[Issue 2024.71]

‘Deirdre’s Skin’, Amalie N. Ingham

Art © 2024 Sarah Salcedo

---

Deirdre was seven years old the first time she nearly drowned.

It had been in a backyard pool, the one attached to her friend Mikayla’s flat-roofed Eichler house two blocks from the school. She’d had a new swim suit, a green one with little flecks of gold in the print, concentric circles of different shades like cross-sections of malachite. She felt like she could disappear into the water in it, which might have been why she nearly did.

She’d been lying on her back, floating, staring up at the mid-day sun through her tinted prescription swim goggles. They always bit at the back of her head a little, even though the rubber strap was loosened as far as it could go, but she couldn’t see well enough without them to take them off. Mikayla was laughing, splashing her little sister, and Deirdre had taken a deep breath and decided not to float anymore. She’d let out the breath, slowly, pressing every inch of air out of her lungs, out of her whole body. She’d sunk, quietly, evenly, leading slightly by her chest with her arms and legs following, down to the bottom of the pool. The sun looked different, from there, moving with the rippling of the water, and Deirdre wanted to move that way, to flicker and to shimmer.

So she’d opened her mouth, and taken as big of a breath of water as she could.

Mikayla’s mother had noticed almost immediately, leaping into the pool fully dressed to scoop the poor child out. Deirdre hadn’t been awake at the time, so she only found this out later, when she was coughing the last of the chlorine out and staring at Mikayla’s mother’s soaked purple pumps. They hadn’t been dye-fast, apparently, as the colour slowly bled out onto the cement surround of the pool. Everything went very fast, while people were concerned, and Deirdre watched it happen at a distance. Her mouth tasted bad, and her chest hurt, but she wasn’t scared. She felt like she’d nearly discovered something, and was a little put out she hadn’t reached it.

The second time Deirdre nearly drowned, she was twelve. She’d come close a few times since then, so maybe it wasn’t really only the second, but it was if she counted by times other people interfered. Mostly, she’d wade out into the bay and think, for a long time, about swimming as far as she possibly could. The fennel plants that grew tall and shielded the baylands from the highway stank like liquorice, and her every breath was perfumed with it. The spray would mist at her glasses until she could barely see, and she would close her eyes, never minding that a wave could come. She wanted a wave to come.

The time she got caught, there had been a wave—not quite a rip tide; she was a smart girl who’d lived by the beach all her life and knew about the danger of the calms. She wasn’t standing anywhere close to where a rip tide should have been able to catch her. Whatever it was, though, it grabbed at her by the ankle, like a hand, tugging her feet out from under her body and casting her deep into the bay.

That time, she’d swallowed quite a bit of seawater and had been dragged back out by the lifeguard, who’d laid her out on the cold sands and squeezed it back out of her, until she was hacking and coughing and vomiting it up along with the remains of her almond butter and jelly sandwich. The lifeguard, Deirdre remembered vividly, had been very beautiful, a tanned, tall woman with golden curls and pale eyes, a tattoo of a dolphin on her shoulder.

When she tried to tell her father about her that evening, he’d huffed and told her not to compare herself to other girls, that there were plenty of men who liked a humbler beauty. He said the lifeguard probably wasn’t all natural, that she’d likely bought her face, bought her body. Deirdre had been confused, not only because she hadn’t known that was possible, but because she hadn’t been comparing herself to the lifeguard, only admiring her. Her father’s attempted assurance had been the first time she’d thought there might be something to be ashamed of in her dark hair, her dun eyes, her freckles. Before that, all she’d known about her looks was that the photograph of her late mother was probably how she’d look when she grew up.

Most of her near-drownings were little things, times when she was swept down the river a bit too fast, lost her bearings for a moment, times when she dived too deep in the school pool and thought she’d never make it back up, or when she’d gotten her foot snagged in something at the lakebed. Each time, briefly, she’d wonder what it would mean if the doors closed, what it would mean if she never breathed again. Deirdre, drowned at seven, loving daughter full of promise. Deirdre, drowned at ten, the greatest at picking apples from the top of the tree by standing on her father’s shoulders. Deirdre, drowned at thirteen, not quite old enough to be a beauty but not quite old enough for it to matter that she wasn’t.

Deirdre, drowned at sixteen, shy and unknown, Mikayla long lost, been kissed but never chosen to kiss.

At seventeen, she sought out a drowning, after she’d come home with her grade report—passing, but two of her teachers had noted her sullen attitude, and she had one D. Her father had been angry, telling her that if her mother was still around she’d have been kind, because she’d been a sweet person, but he wasn’t and it was because of Deirdre that her mother wasn’t there in the first place. He’d never laid hands on her, but he’d shouted until her ears rung and sent her up to bed without dinner and she’d slipped out the window and walked to the bay in her bare feet. It was late October, and the sun was already down, wind whipping through her hair and surely working it into horrible mats she’d have to pick through with a comb later.

If there was a later.

She’d had to clamber over a fence, because the lifeguard had been let go when the city decided the secluded bit of bay wasn’t worth her wages. It didn’t even occur to her to pay the No Trespassing sign any attention. She dug her toes into the sand once she was back on the ground, steadily moving closer and closer to the bay itself, the wind blowing away her tears. The fennel and the salt stung at her eyes, the water a welcoming black pit under the barely-glowing sky. She didn’t mind being sullen, she didn’t even particularly mind being yelled at for her grades; it wasn’t a novelty, after all. It was the comparison to her mother which ate at Deirdre’s gut and made her feel hollow inside, made her feel like there was too much space in her and she needed to fill herself back up with water.

The bay was cold enough that it made her feet numb as she waded in, soaked up from the hem of her denim skirt. She could feel it slightly floating the hair on her legs, that all the other girls her age shaved but she couldn’t stand to. Once the water was to her finger-tips as they hung loose at her sides—the required minimum length of the uniform skirt, according to dress code—she could barely feel her feet at all, and she collapsed forward, dropping into the water. The surface slapped her in the face, knocking the air out of her in a cascade of bubbles that spattered around her head.

It wasn’t as though she tried to breathe, but her lungs ached nevertheless, as though preparing for the icy water to fill them. She could see nothing in the pitch black, though she felt reeds brush her arms, slice open her sleeves, leave a few sharp cuts in her arms and her sides that were at once numbed by the cold. Her scalp prickled as the weight of her hair was lifted from it, flowing in different directions with the slight, gentle current.

Her eyes were open, even though there was nothing to see, and the entire bay was born of her tears.

She wasn’t rescued. Not by the pretty lifeguard, not by a late-night fisherman, not by a concerned citizen or heroic collie. She did, however, wake on the shore, alive, soaking wet, chilled to the bone, and more rested than she had felt in years.

By the time she walked home, she was late for school, and from the front yard she could hear her father pounding on her locked door. She clambered back in the window, grabbed her backpack, and left again without answering him.

From then on she was always a little bit damp, about the ears or the hair, and it upset and discomfited the other students. She’d been friendless for years, but the distance started to turn from disinterest to disgust; a girl who thought she was nice snuck oil-absorbing face masks into her gym locker, while the ones who didn’t pinched their noses around her and spread rumors she pissed herself and dared boys to ask her out as a joke. The boys who took the dare always looked relieved when she said no, no thank you, I’m busy. They’d laugh at her for thinking they were serious, and she would blink at them and wonder what the point was and if they’d still be laughing with seawater in their lungs. Maybe it would calm them, like it had calmed her.

Her drowning seemed to protect her, to armour her against the world; she watched the girls snipe and her father scream as though from the bottom of the pool. Muted, distant, wavering. Her grades remained as poor-but-passing as they’d ever been, and while she was vaguely aware a few of her teachers gave her concerned looks no one intervened, no one told the bullies to stop or asked her if she was all right. She didn’t mind, because she didn’t mind much. There was a great sweetness to her calm, to the water in her ears, to the white scars the reeds had left on her arms and sides and one across her cheek as though marked with a rapier.

The hair on her arms and legs grew soft and dark and thick, and the girl who thought she was nice took her aside to tell her about a waxing place that had just opened up in the city, you could sign up on their mailing list and get fifty percent off your first body wax. She thanked her, and she didn’t go. Her dark hair seemed to escape her scalp, filling in, downy along her spine, down the middle of her belly, soft dark fuzz on her cheeks and her jawline and her upper lip. Someone started a rumour she was a boy. People started to peek at her in the showers, thinking they’d see something conclusive. She wanted very much for them to drown too.

Her father thought she should shave too. Not wax, like the girl at school said, because that was apparently for whores, but he thrust a safety razor at her, told her he’d never thought he’d be teaching someone to shave because he didn’t have a son, and had her sit there while he shaved his own face. She watched him as he carefully tilted his head, peering in the mirror at his own lathered chin, razor skimming against the grain as though its only job was to clear away the shaving cream.

She told him she didn’t want to shave. He had never hit her, but he did hold her down.

Her skin was red and pocked with ingrown hairs and bumps the next day and for the first time since the drowning she wanted to cry. She felt that the air would leak into her irritated skin and dry her up, that she was raw and vulnerable.

Someone said she must have chicken pox. Someone else said she’d pissed off the zit fairy. The girl who thought she was nice hissed to the other girls that she was obviously trying, and later on snuck a bottle of lotion into her backpack.

Sullenly, in the bathroom, she rubbed the lotion into every inch of her prickling skin, rolling down her socks and pulling up her skirt and shucking off her blouse to do it. Someone spread the rumour she’d been masturbating in the girls’ room. She shut her eyes and forced herself not to cry, for fear of losing any more of her water.

Instead of going home, that day, she returned to the bayside. The salt wind stung at her tender skin, and she’d thought she might take her clothes off so they’d be dry for going home in but she couldn’t let the wind touch any more of her skin than was already out, so she only stepped out of her shoes. Instead of wading slowly, she crashed into the water at a run, swimming ahead with an undertrained eagerness, like a dog, like a bear. The water was cold and its numbness was a blessing, the blade-sharp reeds taking their few drops of blood in return. Because the sun was still high, she could just see it fade out into the water, diluting from red to yellow to nonexistent as she became part of the bay again.

She scrubbed at her red skin hard, afraid that if any layer of skin that wasn’t absolutely necessary remained her hair would grow back twisted under it, dig back into her body, afraid to emerge and face her father’s razor again. From her ankles to her belly to her cheeks and her temples, she scrubbed with her balled-up jacket until she was new, and then she floated on her back, eyes closed, waiting for the sun to set.

When she got home, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her skin was still red and angry, but the water had settled it, cooled it; she felt like it just hadn’t healed yet, rather than getting worse every time she moved. She’d gained a lot of weight over the past few months, another soft layer of armour, her arms and legs and hips and ribs all rounded and smooth and padded, no funny little dips between her ribs for the water to eddy in and slow her swimming. She hadn’t exactly realized before, how much bigger she was now; her school uniform had always been too large for her anyway so it hadn’t begun to cut in, and her father certainly hadn’t explained why he was serving her half-portions at dinner. She rested her hands on her soft belly and dug her fingers in, and felt safe.

She wasn’t safe, of course. As soon as she started to have stubble in a few days, her father made her shave again, and she did it herself because at least that was better than letting him take over. She took twice as long, going with the grain rather than against it because that girl who thought she was nice had whispered to her that that helped keep it from getting so irritated. She was still red and pock-marked, still not as she ought to be, but at least it was her own hand cutting away her hair, like how she didn’t mind the scars from her own reeds.

Her mother, in the photograph, didn’t look like her anymore. Her mother, in the photograph, looked how she had as a child; slender, pale, with soft hair and dark eyes and arched brows, slightly freckled and elegant. That was the woman that she’d be if she was good; that was the woman she’d be if she married a man like her father and had a baby and died.

Now, she was rounded, soft, her hair thick and almost grey, growing a beard and whiskers and a sullen, unladylike attitude. She walked to the bay every weekend and most days after school, wading into the cold water which was so much more comfortable now that she was softer. It couldn’t bite at her bones when her bones were deeper inside her body. It just felt bright, like life, clearer than anything else in the world.

Her father still made her shave her face, but when she switched from socks to tights for her uniform and kept the long sleeved blouse, he couldn’t tell the rest of her body was hairy so he didn’t bother her about it. The reeds couldn’t cut her sides anymore, because her skin was protected; still, they’d sometimes slash her cheeks, making red lines that cooled to white and echoed the long, thick hairs that wanted to grow there. She apologized to the reeds, and to her cheeks, and then she didn’t apologize anymore.

One of the boys who’d been dared to ask her out tried to put his hand under her skirt after she’d said no. She wished he could drown. One of the girls spread it about that she’d come onto him and put her hand down his pants. She wished she could drown. Her father broke his long-standing record and beat her, and she wished he could drown too.

When she snuck out to the bay that night, a Friday, she didn’t come back. She slept in the water, her head pillowed on a rock she knew stayed just above the waterline at high tide, her toes blue and numb, the hair on her body swaying slightly in the currents and prickling her skin. There might be a search party out for her by Saturday night, but there might not be. There was probably one by Sunday, but she didn’t hear them. It was funny; she’d been coming here so long and so devotedly, and yet there was no one who knew.

When Monday came, she felt a looseness in her body, and she dragged herself onto shore to explore it. Her beard had grown back in, as had the soft fur at her temples, her cheeks, her lip. She slicked her hands down her face and her body and felt herself become smooth, all her hair adhering to her skin, becoming a sleek pelt, and when her hands brushed her whiskers she felt it deep in her skull.

Carefully, she stepped out of her skin like stepping out of a dress.

In the reflection in the water, she saw the girl she’d been. Slender, pale, with narrow wrists and dun eyes, her dark hair flowing from her head, the rest of her clean and bare. The bones of her ankles were sharply defined as she looked down and clenched her toes against the sand.

In her reflection in the water, she saw the girl in the picture, who had been good and kind and who hadn’t been there, who she hadn’t been good enough to replace. The girl who married her father, the girl who looked no older than she was now even though she had to have been.

Deirdre slung her skin across her shoulders, not wanting it out of her sight for a moment, and drew great loops and lines in the sand with her feet, making a pattern, making something that looked like writing but meant nothing. Maybe someone would find it. Maybe the girl who thought she was kind would see it, and know where she’d gone, and follow her, and drown. Maybe she’d be really kind, then. Maybe she already was.

Deirdre put her skin back on, sleek and round and spotted and grey, and dropped into the water like her mother before her.

© 2024 Amalie N. Ingham

[Issue 2024.71]

Comment on the stories in this issue on the TFF Press blog.