Selkie
by Sidney Stevens
He watches her from their third-floor condo sitting by the sea. It’s like no time has passed since he first saw her twenty years ago, and yet so much time has passed. She’s his. She’s always chosen him. Surely, she’ll choose him again.
She looks remarkably the same as she did on the beach that day five years ago when he spied her at Seal Rock State Park for the first time in years, hunched over a notebook high on a rock, only sixty miles from where they grew up in Corvallis, Oregon. He’d have known her anywhere. Sable hair shining like it was polished by the sun. She inhabited the rock as if it were hers, as if sand, surf and sky were her playground.
“Lia?”
He could have moved by unnoticed, hand in hand with Gina, his girlfriend then. Perhaps he should have. Lia didn’t recognize him at first. And then she did. “Oh my god, Devin Marsh?” A strand of hair whipped across her face as she stared down from her perch, and she swept it back. “You used to sit behind me on the bus in middle school.”
He laughed awkwardly, squeezing Gina’s hand tighter as something uncomfortable wormed through him. “What brings you here… of all places?”
“Research for my master’s thesis… I’m at UO, in Eugene.”
“Wow,” he said, noticing tiny hairs on her arms that shone in the sun like her hair. He watched fascinated as she tilted her head from side to side, never breaking eye contact, all of her quivering with life. “By the way, this is Gina,” he said, pulling her closer.
Lia slid down the rock, landing lightly in the sand and shook Gina’s hand and then his. Her hand was warm, light, and small, yet her grip was surprisingly robust.
“What’s your thesis on?” Gina asked.
Lia chuckled. “Basically, the impact of climate change on tide pools.”
“Wow… that’s awesome,” Gina said. “Heavy.”
“I know, right? Nerd stuff.” Lia gave a sheepish shrug. “Guess I’ve always been fascinated.”
He’d never spoken to her before that day. Never an interaction between them in middle school, or high school either where they were in homeroom together, no clue she even knew he existed. He never imagined they’d speak. Ever. And now here they were.
Lia motioned them, grinning, to rock formations near the surf and eagerly plopped down beside a pool of shallow water collected there. “See this orange sea star?” She looked up, delight suddenly draining from her face. “There should be more… and blue anemones, and multi-colored seaweed… lots of colors.” Something like grief moved through her eyes. “There are mostly barnacles now, not enough diversity… From that killer heat wave last summer.”
He couldn’t have envisioned her future back in school—that she’d relish micro pools left by receding tides, a whole rainbow world of life he’d never stopped to notice. That she’d yearn to spend her years saving them as if she’d emerged from a tide pool herself. She wasn’t super popular back then, but just that much more popular than him, quirkily pretty, and surer of herself with a penchant for science. He couldn’t have foreseen the specifics of what she’d become, but it was no surprise the girl she was then would look, move, and breathe like the woman before him now. Somehow untouched by quotidian concerns. Sublime. This future fit exactly.
“What about you guys?” Lia asked as she rose from the tide pool and brushed seaweed off her jeans.
“We’re lawyers,” Gina said. “In Portland.”
“Environmental law,” he added.
Lia studied him, dark eyes soft and welcoming, yet tinged with an incongruous intensity that unsettled him. Was she intrigued by him? Impressed? Wary? He glanced away, unable to return her gaze. As if the memory of her fuzzy chocolate-colored scarf, suddenly so vivid in his mind, might also suddenly be vivid in hers. There it lay again in a clump where she’d forgotten it years before on her bus seat, its tan and gold threads woven into irregular animal-like spots, a beguiling swatch of her beauty that he’d only dared savor from the seat behind. Did she see it now too?
He'd meant to bring it to her house, or return it to her in the morning when she boarded the bus. But the very idea of either option—face to face with Lia—left him feeling exposed and raw like blowing sand grains had abraded his flesh, just as they stung his face and hands now.
He should have left it where it was or perhaps with the bus driver. But instead he buried his nose in its downy fluff. It smelled of her, not that he knew her scent, but its vaguely sweet-briny aroma, oddly clean and fresh, must surely be hers, its silkiness the very essence of her skin and hair. And in that moment, he slipped it into his backpack, later burying it in his underwear drawer.
God, I’m not like that. He stared again at Lia, by the sea in the sun, grown and just as radiant as his memory of her. More so. Potent and strong but also impossibly exquisite, fragile like an eggshell or life itself. He couldn’t move his eyes away.
He’d brought the scarf to college and afterwards stored it in an old cigar box his grandpa gave him as a child, which he stashed high on a shelf in the back of his closet beneath old blankets and towels. He still took it out occasionally, though not much anymore, stroking it, remembering. He never expected to see her again.
“We’d better be going,” he said, suddenly anxious to leave that moment as he’d entered it—a future mapped out with Gina, no trace of middle-school love left. He would definitely dispose of the scarf—really such a harmless, youthful misdeed—and never dwell on it again. Time to let go. A simple crazy crush; anyone could relate. God, I’m not like that.
“So good to see you,” he said to Lia, still holding Gina’s hand, but not so tightly as before.
For even then he knew: Gina would be gone within weeks. He’d let her go. Encourage it. He’d call Lia. She’d be his wife. He knew even then.
☾
Lia emerges into the condo from the beach and heads to the shower. She doesn’t look at him or speak as she slips by. He aches to smooth back her hair and drink in the reassurance of her shining eyes, so guileless and sustaining, tell her what she yearns to hear in order to bring back her voice. But of all the things he could say—should say—no words seem right.
On their wedding day, she didn’t speak either. Couldn’t speak. She lost her voice then too. Woke up with laryngitis and could only whisper. This isn’t the same—no physical blockage disrupts her vocal chords—but it seems somehow related.
“Nothing to worry about, I promise,” she managed to squeak out that day as she put her arms around him. “I love you.”
He believed her. The mighty sway of her love, fierce and full-bodied, held him stock still in awe of its purity. Even so, the loss of her voice felt wrong. Deeply wrong. So wrong he swiftly smothered apprehension with rationalizations. She’d run herself ragged in preparation for their wedding and their upcoming move to Newark, New Jersey where he was starting a new job at the EPA. Lia didn’t want to go. She told him so, but only once. Not often enough to stop his plans. She agreed to give up her graduate studies in Oregon, maybe apply to school in the East. There were tide pools there to study too. Just get through the wedding, he told himself, then tackle the move. Lia might suffer in the short term. She often languished in the strong currents of life’s structured daily to-dos; her natural bent tended toward a sort of wild spontaneity and organized disarray. But she’d be fine with time. He counted on it.
And, sure enough, when the moment came to say their vows, she managed to croak out the words “I do” loud enough to be heard by every guest and with convincing passion. A temporary throat bug after all. Nothing more.
The move was relatively smooth too after their honeymoon exploring Scotland’s Western Isles, including the many tide pools there (her dream). Yet Lia’s raspy hoarseness on their wedding day never completely left his thoughts. Even after he purchased her a beach condo in Brigantine for weekend getaways from their landlocked life in Newark. Even with the flowers he brought her and lavish dinners and the hundred other ways he tried to make her happy, even then her lost voice still echoed through his mind at odd moments, shuddering up and down his spine, and into his brain before he could squelch it again, leaving behind an uneasy sense that it held a message, meant something.
Did she comprehend that day that another future might prove more compelling? A place where her voice never disappeared.
☽
The shower comes on. He sinks to the bed and stares at her scarf—yes, THE SCARF—lying where she left it last night. She slept in a beach chair down by the waves. Alone. Without him.
He meant to throw it away. So many times. He really did. But it remained hidden in their old bedroom closet and then in their new one in Newark where she recently uncovered it. He never expected her to look inside the cigar box. As long as it stayed burrowed mostly outside his awareness, he assumed it would evade her awareness too. He really did.
☾
“I’m pregnant,” Lia told him one Saturday morning last June as they ate brunch at a new café near their beach condo. Tears stung his eyes. Joy. He didn’t dare look up from his omelet for fear she’d see how much this child meant to him. An iron-clad bond between them.
“Are you sure,” he said, eyes still on his plate, aiming for casual. “How do you know?”
“I just know.”
He looked up. “Are you late?”
“I just know,” she said, watching him, unblinking, unreadable. “I know…”
“Are you happy?” Her eyes, darker and more cavernous than usual, gave nothing away. He fell into them, searching for certainty. What did she think?
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’re happy?”
“I am… maybe… I’m not sure.”
Surely just jitters. Only natural, of course.
“I’m afraid I’ll get lost,” she said, staring out the café window at ocean waves. “Maybe I don’t have enough to give.”
It was the exact thing she’d said when he proposed to her. “You’re just nervous,” he told her then and now. “You’re loving and generous.” He reached for her hand across the table. “We’ll work out whatever comes up… You’ll be an amazing mother.”
Her giant eyes grew darker. Why wasn’t she sure… about their child? A child they’d share forever. It took effort not to dwell, but he managed, choosing instead to see the beginnings of her happiness. “You’ll be amazing,” he said.
And indeed his relief grew as her belly swelled and calm overtook her. Lia embraced buying baby clothes and equipment with the same fervor she wielded saving tide pools. She made list after list of additional things they needed, read pregnancy books, reorganized drawers, and painted the spare bedroom.
He was beyond relieved by her transformation, yet still withheld how much he wanted this child. So much. Too much.
When Lia lost the baby a month later, screaming from the bathroom that she was bleeding all over, he made a breathless call to 9-1-1, and rushed to comfort her, rocking her back and forth as she moaned like a broken animal, “Why did she leave? My girl…”
Even then he didn’t divulge how shattered he was—and he was. He had to be strong, despite grief that ripped out the light around his heart. That’s what he was doing—remaining strong for her. So she could preserve her ineffable creature essence that gave him such joy. So they could survive intact.
Lia only found out later at an office party that he, too, was devastated. His coworker offered them private condolences, sharing with Lia how touched she was by his vulnerability. “You’re lucky to have him,” she said.
In the car later, Lia sat silent in the darkness for most of the ride home before finally turning to him. “You told her you were hurting and not me?” Her voice was small and sad.
His tears fell then—the first in front of her—until he finally had to pull off the road. “I was trying not to heap my pain on top of yours,” he sobbed. He was convinced of this truth. And so, it seemed, was Lia. She rocked him back and forth just as he’d rocked her when she was bleeding, sobs winning him forgiveness.
☽
Lia still won’t look at him as she exits the bathroom and dresses in silence. He sits waiting for her to say something. But she isn’t fully there. Like so many times in their five years together, she gazes off, lost from him when she should be present. It’s for this reason he can never grant her absolute perfection.
“I’m sorry, Sweetie!” she always cries when he points out her distraction. “I don’t mean to drift away.” She puts a hand on his thigh or nuzzles her cheek against his, a peace offering.
He always believes her, but retrospect won’t leave him alone. It’s become harder to brush away her moodiness and restlessness, how some days she scurries around cleaning the house or gathering seashells on the beach, which she piles in tasteful arrangements on bookshelves and end tables—so many seashells she’s finally begun storing them in buckets in the garage.
There’s no more overlooking her sad days, either, listless days when her glow dims like the last of a candle flame. Or angry days when she sighs, eyebrows pointing in a V-shape toward her nose so she looks stern and disapproving, but also worried, he thinks. It’s the small things that ruffle her (his occasional brusqueness, or forgetting to ask if she wants coffee when he fills his own cup—small slights and omissions that manifest when he’s busy at work or worried about bills or lost among life’s other myriad concerns). Negligible things. Forgivable things. Never anything big.
That’s not to say the majority of days aren’t good, even better than good, days when she’s cheery and loving and entirely present. He works to fixate on those. Their walks together at sunset hand in hand, snuggling in bed, each with a book.
“What would I do without you?” she sometimes murmurs in his ear before they get up. She climbs on top. He rolls her underneath, claiming her body, then turns her face down, claiming it again—its animal beauty, soft, and sinewy. She’s his in those moments, doing as he directs.
It isn’t just love he feels either, or lust. It’s something simpler: he just likes Lia more than anyone else. Others feel it too. Women. Men. Children. Happy to just sit and talk to her. They tell her their stories. At parties, in the store, waiting for the bus. Creatures, too, come round—dogs, birds, you name it. All drawn by what draws him, her radiating energy that makes you want to linger nearby, even if you won’t get more than a seat in her space.
He’s never cheated on her (nor, he’s certain, has she on him). Infidelity isn’t a betrayal he’s willing to risk. She’s the best he’ll ever do. No doubts there. She’s special. But it goes well beyond that. He’s charmed by her remarkable guilelessness, her lack of self-awareness about the perfect way she moves through the world, as if she accepts her worthiness to be here without question or guilt, unafraid to display her full glory. Not to flaunt it or show off, but simply because that’s who she is. Why hide it? Why would anyone?
It’s like he’s been entrusted with the care of a rare and irreplaceable otherworldly being. She requires more than mere fidelity. He feels the weight of her wellbeing, which seems to rest solely on him. He offers undivided loyalty, gallantry, and adoration, working ceaselessly to make her life as easy as possible, less complicated, joyful. He protects his beloved from sadness, from reflecting too long on dreams she’s given up to be with him. He hasn’t given up as many for her. He owes her that much and so much more—whatever magical safeguards he can conjure to shield her precious, enchanting spirit from hurt. The fate of everything depends on his skill. That’s how he sees things.
“I’ll always be there,” he sometimes tells her. She snuggles into him then, a perfect fit, even when she’s upset. He admires her capacity for forgiveness, perhaps her greatest gift. An innocent trust he’s sure could survive anything, seemingly endless, and he counts on her depth of compassion—her rootedness in a loving invisible world he can’t seem to reach—to keep them whole and carry them forward.
Yet some troubling sense occasionally breaks through, warning that he’s gotten her through unfair means or deception, doesn’t deserve her, isn’t enough. He toils to keep it hidden. Yet it forever hovers in the background, invisible and increasingly active, tugging a portion of their life off to the periphery where it remains blurry, reminding him over and over that his arms never seem quite strong enough or long enough to encircle and hold her completely. As if Lia’s wild parts—her uncharted, untamed innards—keep slipping over the sides and through his fingers. As if there’s something additional she can’t live without.
☾
Lia basks in the sun by the waves. When she chooses to return he has an explanation, nearly crystallized and ready to unveil. Surely she’ll be ready later; there’s always an explanation.
Admittedly, it will have to be good; more than convincing. This is different from other things he’s failed to tell her. Like when he shred her grad school notebooks after their move. She’d start over later. That was their plan. With fresh courses at a new school. Someday. He was simply easing her way. A clean start. She didn’t argue then.
Nor about the beach condo, which he bought as a surprise. To minimize her stress. To allow a single explosive reveal that would stun her with its beauty and his largesse.
“I don’t understand,” she said that day, staring out their new condo window with its dramatic views of the sea.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“It’s gorgeous,” she said, “but it was partly my decision too.” She wandered off by herself then. To process the immensity of his gift, as vast as the sea itself. She loved the waves and surf, and he’d given them to her, just a short walk over the dunes from their front door. That’s what he told himself. And, indeed, she seemed happy later as they clinked champagne glasses at a candlelit restaurant he’d chosen to celebrate.
That’s how he remembers it now. Indeed, it’s what he counts on—Lia’s unfailing good nature to accept what makes most sense, including his efforts to protect her, love her, not burden her with too many decisions, details that often engulf her radiance. Even when she disagrees at first, she eventually embraces his management of their existence, the way he judiciously doles out life’s shifts and vacillations in small increments so as not to rock her delicate equanimity.
And so Lia will forgive him this time too, uphold his decision to keep the scarf. He’s certain of it.
Except that when she returns from the beach his first defense sounds wrong, even to himself. Anyone would hear it.
“What does it matter now?” That’s what he says as they stare together at the scarf on the bed.
“It matters,” she says. Her expression is foreign to him. Like she’s beholding him—the real him—for the first time. A feral mix of something like alarm and dread freezes her face, as if something in her native core suddenly feels itself prey.
“You always make too much of everything.” His voice rises in righteousness. “Why were you snooping through my stuff, anyway?”
She recedes slowly, inching away, still weighing the threat level. “I found it when I was putting away baby clothes. I couldn’t part with them. It was in a box in the closet… I just ….”
“…Opened it?” he snorts. “Like it was yours?” His voice sounds almighty, hurling shrapnel words. It’s her with the problem, not him.
“You stole it,” she whispers. Her words slice through his flesh, exposing him. Their child is complicit too; Lia’s effort to preserve her memory has helped unmask his lie.
“Not everything’s so full of meaning,” he growls, lowering his voice for deadlier effect. “I was a dumb kid with a crush. I kept your scarf. End of discussion.”
The look on her face dissolves to nothing. No look at all. She whispers, “It’s a theft.”
“Such an exaggeration.” His belly clenches; he can barely breathe.
“You’re afraid,” she says with categorical certainty. No room for denial. “Utterly afraid.”
She walks out yet again, this time with her scarf, to sit by the sea without him.
☽
He paces the floor. Should he go out? Try to explain again. She’s wrong. He’s not afraid. She’ll be back soon, as she always is. God, I’m not like that.
Next time he looks out the scarf is wrapped around Lia’s shoulders. Her hair blends with it, like she’s wearing a furry shawl with a hood. For some reason this chills him to his gut, as though she’s taken her warmth and wound it around only herself. She walks along the waves, skipping each time one washes in. Almost dancing.
Next time he looks, she’s gone.
☾
They still talk by phone, mostly good conversations. He apologized again and again, laid himself bare because he knows it’s the only way to heal himself and her, to return all he took so she can be all she is.
Lia was—and is—right: he’s afraid. Utterly afraid. He tried to protect her, make life pleasant and safe. But not for the reasons he told himself or her. They weren’t about satisfying her needs. They were about his. Buy her a seaside condo, shower her with every comfort, tranquilize her with contentment—so she wouldn’t dream of more than him, couldn’t dream. Move her away, reduce her agency, destroy her notebooks, destabilize her dreams—so she’d never leave, couldn’t leave. Cloak his pain about losing their child, divulge to his co-worker instead, not to spare Lia more grief but to punish her. For conceiving with him and not immediately embracing motherhood. For loving him too little.
The scarf was Lia’s last straw, seemingly harmless but a profound symbol of all these wrongs—his cumulative attempts to cage her spirit to feed his own. Undeniable evidence of his sad need to matter.
He hasn’t seen Lia since she left, but he cherishes their conversations, and he believes she does too. His greatest fear has come to pass—she’s gone from his daily life—but he’s still alive. He’s surrendered to this loss. If she chooses to stop their communication, he’ll survive that too.
To do so, he’s changed. Let her go, like springing open a trap, back to herself. Maybe he’s a better person for it, but melancholy remains in her place. He keeps searching for replacements. Self-love and light elude him. They may come for him too, she says, with time and an open heart. It’s always possible.
He saw her photo recently in a magazine, an interview about tide pools. She looked nearly the same, a marine biologist now, with some renown, pointing out sea stars and anemones. No longer his—never his. Still radiant by the sea.
Sidney Stevens (she/her) has an MA in journalism from the University of Michigan. Her short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Oyster River Pages, The Woven Tale Press, and Another Name for Darkness, a new anthology from Sans. PRESS. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Newsweek, The Dillydoun Review, and Nature’s Healing Spirit, an anthology from Sowing Creek Press. See www.sidney-stevens.com.