Stories written by Laura Cobb

My earliest memory is a haze of rushing cold, a sensation of warm hands, and a gnawing hunger so intense I thought it would eat out my insides. I couldn’t understand the cold surrounding my body, yet the sense of my father’s touch, the sound of my sister’s bawling, and that feel of embryotic fluid as I came into a world beyond the womb, lingered long into my adult life.

I was born along the water, not in the tall grass that crowds sandbars, or under the towering cottonwoods that grow just beyond the bank, but on an overpass crossing a river.

It is December. A lone car swerves in the darkness, maneuvering through the chaos of a winter storm. Stretching, a wildness awakens, breathing snow and ice down the river. The icy wind howls in anger as a bridge intrudes upon its path, slicing it in half, the tempest travels above and below the concrete structure. The small car, barely a pinprick in the night, struggles to move forward. As they cross the river, a cry pours out of my mother, twisting in the air as she releases her words. Our babies… They’re coming. Frantically my father breaks hard, sliding on ice the car scrapes to a halt, grinding against the cement guardrail. Panic in the air, each breath lingers, fighting the chill and fogging the windows as the space transforms into something of a dream, a nightmare.

Jumping over the seat to reach the back of their old Volkswagen, my father sheds his coat, creating a makeshift pillow for my mother to rest her head on as the agony of childbirth sets in. Gripping her hand, they anxiously await our arrival.

II.

My earliest memory is of the smell of the forest, muted browns, and breath hanging in the air. I couldn’t understand what my eyes were seeing or the darkness shrouding our bodies, but I remember my mother’s touch as she brought my sister and me into the world.

I was born along a river, not a wide river or deep river but a quiet one, more of a creek than anything.

My mother wraps her arms tightly around her swollen belly, supporting us as she alleviates some of our weight from her aching back. In her haste to leave our home, she had left her coat flung open. The chilly wind swept over her body; slipping beneath her shirt, the breeze raised the hair on her skin. She wasn’t running from home, but rather from herself, trading the uncertainty and fear raging inside her for the comfort and relief of being in the land.

It is an unusually warm night in December. Pausing at the trailhead, she breathes deeply as she leans against a fallen tree severed from its roots by a bolt of lightning during the last hard storm. It had been strong and wild. It shook their home and flooded the river.

Looking west, her eyes trace a trail of stars and comets as they lead her beyond the present, beyond the trees cracking in the wind, the owls hooting softly, and the leaves crunching beneath her feet. Memories float past her in a sea of time and I become her. Fading into the past, it becomes all-consuming, eroding the present until all that is left is a lingering pain. It weighs her down and makes her bones ache. With each birth, their decision becomes more resolute, and their doubt becomes easier to bear. Together they reshape and braid their truth into something new, a gift wrapped in hope, rose-tinted by desire.

Their kids must never know…

We would never know.

It would be okay.

She comes to her feet, standing suddenly as the hairs on her arms rise at a sound penetrating the night air. Scratching, screeching, howling, just across the river a group of coyotes corner their night’s catch. A dying whimper is followed by an eerie silence.

She steps backward in surprise, her foot catching on a tree root, and before she knows it, she is tumbling backward down the hillside, crashing towards the river. Branches, twigs, and leaves whip across her body, and rocks dig into her arms, knees, and legs. She twists and turns, and as she picks up speed, it becomes impossible to stop her descent.

Opening her eyes, a stream of pain runs up and down her back. She is lying in the river, her head is tilted to one side, resting on the soft earth of sand and soil at the water’s edge. Her right arm stretches out above her head, while her left arm is twisted at her side. A chill enters her limbs as icy water begins to seep through her jeans.

They always say to count backward from one hundred if you think you might have a concussion. I once fainted after donating blood. I came to lying on a river of green tile with a bearded man standing over me. His eyes were kind. But there was no one standing over her now. Her only companion was the wind sweeping through the channel; her body illuminated by a sliver of the moon.

One hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven. Ninety-six…

A ripple of pain shakes her.

Oh no... the twins…

She tries to heave her body upward, to yell, to scream, to shout, but it is of no use. No one could hear her, and her body was unwilling to follow her commands. Lying in the river, bathed in the night, her water breaks. She weakly continues to call out, her voice no more than a whisper, but her only answer is the animals secreting away in the darkness. Awkwardly, she pulls a blanket from her bag, which is wrapped around her body like a failed seatbelt. She rests her head on the fabric as tears begin to fall, joining the river below.

III.

My earliest memory is a swirl of color as shapes double and conform in and out of being, in and out of time itself. I am a twin, a reincarnation of the past, a duplicate of the present, and a ghost of what will be.

I was in kindergarten the first time I saw my father, or the man I thought was my father, or maybe he was a stranger and nothing more; I don’t know, but he looked like me. My big brown eyes, my outstretched chin, and my delicate nose sprinkled with light freckles. My whole life I’ve searched myself in the mirror, looking for something in me, someone in me, never really knowing why.

A gentle rain falls, drenching his plaid button-down shirt and khaki pants. When he donated, he was told he would be anonymous. However, seeing me now from across the street, he is struck as if hit by lightning. His legs will not move. In the blink of an eye, he shifts from one path to another, from one dream to another. It began as a hope inside my mother and father, and at my birth it transferred to me. As I aged, my consciousness began calling out to him, the other half that formed me. His responded in turn, morphing, reshaping the dream into a place where I could be acknowledged as his child.

Looking across the street, our eyes meet, and a spark of joy fills my being. He knows without a doubt that the little girl before him is his daughter. His blood flows through her veins, and while she resembles her mother, in temperament, she is his twin. It’s as if they’ve known each other their whole lives, as if their ancestors have carried them to this moment, each finding hope in the same darkness, fighting the same fears. They mimic each other, from their movement to their speech. His body aches with a feeling he has never had before, it is too strange and new to put into words. But he can see it, an invisible thread stretching across the distance, linking their forms by a relentless longing for the tenderness of a casual touch, of a head leaning against his shoulder, and a hug filled with emotion only family members know.

As if standing at a precipice, loose rocks threaten his balance. He begins to slide in and out of a world he no longer recognizes. He tries to move, to sever the ties that bind him to that spot; however, while malleable, those links can never be entirely removed or forgotten.

IV.

My earliest memory doesn’t have form; it’s a hope, a desire for something I can’t place or explain. It’s a doubling, a place with and without; it echoes and collides, merges, and separates as I search.

My childhood is a blur lit by the fireflies we chased on summer evenings; arms outstretched, we captured and released them, jumping and hollering as our fingers cupped little lights of our own. Summer nights were often followed by hours at the playground in the dawn light. I would hang upside down from the monkey bars, blood rushing to my head until I tucked my body twisting my arms as I rolled backward in the air, landing smoothly on the ground. Reaching the earth, I would find myself surrounded by dandelions. I pulled on the petals one at a time, freeing each to drift in a sea of grass. I remember this now as if I’m staring into a wishing pool, washing one memory aside for another as I search for home.

I search by sound, by the symphony of voices I know to be my brother and sisters. Sometimes they’re raised in anger over some perceived grievance. Other times, we run, giggle, and scream until we fall asleep in the long grass, heads touching. We dream of roast beef, potatoes, gravy, and corn until it fills the air, the smell of dinner drifting outside from the open window. At the sound of my mother’s call, we would clamber inside to feast. Those times were chaos, good and bad: a jumble of feet and hands, laughter and tears.

My earliest memory shines out of the darkness. Wrapped in my dad’s arms, my mother reaches out to hold my hand as we leaf through the pages of a photo album. The sheets are a soft white, smudged by the fingers of my maternal grandparents and great-grandparents. This album has been in my family for generations. I place my fingertips inside the marks etched in the pages. They slide easily into the past.

Flipping through time, I imagine myself as each of them, their stories as mine: a flash of a smile, two babies in tears: saltwater dripping down their faces, and family long past, smiling as we present to the world what we want to be remembered. This book is full of memories that don’t belong to me, but I crave them like water. I insert myself into the pages as I become each of them, and they become me.

VI.

My earliest memory is from a time when I was connected to the earth, or maybe it was my last; I’m not sure; it all fades together. But this connection to the land was so complete that the knotted routes of tree roots fed me, and the secret path of water dripped into my being. I came out of the darkness as a fully-fledged human being. My body began as corn silk sewn from desire, and later, upon my death, it returned as silk in a cornfield.

Today we’re doing a homework assignment on heritage. We cut out the shapes of our hands from soft, blue fabric. Mine has black sharpie marks on it from tracing their outline.

My hands are my mother’s, and my mother’s mother’s, and my mother’s mother’s mother's. Her fingers are long and thin, and her veins push beyond the skin, spiraling up her body, fighting to be free of her human form. My body follows a path illuminated by her. I look at the lines that etch my palms, the spirals in my fingertips, and the bleeding cracks in my knuckles from another cold winter. They remind me of the river: frozen, cracking, and bleeding as its insides are turned out.

Sometimes life feels like treading water, a continuation of movement, breath, and thought until I am about to drown. Beyond the joy of childhood is a darkness, a preordination, every move mapped out before I make it. I fulfill a destined fate. I repeat their choices. I bear their pain. I carry all who came before.

I live in memory. I dream of them.

When I close my eyes, I see faces I do not know, yet somehow, I do. I come from a lineage of hard workers, of people who use the strength of their arms and sweat off their brows to water the earth.

At my high school graduation, my grandpa gave me an ear of corn from their farm, dried up and ready for harvesting. He always said they found me in a cornfield because my hair is the color of silk on a corn cob. I don’t really remember, but maybe they found all of us in the fields. Kansas has a lot of farmland, and there are so many children out there. Maybe that’s how all kids come into being, pushed out of giant cracks in the earth, lifted, gasping for breath, dirt under our nails as we bleed river water.

VII.

I was born along the water, not in a creek or river, but in a bathtub. My mother decided that for her second childbirth, she wanted to attempt a more holistic approach to bringing life into the world. So, this time would be different: better and brighter.

We’re in a light green room lit by yellow light. Shadows hide their fear even as the light illuminates their hope.

My mother’s mother sits beside her, wiping sweat off her forehead. My father holds my mother’s hand; as her grip tightens, his fingers shift from light pink to red, stabilizing on a muted gray. My grandpa paces outside the bathroom door, forming an L shape as he enters and exits their bedroom. The brown shag carpet beneath his feet tells its own tale. My mother’s midwife is always precisely where she needs to be, doing everything she can.

The wait goes on and on and on. Each second is an eternity, repeated over and over. As the temperature in the room rises, so does their nervous energy. It reaches beyond the ceiling, beyond the house, stretching towards the sky, higher and higher it goes until it hits a breaking point, interrupted by the sound of a child wailing.

Side by side, we lay in our mother’s arms, one child screaming full of breath and life, the other, quiet already silenced in the womb by death’s heavy hand. Stillborn births are so common and yet nothing has been done to prevent the thousands of babies unexplainably lost each year.

I was one of them.

VIII.

My earliest memory is of salty ocean air, the earthiness of green moss intertwined with embryotic fluid.

I feel it, an ancientness that echoes as it awakens within me. The water is my home. It rushes to surround my body, to lift me up and pull me down, wrapping me in its warmth. As it consumes me, each breath becomes obsolete. I float in the darkness on a tide summoned by the moon’s desire.

Maybe it’s because I was born along the water, not some man-made creek or a river, but along an endless expanse, out in a place where sand, sea, and air merge in a dance of constant becoming.

At the time of my birth, my parents were known to wander the coastline daily, responding to a deeper need to be near water, a need my mother inherited from her mother. Standing on the sand, their eyes would trail after the light reflecting off the water, my mother following its path, my dad following her.

Each visit they would walk further than the last. Even pregnant, carrying two little souls within her, nothing could stop my mother from following the light. She would pause and cock her head listening to the quiet rush of the ocean as if she understood the language of the waves.

Pausing at a dark hollow before the cliff’s steep wall, their eyes trace the cliff face. Panting a little, my mother takes a deep breath as she waits for my father to catch up; together, they round the edge, stepping into the darkness of a large cave. They follow it deeper and deeper, marveling at the remnants of the ocean’s touch.

Suddenly, the sound of rushing water reminds them of the time and the tide.

Panic fills them as they realize the entry cave is already submerged in water. They have no option but to follow the path even deeper into the cave. Slipping on seaweed and moss, their movements are frantic. The water pours in after them, rising higher and higher, stalking them until they run out of space. As water gushes forward, the final cavern begins to fill. Before they know it, the water has risen past their knees, continuing its journey up their bodies it reaches their chests, overtaking them. Gasping from the cold, my parents intertwine their bodies for warmth. As they tilt their heads against the cavern ceiling, their breaths become shallow, choked by water.

Together the four of us wait. Time becomes a blur of salt water and cold insistent nudges. They huddle together in the dim light, my parents tucked tightly into each other as they fade.

Abruptly, the water releases them. It draws back into itself as if it was never there as if it was a dream, a nightmare.

My mother’s water breaks as they wait for the ocean to fully relent. Echo after echo, my mother’s sobs and screams fill the air, reverberating through the passages.

Two days later, they emerge, each holding a baby swaddled in ripped clothing soaked in seawater.

IX.

My earliest memory is paused by incomprehension, ripped from a page, and burned out of existence; until one day, it was rewritten as a dream, born and born again by the water.

I was born along the water, not by a river or a creek, but by a pond fed by a river.

Light rain patters against the window, waking me just before dawn. All is silent except for the rain dripping from the heavens; the sun has yet to rise. Even the birds are asleep, huddled to stay dry.

Sliding my feet into my slippers, I walk into the kitchen and wait as the gas stove flickers to life. I am back on the farm visiting my parents. The smell of dirt and rain seeps through the open window. It hangs like mist, covering every surface, encasing the present in the color and shade of the past. So many mornings began like this.

Getting into my parents’ old red pickup, the engine roars to life and I set course for the family pond. Last night I loaded my old fishing pole into the car, optimistic at the idea of some alone time after our talk.

Turning right, I guide the truck east towards the orange light peeking through the clouds summiting the hill before me. Cradling a mug of decaf coffee to my body, I recall the conversation with my parents from the evening before. I am eight months along, pregnant with another set of twins, and I desperately need to know that these two will arrive safely. For the last month, I have reviewed our family genealogy, looking to the past to predict the future.

Don’t look too closely.

Those four words repeat and echo inside my mind. I stopped listening as incomprehension filled me.

Your father is not your father.

Arriving at the pond, a light rain dances across the water. Movement beneath the surface tells me that the fish are hungry and biting. Sliding a worm onto a hook, I cast the pole forward again and again, relishing the burn in my arms and hands. For the last thirty years, my parents have carried the burden of truth.

I’ve been here often over the years, never realizing I was visiting the place of my birth.

It was December 1956. My mother had gone out for a swim, a polar dive. Even eight months pregnant, she never stopped swimming, never stopped moving. But one morning, after pulling herself from the water, she realized that mixed into the mud and slime was liquid secreted from her own body. She was giving birth here and now by the pond. Her daughter would be part human, part river, born along the reeds.

My earliest memory is of sitting in a car, my head leaning against the window in the backseat behind my dad, who was driving. As time passes, I become a figure flying between the boundaries of consciousness, not here or there but somewhere in between.

I thought I knew what my family was. We are seven. Two sets of twins, three if you count my dad and his brother, four if you count my cousins. They seem to run in the family. We are duplicates. We are twin beds and shared rooms. We are cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, and fish. We are trips from Kansas to California and back again. Making our way across two-lane highways, sleeping in a pop-up camper, and reading books by flashlight. We are beef stew heated over a fire after a long day. We are hikers, swimmers, tree climbers, and rollerbladers. We aren’t perfect; we constantly fight over the little things, often resisting the urge to claw out each other’s eyes, but each night we forgive one another and fall asleep holding hands and touching heads.

We are bound by the years we spent together, threaded by water.

As time passes, the threads begin to fray. We come apart at the seams.

XI.

My earliest memory is a blank, empty hole that fills when triggered, but dries up almost immediately. It seeps with laughter and joy, sadness and hurt.

The first time I saw my father, I was thirty-one years old. We met at a coffee shop. Standing before the bar, he looked at the barista as he fought to hide his joy.

Should we tell her?

Looking between us, he decided to say,

You don’t know what this means to us.

Neither did we.