Underwater Daughter by Antonia Deignan

Author:Antonia Deignan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

Without prayer, I am afraid . . . and with prayer,

I will heal fearful thought.

—DEBRA ENGLE

(I realized I had been praying all along. To whom? It was a matter of semantics, call it God, Love, Connection, Light. Call it a higher vibration, energy, Source. In my self-made sanctuaries, in the invisible escape havens where my movement/voice lived was where I experienced an abundance of sustained love, advancing hope and awe, calm in the darkened depths of the water; tattoo me.)

When I was nine, I jaywalked behind a semi-truck that was stopped at a corner stop sign. A car had come from the opposite direction, on the other side of the semi, which I hadn’t seen. There was no way the driver of that car could have anticipated me walking out from behind the truck, just as there was no way I could have seen him before I did. I was lucky that day; I didn’t die. The car screeched and skidded, steel hit my leg, and I was thrown onto the pavement—my fault. A reddened, pinched face appeared at the window, leaned out, “What are ya doing?! What are ya doing?” and he pounded the steering wheel each time he screamed “doing!” I hadn’t realized I’d peed myself until after he sped off, after his cussing faded. I uncrumpled and stood up, pulled the wet corduroys away from my thighs, and cried. I knew I’d be in trouble if I told. I knew they’d say it was my fault.

Slowly I walked the next hour home, off the main roads and into neighborhoods, into front yards and backyards, touching swing sets and stopping to swing. Chains high to the overhead bar, I grabbed and bucked and swooped up to horizontal for a float before tucking backward and lifting off the seat on the rebound. Gripping tighter as the chains relaxed, I stared down at the dirt and gravel below me, timed my jump. I walked past low wired garden fences and ducked under roof-high pines, slid between pale purple and blue lilacs, the dense hedges.

At least, I imagined doing all of that. In reality, I waited in front of Bridgeman’s ice cream parlor for my mother to pick me up, our prearranged plan before I’d left for school that morning: “Walk to Bridgeman’s, and I’ll pick you up outside.” Inside I rubbed paper towels over my pants in the bathroom, up and down the pale-yellow velvet cords, and cried. Outside I held my hands and a bag of candy in front of the wet stain, gripped my Starbursts, Jolly Rancher sticks, and Razzles: “First it’s a candy, then it’s a gum. Little round Razzles are so much fun.” I would go home with candy.

Later I saw the baseball-sized bump below my knee, a nighttime-blue goose egg. And later still I fell asleep and dreamt I was dead, dreamt I saw my gravestone. It was a tall stone rectangle of plain cement that leaned off-kilter in the ground in a sleepy hollow

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