Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: A Novel

by Jessica Guerrieri

It’s not that I long for the other version of me, that shadow self, but I did believe that one day we’d happily merge. That somehow her momentum would still be building in the background—waiting patiently for our union.

The time I’m allotted to act in one role is finite. Wife, then mother—without any guaranteed scraps left over for myself. The need to be everything to everyone is relentless.

This was never really the plan. Originally, my existence involved endless travel as an artist and surfer. But then Lucas happened. Funny how someone could be the seed that grew the tree when I had no intention of putting down roots.

My brain, which was once filled with artistic creativity, is now overrun with useless child-rearing knowledge, and I feel older without having become any wiser.

Mom was young when she had me, though she’d made it abundantly clear that she always wanted different for me. Funny how we are doomed to reenact our parents’ choices, but in a way that’s uniquely our own, so we can convince ourselves that it’s different somehow.

I am all too familiar with unease as my normal resting state. Since birth I have been mis-wired. The receptors that should have been loaded with serotonin and dopamine on Saturday cartoon-and-pancake mornings from my childhood were replaced with the sensation of being submerged inside a glass cage with a slow leak that dripped just enough water for me to know I’d drown someday, just not necessarily that day. That was until I discovered all the ways to leave myself, if only temporarily. Painting, sex, and then surfing. And finally, my children. My god, my children. No one was more surprised than me when it turned out my children were the answer to all my problems: my escapism of choice. With one whiff of the top of their heads, the relief flooded me, a gelatinous goo that was both warm and amniotic in its purity. It all worked so well for a while.