveway.

It must have been hard standing out there. There must have been cold wind coming in off the water while she carefully undressed. There must have been voices in her head like the ones Simon and I heard afterward in the church, in our grandmother’s kitchen. Selfish. Cowardly.

Still, she folded her clothes neatly. She padlocked a chain around her waist in the cold air. She pushed the chained cinderblocks off the side of the pier, and she fell. The Atlantic Ocean is green dark off that pier at night.

"Selfish," and "cowardly." I get so angry when someone says that. Our mother made a difficult choice when she chose herself.

2.

We hear the car coming long before we see the lights. There is no hurry. Simon and I find a tree on the side of the road and stand beside it in the darkness. We don't move, brother and sister, patient and invisible. Eventually the car approaches and then passes. Nobody sees anything on these roads at night, unless it is coming through their window.

Simon holds my hand for just a moment.

“Not afterward though,” he says. "I can't hold your hand afterward." Above us, the sky is empty and full at the same time. Stars so small that they make the road darker. Back home everyone is asleep.

The warehouse beside the pier doesn’t have a sign out front. It doesn’t have any windows. Lobster traps are everywhere, set back from the water, stacked on dry land. Simon kicks through the grass until he finds a cinder block. He picks it up and starts to carry it down the pier. I watch him stop to rest, setting the cinder block down, and lifting it again. When he reaches the spot he stops and looks back, waiting for me.

I lift a cinder block of my own from the grass, and I walk out to stand beside him. Together we lift the concrete blocks and tumble them into the green dark water. There's a moment where we can still see a shape beneath the surface, like a face looking up.

3.

Another night. Overcast, with car after car on the road, the air threatening rain. Like rain matters. Imagine. The horror of getting rained on.

On the pier, I step up behind Simon, my breath on his neck, my nose and mouth against the back of his head. I wrap my arms around his waist like a chain, and squeeze tightly.

"It hurts," he says. "I don't think it has to hurt, Sunday."

I loosen my arms, and finally slide back. “Okay then, switch,” I say. I take his place, and stand closer to the edge, looking down at the water. Simon steps up behind me.

My face had to tilt down to kiss the back of his head. His comes barely to my shoulders. His cheek against the rough denim of my jacket. He slides his arms around my waist as loose as possible. And I can tell it is too loose. He clasps his own hands. He presses his face into my back.

I push down on the hoop he's made of his arms. But his elbows catch on the bones of my hips. I push again. Even loose, his arms won’t go. He's right. It didn't have to hurt.

The waves are so small here. Like the Atlantic Ocean is a lake. Simon tightens his arms and hugs me now. To remind me they aren't really chains.

4.

My mother left me an index card in an envelope:

Sunday,

I am not sorry. I know I should be. The most dangerous word in the world is "should." You should feel this way. You should be better. You should should should. I believed in "should" until it was driven like needles under every one of my fingernails.

You are strong. Protect Simon. Let Simon protect you.

I love you, and I will see you in hell,

Your mother.

5.

The pier is cold on my bare feet, as I take my pants off. Beside me, Simon's clothes are already folded, the way hers had been, and he's standing there waiting for me.

When our mother stood there, stripped down, before she let the chains and cement pull her under the water, she couldn't see herself. But I can. She's right there where Simon's standing, naked and white like underside of a fish. She's looking over the side, calm and ready.

When we're both naked, Simon and I climb up onto the edge, and look down at the Atlantic ocean. The water is calm, this side of the pier.

You normally jump into water feet first. Or you dive. But for our mother, the cinderblocks would have hauled her down flat. Like a belly flop. Or some kind of twisted shape. So we do not dive. We do not drop feet first.

When I hit the water it wrenches my neck. It is so cold I don't know what I feel. Salt. I can hear Simon coughing close to me. It is not far to shore, the sharp rocks and cutting shells of the beach are numbed under my feet.

I want to walk home just like this. Numb, bleeding feet. Salted seaweed hair. Clothes left in a neat pile like hers, but Simon is already up on the pier. The wood feels almost warm under my feet as I get dressed beside him.

6.

In my mother's room there were two laptops. They were there among her things like a box of old love letters that someone might come along and open. Filled with secrets and mundane facts and who knows what.

When our father died of cancer, we wanted him to live forever. Every word was a piece of his ghost. Precious. Something to be held and shared. But our mother didn't die. She killed herself. She chose oblivion. If she left behind pieces of her ghost, then at least there was something we could do to help.

"Why didn't she just destroy them?" Simon asks, sitting beside me as headlights approach. "Or she could have taken them down with her. Into the water." He has both of the laptops in his arms. I have a drill for the hard drives and a shovel.

"She didn't even take her clothes down with her, Simon. Going into the water was for her. She doesn't care if we destroy her laptops. She's gone."

"So this is for us?"

"This is for us."

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