Free Swallow the Ocean by Laura Flynn Page A

counted in our heads, punching our forks forward in the air to synchronize our signals: On your marks, get set, go . Then we settled in for a long, slow chew. This was not a race; it was an endurance match. Whoever chewed longest without laughing won. I stood a fair chance of beating my older sister at this game.
    Swiss steak was one of my mother’s mainstay meals. I loved it. I loved the taste of everything stewed together, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and the meat itself, which was both tender and stringy, requiring long chewing. Our game was born at a moment, long ago, when Sara and I caught each other’s eye across the table and giggled at the absurdity of so much chewing.
    As I chewed, I glanced over at my mother to see if she was watching us, if she was annoyed. She was gazing out the window over my father’s shoulder. Her eyes looked very blue against the pallor of her skin. I leaned forward to see what she saw. The top of one orange tower of the Golden Gate Bridge peered through the fog. I swallowed without thinking, and then, realizing what I had done, looked up to see Sara’s eyes gleaming with victory. A smile was slowly growing around her mouth as her chewing came to a stop. Not wanting her to gloat for long, I quickly forked another piece of meat, and we began again.
    My family sat around the long oval table where we ate each night with my mother at the head, near the swinging kitchen door, and my father at the other end, his back to the tall windows that looked out to the bridge. Sara, Amy, and I were spread between them. Though we had been in this apartment for over six months, it still felt strange to me, as if the table, the high-backed chairs, the room itself, demanded more of us at ages three, six, and nine than my sisters and I could possibly manage.
    Tonight we were eating early, while the sun set, so my father could resume his vigil in front of the television when we fin-ished. The images on the screen never changed—a permanent specter of old men hunched over microphones. The drone of their voices, formal, but always with a barely veiled indignation, filled the apartment every night. Watergate. I had never seen anything as joyless, yet my father relished it. He watched with the bitter glee of one who is finally vindicated, though the world must crumble in order for him to be right.
    Sometimes I would sit on the arm of his chair, trying to be companionable. “Who’s winning, Daddy?” I’d ask. He’d glance over at me, eyes fixing on my face for just a second, and say, “I think we are, sweetie. I think we are.” Then his eyes would shift back to the television screen, rapt.
    At the dinner table, as Sara and I began another round of chewing, my father told my mother the story of his day. The conversation floated over my head, and I heard only the comforting refrain, rhythmic and steady, the “he says,” “and then I say,” “and then he says to me” that marked these stories of verbal sparring, of the deal making and deal breaking that were my father’s business.
    Sara and I were nearing the end of a particularly long bout. Eyes locked together, chewing with exaggerated strain, we struggled to stave off giggles. On the periphery of my vision, I saw Amy, her chin just clearing the plate in front of her, sitting between Sara and my mother. She fidgeted in her chair, rolled her eyes up under her lids, and twisted her face to try and break my concentration. I held Sara’s gaze without wavering.
    My jaw was sore from chewing. I held one last shred of meat, all the taste chewed out of it, in my mouth, when Sara finally cracked a smile. We both dissolved in giggles, heads coming down to the table in unison.
    Almost as soon as we began to laugh, I realized the laughter was wrong. The current of the conversation above me had shifted. My mother was no longer listening passively. Her attention, which wandered so often these days, had caught on something. She was roused, and when she was roused