Vinegar and Brine

I came in winter under a violet sky.

*****

He finds me where the land meets the sea and asks me my name. I say nothing. I ask him his and he says, Come on, let's get you cleaned up. I show him the cuts on my feet.

*****

The mornings I wake up alone, I wonder his name. The mornings I wake next to him, I think of calling him the tide.

He says he loves me. I tell him thank you, and that I am afraid of lightning but love thunder.

He says he doesn't like mermaids, that they're pointless. I ask him about seals.

I have a selkie tattooed on my left thigh.

One day, I wake up and he tells me, You're very important.

I cry.

The weatherman says there will be storms.

*****

He finds me on the rocks. Water grey and violent, skin all gooseflesh and moonbeams. I fish seaweed from my hair, my toes bloody and blue. What are you doing? he asks. I tell him, I am nothing but flotsam. We do not talk about it.

That night, he writes his name and number on a little sheet of paper and staples it to the collar of my raincoat, In case I ever lose you.

*****

He asks what I think about us living together. I say, It's all up to you. But what I mean is, I dream of waking next to you. I remind myself that he doesn't know what it would be like to live with me; taking too many baths, flooding the sink, spilling my mugs of buckthorn tea. Our water bill would be too high.

I scream in the nighttime.

He would hear.

He says, I'm not sure if I'm ready to take that step, and I say, I know. He asks what that means and I say nothing, but what I mean is, I've always known you don't want me, because he says, I've been thinking about living together, but what he means is, I'm not sure I love her.

*****

I live alone and I beg him not to sleep with his phone on silent, for those nights when I try to become the sea. He says, Whoever calls me in the nighttime, can wait.

*****

I steal his journal, one of those little black ones with the leather cover. His name is scribbled on the first page. I tear it out. I find the line he wrote the day I called screaming, Just tell me if you are going to go away.

It reads:

I really enjoyed not having to talk to her today.

I tear it out.

*****

I call my mother in the city and tell her I've met someone.

*****

The weatherman is now a weatherwoman and she wears a green dress. She predicts there will be storms.

I re-staple his name and number to my collar, in case I am found.

I walk into the water, eyes open, mouth open, taking the sea in gulps. I walk and walk and walk until I realize my feet are no longer touching the bottom and I am not walking but floating. I turn back.

He finds me again, bloodier and bluer than the last time. He searches my pockets, looking for a knife, a lighter, a stone. They are empty. I know what he thinks I am doing. I tell him no, that he doesn't understand.

I know he worries.

He gathers me in his arms and asks what I mean by flotsam.

Wreckage that floats and can never seem to sink.

He asks why I chose flotsam and not jetsam.

I say, I don't know, but what I mean is, To say jetsam is to say I go to the water voluntarily.

A few days later, I get a cold and he makes me stay with him. He keeps the things he loves or maybe the things he isn't sure he loves. He feeds me broth, boiled chicken, and bread. I ask him for oven baked fish and sorrel, something salty, something from the sea. He says no.

*****

I wonder whether he wants me and whether I need him or maybe hate the way his eyes look the morning after we go to bed without washing our faces, and the way he breathes through his mouth, his snore, the color of his eyes, all seafoam and longing, the tea spilled on his sheets, the journal I found that said, I really enjoyed not having to talk to her today, the way he wraps his fingers around mine.

*****

He takes me to the place where the land meets the sea. He leaves me alone as I fish for shells and mussels, and cut the soles of my feet on the sharp tide pool sides.

We sit on blankets and he brings wine, and grapes, and a thermos full of hot water to keep away the cold. We bite our grapes in half and feed them to one another. I gag on the sweetness of the fruit, of us. I sprinkle salt on my tongue. I kiss him. I taste of jellyfish, of a sting.

I tell him I love him. He tells me that his great aunt has died. That she divided the estate between all the cousins. That she left him twenty thousand dollars. That it's not much, but it's enough to get us an apartment in the city, somewhere that doesn't smell like gulls, somewhere that doesn't leak, without warped floorboards, with central heating, somewhere close to my mom. Somewhere, he says, where we can finally start a life together, but what he means is, Somewhere far from the sea.

Will you move in with me? he asks, laughing, Il'l pay the whole water bill myself, promise. But what he really means is, If I keep you with me, do you promise you'll stay?

*****

The apartment in the city is nice. It has central heating. It's a dry heat. The doctor put me on a low-sodium diet, something about the baby. I can't eat seafood. I've stopped taking baths. He reminds me, You can if you want to. I never bought a new raincoat.

I tell him I want to go to the beach and he asks if I want company. I tell him, No, I just want to walk for awhile where the air is damp.

I go to the closet and fish out the grey velvet coat he bought me the day after I told him, It's a little girl, we can call her our little selkie. I pull it over my shoulders and say, I really love the coat. But what I mean is, Like the moon you have pulled me into your tide.

I take a bus to the country, and then a bus to the shore.

The rocks are slick and I cut my toe on a barnacle.

I stay longer than I said I would. I call, but he's gone to sleep with his phone on silent. I buy a bag of salt and vinegar chips for the way home. The bus driver has turned the radio up.

I fall asleep on the ride back and hear the weatherman call for storms.

The windows are foggy when I get off. I pull my coat around my shoulders and step into the street, sky violet with thunder. I look up to catch a raindrop on my tongue. The slick grey velvet sticks to my thighs. I run my hands along them. I think of seals.

I unlock the door, hang my coat over the curtain rod to dry. I hear lightning. I crawl into bed, the taste of vinegar and brine on my lips.