The Sauna
Every morning I rode my bike to class, taking a shortcut through a windy pedestrian path through the local park, grass glistening wet, birds pecking between the blades, deer still as statues. Then I’d cross a busy, four-lane highway. Frequently, I had to veer around roadkill. It was an inevitable fact of having a highway near a park. One morning, I rode past a dead squirrel in bloody, matted pieces smeared on the road. It occurred to me that the squirrel, or the remains of the squirrel, shouldn’t be left on the asphalt to be run over repeatedly. I mean, what if we left everything where it died? The world would be stinking with bodies. I scooped up the squirrel parts with a makeshift surgical glove crafted from a college bookstore bag and rode back to my dorm room. I was reassembling the pieces into the general shape of a squirrel at my desk when my roommate walked in. He called our RA. The next day, my mom drove down and picked me up. My shrink says it might have nothing to do with my dad dying, that it might just be my age. Depression can be like an evil jack-in-the-box that pops up unexpectedly in men in their late teens. Really? Why not when I was nine and had braces? Or when I am old, bald, and demented? But shit happens. And here I am back home, the rest of my first year in college a wash.
It was Friday night, and my mother had gone out with friends. My little brother Chip, a senior in high school, was at swim practice. He’d be going to UCLA in the fall, the same time I hope to be heading back to UCSB. I was on the sofa doing what I’m almost always doing: playing Call of Duty against the advice of my doctor. I told him that the fact that I can differentiate between pixilated blood and the real thing means I’m getting better. He remains unconvinced.
I was in the middle of a mission when my phone rang. I let it go to voicemail before curiosity got the best of me and I abandoned my assignment and listened to the message. It was a girl who was a year behind me and still in high school, asking if I’d like to come over. I didn’t get many invitations since most of my friends were away at school and the ones who weren’t didn’t call, afraid my disease was contagious.
Jennifer lived close to me, and I decided to walk to her house. It wasn’t cold for February in Silicon Valley. The air smelled like it always did around six in the suburbs—that familiar aroma of fried onions and meat, the perfume of stability. I hadn’t eaten meat since I was ten and asked my father where hamburger came from.
The house Jennifer lived in was huge. Her dad was a CEO or CFO or CTO. Her friend Jessica answered the door.
“Hey, Tim.” The jewel in her belly button winked at me. She hugged me and her breasts were surprisingly hard. Both girls were in Chip’s class: seniors, top of the food chain until next year when they’d get demoted. I followed her down the hallway to the family room. Jennifer came in from the kitchen.
“Hi, Tim. You look the same.” She hugged me.
“Thanks.” Did people really expect me to look different?
“How are you doing?”
“How you doin’?” I repeated with a wise-guy accent.
“Really. How are you?” There was this tinge of concern in her voice that I hated. I wasn’t a child, and she wasn’t my mom. I wondered if they invited me here to gawk at me like I was a train wreck.
“Boo!” I blurted. She jumped, and I laughed to show her it was all in fun. She laughed nervously, hitting me on the arm playfully.
“You want a G&T?”
“I do,” said Jessica.
“I know you do,” Jennifer said.
“I’d rather have a beer,” I said. Jennifer left to get the drinks.
“Jennifer’s parents aren’t home?” I asked Jessica.
“They took her brothers skiing, but Jennifer and I have to finish a term paper for AP English.” A Radiohead video was playing on the huge TV. Now there was a guy who looked crazy. Compared to him, I was Mr. Normal.
Jennifer came back carrying two drinks. She’d stuck my bottle of beer in the waistband of her jeans.
“Who else is coming over?” I asked.
“Just us. Unless you want somebody else.”
“No.” I drank my beer too fast. I wasn’t supposed to mix alcohol with my meds. I was on a cocktail of Wellbutrin and Lexapro that made me feel like a cardboard cutout of myself.
“What have you been doing with yourself?” Jennifer asked.
“Nothing. I’m a houseplant my mom feeds and waters.” I often caught my mom spying on me out of the corner of her eye, wary of any sudden moves. Even before my dad died, she reminded me of a Chihuahua, skittering out from under people’s feet, hiding in the shadows, shivering.
“You haven’t called anybody?” Jessica asked. “John Butler is at Berkeley. We saw him last week.”
“Besides my little brother, you’re the only ones I’ve seen.”
“Aren’t we special?” Jessica arched her back. I imagined the shape of her breasts, her little nipples, the tiny triangle of hair down there. She most certainly was the type to wax, and to leave a patch in the shape of something cute—maybe a heart.
Denise had taught me most of what I know about girls. I guess she was my girlfriend at UCSB, although nobody used that term; it was so old-fashioned, made me think of dates and engagement rings. I’d met her my first week at orientation. She was standing alone and smiled at me. She took me to her dorm room, and we drank rum and cokes, and I assembled her IKEA dresser. We fell into a routine of going to parties together and sharing a table at the cafeteria. She was the person I was with the night my d ad died. We were at the library studying for fall term finals. I’d forgotten to turn off my cell phone and got the call from my mom telling me my father had been in an accident, wrapped his Harley around a tree, was instantly killed. Denise hugged me, helped me pack, gave me shots of tequila, and the next morning drove me to the tiny municipal airport. The cloudless blue sky, defiant hot-pink bougainvillea, and glaring white buildings were an affront to my situation and my hangover.
I went to see Denise as soon as I returned for winter quarter. We went to bed, but when I looked at her naked limbs, that’s what I thought about—“limbs,” not sexy legs and arms attached to a beautiful girl. She left me a few messages that I didn’t answer and, honestly, I think she might have been happy not to have to deal with me.
I pushed myself out of the sofa. “Can I have another beer?”
“Bring back some snacks.”
The kitchen had two sinks and two refrigerators. I grabbed a beer and opened the door of the pantry. Every shelf was stocked with dried, canned, and packaged food. So much food.
The first week that Dad was gone, people filled our refrigerator with cakes and casseroles and salads. Like wallflowers at a dance, they went untouched, softening and collapsing in on themselves. I still have trouble eating.
“What’d you bring to eat?” Jennifer asked when I came back into the family room.
“I forgot,” I lied.
Jessica picked up the remote and scrolled through Netflix.
“Sex Education!” Jennifer squealed. “Have you seen it?”
I shook my head. Jessica hit play. “It’s really good. The mom’s a sex therapist.” We watched the character on the television masturbating. Or trying to. The girls giggled, and Jennifer hit the mute button and turned her bony shoulders toward me so that both her breasts were looking at me.
“I know this sounds morbid, but is it true that your dad broke every bone in his body?”
It was a morbid question, but it was the story going around the neighborhood, a quick and easy answer to the terrible question: How did he die? Broke every bone in his body. End of story. We were supposed to think that no person could survive that, which actually didn’t make sense. Why couldn’t a person survive that? What they wouldn’t be able to survive was if they broke every organ in their body. You could survive breaking your heart or your brain—which I’d survived so far—but not at the same time.
“You okay?” Jennifer asked, leaning in with that look adults usually gave me.
“I’m just thinking. I don’t know if it was every bone. I don’t know if they counted every toe. I’m not sure he even had every toe. We weren’t close.” The closest we ever got was when my dad and I would wrestle, and he’d pin me facedown, staring at old toenail clippings stuck in the carpet.
“There’s this rumor going around that you spent the night with his body,” Jessica said.
“Jessica!” Jennifer said.
“What?” Jessica waved her hands at Jennifer. Her fingernails were painted light blue, little skies fluttering around the room. “You’re the one who told me.”
It wasn’t even half a night. More like an hour. Chip just cried, but I liked talking to my dad like that—it was the first time he didn’t comment on everything that came out of my mouth. “It’s okay. We don’t ever talk about death. It should be discussed more. It happens to everyone.”
“When we’re old,” Jessica said.
“That’s not true,” I said. “You can die at any time.”
“What did he look like?” Jennifer asked.
“My dad? He looked like a dummy you’d see at a wax museum. Peaceful and happy.” It had been weird. It clearly was my dad, but I’d never seen him like that—peaceful and happy. He was what they call a type A personality and was, or had been, a defense lawyer who never stopped practicing his craft, even at home.
“I saw my grandfather’s body. He looked asleep, only he wasn’t arranged in a position any person would sleep in. He was all flat on his back with his hands together. They should bury people curled up on their sides so they’re comfortable,” Jessica said.
“Did you ask me over to talk about my dad?” I asked.
“No,” they both said. This was followed by an awkward silence.
“Let’s take a sauna,” Jennifer said.
They refilled their drinks, and I grabbed another beer. We walked out to the little house behind the swimming pool. Inside was a row of primary-colored beach towels hanging on pegs.
“Do we go naked?” I asked.
“Leave on your underwear so you don’t stick to the wood.” Jennifer stared at me, waiting for something.
“Turn around so we can undress,” Jessica said.
I turned around and listened to them unzip their pants and pull their T-shirts over their heads. I did the same, leaving on my boxers, then wrapped one of the towels around my waist. I didn’t know what to expect and, honestly, I felt a little weird about being half naked in front of these girls. I was so skinny and pale now. I turned around and faced the girls, who were wearing tiny, lacy bras. In another world, this would be a guy’s dream come true. A part of me just wanted it to be over.
Jennifer pulled on a door that whooshed when it opened. Inside was a small, wood-paneled room with benches along three sides and a metal heater next to the door.
“It will take a few minutes to warm up.” Jennifer turned a black knob on the wall.
We sat. I was in the middle of the two girls and noticed, after they had dropped their towels, that their panties matched their bras and wondered if all their underwear came in sets and how much work it would be to get dressed every day.
The heater ticked and hummed, and the hotter it got, the smaller the room felt. “It feels like we’re in hell,” I said.
“In Finland, they take a sauna then jump in an ice-cold lake. Since we don’t have a frozen lake, we’ll have to settle for our unheated swimming pool. Here, this will help.”
Jennifer stood and dipped a wooden ladle into a bucket of water then poured it over the rocks on top of the heater. It hissed, and the room filled with steam.
“Now it’s a hell where you can’t breathe,” I said.
“It only feels hotter, but it’s not. Steam actually cools the air.”
“Thank you, Einstein. But if it gets any hotter, my hair’s going to catch on fire.” Jessica put her face into her towel. “Why don’t we just turn it down?”
“All right, wimps.” Jennifer got up and adjusted the thermostat.
“Do you believe in hell?” Jessica asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t want to believe in a punishing universe.
“Don’t you want to think your dad is in heaven?”
What would my dad’s idea of heaven be? He already lived his life the way he wanted on earth. “I believe there are consequences to our actions,” I said.
“He didn’t die on purpose,” Jennifer said.
“It should have been me on that motorcycle,” I said.
“You don’t mean…” Jessica started.
“That you want to…die, do you?” Jennifer finished the question.
They knew so little, these kids. “Just because I see a shrink doesn’t mean I’m suicidal. I meant that I’m the teenager. I should have been the one taking risks, not my dad.” Sweat was dripping down my back and chest, and my head felt swollen, like a hot-air balloon, detached and bumping against the sauna’s ceiling.
“I bet he regrets it now. I bet he’d give anything to be back with his family,” Jennifer said.
I was dizzy. I shouldn’t have had those beers. Every time I blinked I saw my father’s waxy face in his coffin. I pushed my towel hard against my eyes until white dots exploded where his face used to be. “You don’t know my dad.”
Jessica placed her hand on my thigh. It barely registered—a hummingbird or a breeze. “It’s alright to cry, Tim,” she said.
Her words were from a song on an album from the ’70s my mother had owned as a child and that Chip and I used to mock. This huge football player sang it: “It’s all right to cry; crying takes the sad out of you.” I snorted, laughing into my towel.
“You must miss him.” Jennifer patted my back.
I pulled the towel away so that Jennifer could see I wasn’t crying but laughing.
“Oh.” She began to lean away from me before stopping herself.
“You think I’m crazy?” I asked.
She shook her head, and her glossy hair shivered. I saw her eyes dart over my shoulder at Jessica.
“We thought we could help,” Jessica said.
“I don’t miss my dad,” I said.
“You will,” Jessica said.
“You’re in denial,” Jennifer added. “When our dog died, I kept pretending he was in the backyard.”
“No,” I said. “You loved your dog. He was probably a good dog. My dad wasn’t a good dad. I think my family is better off without him.” And I knew that what I’d just said was true.
“Don’t say that,” Jennifer said. “He’s your dad. Of course, you love him.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“You’re in shock,” Jessica said. “Give it time. Aren’t there stages of grief? You’re in the anger stage.”
“I’m not angry,” I said. “And I’m not grieving. Straight-up grieving would be great. Don’t you get it? I don’t have to love the man just because he donated half my DNA.”
“Sounds like denial to me,” Jennifer said.
I didn’t expect Jennifer or anybody to understand. Parents are supposed to love their kids; kids are supposed to love their parents. Both are supposed to be sad when the other dies. Maybe I was grieving, but it wasn’t for my dad. It was for a dad I’d never have. “Yes,” I said. “Denial. Thank you for that.”
Suddenly there was too much skin in the room, pink and shiny. I stood and pushed the sealed door open. I heard one of the girls say my name before the door whooshed shut behind me. I waited for a minute to let my eyes adjust to the dark night, then looked up at a sky pierced with stars. I walked toward the shining, still surface of the pool, took a breath, and jumped. The cold was shocking, stole my breath, left my skin prickling and numb. I sank to the bottom and fought to stay there, fought the urge to push off, break the surface, and take another breath. It occurred to me that this is what it must feel like to die. It wasn’t a gift or a release from memories. It was a fight. There was nothing in it but struggle. This is what my father must have known in the instant before his heart stopped, and his lungs filled with blood. He still wasn’t thinking about me and Chip and Mom. He wasn’t thinking anything but breathe, breathe, breathe.
Through the surface of the water, I could see the girls. Their arms and legs, outlined by the light of the moon, moved gracefully like shadow puppets. Moonlight twinkled between a network of lacy branches behind their bodies. The light from the open sauna door glowed like a lantern. I spread my arms out and kicked to the surface.
• • •
Eileen Bordy has been published in The Chicago Tribune; The San Francisco Chronicle; Brain, Child’s Greatest Hits; Oxford Magazine; Green Hills Literary Lantern; Full Grown People; The Meadow; Monarch Review, and The Umbrella Factory. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first novel, A Totally Normal Family, will be published by She Writes Press, Fall 2023.