Beneath These Waves

Chapter Three

We decided on nothing. A period that's paused, a period of quiet. Where we could just concentrate on trying not to feel, of waiting for the wounds to close up.

It was hard to slip into a haze at the control panel, even though everything was the same. The view was identical, although the sandy seafloor was newly visible. I just kept going west, toward the closest reef Dad had mentioned- about two days away.

Eventually my shift ended, but I stayed a little longer. There was no one else to take over. No one to depend on.

The water turned dark before I finally got up, switched the same old buttons, choked down some food, and tried to sleep.

***

I can't help myself. It's the exact opposite of what I should have done. I should have forced myself to sit in the chair, maybe go talk to Cal or Ser about trivial things. Maybe sort through the coral samples, caressing the same flaws for the hundredth time. But instead, I walk down the hall, retracing my steps, the path I had walked that led to the undoing, that ended the peace, that ended the oblivion. If I had stayed, rooted in the chair, would this have come easier, would it have hurt less, the pain tapping at the walls that were already threatening to break?

Both Cal and Ser's doors are shut, and I don't bother to open them. I'll talk to them after.

My hand is on the door, the door to Dad's room. I'm not supposed to be here, it threatens to bring an excess of emotion, sadness directed towards the body that is now smashed in the freezer.

It's exactly as we had left it. No one has been back in here, because that was what we had promised. This is going to be another secret, another addition to my collection. They don't know and they don't have to. They probably think I'm aimlessly jabbing buttons at the command center right now. Let them think that. Please let them continue to think that.

Everything is still disheveled, in its strangely organized way, almost toppling, almost falling to the floor, but never actually doing so.

Before my judgment can be rejected, I sit down on the corner of the bed, the one where Ser and Cal had been holding on to each other. I wish I had had someone to hold me. But I never do, even when Dad was alive, even when we could be siphoned off into pairs.

This is my chance. To get a glimpse at the life behind the closed door, the alternate persona, the raw, exposed one. It's all mine now. Maybe it's the same one that he gave us, but I have to find out.

I get up and walk over to the desk, overflowing with notes and sketches and scribbles and doodles, on the same yellowed paper. Neat, precise handwriting. Loose drawings with lines that seem to fly away. There are a couple of pages on top that look different, the handwriting shaky and the drawings losing their offhand accuracy, but I shove them aside. Later. I'll look more into that later. There's more time, but not time that I have now. I can only stop at important things. What's absolutely crucial.

Next, I peruse the bookshelf. It's filled with Dad's casual reads, the books he read for entertainment. His scientific books, the textbooks filled with numbered diagrams, are in the study. The books on this shelf are written by a bunch of old dead white men. They're well worn, because he read them repeatedly, since it's kind of hard to find new reading material under the ocean.

I trace my finger along the spines, all in dull colors, navy and tan and cream. The titles are lengthy, the text squashed, and I can smell must wafting up from the pages, even though the books are relatively new and in decent condition. They don't prove anything though. They just make me miss Dad more, and his crappy reading taste. When each of us turned seven, he tried to get us hooked on these books, but we each ended up running out the door to go play in the field and collect seashells at the beach. Back then we loved the ocean, it was fleeting, so it was precious to us. Hours passed in minutes, our shoulders burning and our legs getting crusted in salt. It was so carefree back then.