At nineteen, I am getting married to a man I've only known six months. Whenever people question me, I tell them we're in love. Time doesn't matter, I say.
Some mornings, I sit on the washer and watch Randon shave his gaunt face. His brown hair, molded from his pillow, juts and pokes above his ears, at the crown of his head. He smells like a mixture of men's deodorant and slight sweat. The sleeves of his T-shirt sway as he navigates his face haphazardly with an electric razor. He doesn't have to tug his skin for a close shave. His nose nearly pressed to the mirror, he looks sad.
I picture my father shaving; it's been the same my whole life. His thinning hair, black seasoned with gray, blow dried and combed, the smell of his Gucci cologne, the perfectly placed pleats on the front of his suit pants, the symmetrical folds of his dress shirt where he tucks it in, his scuffless shoes that he shines with a tattered rag stained by years of polish. His cheeks are full, and when he shaves, he contorts his face into funny shapes, tugging his chin down, pushing his cheeks to his nose and his ears, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth. A hint of smile always peeks from the patterned movement of his razor.
***
D.A.M. David Alvin McBride. My father loves his initials. He scrawls his monogram on his tools, his aprons, his coolers.
One summer, at a church picnic, we took punch in a large yellow cooler. Hailey, a church leader's youngest daughter, asked her mom for a drink. When her mother inquired as to what she wanted, Hailey replied, "I want some punch from the dam cooler." My mom had to quickly explain. I used to think she was embarrassed, but lately, she has been trying to convince him to get a personalized license plate: DAM CAR.
***
Three dams, cleverly named First Dam, Second Dam, and Third Dam, control the power of the Logan River near my apartment. I find myself at these dams each time something in my life crumbles, and though these three dams look and feel so different, each feels part of a whole. Little pieces of peace in a long, wide sanctuary.
***
One November afternoon, Randon and I eat lunch at Canyon Entrance Park, located at First Dam. Though the air is clear, the cold shove of winter wind keeps us inside his white Toyota Previa minivan, and we eat together without conversation. A few days ago, just after Thanksgiving, we decided to get engaged, and tension has been building between us. Preliminary wedding planning seems to push us apart. I don't think it should be like this, but everyone tells me that extra stress is normal, and that I should get used to planning most of the wedding alone. Still, it bothers me that as I look for honeymoon suites and bridesmaids' gowns, Randon watches soccer or talks to his ex-girlfriend.
Randon turns up the radio, and I watch the ducks and geese scuttle around, their cacophony of quacking and blaring fills First Dam, overshadowing the sound of any water, except for maybe sporadic slaps from the flapping feet of waterfowl.
Later, as I lay in bed with him, I try to picture what our marriage would be like: him climbing into bed with dripping shower hair – the rubbing swish of towel dried hair, the sucking and smacking of lips, the slipping noise of naked legs on sheets, and then the noise changing so the only sounds in our bedroom are the squeak of the springs and the thumping on the pillow as he turns his back to me to sleep.
***
For seventeen years, I saw my father every day, not just in the house, but around it – in the kitchen flipping pancakes, in the garden pulling and digging and planting with brown circles on his knees, in the garage peeling off his soaked, greasy, brown snow-blowing jumpsuit, in the TV room on the couch with an unfolded newspaper hanging above his belly in front of his face, in the foyer kissing my mother before work. I have watched his rebuilding and reworking of the house with its silvery cement patio and fresh daffodil gardens and manicured grasses, all shining with the newness of faithful upkeep which my father's diligent endeavors have brought year after year.
For seventeen years, I talked to my father every day, as a friend, as an enemy, as a father – we talked about school and college applications, we talked about my friends and my relationships, we argued over my curfew, we watched M*A*S*H reruns together while I kneaded his ugly feet, his cracked heels, hairy toe knuckles, cuts and calluses and crooked joints. I have listened to our rebuilding and reworking of our relationship with its yelling and swearing and crying and apologies and small compliments. I wanted independence; he wanted to protect me.
All of this did not seem so important until I moved to Logan, Utah to attend Utah State University. My parents helped me box up my life, but we couldn't fit everything in my car, so my father filled his Mercedes with book-filled flaky brown boxes and clothes draped on dirty wire hangers. He insisted that my mom ride with me. I don't remember what we talked about on that 90-minute drive to my apartment; I only remember glancing in the rearview mirror every minute or so to make sure the sleek black silk of his Mercedes was still there.
When I drove up Logan Canyon to Third Dam for the first time, I was searching for comfort; I had my independence and it felt too lonely to be comfortable. At the pullout, I rolled down my windows and sat in my car, watching the cattail stalks bend in the breeze, listening to the thick crashing of water pouring through the dam. An uneven row of orange barricades broke the surface of the water, and next to them, a large sign: Danger! Keep Out. I came here for comfort, for quiet, but it was loud and I was uncomfortable and overwhelmed, so I rolled up my windows and left for First Dam, where the water was quiet.
***
The summer before my sophomore year at the University, I am introduced to Randon and to Second Dam. Both are refreshing – Randon, at 24, is older than any other man I'd been interested in, and Second Dam, not like First or Third Dam, hides behind a quick pulloff, down a slight sloping road beneath the line of sight for canyon drivers. This summer, I spend more time with Randon, more time in Salt Lake with my father, and more time with Second Dam.
I continue to go to Second Dam alone. In that place of peace, I need to be in control, much like the dam itself. As I stand on the rusting foot bridge that spans Second Dam, I think about the potentially unfair label people stamp on dams: controlling. Dams control water for stability, displacing nature to pave the way for concrete and metal, taking power away from nature and giving it to people. My father, at times, seems to do this still; he continues enforcing curfew, he still keeps tabs on my spending habits.
Though I know he intends to protect me, at times his behavior seems invasive, forceful, even destructive. Similar to the way workers rearrange and restructure land to make way for human creation, my father acts in a way he deems necessary and appropriate. Though this frustrates me, I cannot help but admire his boldness, his surety. He sees what needs improvement and strengthening, and he starts to fix it. In matters of nature and people, especially with dams, sometimes, I think we do know what's best. We know how to fix things; we can see what nature cannot.
***
One summer, after I broke up with a boyfriend, my mom suggested that I ask my father to take me for ice cream. With limp arms and dragging feet, I climbed the stairs to my parents' bedroom. I curled up on the bed next to my father, who was softly snoring with the TV on. I tapped a finger to his arm, and he opened his eyes wide and stared at the TV, almost pretending like he wasn't sleeping, let alone snoring. "Daddy, will you take me to get ice cream?" I paused. "Mom said it would be nice of you."
"It's 10:30. What do you want ice cream for this late at night? It'll make you fat."
"Okay." I slid off the bed and headed downstairs. Before I reached the landing, his faint snore resumed.
***
Less than a month after we got engaged, I bring Randon home, to Salt Lake, for Christmas. We sleep on separate levels and my father sneaks downstairs when we're alone. Even over loud explosions or soundtrack crescendos, I hear the creak of him creeping down the stairs. I crane my neck and smile as he stumbles to say, "I just, uh, wondered who was down here."
The Monday after Christmas, I leave Randon with my father to go shopping with my mom. When we return, arms dented from many shopping bags' heavy handles, the doors to the "den," my father's library, were closed. When they're done, Randon tells me they were just "chatting about marriage and stuff." His hunched shoulders twitch, he doesn't say much, and we leave for Logan not long after.
My father, too, says very little about their conversation, and I begin to appreciate the way his actions have changed, and I see now a restructuring – an unusual quiet in place of an expected opinion, an unusual lack of warning to protect my body and my heart, an unusual and deliberate silence regarding my choices, perhaps unusual because I expect him to give advice, but more unusual because I now yearn for it.
***
First Dam is a dangerous, hazardous dam. Deteriorating concrete, cracking, seepage, and high stress are among its multiple diagnoses. Beginning in 1993, workers will take nearly a decade to repair the numerous flaws that threaten the efficacy and safety of First Dam.
Dams, like most unsafe or risky things, carry the potential for failure due to movement or failure of foundation, structural collapse, concrete cracking, deliberate acts of sabotage; separate or compounded, any of these flaws leads to eventual dam destruction if builders don't rebuild and rework the structure.
Some dams fail within minutes or hours, particularly during flash floods or heavy storms when trees tumble, bark barrels jamming the dam. Other failures, however, draw out over days and weeks as small but deadly debris gathers.
***
As the days and weeks pull our wedding closer, our relationship seems to stretch in places it shouldn't, ill-fitting and worn thin.
Many afternoons, Randon spends hours on the phone with an ex-girlfriend, and I listen to him tell her how she is wonderful and special and doesn't deserve to be mistreated. By the time he finishes talking to her, his conversation quota has been filled, and he doesn't want to talk to me, so we watch TV instead.
He does not acknowledge when I make chile verde but of course wants me to acknowledge when he heats a frozen Totino's pizza. He does not decide anything timely but of course expects me to make up my mind instantly. He does not want to be too physical but of course prefers me nearly naked and willing. And quiet. He wants me when it is convenient.
I grow accustomed to the lack of conversation, and I attempt to fix things by cleaning the kitchen, cooking dinner, proofreading his papers. He contributes with selfish silence, hearing me talk but refusing to look at me. I see that he feels no need to fix anything, and we begin to slowly crumble like old concrete.
And I grow accustomed to this wearing down, yet I know that we will not work; or, rather, we cannot work, for his endless outpour of complaints only serve to break down the apologetic rebuilding I work for alone after a flood of mean and quiet. He becomes infinitely quiet, incoherent, fading like the end of a song. When we sleep, he cuddles with the wall, his back to me.
One night, after looking at lingerie together, I tell him I'm unhappy with my body. My rigorous workouts are doing nothing for me. He tells me that it is my own fault for not working hard enough. That night, he tells me to sleep on the floor because he doesn't feel well. His windows leak freezing winter air, his carpet smells stale. Crying, I curl up with my own fat, holding my knees to my stomach. I lay there and wonder when exactly it was that I became silent and submissive, doormat-like and disappointing – so spineless and weak, insecure and pathetic, during the course of our relationship.
I want to call my father and ask him what to do, but I don't. I don't want him to know that Randon is being an asshole. I don't want him to know I sleep at Randon's. I don't want him to know I'm unhappy. The next morning, I go to Second Dam alone. I need space to think, to breathe. I need a gentle quiet. A distant, constant trickling plinks and echoes at Second Dam, in this place I hide when words carry little weight, and I need something familiar. Reliable.
I stand in the sharp winter air, resting my forearms on the rusted bridge arching over the smooth pouring of water, just under my feet, slipping and swishing and passing, slow and soft. I watch the white folds of an almost-waterfall, a small dip in the water's path. To my left, a barren tree stands alone in the center of a pseudo-island that cuts into the river flow. For the first time, I notice the stone wall surrounding the island is wrapped in wire. Trapped.
I wonder if I should break things off with Randon. I'm not happy, but maybe this is part of the process. Maybe I have to break through the rough, weak spots in order to have a solid marriage, because building something so strong and durable takes time and hard labor. It takes patience. And sometimes, it takes rebuilding.
***
The first week in February, Randon breaks off the wedding and breaks up with me. The night before, he had told me he needed to think about things, but that I should meet him the next night to talk. I have been waiting at his apartment for several hours with no way to reach him, and when his skinny frame passes through the doorway to his room, he sees me sitting on his bed. I ask him if he's ready to talk, and he doesn't answer. I sit in the quiet until he says, "I don't feel right about it anymore. And, I don't know, I just don't feel "that way" about you anymore, either."
I, to my own dismay, ask if he's just nervous, if we can work through this. I feel sick, fighting for something so clearly futile, but I can't smother my impulse to fix things.
"I don't want to work on it," he says. "I don't think working will make any difference."
Hearing this, I leave. The next day, I push piles of clothes into a backpack and leave Logan for Salt Lake.
I go to the only place where no one will judge me if I crumble, where I can rebuild. On the drive down, I curse at the never-ending construction on I-15, frustrated with the stop-and-go motion caused by closed lanes and over-cautious drivers. I turn up the volume, listening to sad songs while my clogged tear ducts blur part of my eyes. Forcing myself into momentary composure, I sit up straight and grip the steering wheel, my fingers curled like talons.
Friday, I play Halo with my fourteen-year-old brother Michael, and on Saturday, we shoot three-inch green army men off the picnic table outside with his air soft guns. Sunday morning, we go to church, and at one point during the meeting, my father silently stands up and helps a widow up to the pulpit. He waits for her to finish her thoughts, and extends his bear-sized hand to her. I watch as her fragile hand grips my father's, her veins protruding like broken bones from thin drooping skin. I watch as he smiles at her and whispers, "Thank you."
After the meeting, my father says that he knew something wasn't right with Randon. I don't argue. I don't argue because my relationship with Randon, truthfully, was exponentially disappointing, with his self-serving attention, his ubiquitous laziness, his tart insults, my extravagant desire to please, my hesitancy to defend myself, my insecurity to leave him. And, behind the stark simplicity of my father's words, I find comfort, for I know it is him protecting, defending me. And, in this moment, I decide that the man I marry will be, in many ways, like my father.
***
As a junior at Utah State, I enroll in an Intro to Poetry Writing class. One day, we read Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy." I read the last six stanzas several times, trying to picture the daddy in her poem, the devil man with a cleft chin, the "man in black with a Meinkampf look," the stake-stabbed, black-hearted vampire, the bastard. But I can't.
After class, I walk alone to my apartment in the sharp whip of February wind and my cell phone rings.
"Hi, Daddy."
"Hi, Anniefoo. What are you up to?"
"Walking home from class. You?" The biting cold invades my mouth as I talk.
"I just got home. We received a letter from the University about your grades last semester. I just want you to know that I'm proud of you and all that you do up there."
"Thanks, Daddy."
He rambles and the phone cuts out. I listen in fragments, filling the sentences with what I know he's saying. He does not know he cuts out, and I don't want to tell him because then he'll say he has to go. I continue walking, my hand holding the phone to my ear getting colder but not numb. I cross my eyes and look at my nose. It's pink like my fingernails. I look both ways, then jaywalk, and when I reach the other sidewalk, the sun leaves.
Then he stops cutting out. He talks smoothly over my winter sniffles. His precise, authoritative cadence drowns out the sounds of my other ear. And once more, without interruption, he says he's proud of me. He calls me after every semester, and though we replay that same dialogue, it doesn't wear down.
***
One night after Randon and I have broken up, I drive to First Dam to feed ducks. As I stand at the edge of the water, I throw shreds of bread to a female mallard, and then a few more. Then, I begin to notice how small they are, how the back of their heads are pink and bald. With that pinkness, all the silent smothering, all the surrendering beneath the push of the sleek green of the male mallards, is sad. The females who have given up fighting against sexual advances remain quiet, and I now see, their heads are barer, more of their flesh exposed. From where I stand, I can see them in the shadows, submitting, silently yielding. It seems unfair, the unwanted intrusion. I watch as the male ducks bear down upon passing females. During sex, the female duck bends, her neck curved, her beak pushed into the ground like a stake. Wing feathers folded and bent, black eyes, each glossed and empty. A silent face. Back of the neck naked, flushed pink from plucked out feathers. Feet tucked away; the entire body limp, flightless and tired. As I stand there, I wonder how these females surrender to the constant bombardment – like holding your breath to anticipate your head being pushed beneath the water.
This time, I hear something different, farther down the road a couple thousand yards, the loud continuous splash of water falling down in a thick white sheet, the dam itself of First Dam hiding just down the road. I get in my car and, ignoring the "No Trespassing" signs, I drive around the pullout, the thunderous splash crescendos, louder and closer, louder and closer.
The dam looks strong, sturdy. New concrete gleams under a setting sun, and the extended buttress gives the water plenty of space to fall. Even after workers replaced deteriorated concrete, filled cracks, repaired seepage, and de-stressed the dam, even after rehabilitation, First Dam still carries the label: hazardous. So much work accomplished only to end up at the beginning, it seems. Hazardous seems harsh; I prefer fragile.
***
I watch the sun sink, casting its muted rays in bright pink across the near-night sky. The ocean waves seem to swallow the sun as the white crests curl over like licked soft serve ice cream. The thin fingers of palm tree leaves brush and tangle in the breeze. The beach is empty.
"What are you doing?"
I turn and look at my father, who is standing in the illuminated blue pool of the Marriott resort in Kaanapali, Maui. He stands in the pool, a strong, secure man, unembarrassed by his thick white legs rippling and twisting psychedelically in the water, deliberately ignorant of his belly, large and pale.
"Watching the sunset," I say.
"No, that's not what I mean. Come here."
I step down and water warms my swimsuit, twisting around my legs as I walk toward him. He whispers, "You keep wrapping your arms around your stomach. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm not sick," I tell him, tugging at my black halter top tankini. "Just self-conscious."
"Don't be. You look great." His crow's feet crinkle as he smiles, and I drop my hands.
***
Once more, I find myself driving to Second and Third Dam to find calmness. They are silent except for the rushing water that covers the sound of passing cars. I shuffle across loose gravel and pick at cattails at Third Dam, I stand tiptoed on the sun-bleached wooden planks of the bridge at Second Dam and hang my head over the rail, watching the ribboning ripples of the Logan River running beneath my feet. The steady water soothes me. They spatter and spurt, crash loudly like the heavy filling of a bathtub, and smell like summer night rain. Their streams vary by season: spring trickles like steady drips from a faucet and increases as the snow melts and runs down in a rush. Here, I breathe through my nostrils and soak up the softness of the surrounding water.
This seems to be the pinnacle of what dams are. They control, but are not controlling. They regulate, providing consistency and safety. Dams provide the land and water with benefits, but they, too, need strength and protection. Like nature, well-built dams are paradoxically preventative and destructive, constant and controlling. They are difficult, needy, complicated, but also reliable, protective, valuable, unusually beautiful.
Today, both dams are nearly silent. I come here no longer because I need an escape, but because I need something steady and sure. Here, among the swaying cattails and the coppery rusted foot bridge and the green spring grass, I feel safe. I watch the water move placidly, filled with the promise of peace.
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