Pale pastel of a butterfly clam stood out against dark wet sand. Both mirrored the crimson colored sunset. The girl picked up the shell. Her nine-year-old fingers struggled to open it.
That’s the point she wished she'd noted: The struggle. But no, her fingers persisted. Her curiosity, ignorance, and determination killed the creature.
She gasped, realizing the consequence of her choice. Cleaved in two, the clam became her teacher that summer twilight, a moment she would return to often, later in her life, when contemplating hubris, ignorance, guilt, and innocence.
She, her mother and brother were staying in a beach house at Venice, California with the mom’s best friend and her two kids. It was a first attempt at finding space from the girl's father.
Like the clam, the marriage she was conceived perhaps to save, was being ripped apart by determined fingers of addiction. The father was held as tightly by alcohol as his strong hands clung to his glass bottles every evening - wringing out every last drop at the dining room table. His absence from Venice Beach was easier to bear than his overbearing presence at home. He was so big, too loud, crazy-strong, and dangerous.
As if to signal her mother that something was terribly wrong with leaving her alone with him, she developed a raging case of staphylococcus boils on her butt - like a neon arrow. Trouble here.
So, while they should have been free of his influence for two weeks at the beach, the shadow of the father reached across town. Mom had to bathe her daughter with cotton balls and Phisohex soap three times a day and, because the girl couldn't swallow pills, she had to take penicillin dissolved in Dad's Old Fashion Root Beer which tasted pretty good. And if her family dissolved, what would happen next? It was a bitter pill. And she still loved her daddy. Confusing.
The night of killing the clam, even the root beer was hard to swallow. The lump in her throat was too big to get around.
No comments:
Post a Comment