T H E R E A N D B A C K

By Brandi Kruse

When Dad finally got out of bed after the divorce, he moved in with Arch. My sister and I stayed there everyotherweekend. His house looked fancy but felt hollow—the living room as empty as the fridge. It was a bachelor pad, but I didn’t know that phrase yet. The house felt most unfamiliar on the first floor in the dark—in winter months and on late summer nights, it seemed to grow more lonely and unused.

My sister and I would wait 30 years before texting that time at Arch’s house was so strange. And yet, we were in a pool.

Compared to most of our travels across our hometown, the car ride to Northville took forever. Being the first one to holler shotgun on the way to the car became our secret way of claiming the backseat—so we could go to sleep instead of talking to Dad. We weren’t mean or out of love, we were growingbodiesandtired. Especially me.

It was the summer before third grade, and I was already on Weight Watchers with Mom. She was tired of watching me cry in dressing rooms. And I was teased so much at school that I regularly hid in the bathroom. I hid because I hated how my shorts rode up between my thighs when I walked, and because in gym I couldn’t climb the rope without knots, and Mr. Ziegler said it was because I was too fat.

One morning at Arch’s house, I woke up to go jogging through the neighborhood, before Sis and Dad got up, but I realized I didn't even know how to pull my hair up into a ponytail. I decided to do my best with my banana clip. I might have made it through a block before I gave up. It was so much easier in my head. Just like how, until I was hungry, I could easily imagine adhering to all manner of dietary restrictions, like filling up on a quarter cup of cottage cheese or plain canned tuna fish. At Dad’s, I wasn’t able to measure things out the way I was supposed to, so I would eat meals as slowly as I could, and then skip dessert while Dad and Sis ate ice cream. Dad would tell me how strong I was for refusing sweets on the same days he made me feel like I shouldn’t trust my body. He said, You can’t be hungry. I’m not hungry. And then, You don’t want to look like me, do you?

I never really felt like a kid unless I was in the pool.

At Arch’s house, we swam like we were young because we were, and it was not a hassle to be wet, to smell like chlorine, to let our wet hair dripandtangleanddry as it would.

Arch was never around until we were swimming. He would surface in his khakis, button up, and sweaterinanyweather. He loved to pull me from the pool by my ponytail. Somehow it didn't hurt, which no one believed, but no one ever stopped him, either. He had a southern accent and laughed louder than the joke. He thought his pool trick was hilarious.

Me and my sister’s pool trick involved disappearing underwater for worrisome amounts of time, trying to make it to the far end of the pool without coming up for air. We would hold our breath as long as we could, and at one point we could go thereandback in one gasp.

I remember occasional dolphin dives with Dad, powered by a twolegtail kick that pulled my arms tight around his neck, my body gliding underwater just above his—coarse cheeks and soft floaty body hairs. I would open my eyes just in time to see us goingupforair—the clouds in summer blue sky becoming clearer as we broke the surface—then close them before we plunged back under again.

I remember waking up one Sunday morning and crawling into bed with Dad to ask him why he cheated on Mom. He cried, and I don’t remember what he said, or if he ever answered. I’m fairly certain that question is what kept him in bed, at his parents house in the bedroom he grew up in, so long after the divorce.

The only memory I have of a family dinner at Arch’s—all of us around the table, tv off—was when Dad surprised us with octopus, but one sight of tentacles turned our stomachs. Maybe they reminded us too much of our swimming arms and legs. We preferred the more familiar special treat of veal parmesan from a restaurant downtown. Many years later, learning how calves become veal, I never ate it again. Dad had a taste for things that were expensive. I definitely inherited this from him—this craving for things that are not just costly but ludicrously overpriced. Years later, he would fill his own refrigerator with gourmet food that would rot before he ever had the energy or company to use it.

One morning I woke before everyone, hungry. I went downstairs quietly and searched for something to eat. I thought I would find bread to make toast, peanut butter to spoon, cheese to slice, Captain Crunch, Triscuits, bologna, or leftover anything to tide me over until everyone woke up. There was nothing but condiments, so I unwrapped a cloudybrownblock from the freezer. This was the closest thing to food I could find. I grabbed a butter knife from the drawer and started to chisel away at the icey lump, mostly unsuccessfully. I ate the weird shaved ice chunks I managed to free from the whole. Dad's later laughter was way worse than the metallic bite of brine shrimp meant for Arch’s basement fish.