First Printing - September 2009 by Wasteland Press
ISBN: 978-0-986-77500-0 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-60047-348-7 (print)
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is strictly coincidental
Dedication:
For Caitlin, my little sister. You didn’t survive the darkness and it will always be dark as I stand here alone and face the future without you.
Prologue
I remember when I was a child I almost drowned. It was a cloudy day in early spring when the flowers were just starting to bloom. I was twelve years old and I shouldn’t have been standing on the slippery dock. But I liked watching the water on the lake. It had such a peaceful feeling to me. I would imagine myself swimming like a dolphin through the water, or a mermaid. The water streaming past my skin and an enchantment of underwater worlds seemed glorious to me. Maybe I was too old for such fantasies, but at the time I would have given anything to swim away and be part of something better. There was something mystical about the lake and nothing special about my life.
It was cold that day. It had been raining for months. But as I stood there, I could see the spring sun trying to poke its head out from behind the clouds. There was a strong breeze that kept blowing the long strands of my dark-blonde hair into my mouth. But I didn’t mind. The wind only made the lake seem more magical.
Something had drawn my attention to the end of the dock. I heard splashing and when I looked I could see rings where the water had been disturbed. The light shined against the water but when I peered into it I could see a dark shadow underneath the surface. I walked to the very end and suddenly I slipped and went crashing into the water. I felt shock at the rush of coldness over my body. I didn’t have time to think about what had happened. There was no real thought, just survive.
I thrashed my arms through the water to stay afloat but my head kept going under. I gasped for air each time my head bobbed above the surface. I tried to scream for help but I don’t know if any words came out of my mouth as I struggled to get enough air and gurgled on water. The water was piercing cold like knives stabbing inside my whole body. All I could hear was the sound of water splashing as I struggled and the sound of my muffled voice trying to scream. I don’t know how long it lasted. It felt like forever but at the same time, everything had happened so quickly. I struggled and fought for life but I couldn’t stay afloat.
Then it came to a point where life seemed to stop. I stopped. Everything paused, but only for a second. And in that moment I realized I didn’t have to fight. I didn’t have to struggle. And I stopped. The scary thing is that it became so peaceful once I stopped struggling. I flowed under the water and slowly drifted deeper into the lake letting the muddy water catch me in its darkness.
Everything felt slow moving. I could see the light shining through the surface of the water. It looked like the sun had finally pushed through the clouds and it just enraptured me. I stared up at the light until it became all I could see. There were no thoughts or feelings. I was no longer cold. All the pain had seeped away and I was anaesthetized. Everything had become light.
My father saved me. He was arguing with my mom when I fell in the water. He told me later that he noticed I wasn’t standing on the dock anymore. I remember waking to him breathing into my mouth with his warm breath. I immediately coughed up the water that had filled my lungs and continued hacking for several moments. Then I lay back down and shivered. My dad put his brand new fleece jacket over me. My mom was kneeling down beside me, her head hovering over me and her brown hair grazing my face. She put her delicate sweater around my cold head and wrapped up my wet hair in it. I lay there groggy and watched them look at each other mouthing "thank you, God". My head felt like it was swimming in dizziness and my throat stung from all the coughing. My chest ached with a heaviness over it.
My mom was stroking my head lovingly and then my dad spoke. He said he couldn’t lose me, that I scared him to death. I saw tears falling from his strained eyes and his blond hair laying wet against his face. His forehead was wrinkled tensely. Then I saw his relieved smile. It wasn’t like any other smile I had seen before. It was a lopsided grin, wide with bright eyes filled with tears. My mom just looked at me with a smile and tears streaming down her face. Her eyes were just as bright and fearful as my father’s eyes.
He stared at me with that complicated smile and all I could feel was numbness. My father had saved me and yet a part of me had wanted to die because of him. I watched him from the dock screaming at my mother and throwing his arms in the air at her. She stood there and cried. I could hear her saying "I’m sorry, I’m sorry..." from the dock. I felt like my world was falling apart. All I could think was that this wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. I didn’t throw myself into the water, but a part of me didn’t mind that I had fallen in. I fought for my life but only for a few minutes and then I let the lake take me away. Because I felt in that moment life had already taken me away.
There was one good thing about that day—I was special again. My father, Neil, named me Annalyn because he thought it would suite a princess. And that’s what I was to him. I was his little princess, Annalyn Johanssen, with her sparkling eyes. I have this picture on my dresser of me in a princess costume sitting on his lap. We’re both smiling in the picture and it wasn’t the fake kind of smile people do in pictures. We both had wide grins on our faces. It was on my fourth birthday and my parents had bought me that fuchsia princess costume complete with a tiara. My mom Maggie told me later that he had actually gone shopping with her and picked that present out for me himself.
I remember later that day I had a special birthday tea party with my dad using my pink tea set with daisies on it. He had real tea and I had orange Kool-Aid. The pictures taken later that day featured me with orange stains on the corners of my mouth and a wide-eyed smile.
I don’t know when things started to change. I guess it was a slow progression from being something remarkable in his life to being the invisible child in the middle of the family. When I was on the dock and he was hovering over me with that broken smile, it was the first time in a long time that I actually felt special to him. And for the next few weeks he made sure I knew how much he loved me. He gave me flower bouquets filled with blue irises, my favourite, and roses, daisies and all sorts of different varieties to fill my room. And he smiled at me a lot.
When I went to bed, my father even came into my room to tuck me in and tell me "I like ya, I love ya." It was something my parents always said to us when we were little and they were tucking us in at night. By the time I was ten, they stopped saying it. They stopped giving goodnight hugs and just sent me off to bed not even minding that I might want them to wish me a good night. I missed these things but I never said anything because I didn’t want to act like a little kid. I didn’t want to admit that I still had nightmares and wanted my parents to wish them away when they tucked me in. But him saying it to me again made me feel thrilled. I was special again.
Soon things began to fade back to the way they were. My parents started fighting again. My older sister, Lydia, continued her ruthless ways. My younger sister, Janey, went back to being the beloved baby of the family. I was invisible once more.