Chapter 9
One early morning the following week, Allegra walked to the beach alone.
A cool wind blew in from the ocean, and the sky promised showers.
She stripped to her short black suit and dove into the waves, her clothes in a heap on the sand.
It was high tide, and without a midday sun overhead, the water was cool against her skin as her arms pulled her out past the usual reef.
Her muscles relaxed into their customary routine, legs kicking in rhythm as she opened her arms in front and brought them to her sides, making a wide circle as she parted the water and distanced herself from the shore.
She opened her eyes, saltwater stinging as she watched the fish dart around the reef below.
Urchins clung to the rock, their oxblood spines waving as she passed.
She spotted a trio of lobsters creeping along the bottom, their segmented tails leaving curious tracks in the sand.
A large, lone sunfish, its rounded disk body basking near the surface, looked at her with its funny, wide eyes.
Every creature had its purpose, but Allegra felt adrift.
She pushed toward the seafloor, savoring the ocean’s silence.
Over the past week, all everyone had talked about was Susana, of course, and the averted tragedy.
As much as she loved her people, especially the weavers, Allegra needed some quiet.
The deeper she dove, the more the light changed, lapsing from dancing reflected rays to a dim glow.
The world above was forgotten, and the water cooled further as she descended.
Fine air bubbles lined her skin and each hair on her arms and legs.
A crab scuttled across the bottom, dragging the remnants of a fish in one claw.
As much as Allegra loved this underwater world, she was an intruder here.
Other. While the silver and blue schools of fish navigated around one another like dancers on a stage, they dodged the foreign currents she made, suspicious.
She was meant for breath, and she rationed it as she floated, her long, dark hair fanning out like seaweed.
The incident with Susana had been a stark reminder that they were interlopers under the Mediterranean Sea, hired help at best. Breath was everything, in the end.
It was, according to their faith, the animation given by their Creator, Yahweh: Yah, that first intake of spirit at birth, and the faint weh, when spirit was released at death.
Allegra realized she’d been holding her breath much of the time lately, tense and worried about Johann, but it had begun before that, really.
After her first miscarriage, and then the second and third, she’d held her breath every month before she bled, waiting and hoping for a miracle.
With every breath she held came the certainty of more misfortune.
Ironically, it was here, alone under the sea, where the attempt to draw in breath would mean the end of her, where the water worked its magic and the tension she’d been holding finally loosened and she let herself relax.
With that faintest act of surrender, it dawned on her how much her whole being craved breathing freely as she once had.
She’d had enough of clenching and grasping for control, of withholding trust in herself and God, as if such futility would ward off pain and misfortune.
She realized how miserly she’d been, hoarding breath in anxiety and fear when she should have been breathing deeply with faith.
If tending the byssus had taught her anything, it was that simple, precious things were a gift meant to be lavished and freely given, not traded or bargained for.
Her chest tightened, and Allegra kicked upward.
When she broke the surface, instead of jealously gulping air, she paused for a moment to be sure she savored it, and then she breathed in deeply, filling her lungs and feeling her entire chest expand.
Yah. Then she blew it out, long and slow.
Weh. She let it flow through her body. Kicking backward, she floated on the surface, arms out wide, her body made buoyant by the breath she drew into her lungs. She drifted on the gentle waves.
She’d been trying to carry it all: her fear, grief, and anger, adding more and more to the load with each catastrophe.
Had she thought it was some badge of strength?
Some test? But perhaps she’d never been meant to carry those things after all, but to let them out like a breath, let them recede like the tide.
Here in the water, she felt held by something bigger, an assurance that even if she never held her own child, even if she never touched her husband’s handsome face again, she would continue to be held in this way, buoyed, carried.
Allegra’s heart opened, and its contents spilled out into the ocean.
The tears that ran from the corners of her eyes dissolved into the sea, salt mixing with salt.
She floated that way a long time, until she felt a lightness, emptied of the darkness and dread she’d been closeting inside herself.
The sorrows she carried remained, but their edges were no longer razors.
The sun warmed her face and arms, and the salt tang of the breeze stung her nose.
She allowed herself the pleasure of these things for the first time in a very long while, and the small glimmers of joy that pricked her heart brought a different sort of tears to her eyes.
Yes, she had lost much. But what could she open her eyes to find?
The shadow of a cormorant passing overhead made her open her eyes.
She watched as it glided low before folding its wings and needling expertly into the water.
When it popped up, the flopping tail of a silver fish protruded from its beak.
Allegra swore the bird winked at her as it tossed its head back to slide its catch down its gullet.
“Well done,” she told the bird. Allegra turned and swam back toward the shore.
She was supposed to meet her father at the quay as he came in with his day’s catch, and the cormorant had reminded her of that.
Her mother had asked her to be sure he saved some of the bluefin for dinner.
Her older brother, Nicholas, had been called to soldier not long after Johann, and she knew it lifted her mother’s spirits when the family shared a meal together.
She was looking forward to eating with her family that night.
For the first time in a long while, Allegra actually wanted company.