When You Are Swallowed Where Do You Go?  
by Rae Zalopany

          When we got to the Airbnb, my son asked if we could watch Ponyo. It’s a sleeper Ghibli film, where when I watch it, I enjoy it, but it’s not mine or his first pick. Harry nestled into the crook of my arm and asked me various questions as we watched. He’s still at the age where he thinks I have infinite wisdom. Do you think Ponyo’s dad is a wizard or a merman? Why does Sosuke’s mom drive so fast? What made Ponyo decide to sleep on a jelly fish? I silently cried into his hair, which smelled like salt and gasoline and chicken tenders. Asking to watch Ponyo felt subconscious to me, like he needed to watch other children go through a catastrophic event and get through it, happy music and all.

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          He’d done this last week, talking through his stuffed animals, Puppy and Winky. The dog and pony hung limp in his arms as he told me that the boys are sad today and that he was going to bring them with us. The entire drive towards our flooded apartment, he chattered away as if it were business as usual as I asked if Puppy or Winky wanted a special treat. He’d sat in our running car for three days while my husband and I picked through what little we could salvage, unable to find anyone to watch him. We were at my parent’s lake house visiting in Pennsylvania when Hurricane Helene brought the Gulf into our home. Sewage water overflowed from the toilets as the Gulf’s waters knocked and thrashed through our front door. We let Harry look at the apartment only once, the black mold having already overtaken our couch, cabinets, clothing. He walked around wide eyed, his shoes pattering over the wet floors. He looked like a fish out of water, his mask outlined where his mouth sucked in and out, in and out. I couldn’t tell him about the ruined photo albums we’d made in quarantine, or his Zelda Master Sword leaking orange fluids, or the baby blanket I once wrapped him in that was now in a giant pile of trash.

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          My son snuggled in close as Tyler brought in the little belongings we’d packed with us. I tried not to look at my phone, the absence of a missed call or text from my parents would make me angry, angrier.

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          I wanted to sit in the shower alone, bury myself in blankets in a dark room, smoke and scream, and cry.

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          Instead, we watched Ponyo.

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*

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          There’d been a misstep on my part, an unsurprising surprise I wasn’t prepared for when becoming the victim of a natural disaster: the apathy and lack of understanding from my family. My parents the day I found out my apartment was three feet deep with water told me not to stress—it’s just stuff. To think about them, they were homeowners after all. At some point while I was crying my father told me to stop victimizing myself. During one of the few phone calls, my eldest sister compared my situation to her getting fired, “It’s a fresh new beginning.” My aunt and uncle had offered their home to us and quickly rescinded their offer, because they were “Old and retired”. My parents’ texts were consequentially sparse, somewhat begrudging. We got to the apartment on a Monday, and I didn’t hear from my mother until Thursday, who texted to tell me she’d decided that since I was going through a tough time, she thought she’d give me space. This, coming from a woman who calls me every day, and if I don’t answer jokingly, says she’s going to contact the FBI.

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          My husband, Tyler, second eldest sister, Madison, in-laws, friends, internet friends, past professors and high school math tutors, friends of friends and their moms, the boys I play Fortnite with were the ones to group together and show me care and support.

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          They were the ones to order a comforter, bed frame, underwear, a new Apa pillow for Harry.

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          I just needed a safe place for a little bit. I just needed my parents to say I’m sorry this happened to you. Instead, they looked at me coldly, as if I were the hurricane, undoing my life in one big whoosh.

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          The hurricane swallowed my life, but my family decided to follow the tide.

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*

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            We run errands, pick up things we once owned, order take out because we don’t own spices anymore. There’s no food in the freezer or cabinets or in the little basket that held Harry’s special snacks. I no longer own notebooks or bras or bobby pins or blankets. I miss the simplicity of lighting a candle, of rummaging through my books, owning more than one pair of shoes.

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          We’re careful not to say home. Something I’d taken for granted and now realize how it sits on my tongue, swollen and immovable like the doorframes of our home. Or our old home. Past home.

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          When I leave the hotel or Airbnb with Harry, I’m reluctant to say things like, “We’ll be home in thirty!” So, I’ve dropped the word entirely.

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*

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          About midway through, Ponyo leaves the ocean to become human, which causes an imbalance of nature, sending a typhoon towards Sosuke’s hometown. His mother, Lisa, races up the mountain to their home as the gelatinous waves chase behind. When they arrive home, Ponyo appears, giving Sosuke a long embrace. Lisa doesn’t think twice, grabs both children, and brings them inside and does what good parents do: distracts the children from the fear and dangers that are violently swirling around, protects and reassures. Lisa feeds the children ramen, adding Ponyo’s favorite food: ham.

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            My mother makes very good soup: Split pea, chicken noodle,

tomato bisque.

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            I cooked my parents dinner the night before we left for Florida a few days after Helene.

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          “We’re going to drive down Monday to see the damages at the apartment,” I told my parents who were outside talking to one another about how we should have had renters’ insurance.

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          “Where will you stay?” my mother asked using a well, well, well tone. Even though their reaction that entire morning had been unsympathetic, I hadn’t expected having to ask to stay at their home after only being unhoused for barely twenty-four hours.

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          “We’ll be at your house,” I replied.

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          My mother smirked at my supposed assumption, “Oh you will, will you?”

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*

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          “I’ve got a secret I’ve been keeping,” I tell Harry, who was crying in the back seat of my mother’s car. We’d left our car at a Winn-Dixie parking lot atop a hill. It’d been a week since Helene when we left to evacuate for Milton. “Leave for your aunt’s!” my mother had begged, “Take my car, it’s safer!” she offered. I’d accidentally let it slip to him that we couldn’t move back home. He whimpers in the back seat, his lip quivering. I close my eyes and cry too, thinking about the heights we’d marked on the wall, how ages five and some of six had been dulled

from the water. Made a mental note to take a picture of the markings

of his growth. It will be painted over by the landlord, my father,

without hesitation. How many times had I cried in the car that day—I’d lost count.

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          My son is holding my hand, sitting up a little straighter in his seat. The idea of a secret has reanimated him. My face is puffy, but I try to make it look as mischievous as possible.

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          “I didn’t want to tell you while we lived there but now, I can finally say it,” I look at Tyler who’s driving. He has no idea where I’m going

with this.

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          There is a lightness that comes back to his face, “What is it?”

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          “Your room was incredibly haunted. Terribly so. We just didn’t want to freak you out.”

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          He lets out a little laugh, his cat mouth curled upwards, “No, way. Tell me more right now.”

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*

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            Growing up, my parents had always let it be known that my sisters and I occupied their house. I can agree that there are necessary rules for children to behave in a specific way in the home. Don’t purposely destroy furniture, don’t steal or rummage through personal belongings, ask to invite someone over. These are common decency laws that I would grant to anyone in a shared space. When it came to living at my parents’ house, it was not my home, it was a space I was occupying until otherwise with an invisible contract to obey each and every whim.

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          When I moved in with Tyler, it took me a long time to realize I was still making myself small. My parents had a lot of rules, some valid but most of them random and unnecessary. My father once yelled at me for leaving a wrapped pad in the bathroom trash can—it was the day I came home from giving birth and was leaking blood constantly. The pad, he told me, had to be thrown outside each time. I learned to breathe in my apartment, learned how to rest. My parents didn’t like if I laid down anytime other than bedtime. They didn’t like if my thick Hawaiian hair shed or personal items of mine were left in common spaces. The hyper vigilance was exhausting, and yet, I still wanted to be welcomed in their home. Needed too, really, until Tyler hugged me and said, “We don’t need them.”

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*

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          E. coli, salmonella, hepatitis A, typhoid, tetanus, melioidosis, cholera, flesh-eating, wound-infecting vibrio species. We go to the store each morning to buy more boxes, more gloves, tape, disinfectant, water, Tylenol. My dad buys us two things: bleach and a mop.

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          Once we removed all of our things, we came back to help beyond

tenant duties.

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          We cleaned up because he hadn’t told us he was selling the apartment yet. We cleaned up because my father asked us too. We cleaned up because this was our home.

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          As our landlords, my parents shaved off a couple hundred dollars from rent. It was a good deal.  

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          “What’s your plan?” my father asked me immediately after letting me know he’d decided to sell.

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          “Can we stay at your house for the time being?”

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          “Well, I can’t leave you homeless.” It was his reply each time I asked if we could stay.  

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          “If you don’t want us in your home, I just want you to say that. I just want your emotional support. I just need your love.”

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          “We are supportive, Rae. We let you use our car.”

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          Tyler vomited after the first night of clean up after having been exposed to too much mold. He tells me fuck them. My dad just told us we owe for September rent, explaining that even though we paid on the first of September, we really paid for August.

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          “That doesn’t make any sense,” I tell my dad, trying to remain as calm as I can, “We pay for the month on the first like everyone else.”

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          I calculate adding an extra cost on top of the Airbnbs, hotels, food, new clothes, travel expenses, and now a surprise rent payment.

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          “I think they’re actively trying to make our life harder,” I tell Tyler while crying—again, and again and again.

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*

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             Harry excitedly poured waffle batter onto the waffle maker. He deemed hotels better than Airbnbs, because of this particular feature—I hate that he has an opinion on this.

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          At our second hotel, we’re waiting to move into our third Airbnb. The continental breakfast was laid out before me: eggs, bacon, French toast. It all looked beige and too damp. At some point, the woman sitting down at the table to our right was approached by a highway patrol officer. They seemed to know each other, because the officer sat at her table and asked how she was doing. But perhaps they didn’t know each other, and the officer just intuited that the woman was in distress. I heard her repeat phrases I’d heard all week, things I myself said: It’s all gone, I don’t know what to do, we lost our home.

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          There’s a solidarity in our awfulness, having this shared experience of devastation simultaneously. We’re all grieving in a way that I could never understand before, no matter how much empathy I’d had for other Floridian towns previously affected by hurricanes. Fort Myers, Port Charlotte, Key West—I felt sad, donated, shared posts for aid, and then, I moved on. I try to caution myself from complaining too much, crying on the phone too much. What was the threshold? When should I move on and look on the bright side?

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          The hotel was packed with fellow unhoused Tampa natives. Everyone in town had been exchanging stories from their broken fences to their drowned animals. Burnt down houses from electric bikes and grease traps floating from restaurants and releasing inside of houses. The Publix bagger kept muttering under his breath about how everything was ruined.

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          Everyone is passing stories along like a spool of wire.

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          I watched the patrol officer walk up to the front desk and reserve a few extra days for the woman.

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          Harry drenches his waffles with syrup, butter, whipped cream.

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          “Eat some eggs and sausage,” I said, as I gathered myself. Sometimes, to survive, you have to act like everything is normal. You exist in a hotel cafeteria in unwashed clothes pretending like you care about sugar intake.

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*

            I lost my home. The first home I ever made that was filled with love and memories and comforts and tokens and magic. Madison once said she liked our home because it represented me, my husband, and son. There were pictures of us that we’d drawn and framed and art of video games, a Sonic wall clock, my childhood horse table and cedar chest, the smell of sage incense. The apartment looked like a wizard’s den, intentionally cluttered and colorful. I took pride in the compliment, because I never really gave decorating our home as a shared space a second thought. It was their home—Tyler and Harry’s—as much as it was mine.

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          It’s just stuff, people tell me, at least your family is safe.

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          But my family was not safe, we had nowhere to go.

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            The safety that my family has is from Tyler and I clawing our way there. It was two weeks of being turned down by family members and hotel gauging, Airbnb cancellation and refunds. “I feel like ghosts,” Tyler told me on a park bench, “Invisible.” Even Ponyo’s dad sent waves looking for his daughter, braved the land scouring for her and he was kind of a freak. No one was looking for us, reaching out. No one but one in my family cared.

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            By the end of Ponyo, balance is restored when Ponyo fully transforms into a human by choosing to live on land with Sosuke. Lisa reaches out to Granmamare, Ponyo’s mother, promising to take care of Ponyo. The sea has calmed, and everyone is back on dry land. Their homes and town have been destroyed, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern. It was love, in the end, that saved the day. Ponyo has moved on, as a human girl, to her newfound family.

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          In a month’s time we will be in our new home, but until then, we stay in an Airbnb in Savannah. My father texts me, “Do you know where the condo pool key is?” while my mother texts, “Can I have a phone call with Harry today?” but then never calls. They never call me either or ask how we’re doing as they struggle to remain in my orbit. It’s sad, to be unable to love freely. To love people with conditions.

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          My grief comes in waves. Fills me and leaks in bursts and drips. One day, I’m normal, the next, I’m angry, another day, I can’t leave bed. I could fill the ocean again and again with my emotions.

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          We walk down a cobbled street towards Forsyth Park, rating the towns we’ve been in. Harry chooses Aiken, Tyler prefers St. Petersburg, I say Maine, “But I could live here.”

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          It’s close to Halloween, but the weather is no different than had we been in Florida. The tall oaks shield us from the brunt of the sun as we count the houses that have cobwebs and pumpkins and large skeletons. We point to Victorian homes we’d buy once we were ungodly wealthy and imagine ourselves living a place with a turret room and courtyard.

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          It's nice to play pretend. To dream of our future life in our future home. But for now, we just go to the park.