Bad Sun Rising

 

     The force of his words toppled Irene onto her bed. From beneath her, flew Irene’s legs, and she fell onto the edge of the mattress her eyes dulling into a solemn haze. Her quiet gasp of air exhaled long and slow from her body as Irene realized she was in the room with a complete stranger. At first, Enzo awaited her rebuttal with his back turned towards the dresser, putting back on the watch that he had just thrown down. There was going to be some storm of words or tempest of tears and they were easier to weather if he did not have to see it. When nothing came, he turned and watched her wound fester in silence while it paralyzed her every sense. Through some remains of human decency, he felt pity and regret in seeing her this way, but he didn't regret his words.

 

     Se divorziamo, mi assicurerò che si sta mandato in America e non sarai mai più vedere i miei figli.

 

     Maybe they were words spoken in anger, but that didn't make them any less true. If she wanted a divorce, he would give it to her, but it would cost her their children. When they met, there had been so much love. Irene had been warned about every stereotyped associated with Italians. Her mother's half of the family worried about her stepping into a Romeo and Juliet scene, while her father's half gave her all three Godfather DVDs as preparation. Ignoring them all, she'd let it weigh her down like an anchor and the waters that it had taken her to hadn't always been cold and turbulent.

 

     Out of habit, or love, or a remorse, Enzo walked over to her and a shadow was cast over her misery as she let the words wash over her the way the Humboldt current had once washed over her from a South American beach, years before she'd ever placed a foot on Italian soil. While the rest of her friends watched from the shore, chased back to the sand by the jaws of icy coldness, she relaxed her muscles and let the cold water soothe her and she did the same with her misery now. From beneath the shadow, she stood and mechanically moved to the door, his loud, passionate words doing nothing to change her course. Irene heard his voice as if she was beneath the waves again and suddenly, hearing the call of her name from his lips, the sound of his honeyed voice calling to her over and over in a siren song, was no longer the leash it had been. As the ghost of the woman he had married disappeared down the hall, Enzo ripped off his watch for the third time that evening and flung it at the dresser.

 

     Perhaps there had been people in the hall, but she hadn't heard them and of course, the locals who had come to know her called out their hellos, but Irene kept walking. She had always loved the water and she had been responsible for teaching their kids to swim. Even though Irene always wanted to be surrounded by water, around her was an oasis of golden hills. This was where Enzo had been from and this is where he cultivated his own family. It seemed too much for Irene to insist that he move to America, so she made the sacrifice of giving up everything she knew for him. When she learned this was the place his family had lived for generations, it just did not seem like too much to leave the ocean behind as well.

 

     Down the stone path, Irene marched to the one place where old men fished and young men gathered to row their loves across the water. Isolated on a boat, they had nothing to fear from protective fathers and Catholic mothers. At the edge of the pond, she slipped her dress from her shoulders and let it fall onto sandy mud that was half-wet and staining her formerly pristine, blueish white dress. Bearing just her undergarments, Irene strode into the waters and let it engulf her once more. There were two more of her garments that were never going to be the same color again. This was not the flawless Mediterranean with white sands and crystal clear blue water, but water that was greenish-black and her body disappeared from view alarmingly close to the surface. 

 

     Its only worth was the few fish that still spawned year to year, but it was hardly suitable for swimming. Water had brought Enzo to her. She'd been admiring the turquoise Mediterranean from some bench when a bright flower popped in front of her. "Un dono dalla terra per la bella sirena," he told her in a low, dulcet tone. A siren's voice, really. 

 

     In retelling it, the line had to have been the corniest that had ever been laid upon her ears. At the time, however, she tried to hide her swooning behind large sunglasses. If only Irene could have straightened out her lips, maybe she could have saved her heart. In the moment she retracted her sunglass shield and looked uninhibited into his eyes, Irene lost her tail and swam ashore. It just seemed rude to not look such a lovely stranger in the eyes with her own pale ones. He told her that she had eyes just like the water, which was not a foreign saying to her. Whenever someone took notice of her eyes, they seemed to fawn over their oceanic color, but it sounded better, mystical even, from his lips. The flower Enzo presented to her could have been simply plucked from any of the nearby residents or restaurants, but Irene took it anyway. She held it up to her nose and it smelled so sweet and she could not deny that she was falling a little too quickly and a little too easily in love. In a few moments, Enzo had harpooned Irene’s heart and she was his ever since.

 

     While they courted, Enzo swore that Irene loved the sea every bit as much as she loved Enzo. He joked that one day she would return to the sea and become a mermaid, swimming  from him for good. Irene had sworn it would not happen. If she did become a mermaid, she would trade her tail back for her legs and come back to him. Enzo began calling Irene his bella sirena and she had kept her promise. Even though she had not been given a mermaid’s tail by some mystical force, Irene never even returned to the sea without him.

 

     Emanuelo watched his best friend's wife walk half-naked into the water as if she expected to turn into a mermaid, opening her arms as if she believed there was some sort of mercy or reprieve to be received from the water. Letting herself float upon the water as if this small tear drop of a pond was going to carry her out to sea, Irene watched the clouds drift by and wondered exactly where had she gone wrong in her marriage. Not about to let Enzo’s wife fall victim to the sickness she was sure to receive from the pond, Emanuelo tried to get her attention, until he saw Enzo  in the distance. Several others had as well, but it was as if Irene were acting underneath some divine errand. Nothing could tear her from her zealous pursuit and as the faithful are often ridiculed, Irene was the victim of laughs. When she first started disrobing, they were shocked and as her feet entered ankle deep into the water, they were concerned.

 

     Now the people just laughed and ogled while others hemmed and hawed, astounded at the immodesty and audacity of it all.  In the end, Irene had proven herself just another American. Emaneulo hardened his features, realizing he would have to go in and get her. Oblivious to her own spectators, Irene concentrated on that first day over and over again. Even now, years later and through this much pain, Irene could still feel how much in love they were. In the beginning, there had been so much warmth, friendship and devotion to each other. Now they went through the similar and expected motions, but Irene still could not trace their path to how they had gotten the way they were on the present day. Salt stung the corner of her eyes and Irene hugged herself beneath the pond's surface, pretending it was just the water making her eyes spill over. She released herself to her own condemnation, comforted by the cold waters surrounding her.

 

 

 

     If she thought the argument was over, Irene was in for a surprise. Impassioned, Enzo took determined strides after her. Once she first walked out, Enzo took a moment to calm down from his explosion of anger, during which he had thrown his watch at the wall. Then he had turned towards the bedroom door and followed her path, exclaiming her name and calling out to her, only to have her speed away. The more Enzo tried to catch up, the more quickly Irene strode. She jogged down the stairs and walked with surprising speed. How could she tred this much water on land? 

 

     He blamed it on all that swimming she used to do.  Enzo swore Irene could zoom anywhere for ten minutes without breath, whereas he was gasping just trailing after her. How had she made it so far down the road by the time he descended the stairs and bolted out of the house? When he saw her strip, Enzo was stupefied, nailed rigidly to the ground. As she disregarded her clothes, she began to step into the water, returning the element from which he was positive that she had come. His own Venus was about to return to the sea and be lost to him forever.

 

     She floated for a long while in a pond that was not most suitable for swimming. The locals tended to favor the pool, for the water in the pond was a little too stagnant. Had it been a whole minute yet? Had it been five? Just how long was she planning to hold her breath? Irene knew Enzo hated it when she did that. Beneath the dark surface of the pond, there was no way to tell if she was still holding her breath or if it had escaped her for good. Stripping his shirt, Enzo set after her into an element that was not his own.

 

     Hands grabbed onto hers and a force pulled her to the surface. As she took a breath, Enzo said, “You know I hate it when you do that. I get scared when you try to hold your breath just a little bit more and more. One time you might not come back up.”

 

     “Wouldn’t that solve your dilemma? You needn’t worry about the disgrace of divorce then,” Irene replied as she kicked her legs beneath her. The moment the sour words left her, Irene knew that it wasn't fair, but she was too angry to stop herself. 

 

     Enzo grabbed onto her face, his palms on either side of her head, nearly sinking them both with the dramatic gesture. “Don’t joke about that. I would be lost without you.”

 

     Even in the water, the place where she was most lively, Irene just looked exhausted. If Enzo sank them both, it wouldn’t exactly be something new, would it? Irene answered, “All we do is fight. You can’t tell me that you aren’t tired of that.”

 

     Ardently, Enzo wanted to know, “What would make you happy, Irene?” What do you want me to do?” All that Enzo had ever promised Irene was that she would be happy and he had tried. How had he failed so much that she was turned to Ophelia-like stunts just to convey the seriousness of her displeasure?

 

     “Just leave me,” she whispered. Those weren’t words that Enzo was going to accept and she could see it in his eyes. When they were married, he had said forever, and he meant it. He didn’t love Irene any less, but she was right. They fought all the time and it was turning him haggard. Being in love used to be so easy. Even when their first child was born, all they needed was each other. When had that changed?

 

     Irene's eyes were usually the same color as water, but the lake was so dark against her eyes, it was the embodiment of day and night reflected in nature. “You can’t even let me do this unsupervised.”

 

     He blinked, the dark water falling off his lashes, her words slapping him in the face. Enzo pointed out her spectators. “Everyone was watching you already.” One look at the bank would tell her that while it told him that their crowd had grown even more. Focusing back on Irene, Enzo said, “This pond is toxic.”

 

     Nearly scoffing, Irene answered, “It isn’t.”

 

     They couldn’t even keep from arguing here, in the middle of a pond, in front of the entire town. Enzo replied heatedly and instantly regretted it. “Everyone knows it.”

 

     “Wouldn’t the marine biologist know?” There was an annoyed twist to her voice and Enzo responded to it in kind. 

 

     “Yes, do you know one? You gave that part of yourself up a long time ago.”

 

     Why would he just throw that in her face, time and time again. She swore up and down, to Jesus, Mary and Jupiter that she did not resent him, because he kept his job while she became the stay-at-home mother she never thought she would be. She had taken on jobs such as teaching swimming at the nearby pool and teaching English, but nothing ever stuck for long. Nothing ever replaced what she lost. A little vehemently, Irene snapped, “That doesn’t make me inept.”

 

     “No one would think that,” Enzo cried out, his voice cutting across the water in a plea for the argument to just end. What had they even been fighting about? He couldn’t remember, he just knew it hadn’t been of significant meaning. Yet it had spiraled so far.

 

     “I just want to be alone,” Irene replied, “I came here to be without you.”

 

     In a feverish declaration, Enzo breathed, “There is no where you can go that I won’t follow.” She supposed that was supposed to be a romantic statement about his love, so she bit back snarly remarks about how else it could sound.

 

     Instead, the challenge slipped from her mouth, “You reeled me in before, you think you can do it twice?”

 

     Holding her glowering eyes with his own committed stare, he answered quietly, “You are not a fish. You are my wife. How? How did we become like this? I am trying to make peace, but all you want to do is fight.” There was no need to lower his voice, it was nothing their spectators didn't know.

 

     “I just want to swim. Just let me swim.” He stared at her for a long moment before swimming to the shore. Their eyes were locked and neither wanted to look away first. Maybe if he let her go, she would come back. Right now, she was a single grain of sand that he was clutching so tightly, it was slipping through his fingers. As she watched him step gingerly back onto the muddy bank, Irene slipped back beneath the water’s surface and finally breathed.