by Ashley Lewin
| I don’t know where my father got the idea. While he water-skied, I stood on his shoulders like we were costumed tourist trap performers memorialized on a brittle postcard. He must have thought it would be easy. I was so small, often mistaken for three when I was five. Maybe he thought it was a great gag to shock families in other boats. Maybe it was what he had to offer in place of love. Our first time on water skis together, my stubby arms hugged my father’s neck as I hung down his back. The change in perspective, boat passenger to performer startled me. Crystal shards spewed from the motor, glittered through the air. The sharp wake sliced the water. At the steering wheel my mother appeared too thin, too fragile, her mannerisms jerky and exaggerated. Summer weekends—typically spent in our yellow speedboat, Heart blaring from the cassette player—were my favorite part of life. By evening, the water’s percussive slap against the hull rocked me to sleep on a pile of seldom-used life preservers, their fabric still warm from the day. It was the opposite of our respectable house, a two-story in colonial blue that sat in a suburb. Inside, our relationship was a tenuous rope stretched taut, all frayed, weary threads; my mother, shut away in her sewing room, my father, absorbed in television and beer, the Cold War a constant presence in our living room. My grandfather’s work as a United Nations translator kept it in our minds, discordant worlds wrangling for power. Typically, the adults alternated between water skiing and lounging like sun-drunk cats. My jobs were driver/skier liaison and drink holder. When not on duty, I studied people in other boats like shy Green Herons on the other side of a nature blind. Each boat on the lake was a pod of different snacks, supplies, and priorities. Families on puttering pontoons scowled at predatory speedboats. Boats full of bodies whitened by sunblock, faces hidden under hats and sunglasses. Boats of bare, rusty sunburns, faces squinting against the water’s glare. Boats of parents managed flocks of children; adult-only boats howled, their koozies held aloft, as our bright yellow boat screamed by. When he got tired, my father waved the signal and the lake swallowed us as the boat slowed and the rope slacked. Treading water, I asked if he saw the swimming dog playing fetch. He asked if I had fun. Those moments were the most we ever talked. This time, the stunt advanced. I scrambled up his back and perched on his shoulders like a sparrow. He crossed the wake, balance shifting; I giggled to chase fear away. Other boaters pointed at the too-young child with a man on water skis. Then the last step: one tiny foot positioned between his shoulder and neck, balanced, then my other foot. His arm held me up, strong, permanent; I ignored his slipperiness. The wind’s chill against my damp swimsuit was thrilling. My father’s excited hoots and “Alright!” all the more so. The weekends we accomplished this stunt felt like affection, like a bond. Maybe his muscles cramped the last time or debris floated in our path, hidden under the surface. He gave me no warning. The world spun. He just let go as he would a few years later when he stormed out the back door. My mother wailed in their bedroom for hours. I sat on the living room carpet watching the day fade through the skylight. Afternoon turned to evening. I got hungry, sleepy, too scared to move or make a sound. Flung like a frisbee across the lake, my body cartwheeled. A kaleidoscope world cycled through my vision: dizzy swirls of blue, warped reflections in the green lake, puffy clouds, trees, all of it over and over again. A pleasant hallucination shattered by the smack of the water’s surface and my parents’ separation and divorce. The memory is fuzzy, but my mother must have picked up my father first. Strangers in another boat pulled me from the lake, their furrowed brows melting into relieved smiles when I seemed okay. They wrapped me in a soft towel that smelled of fabric softener and safe landings. My parents arrived wearing cloudy expressions. The transition from one boat to another was a volatile exchange of hissed words I didn’t understand. A few years later the frayed rope split, spinning us all in different directions. Listen to Tow Rope here |
Ashley Lewin is originally from Nashville, Tennessee but now lives in Belen, New Mexico, by way of several other states. Her short fiction and creative nonfiction can be found in Sky Island Journal, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, The Citron Review and KAIROS. She reads CNF for Atticus Review.