Shaving On the Beach
By Jahla Seppanen
With strong tequila in me, I lifted my leg on the shower ledge and began to shave. The liquor brought out a strength and carelessness, and when I finished I stepped out on the pale bathmat and blood trickled down my shins. I had pressed too deep. Knots gathered in my gut and blood ran from the slim, vertical peelings of skin. I wished I could hold my mother.
Earlier that summer, in a coastal town off the coast of North Carolina, I stood gazing at the waves of the warm Atlantic. Sweet funnel cake swept by in the breeze, replaced by the stench of fish, and then no smell at all. Only coolness. I was on the balcony of my hotel room facing the beachfront. To the right was the long boardwalk and wharf. To the left, the house my mother stayed in.
Since I was young, she spent summer at the beach, away from us. Now an older woman in retirement, my mother maintained the tradition; gathering with her longest, dearest friends for months of memories and pretending to be young again. She broke with tradition when she invited me, and for the first time in a long time I felt the guttural pull to be near to her. Maybe I hoped to catch a glimmer of her affection for me. Or the vision of her anew. One of us had to be a different person to move forward.
I planned to stay close to the house, but not at the house. I wasn’t strong enough to sleep under one roof again, hearing her puttering up and down the stairs at night or sighing deeply at the dinner table. But I would be close and visit often, for her, for three nights and three days. I told myself I could do it, and that I wanted her in my life.
On the first night, she was wonderful. A spirited honking signaled me down from my room and I met my mother in a peculiar fashion— her behind the wheel of a modified golf cart painted like a Hot Wheels car with blue and orange flames. Her grey hair was pushed to one side, long, heavy, and youthful. She perked up seeing me, exclaiming to her friends in the other seats,
“There’s my baby.”
We carted down the boardwalk as she and her friends pointed out the town sights. My mother radiated with a smile and pride too, like this was one of the best nights in her life. At every mention of me, she would wink unbeknownst to her, bragging that I was beautiful and successful and had someone back home who loved me. Much later, I walked from their house to my hotel room taking the route of the shore. It was 2 AM and the white-black sand reflected the moon and night, light and darkness, together. My body emptied with relief, sinking into the cold sand. Either she was different or I had changed, but something had cured itself after so long.
The next day we met at the beach. Our chairs – eight side-by-side— faced the water as if we were waiting for soldiers to arrive, or God, or something that would take a long time but we knew would come. I watched the water and the water watched me. I was full and satisfied from the night before. I ate only raspberries all morning and afternoon. A carton of them. The sun was steady and warm and so was my mother. Then I went up to rest in the hotel room, sleeping through the afternoon.
They were still on the beach in their row when I woke up. Out the balcony, I saw the slow packing of blankets and chairs, and went down to meet them.
In the sand, my mother’s friends went through the grueling task of packing a day on the beach. Fluffing towels, folding chairs, wrapping cold cuts. My mother scrambled around unable to complete a task. In the scientific dance to fold a chair, she hit the lever and fell over herself, brushing it off with a laugh that turned to a cruel insistence that she was “OKAY!” Then she rolled in the sand intentionally to regain her child-like mood, making a show of turning away and exposing her chest as she dusted the inside of her bikini top. The lifeguard whistled – this was a family beach – and we carted the set up off the sand and to the parked golf cart.
Before reaching the cart, my mother made us stop. Everyone carrying heavy chairs and coolers halted and set down their load.
“Take my picture,” she said.
My mother arranged her friends, then stopped a stranger to take the photo, pulling in a young black woman with three children waiting patiently at her hip.
“Let me get on top of the wheelbarrow. I’ll stand on the umbrellas,” my mother said, climbing the wheels and equipment. She leaned and tipped, caught by her old friends who whispered, “Please get down… okay, a quick photo for you.” The wind whipped and threw her hair over her face. It was a terrible photo and a terrible moment.
I asked if she had been drinking and the skin on my mother’s face tightened and her eyes turned cold and black.
“Have you been drinking?” she slurred. Her tongue swirled inside her mouth like a storm.
“I’ll meet you for dinner,” I said, and watched her friends buckle my mother into the golf cart and wave to me with sad mouths and eyes that wouldn’t meet mine completely.
I arrived after dinner. My hope was that with enough time, she could return to that other person. But arriving late was not late enough. I told myself I would leave the next morning because I could not live through more. Together with the group, we sat on the couches in the living room and I listened to their stories. They were such interesting and bright people. My mother sat at the end of the couch, perched on her sitz bones. As her friends spoke, she did not listen, but shot her legs out like electricity ran through them. Flexing and pointing her feet. Flexing and pointing. Flexing. And pointing. Hovering her legs in front of her like a baby does. She pointed and flexed and rubbed her legs together until I saw what I thought were scratches from the beach. Her legs began to bleed steadily from the shins and ankles from shaving nicks everywhere. Fresh from that evening.
I imagined her in the shower, intoxicated and alone, dragging the razor with ill abandon, and hated myself, hated her, for being in so much pain. I imagined if anyone else was my parent. My mother’s friends served glasses of limoncello and I drank mine with a smile, feeling very unloved and uncared for. My mother drank hers and pressed the cold glass to her legs and bled on the glass. The sight made me spring up for paper towels. I wet them and gently rubbed the blood off her legs, furious the whole time as she squirmed and shooed me away. Then I left.
Again, I walked the ocean to my hotel. Sat in the air conditioned room, awake, until the sun came up.
I stayed the last day despite having a dozen excuses to leave. I took my mother and all her friends to the aquarium. They were like children together, separating, running, screaming. They pointed out the skinny people, the fat people, the coins on the floor. Still, my mother hadn’t transformed back. I got the sense she hadn’t slept much either, then she told me about waking early and beginning dinner for that night. Without an avenue for words or anger, she cooked; an activity that always involved wine. When she disappeared at the sea turtles, I found her again at the concession stand eating a hot dog. Her hands stank of mustard and I cleaned them for her. I don’t recall anything after that to much detail. Or how we said goodbye.
Some nights I wake up in a panic that I have those dark parts of my mother inside me.
I folded up the bathmat and threw it in the wash, dabbing blood from my shins. Then filled a large glass of water and drank until my stomach felt wooden and hollow. What’s worse is that I missed my mother even though she was alive. I longed for her as though she were an essential limb that the world was harder to navigate without.
I refilled the glass of water and sipped slowly. Liquid sloshed in my stomach like an ocean. I sat up in bed and the night got later and later. The razor cuts on my shin grazed the sheets and burned. I wished I could see the moon outside my window. Or hear rain and thunder, even cars speeding down the street. Any form of life to avoid this silence that screamed: you are not good enough for her.
I miss her deeply and hated her with all the force in my body, knowing that these opposing powers were two sides of the same weight. With one comes the other. Then I remembered my mother was somewhere in the world and the mother I knew was somewhere in her. And I may provoke that same painful balance of missing and hating. After all, I have my father’s face – the man who left her— and my sister’s cheeks— the girl that died. I am the living, breathing, ever-present reminder of my mother’s losses, but also her greatest loves.
We both stayed awake, in separate corners of the world. I believe, thinking of one another.
THE END
Author Bio: Jahla Seppanen was born and raised off the grid in the desert of New Mexico. She earned her degree in writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her fiction has been published in journals around the world and she is completing her first novel. Her vices include tequila and endurance running.