Enough

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

I have moments, brief flashes, when I think I should have married you. You would get this. The ice, storms, science, seals. You would thrive here.

Only you never would have taken the risk. You wouldn’t ever be here.

What risk? Tonight, I sit in the galley with a glass of wine on the table next to my notebook. Brian is playing his guitar over by the wood-burning stove, and a couple of the girls are chatting on the couches. We get excellent South American wines on station and can buy them at cost. This one is full-bodied, and I can taste the Argentine steppes as the fruit slides across my tongue. But you, I’m betting, would scoff at wine talk, the silliness of claiming to taste minerals and soil. Perhaps you don’t drink at all. Your dad, I remember, drank too much.

Twenty-five years ago, you wanted me to marry you, and my mother begged me to do it. Now you’re a superintendent of a national park. You live in a beautiful place, and your life is defined by protecting that beauty. That’s a life I could get behind. If I were with you, I’d probably have a few kids. I’d be an excellent cook. I’d be in good shape, hiking trails with you every weekend, teaching the children how to tie knots, pitch tents, pace themselves on mountain climbs.

Instead, I’m here at Palmer Station, where by day I work as an assistant to the guy who manages hazardous materials. But my days are unimportant. It’s the nights I want to tell you about. Maybe just last night.

The work day—I’ll only say this—was long and exhausting. The Laurence E. Gould, the National Science Foundation ship, came in. They needed to get a team of paleontologists on some island up the peninsula, and so we had to offload and onload in one day. One very long day. I find I can’t do physical labor as easily as I used to. That’s a shock. Who would have thought I’d ever run out of strength? I’m learning what it means to need rest. Maybe you already know. Maybe having a daughter—I heard you had one—has given you a lesson in exhaustion. I hear children do that.

By seven o’clock, we had finished and the Gould pulled away from the dock, its eager team of paleontologists on board. The ship, a mustard-and-orange hulk, moved away from us into the thick fog, pushing through the pancake ice that has crowded our bay for a week. While her shape was still visible, one of the mates came out on deck and yodeled—eerie and beautiful and plaintive notes riding the fog back to the station. Marty, one of our lines handlers, yodeled back. The Gould slid off into the Antarctic Ocean, its form blurring until only a patch of fog glowed yellow and orange like fire. The two men exchanged song until there was no longer any visible trace of the ship.

I stood on Gamage Point, the small rocky piece of land next to the pier where the lines handlers had just let the ship go. They were leaving the point now, making a big circle around a female elephant seal who had hauled out on the rocks to rest. She appeared undisturbed by the lines handlers, the yodeling, the behemoth orange-and-mustard beast slipping into the distant sea. Or maybe she was disturbed, but not enough to bother launching herself into the water. When all the other people were gone, I approached her slowly and took a seat on a rock very near her head.

She might have said, “Hi.”

And so I answered, “Hi.”

Her nostrils dilated and then quivered.

“Diesel,” I told her. “It does stink.”

She sighed and closed her eyes.

Brian shouted to me from the front door of the boathouse. “Poker, Jo.”

I wanted to lie down next to the elephant seal. Her hide was scarred and tough-looking, and though she was bulbous with fat, I imagined she’d feel as solid as the stones surrounding her patch of beach. Her face, though, was liquid with sweetness. A circle of black dots above each eye grew short, bristly eyebrows. These were matched by many more black dots on either side of her nose, from which two sets of short whiskers grew. Her mouth curved up in a slight smile, or so it seemed from my human perspective, and her nose had a fold across the bridge, giving a pug effect. But her eyes—

Brian shouted again about the poker game, and I wondered why he cared so much that I participate. I’d planned on going directly to bed. That yodeling had unhinged me. Like male sirens. I wanted to hear the music again, even if it broke my heart. Music can’t break your heart, though. It can only remind you of a heart already broken. Not by you. Don’t worry. I’m the one who said no. We haven’t even talked in 25 years. It’s only that I wanted to hear that shipboard music again, as if it could sear back together rifts long split open. Rifts that I sometimes imagine wouldn’t have opened if I had married you. As if there’s such thing as a safe harbor. As if there is a risk-free choice, the way the TV and magazines try to tell us. As if marriage is a big padded suit one wears against the ravages of life. These words make it seem as if I’ve been thinking of you these 25 years, but I haven’t. Just once in a while.

When I stepped inside the boathouse, I saw why Brian had been so specific about inviting me. Only three others had the energy for cards that night. The geezers, Harvey and Phil, were there. I’m not being disrespectful, that’s what they call themselves. They’re only in their fifties or maybe early sixties—you probably can’t pass the medical much older than that—but most of the folks working here top off at around 32. Except for the geezers and me.

The last card player in the boathouse was Caitlin. Ah, Caitlin. This was her first season on the Ice and she wasn’t catching on to the culture very quickly. She’d been flirting with Brian all season, even though she knew, like everyone else knew, that he was devoted to a girlfriend back home in Washington State. Caitlin’s a beautiful girl, but something about her efforts with regard to Brian just aren’t pretty. In fact, I’d say she’s a burden on the community. She doesn’t understand about the Ice, how to carry on affairs here. It might look like high school, but it isn’t. Talk to anyone here and you’ll find he or she has a concrete dream, a life plan, and Antarctica is merely a part of it. Like Brian, closer to 20 than 30, who is only having a lark before his real life begins. He isn’t in limbo. He isn’t free for the taking. This isn’t adult camp. We’re working. Most of us are trying, or had been trying, to get somewhere. Like Phil. This is his 16th season and he’s here for one reason: money. He often brags about the home he and his wife have bought, how they never could have done so without his Ice money, about the things they will do in their retirement.

“You in?” Brian asked.

“You betcha.” I gave him a ten, and he counted me out a bank of red, blue, and white chips. No one complained that I’d come in the game late and was getting a full complement of chips. I always play as long as my ten bucks lasts and then bail, have never presented a threat to more serious card players. Everyone relaxes about a woman when she reaches a certain age, and I find that very relaxing myself. You can do whatever you want. As long as you don’t ask anyone for anything, you’re set....

Lucy Jane Bledsoe lives in Berkeley. Her most recent book is her second novel, This Wild Silence (Alyson Publications, Los Angeles). She notes: “This story is the result of my trips to Antarctica as a two-time recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers in Antarctica Fellowship.” E-mail: lucybledsoe@comcast.net