Two months went by before Jordan and I had our first fight. I accused him of cheating, and he pulled a knife from the kitchen drawer and held it to his own neck. Maybe it was the red wine accusing Jordan, but I cried for him to stop and he got more wild when I called him crazy — ayóó diigis — and he pressed the knife deeper. It dimpled his pale skin just below his beard line.
“I would die for you!” he screamed.
I screamed louder, and the neighbor banged on the wall in annoyance.
When Jordan removed the knife, his neck was dotted red.
I cried quietly.
“How can you blame me for something so stupid?” he said. The phone vibrated, again. “He’s only visiting,” he explained. “He’s my ex; he’s still my friend.”
The snow came early in November. We watched the night flutter with white butterflies as Jordan held me in his arms. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry I grabbed the knife,” he whispered. “I don’t know what came over me.”
I nodded, but I knew what had come over him.
His phone vibrated. The message box appeared: Are you home? The ex’s name popped up and Jordan grabbed his phone quickly. A dialogue of voices began speaking in my head. It was in a language I could not understand. I tried to make sense of the language — but the sight of the message kept reappearing in my head: Are you home? Are you home? Are you home?
Three weeks later, I went home to visit my family. I woke to texts from Jordan and went to bed with texts from Jordan. I’d planned to be gone for a week, and we spoke sparingly. In between family functions and trips to Farmington, I got texts with random time stamps. The voices spoke louder.
My phone jingled.
“Is that your girlfriend?” my mom whispered.
I smiled.
She seemed to understand my distance. My mind was elsewhere.
“Maybe you should leave early, son,” she said. “Maybe you need to go home sooner than you thought. You should go before the snow hits — surprise her.”
I left the next morning.
The snow was piled high in Cuba, but I pushed through and made it to San Ysidro. I could see the Sandias in the late-afternoon light — they were white and so was the land all around. The blanket thickened as the snow kept falling. The traffic snaked through the winding roads and what was supposed to be an hour’s drive turned into the longest journey — from Farmington, from Dinétah, my homeland.
It was the worst storm to hit New Mexico that winter, and the traffic inched forward as darkness fell. I pressed on.
The City Different was muffled with snow. Mounds of adobe homes were covered in white and glimmered with evening piñon.
I pulled off the interstate at the Cerrillos exit, turned onto Governor Miles Road. I drove slowly through Jordan’s neighborhood because the snow hid the roads. The houses gleamed with orange from the lampposts. The car parked in Jordan’s driveway was not his and I slid to a stop when I noticed a stranger in his kitchen. Jordan appeared from behind, arms wrapped around the smiling stranger. He perched his head on the guy’s shoulder and I drove away, crawling my way to my apartment.
I texted Jordan later that evening: I’m home.
The subway car veered right. I could feel its intense pull as it crawled uptown. I was used to the feeling of being tugged and knew pressing my body weight to the side would prevent me from faltering. I stumbled once, maybe twice, when I first made this trek up the island. I’ve watched many people stumble. I’ve watched it happen time and time again when people were jostled and pushed left, then right, by a ghost of the train who picked on those inexperienced.
The train neared my stopping point, 125th Street, where I would escape the jungle of bodies draped with scarves and gloves and the voices — “Everybody Gets High.”
It was nearly ten in the evening when I heard the knock at my door. Jordan stood wrapped in the scarf I’d given him before I left to visit my family. He smiled his wide grin. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home early?” He held a bottle of red wine and I smiled at the sight of it — the dryness in my throat needed to be quenched. We sat near the chaise longue and talked about my trip. We talked about the snowstorm, about my family.
“I would love to meet them one day,” he said.
The looming memory of Jordan’s face on the stranger’s shoulder irked me. The voices spoke in that language I couldn’t decipher. Bits and pieces were in English but remained blurred. The voices made no sense. There had been no shame in Jordan’s movements when I saw him with the stranger. The moment reeled on repeat in my head — Jordan’s smile planted on the stranger. Tears formed at the edge of my eyes.
“Baby, are you okay?” he asked.
I walked into the bathroom and ran the water in the tub. Water steamed hot. I added bath salts to soothe the stiff muscles of my back and thought about the ache in my knee from pressing the pedals on my drive from Dinétah to Santa Fe. I could hear Jordan in my head telling me it was nothing, it was my friend, he’s only visiting, but the voices got louder and muffled Jordan’s. The hammering, the memory, the splashing, the hurt all built up and pounded like monsoon thunder. The water bubbled as it filled the tub. Steam wafted against my skin and the mirrors fogged with moisture, fogging Jordan’s reflection.
“Baby, are you going to talk to me?” he asked.
The pounding, the memory, the bilagáana, the splashing, Shidine’é, my long walk through the hurt which puddled and splashed in the water.
“Baby?”
Jordan’s eyes remained blue as the sky when his pupils dilated and darkened below the water. A single bubble formed at the tip of his nose until it finally let go and surfaced and popped. His mouth remained open. His chest hairs reached for the air, but the water kept them silent. Jordan’s arms went limp and I watched his fingers release the shirt he grabbed onto — mine — the tattooed bands of his arm exposed.
The water calmed before the voices stopped.
I have not returned home since the incident in Santa Fe.
My dad is worried about my well-being so far away, so far from the sacred mountains that protected our people from going crazy. My dad asks about the voices in my head. “Are they still talking?”
I tell him they’re gone. I lie. The earphones are what muffle them, but the ghosts are still here.
The subway stops at 125th Street and I see the blond smile once more.
He holds a blue box in his hands, takes out a cigarette, and waves.
I smile and wave goodbye, but I don’t think he catches my gesture.
He walks up the stairwell and into the light, his shouldered bag and a ghost-trail of smoke following behind him.
Each day, I make sure my phone is fully charged when I enter the subway stations of New York. Each day, I make sure to close my eyes and hold my breath when the train travels under the water. Each day, I walk with the guilt and grief of yesterday in hopes that music will muffle the memory of Jordan. I’m told I am a child of water. Both my parents’ clans represent the redness and bitterness of a monster who lives deep inside me — that monster is filled with dryness and guilt, and a regret steeped in eternal shame.
Waterfall
by Elizabeth Lee
Ten Thousand Waves
They came for new bodies.
Droves of them from all over the world flooded the place every day, looking for salt scrubs, Japanese foot treatments, and hot herbal wraps that would make their bodies sweat and flush out all the toxic things that had been collecting on the inside. They wanted clean organs, clean blood, fresh polished skin. The chance to begin again. Afterward, they emptied into the steaming tubs and saunas, and laid their just-dunked bodies like soft noodles onto tatami mats in the relaxation room where, through heavy lids, they could look out giant circular windows and see the engraved wooden signposts over treatment rooms and private tubs called Cloud and Willow and Waterfall.