My Blonde L
ife Tamara Dyrud Schierkolk is a 1988 graduate of Middle River High School. This small-town girl is now a city-dweller living in the Twin Cities. She writes for several publications, hoping to inspire others to love their neighbors well because life is just better that way.
www.tamarajorell.com
WATER STORIES - Part 2
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#1 No one wants to dispose of a body during a pool party, but life happens–and apparently death too sometimes.
And so it was the day Wilson and Beatrice brought their sister-in-law, niece, and nephew over to swim. The languid sun sprawled on its cosmic cushion, and our girls lounged too, suspended in triple-decker hammocks strung between two oaks. The visiting kids and adults splashed in the tropical oasis of our backyard, diving for toys and tumbling off floating pool mattresses into the azure depths. Water shenanigans. Delighted shrieks. Bubbly laughter.
I’m not sure who saw it first, but Thora yelled to me as soon as I slid the glass door shut behind me and stepped into the backyard.
“Mom, it’s a baby opossum,” she said, thumbing toward a furry lump in the grass. “And something’s wrong with it.”
“Oh, no.” I strolled to the spot she indicated. The small creature lay motionless, except for its eyes, which moved, meeting our gaze. Flies circled its body.
“Why does this always happen when Dad’s gone?” my girl asked, and I didn’t know why his work trips were so ill-timed either.
“Well, we have to do something,” I said. “We can’t let it suffer.”
“Don’t look at me.”
Beatrice and Wilson’s sister-in-law hopped out of the pool to take a peek. I don’t recall retreating from the scene, but from a distance I eyed her assessing the situation. “Do you want to take care of it?” I called out, hopeful.
Still peering at the tragic display, she said, “I’m not a killer.”
As I jogged to the pool house for a shovel and returned to the action, I realized how crazy my question must’ve sounded: Hey, I know you’re our guest, and I don’t even really know you, but wanna finish off a dying opossum for us while you’re here to swim and have a good time?
“That looks like a murder weapon,” Thora said, pointing at the rusty shovel in my hand. She hollered something to our neighbor about being the only guy there.
By now, Wilson was a dripping presence next to me. “I can do it.”
“Really? I mean, you grew up on a farm,”I said, hoping to appease myself, “so maybe you’ve done this before?”
“It was usually something my dad did,” he said with a smile, taking the implement from me, “but I’ve got this.”
I grimaced. “Thanks.”
Grieving the afternoon’s loss of innocence and worrying our neighbors might never come back, I scurried toward the sliding glass door, hoping to disappear into the house in time. Before I could step inside, though, a morbid compulsion prodded me. I snapped a glance over my shoulder. Wilson stood at the edge of the woods, flailing the shovel.
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#2 Husband keyed in our information on his phone, registering the two of us for our church’s two-hour marriage dinner cruise down the St. Croix River on August 11. Snapping up two of the fifty remaining spots, he told me the threelevel river boat could hold six hundred fifty people.
“Six hundred fifty?” I said. “Seems like a Titanic situation waiting to happen.”
“You know there won’t be enough lifeboats for us,”Husband said.“We’ll be hugging each other in the water until we die.” “It’s the St. Croix,” I said. “Surely we can swim to the edge of the river.”
“Well, I can, so maybe I can save us both.”
We boarded the boat on Sunday in Stillwater with over six hundred others, the late afternoon sun glancing off the gleaming white of the vessel’s side. We would go as far as Hudson and then turn back. Flashes of boats of all sizes from literature and history washed into my mind: the Apostle Paul’s ships, Huck Finn’s raft, Moby Dick’s Pequod, the Edmund Fitzgerald.
During dinner, I pierced a sliver of wild rice-stuffed chicken with my fork and brought it to my mouth, gazing through the boat’s windows. The waning day ignited the distant shore. “I guess it would be a long swim.”
“You could probably do it,”Husband said around the bite of potato in his mouth.
But I was happy I didn’t have to.
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#3 I stand in the shallow end and watch Husband dive into the deep, swim underwater the length of our pool, and emerge a foot in front of me. A thrill-rush sloshes over me like I might be yanked under if I don’t watch my footing. He wouldn’t do that to me, but it’s a childhood fear from somewhere. Water drains from his hair, his beard.
“You look like Poseidon,” I say.
Later, I pull up images online to show him. Weathered statues, ancient sketches, cartoon renderings. I find an impressive representation. In it, muscly Poseidon grips a trident amidst the roiling sea; his hair flows in the tempest. “This one is AI-generated and not a real photo,” I say.
“Not a real photo of the mythological Greek god?” he says, laughing.
“Right,” I say.
I scroll through twenty, maybe thirty, more pictures. All the dark waters, lashing storms, and wicked gales sweep my breath away.
But so does my very own Poseidon.
