Abigail’s iPhone

The morning sun warmed her back. Cool water splashed her feet. Abigail dug into the water, driving her paddleboard across the gentle waves. Right before spring break, she found Dan in bed with her roommate, another in a series of deplorable men in her life. Her Dad set the standard for deplorable, but Dan managed to exceed it. Not that she could get away, but her trek into the ocean offered a brief escape.

Hearing muffled marimba music, she dug her phone out of her fanny pack. Mom. Again. She hesitated, then swiped and put the phone to her ear. Before she could speak, Mom lurched back into their earlier conversation. “It’s probably best that you broke up with Dan,” she said. “I never liked that boy, and he took so much of your time away from studying. You need to get back to work and ace those finals.”

Mom was far more concerned about finals than Abigail. She had driven Abigail’s choice of college and even her major. “Business schools are getting so picky,” she pressured. “Your undergrad has to be elite or you won’t get into MIT.”

Abigail wasn’t sure she wanted to get into MIT. She was very sure that she did not want a career in finance. But Mom was relentless in pushing her that way. She and her friends shared their children’s successes like big game hunters hanging yet another trophy on the wall. Abigail’s acceptance into MIT would be a magnificent trophy.

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about Dan,” Abigail interrupted. “And I don’t want to talk about school. I just need a break. I’ll call you later when I get back from paddleboarding.”

“Honey, you don’t have time for paddleboarding,” Mom retorted. “You shouldn’t have gone on spring break. You have too much work to do!”

“Mom, I’ll be fine. I’ll call you later.”

Abigail hung up before Mom could continue. Moments later, it rang again. Mom calling to finish her harangue. Abigail let it go to voicemail and put the phone away.

She eyed the glimmer of a sailboat far ahead and renewed her paddling in its direction. Grunting a word with each pull, she recited her problems.

Mom. I. Don’t. Want. To. Study. Finance. Let. Me. Find. My. Own. Way.

Dad. You. Need. To. Stop. Drinking. And. Get. Help.

Dan. You. Are. A. Complete. Asshole. I. Hate. You.

As her arms tired, she coasted and tried to empty her head. But it was not to be. She had held back her demons for too long, and now they all wanted to wrestle with each other. She paddled on.

When school had gone remote due to Covid, Abigail remained in her apartment, doing schoolwork online, isolated but for Dan and her roommate (and that proved disastrous). Her phone became her lifeline, her only connection to friends and to home (though that brought more angst than comfort). For Christmas, Mom & Dad sent her a new iPhone, which she opened while sitting alone in front of her tiny fake tree. She grumbled that Mom had probably loaded the phone with apps to track her every move. But she came to love her banana yellow iPhone. It was her sunshine when the rest of her life seemed cloudy.

Abigail heard more marimbas. She ignored it and kept paddling. Mom had never much cared about what Abigail wanted, not out of malice, but because she simply didn’t seem interested. Dad’s drinking had hurt both his career and their family. Mom did anything she could to present their broken lives as happy, and she used Abigail as proof of their success.

After what seemed like hours, both her rant and her paddling slowed. As the midday sun baked her skin, Abigail felt a cooling breeze on her back. She looked to the horizon and swigged lukewarm water from the crinkly plastic bottle she had stowed in her fanny pack. Maybe her life was not such a travesty, she thought. Maybe she could convince Mom to let her change her major. She laughed at herself for considering that a possibility. But as she stood there rocking with the ocean swells, she decided to turn back and deal with it all. Deal with school. Deal with Mom and Dad. Deal with her life.

She brought the paddleboard around to what she expected would be shore, but she could make out only the faintest skyline of the hotels now very far away. She had paddled miles out to sea. “Well, better get going,” she said aloud, and she started paddling toward the hotels, with at least some concern about where she might return to shore.

Abigail’s arms burned from paddling out so far, but she had no choice — she had to paddle back. On the way out, the wind had been at her back, helping to push her ever farther from shore. Now the wind was in her face, making her paddle that much harder to move ahead. Abigail didn’t mind hard work, in fact, she thrived on it. She ignored the burn and paddled with gusto.

Some time later, she realized that she had made little progress. It might be just a quirk of her depth perception, but it didn’t look like she was any closer to shore than when she started. For the first time, she felt scared. She hadn’t told anyone where she was headed. Now, it was well past noon, and she still had a very long way to go. She needed help.

Abigail pulled out her phone and called her friend Nora. But she heard only the fast beeps indicating that she had no signal. “Damn it,” she growled, trying to counter her panic. She was too far out to have any bars. And she saw that her battery was running low, probably from trying to connect with distant towers.

She put the phone away and redoubled her paddling. She had to get close enough to shore to get a signal, and she had to do it before her battery ran out. Now she grunted her reasons for making it back home.

Mom. I. Will. Find. My. Own. Way.

Dad. I. Will. Help. You. Get. Help.

Dan. You. Are. A. Complete. Asshole. I. Will. Find. Someone. Better.

But the wind was too strong, and her paddling was ineffective. Abigail was still miles from shore. And her life was still a mess. She wondered why she was trying so hard to get back to a life she hated.

She pulled out her phone again, but found that the battery had died. Only then did she cry. It was not the cry of someone frightened, nor a cry of despair. It was a cry of recognition that she was not the person she wanted to be. She was not on a path that she wanted to follow.

With a primal scream, she hurled her phone, flashing yellow as it tumbled through the air, then plunging into the water and disappearing beneath the waves.

Abigail steadied herself and looked toward shore, the now setting sun glowing pink on the distant hotels.

Then, with new resolve, she pointed her paddleboard back out to sea, ready to seek a different shore.