I love the Sunday paper. It has a big pullout puzzle section, and I love puzzles. I am the crossword puzzle king, baby! Lately I've picked up that Sudoku thing, but it's tougher than I thought. I'm good with letters, but not so good with numbers, and Sudoku is all about the numbers. Still, I can get the easy ones.
Ian, of course, doesn't have the patience for puzzles. I gave him a five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle once, just to see what he'd do with it. He dumped it all out of the box, turned all the pieces over, put about four of them together, and then took a lunch break. He never came back to it. Whether he forgot, or just decided not to bother, I'll never know. I picked up all the pieces myself and put them back in the box. The next time he tells me there's nothing to do, I'm getting that puzzle out and making him do it.
Anyway, I was filling in the big crossword in the Sunday paper, on a boring afternoon when there was nothing much going on. I didn't think anyone else was around, but all of a sudden the door banged open, and the next thing I knew, Ian was sitting next to me.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Crossword puzzle," I said. "Do you know a five-letter word, starting with W, for medieval servant woman?"
"Whale."
I looked at him. "No, I don't think that's it."
"What? That's what?" He gave me a blank look.
"No,I don't think that's the answer to this clue."
"What clue?"
"Did you hear anything I've been saying?"
"You lost me at crossword puzzle. They're boring. Let's go on a hike!"
"Not right now, I'm doing this."
"So take a break. Finish it when we get back."
"I'll be done in a few minutes. Medieval serving woman . . . wench!" I wrote it into the boxes.
In the world's worst case of bad timing, Maya picked that exact moment to walk in. "What did you say?" she demanded.
"What?" I looked up. "Oh. Crossword puzzle. Not you, sorry."
"We're going to the beach, if you want to come."
"Ooh, can we? Please?" Ian turned eager eyes toward me.
"I thought you wanted to go for a hike," I said.
"We haven't been to the beach in soooooo long! C'mon, you can bring that and do it on the beach! Please please please please pleeeeeeeeeease?"
I looked at Maya helplessly. "I guess we're going to the beach."
It was just the four of us - Maya and Price, and Ian and me. We packed a cooler full of drinks and sandwiches and stuff, stuffed our towels in a big canvas bag, and off we went.
It was the middle of the day, the worst time to be at the beach (because the sun's so strong), but we had packed loads of sunscreen.
I was determined to finish my puzzle before I even set one toe in the water, so I parked myself on the blanket and spread it out, lying on my stomach. Ian was off to my right side, digging a hole. Or building a sand castle. Since his castles usually looked like big piles of mud, there wasn't much difference.
Price and Maya came back from their dip in the ocean. "It's so beautiful!" she said. "Why don't you guys go take a swim?"
"Not warm enough yet," Ian said.
"Oh, it's plenty warm," said Price. "Come on in! You too, Chance. At least take your shirt off."
I froze. "I . . . I get cold easily. I don't want to get sick."
Ian looked over at me. "It's okay, Chance. You can show them."
"Show us what?" Maya asked.
"Oh, you really don't want to see my pasty, scrawny body -"
"I've seen worse," she said, with a smile. "Don't worry."
"I really don't think you want to see this."
"Chance." Ian was giving me the look. "We're among friends. You can trust them. Stop letting the fear win. Go ahead and show them."
I looked around. There were a lot of people on the beach, but they were all doing their own thing. No one was even looking in our direction. "Okay," I said, "but don't say I didn't warn you."
I grasped the hem of my T-shirt and lifted it over my head, pulling it up and over inside-out. I dropped it on the blanket, and waited for a reaction.
"Oh, my God," Maya gasped. "How did that happen?"
I fingered the six-inch scar that ran from just under my left nipple to above my belly button, and quipped, "This is why you shouldn't run with scissors."
"Seriously, man, what happened?" Price couldn't take his eyes off the scar. He'd never seen it before. Ian had, because we shared a room for so long, but no one else had ever laid eyes on my bare skin.
"I don't want to ruin your good time," I said.
"You pretty much have to tell them now," Ian said. He was still holding his shovel, but had stopped digging.
"Fine." I took a deep breath. I hate talking about this stuff, but I couldn't keep it quiet after they'd already seen my war wound.
"I was eight years old. My dad was working nights, paying the woman upstairs to come and sit with us while we were asleep. We would eat dinner together before he left, and one night after dinner, I was fooling around while he was washing the dishes, and he got pissed off and turned around to yell at me. Only he forgot that he had a sharp knife in his hand. It sliced right through my shirt, and there was blood everywhere. He had to take me to the hospital, and he told them . . ." I felt myself beginning to break down, and got hold of myself. "He told them that I had slipped on a wet floor and fallen against the edge of the counter."
"And they bought that?" Maya was just staring at me, eyes wide.
"This was seventy years ago. Today, they would have called Child Protective Services, but back then, if a parent took a belt to his kid, it was because the little brat deserved it."
"No one deserves something like this." She reached out as if to run her finger along the scar, but stopped just short of touching the skin. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't . . . does it bother you?"
"It doesn't hurt at all anymore. But that's not what you're asking, is it?"
She shook her head, not knowing what to say.
"It was the first time he'd ever used a weapon on me. And the last. I think he scared himself, when he did that. He never used a knife on me again, just his fists. But I always had the reminder of what he was capable of. I kept my shirt on all the time, so he wouldn't have to look at it. I thought I was doing him a favor. Maybe I shouldn't have."
"Sweetie." She put her hand on my shoulder. "This wasn't your fault. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, I think it makes you look really badass."
"Really?"
"Oh, definitely," said Price. "You could always tell people you got that in a knife fight with a guy twice your size. Which is kinda the truth, in a way."
"I just . . . I never wanted anybody's pity. I don't want them to look at this and that's all they see."
"We talked about this, remember?" said Ian. "No one is gonna think less of you for not being able to stand up to your psychotic father when you were a little kid. They'll be proud of you for surviving that in such good shape. You could be a lot more screwed up than you are."
"Thanks," I said. "I think."
"What he means is," Maya said, "you shouldn't be afraid to show off your battle scars when you won the war. You're not a victim, you're a survivor. Be proud of yourself for surviving. You've got a lot of things to be proud of: you've got the coolest job in the world, you're in a relationship with someone who accepts you as you are . . . that there," she pointed at the scar, "made you the person you are. And the person you are is pretty cool."
"Wow," I said. "Thanks, guys. I never thought of it that way. You're right, I shouldn't hide it anymore." I looked out toward the surf, which looked very inviting. "I think I'm ready to hit the water now."
"Let me put some stuff on you first," Ian said. He picked up the sunscreen bottle and squeezed out a big glob. "This skin hasn't seen the light of day in decades. You don't want to burn."
"Lay it on me, baby." I leaned into his touch. He had such soft hands, such light strokes.
"You just like having my hands all over you," he teased me.
"Well, yeah."
Once he had finished rubbing lotion on every available surface (an experience we'd have to repeat later, in private), I was ready to hit the waves, but he told me to wait.
"It takes something like fifteen minutes for it to absorb into the skin and start working. If you go in now, you'll just wash it off. So finish your puzzle."
"It won't take me fifteen minutes to finish this."
"I know. That's why I brought you another one." He had clipped the crossword out of the other Sunday paper, just for me. I felt oddly touched.
"Thanks, hon. You guys go do your thing. I'll join you when I'm done."
I finished both puzzles in less than fifteen minutes, but I waited it out just to be safe. Then I got up and started walking down toward the water.
I was almost to the water's edge when I saw a little boy, maybe five or six years old, looking at me. Oh. Oh, no. Please tell me he's not staring at my -
"What's that?" he asked. He pointed right at the scar.
"That? Oh, that's - that's where I got hurt, a long time ago."
"In a battle?"
"Yeah," I said. The biggest one of my life. And in many ways, I was still fighting it.
But at least I was winning.
