An Excerpt

Summer 2010

About a month later, toward the end of that summer in Dallas, Lonnie reached out through a text. “I bought a couple kayaks. Want to go up to Broken Bow Lake next weekend?”

I’d always loved Broken Bow, Oklahoma. The town lies nestled between the Ouachita Mountains and the Red River Basin. Growing up, I imagined the Native Americans roaming the land and envisioned my ancestors of the Choctaw tribe hunting buffalo. Relating more to the captured prey than the empowered hunter, a part of me yearned for release.

My mom and dad had married in the area at Beavers Bend State Park. One of my favorite photographs, and maybe one of my most prized possessions, was them gazing at one another with their hands placed on a delicate, white bible on their wedding day. I liked to think I’d been conceived near those waters. But maybe that is me now seeking to find the poetry in one of my life’s hardest moments, hoping a dark beauty rests in the lands where a piece of me would also die.

I interpreted Lonnie’s message as him still caring about me despite how my mom ended their marriage. He must have shared my feelings and respect for the history we shared for him to want to maintain our stepfather–daughter relationship.

Lonnie had been sober for almost as long as I’d been alive. Twenty-plus years. And I’d been craving a break from drinking, but I didn’t even know then that I had a problem with saying no. Not just with booze, but with everything and everyone. An underlying sense of obligation that I owed something to everyone hindered my growth. I sensed other people’s expectations and worked hard to meet or exceed those expectations, to validate my existence with a fleeting feeling of love or acceptance. And like with an out-of-reach itch, I twisted and maneuvered to get closer and feed the urge to scratch. I hoped to catch up with Lonnie, have one of our old philosophy or quantum physics talks, and maybe ask him questions about his sobriety.

Bodies of water calm my being. The idea of escaping the highway, sirens, and other city sounds of Dallas sounded divine. I could already see the lightning bugs in the night air, hear the singing cicadas, and smell the OFF mosquito repellent spray. Plus, I’d have a legitimate excuse for weekend plans if Bradley asked to see me.

After driving to Lonnie’s house in Pittsburg, Texas, I hopped in with him for the remainder of the two-hour road trip to Oklahoma. On our way to Broken Bow, the sun glistened in through the front cabin of his blue Ford Explorer Sport Trac, illuminating a faint crack in the dash leading to the radio. I reached to twist the volume knob to the right as I sang along to a Foreigner song.

Lonnie drove along the winding S curves, tracing the guard rails and pine trees as we neared the Texas and Oklahoma state line. There was a lightness; everything looked green despite summer coming to a close. Driving the main drag of Broken Bow, we passed the Indian slot machine casino and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. Growing up, the Piggly Wiggly was our annual camping trip’s fill station where I’d sneak candy into the wobbly cart my dad pushed. We turned right into Beaver’s Bend and passed the familiar gravel road leading up the mountain to my family’s favorite old campsite, the same spot where my mother and father honeymooned after their shotgun wedding.

The scenery sprouted old memories. As a family, we’d stop in the nature center where the caged, wounded owls entranced and fascinated me. How I longed to liberate the nocturnal creatures.

I smiled, recalling my freshman year of high school, when my dad, brother, and I strung a line between trees for wet clothes to dry after an unexpected downpour paused our tent assembly. We’d taken shelter in his Dodge. My brother and I had laughed as he cursed and combed his black hair back in the rearview. How confused I was when, on that same trip, my dad carried a bar of soap to the water, not comprehending how he’d get clean from the lake water. Maybe that’s because I’d once pooped in the same lake when I was six. Sophisticated even back then.

Each camping trip with my dad was held during the sacred months of summer. Throughout the years, we bonded over our shared love of water. Kayaking the river in junior high, water skiing, or tubing behind my dad’s boat in high school while I yelled, “Don’t slingshot meeeeeeee,” but loving when he did. Tumping his kayak when going down the three-foot waterfall drop, or the time he yelled at me to walk down to the bank of the riverbed. “Get down from there,” he’d yelled as I climbed the tall tree swing.

“I’m eighteen, Dad, I can do whatever I want,” I said, pushing away from the pine tree.

How the icy chill of the water met my skin and stole my breath. How I hated for a split second that he might’ve been right.

My recollections paused when Lonnie pulled up to the log cabin he had rented—a small, one-bedroom studio in the woods. Thinking nothing of the single bed, I unloaded groceries onto the kitchen table, and put away the dry coffee creamer in the open cabinets.

“This was all they had available,” he said.

“It’s cute. Quaint. I love it,” I said, opening and closing doors, scoping out the bathroom, flicking lights on and off before asking, “Should we head to the lake now?”

“Burning daylight. Ready if you are,” he said, clapping his hands together.

“Gonna grab my hat and sunscreen. Meet ya at the truck,” I said.

On this beautiful, hot day in August, the water lapped gently at the shoreline with not a single cloud in the blue sky. I tightened my baseball cap before easing the kayak into the water near a blank cove. The brown mud covered my toes in grit and fine mussel shells. I waded further and dipped below the water to cool off before hopping into the kayak and paddling away from the shady cove. Oily water droplets formed on my arms as I lathered and reapplied the sunscreen to my wet skin. Scanning the scenery, the pine trees surrounded the water and enclosed the man-made lake in a tree cocoon. All was well.

Several hours later, after returning to the cabin to rinse the lake water off, my hair wet, I sat next to Lonnie in a rocking chair on the cabin’s porch. He smoked a cigarette as the sun collapsed behind the trees, illuminating the sky with wondrous oranges and reds. I was soothed by his silent, calm presence.

After dinner, I watched a crime show on the older television set across from the queen-sized bed. Exhausted, I fell asleep long before my hair had a chance to dry.

I woke in the middle of the night. A presence hovered above me. Every cell and muscle in my body froze. I held my breath, unable to fully exhale until almost ten years later. Did we forget to lock the door? Did the crime show seep into my subconscious sleep? I kept my eyes closed, unsure if I should alert the person that I’d woken. I hoped Lonnie had packed a gun for the trip. Fingertips traced the space between my breasts then crossed over the delicate area above my heart. Please let this be a dream. Please.

The finger lifted, waited. Keeping my eyes closed, I rolled over like a casual toss or turn of a deep slumber, turned my back to the intruder, and curled into the fetal position. I felt like the scared little girl whose mind used to make witch’s fingers from moonlit tree branch shadows in her window. I pleaded for the witch’s fingers to take me with her into the darkness, to save me, rescue me from this reality. My breath hollowed and the shadows expanded, crawling across the comforter to bring honey for my fear. I laid there a scalped child, buried to the neck and awaiting the ants who’d leave nothing but the bare-boned truth. I braced myself for darkness but was only met with the terror of reality in the room.

The cabin’s wooden door opened and closed. The light slam and creak of the screen door followed. Peeking above the pillow, I searched for Lonnie’s form in the bed. It was empty. No. From the window, the red ash from the lit end of a cigarette burned while he paced the creaky, wooden porch. Footsteps approached the door. No. I rolled over to face my back toward the blank spot before he walked back in the cabin. I opened and closed my eyes a few times to ensure I wasn’t dreaming. No. I craved the peace that sleep brings and prayed I’d be able to relinquish myself to the darkness. All the beauty of a place—and a person—I loved was suddenly tainted.

The next morning, skinned and raw, I dreaded the drive back to his house to retrieve my car. Maybe if I didn’t acknowledge the previous night, the hurt and the pain would wilt. After we loaded our belongings into his truck, he stopped at a catfish restaurant for lunch. How fitting, lunch with bottom feeders. I forced an attempt at conversation, pushing the pinto beans and coleslaw around on my plate over and over with an old fork. My appetite just as lost as my belief in the person sitting across me. I don’t know why I attempted small talk at all. How could he act so normal? But then again, how could I? Every time I acted in a way that negated my boundaries or silenced my words, I tore down a piece of the bridge that paved the way back to myself.

Betrayal burned the fringes of my soul until I sat sweating in the passenger seat. I fixed the air conditioning vents to face me directly and wiped the palms of my hands onto my pants, barely tearing my eyes from the road on the torturous two-hour ride to Texas, grimacing every time Lonnie inched into my peripheral line of sight. I counted down the miles while thoughts crisscrossed and infiltrated any remaining peace.

Did every man see me as a beautiful object to be used however they pleased? If a man I’d felt completely safe around—able to turn to with any woe or question—did, why wouldn’t the rest of the sex? Did anyone truly have pure intentions? How long had he seen me this way? The slumber parties, or the times I ran around the house in my sports bra. How I sucked in the lower portion of my belly while examining myself in the mirror and how he’d told me I’d be beautiful even if I wore a potato sack. How when I pleaded for an answer to why nobody in high school asked me on dates, he said, “If you could only walk a few steps behind you, Little Deer, you’d see how they are intimidated.” Did he have any of these desires then? Why. Why. WHY…had he done this to me?

Did I wear something provocative? Did I suggest or hint in the slightest that I was interested in him?

Rocks crunched beneath the tires, indicating that his truck had pulled into his driveway. With my hand waiting on the door handle, I jumped from the truck before he came to a full stop, leaving only the sweat stain on the seat to indicate where my body once was, like a white chalk outline etched onto pavement. I tossed my overnight bag into my car and painted a smile on my face as I fought tears.

“Don’t wanna come inside for a little bit?” he asked.

“No,” I said. You know what you did. I’ll handle the hurt on my own.

Facing one another in silence, his eyes pleaded with mine before reaching the ground, as if begging me to lock the terror in a vault. And I would hide the wound within my heart for years, but at that moment, I knew that he knew I knew, and that was all I could handle. I got in my car and backed out of the driveway in what would be the last time I’d ever see Lonnie.

I cried on the way back to Dallas, feeling like I’d lost a father. But unlike a death, there was no comforting hug from another mourner. I didn’t know who to tell, for I knew the hearts the news would break. I resolved to hold everything in and buried the trauma, thinking I’d save my mom from pain if I kept the secret to myself.

While eating dinner alone that evening, in a desperate search to know why men saw my physical attributes as a meal for them to devour, I silenced the television and wished the images blaring across my mind would stop with the click of a button. The remaining foundation of a life I once knew crumbled and caved while I sat on my living room floor, back against the couch, and decided that’d be all men got of me—a shell. I pushed the white coffee table away with my bare feet. Fuck this. If my exterior or body is all men see in me, then I’m going to use me to my advantage.

With this intention, I’d hold the power and play their game better than they ever could. In that moment, frosting my emotions with a veil of iciness meant choosing to listen to my head, muting my heart, and playing on the power of my pussy. I knew my life would never be the same, but I didn’t think it’d be greater.

Like the television, the wound would bounce and bellow, emitting muted cries underneath the image layer. I’d eventually yearn to be loved for the real me, for who I am on the inside. But, at twenty-two, I stepped into the role of being a conscious parasite in relationships, to use men for my desires since they seemed to use me in whatever way to fulfill theirs.

I neglected to process the pain and built interior cinderblocks of shame and torment, only to shallow my breathing on the descent to a dark place at the bottom of a once-loved lake. Forgiveness wouldn’t be found until I realized my place wasn’t to be a trophy buck mounted on a wall for admiration. Until I realized how desperately I needed freedom and autonomy. Until I found love for myself.

Adversity doesn’t equate to failure, but years would pass before believing I experienced a birth that evening. For despite the betrayal, a resilience sprung to life. Lonnie had always encouraged me to write and use my way with words. For the longest time, I think a part of me didn’t want to prove him right. Yet here I am and here I stand, able to see the beauty in the pain and hold gratitude for the man whose abuse initiated my biggest inner turmoil and transformation.