The Forever Bridge

by T. Greenwood

  And so she uses every bit of willpower and strength she has to stand. Her center of balance is completely thrown now between the baby and the current of pain that is radiating up and down the whole right side of her body. But still, she has to choose: survive or die here? Nine months pregnant in what is, for all intents and purposes, a shallow creek. Is this her destiny?

  She isn’t sure how she manages to get through that icy water and back onto land. She is barely cognizant of anything but the pain as she negotiates the dark and impossible path leading back to the shack. She is elsewhere as she makes her way inside and lies down on top of her sleeping bag. She has separated from herself. From this body. From the baby even.

  This is her true talent. This ability to stay and leave at the same time. She has done it since she was a little girl. There are two Nes-sas. There always have been. One who hangs around looking normal, while the other one hovers and then flees. Tonight that Nessa, the one made of pain and hunger and baby, lingers on the floor of this cold cabin. And the other Nessa, the one made of light and poetry and air, observes and then flutters away through the cracked glass in the window. She is elsewhere. She is nowhere at all.

  WEDNESDAY

  In the morning, Ruby gets dressed and wonders if she just hides out in the house with her mom, if she doesn’t answer the door when Izzy and Gloria come to get her, they’ll just go away. She wonders if she pretends she no longer exists, if she ignores the phone calls and the knocks on the door, she can just disappear. That’s what her mother has done.

  It wasn’t right away, of course. But slowly. So gradually you could barely see that it was happening. Her mom was like the moon, waning, just a little bit every single night, so slowly you barely realized that she had become only a sliver. That all the light had gone out save for a thumbnail. And over time, people just gave up. They stopped coming to check on her. Stopped knocking on the door. Even Gloria, who loved her mom like a sister, didn’t know what to do anymore. She tried so hard, but was met with nothing but her mother’s obstinacy. And so they gave her what they thought she wanted. They gave her her privacy, her seclusion. They left her alone.

  At the time, it made Ruby angry. The day after Christmas last year when her dad made her pack her things, made her say good-bye, she’d been sobbing. She hadn’t wanted to give up on her mother. She hadn’t wanted to leave her out here alone to fend for herself. Ruby had thrown a tantrum as though she were still a baby. She’d pounded her fists and cried and refused to go. She remembers her throat felt raw, as though she were sick instead of desperately sad. But her mother had just hugged her, and then pushed her gently toward the door. And this, her mother’s hands pushing her away, hurt more than the cracked ribs, the broken arm, the cuts that crisscrossed her face after the accident. Her father didn’t understand that them being there was the one thing keeping her mother from disappearing entirely. That if they stayed, she would have to linger. Like a ghost, stuck in the purgatory between life and death, between two worlds. Her mother was haunted with them there.

  But Ruby understands now, this inclination. This desire to slip away. To seclude herself. She understands how it feels to be an island, separate from everyone else, surrounded by nothing but water. Even when she is with people (at school, at Izzy’s house, at the pool), she is aware of how alone she is. Nobody can reach her, not really. She and her mother are more similar than different, but she doesn’t know how to tell her mom this. What words might explain that she understands.

  Her mother looks as though she hasn’t slept at all. Her hair is pulled back away from her face, which calls attention to her pale skin and dark eyes, with dark half circles like gray thumbprints beneath them. Her hands are shaking as she hands Ruby a glass of orange juice.

  Ruby knows she was up all night, pacing. She heard her open the back door and yell into the night. The fence was supposed to make her feel safe, but now, instead, it seems to have convinced her even further that someone is trying to get in.

  “What time are you leaving for the fair?” her mother asks, glancing furtively out the kitchen window.

  Ruby doesn’t want to go. She wants to stay here. She is overwhelmed by a memory of one day a few years ago when she felt this same incredible desire to stay home with her mother after everyone else was gone. She’d pretended she was sick, feigned a stomachache, a headache. She’d watched Jess climb into her dad’s truck and then disappear through the trees. Her mother stayed home all day with her, playing Monopoly. They made brownies and ate the whole pan. They watched soap operas on TV and read out loud to each other until it was time to pick Jess up. It was one of the best days of her whole life.

  “Gloria is coming at nine. The gates open at ten, but it’s Children’s Day, so she wants to get there early.”

  Her mother nods, but she doesn’t seem to be listening. She is pacing back and forth, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other clinging to her mug of tea.

  “I could stay here, Mom,” she offers, hoping that maybe her mother will agree. Say, Oh, that would be so nice.

  But instead her mother shakes her head, forces a smile. “Don’t be silly. You can’t miss the fair.”

  “It’s okay,” Ruby tries again. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  But her mother is looking at her the same way she looked at her the day that Bunk came and loaded her dad’s things, her things into the van. The day Ruby cried so hard her eyes ached and she lost her voice. She is pushing her away without even touching her. But this time, Ruby feels angry instead of hurt.

  “I need money,” she says, blinking hard so as not to cry. And she thinks of Izzy telling her to bring her own money. It feels like a wound being torn open.

  “Oh,” her mother says, looking around the kitchen as though a twenty-dollar bill might simply materialize. “I have some cash in my wallet.” She finds her wallet on the counter and pulls out two crisp twenty-dollar bills.

  Ruby wishes she hadn’t asked. Something about all of this makes her feel bad. She finds herself doing this all the time lately: saying something or doing something in anger and only moments later feeling guilty and awful. But she can’t stop herself. “That’s too much, Mom,” she says softly. Sorry.

  But her mom shakes her head and presses the money into Ruby’s palm. “You’ll need a ticket to get in and for the rides. And lunch.” And then she kisses the top of Ruby’s head softly. “Maybe you can get a caramel apple.”

  Ruby remembers her first caramel apple then. When Jess was still in a stroller. They went to the fair, and she’d been mesmerized by the rows and rows of apples in the window of the colorful truck. It had taken her nearly ten minutes to decide which kind she wanted. She didn’t want to make a mistake. When she finally picked out the apple (a caramel apple with colored jimmies scattered across its golden surface), she was so excited. But three bites in, she realized the apple was bruised and mealy inside. The caramel was delicious and sweet and decadent, but inside the fruit was rotten. She didn’t know how to tell her mother, who had been so eager to please her. And so she ate the whole thing, brown fleshy bruises and all.

  “Thanks,” she says. “We probably won’t be back until after dark. Is that okay?” She is hoping, wishing futilely that her mother will change her mind. Ask her to stay home. Need her.

  “Of course,” her mom says, and she looks like she wants to say something else, like she has a secret she is about to share. But instead she just says, “I hope you have fun.”

  Ruby can’t stand the idea of Izzy and Marcy seeing her mother’s house, what has become of it. The baby raccoons are still living in the loveseat on the front porch. She can only imagine what Marcy would have to say about that. She already calls anybody who doesn’t live in town a redneck. A hillbilly. A woodchuck. She teases the kids who live on this side of the river. She is merciless. Snobby and cruel. Ruby has no idea how she’s going to endure an entire day at the fair with her, especially now that Izzy has fallen under her spell. What on earth was she thinking when
she agreed to go?

  She stuffs the money in her pocket and heads out the door to the front porch. There’s a bad smell out here. The raccoons must be going to the bathroom somewhere. She thinks that maybe tomorrow she’ll try to clean up the porch for her mom. The baby raccoons are asleep in the loveseat, curled into each other, making one furry pile. She wonders where the mother goes. If the babies worry about her not coming back.

  She figures if she waits by the road, Gloria won’t even have to pull into the driveway. If she can keep them from pulling in, the worst thing they’ll see is the tipped-over mailbox. And she can just say a snowplow ran over it if they ask. She tries once again to right it, but it is too heavy. There is trash spilled on the ground. She picks up the debris and chucks it into the woods. Then just as she’s making her way to the road, she realizes she left Jess’s baseball cap in the backyard yesterday when they were building the fence, and so she decides to go grab it. It’s supposed to be sunny today, and it’ll be nice to keep the sun out of her eyes. She glances down the road to make sure they aren’t coming and then runs back to the house.

  When she gets to the shed, she sees that the trap her dad set is gone. She’s been checking it every day for the mama raccoon, careful not to trip it. He said that the trap wouldn’t hurt her; raccoons have thick feet, and the trap is padded. She’d made him promise that it wouldn’t hurt her. That it wouldn’t kill her. But now the trap is missing. Gone. She tries to imagine what sort of creature could drag an entire trap away with it. Certainly not a raccoon. Not unless she’s a big one. That must have been what her mom heard last night. Maybe it’s a bear, she thinks. Maybe that’s who’s been eating up all the vegetables in the garden.

  She finds the baseball cap hanging on a nail sticking out of the shed’s wall. It’s a little too small, and so she lets the strap all the way out and pulls her ponytail tighter so that it fits down snug. Then she makes her way back down the overgrown driveway, past that broken mailbox, and sits down on a stump. She picks up a blade of grass and puts it between her fingers, presses her lips against it and blows. The whistle is shrill and piercing. Maybe it will scare away whatever got away with the trap.

  She worries again about leaving her mom alone, especially if there’s a bear out there. Especially if the bear is hurt now, dragging around a trap attached to its paw. She’ll need to call her dad later and tell him what happened. Thinking about her dad also makes her think about the storm they say is coming up the coast. He said not to worry, but she does. She worries about everything. About her mom, about the storm. And about what she’s gotten herself into by agreeing to this.

  Gloria pulls up in Grover’s big yellow car. Ruby can see Izzy and Marcy sitting in the backseat, one on each side of the enormously long bench seat. They are both wearing hot pink T-shirts with Hello Kitty on them. They both have sparkly nail polish and matching ponytails. Ruby barely recognizes Izzy with her hair pulled back. Her eyes wide, her face naked.

  The window is rolled down; Gloria leans over. “Hey, Ruby! Hop on in.”

  Ruby thinks about squeezing in next to Izzy and Marcy in the backseat but neither of them seems to be moving an inch to make room. And so she opens the passenger door instead and sits down next to Gloria.

  “How are you, sweetie?” Gloria asks. “Sorry about the Banana. My car’s in the shop.”

  Ruby nods.

  “Iz, aren’t you going to say hi?” Gloria says, turning around to the backseat.

  “Hi,” both of the girls say in unison, as if they’ve practiced it. As if they are in a play. Ruby can’t bring herself to turn around and look at them and so she mumbles, “Hi.”

  Gloria scowls a little and then smiles brightly. “I heard they have a new ride at the fair this year. What’s it called, girls?” she says to the backseat.

  “It’s the Zipper,” Marcy says. “You have to be five feet to go on it.”

  Ruby isn’t anywhere near five feet, but she knows both Izzy and Marcy are. Marcy is the tallest girl in the whole class. She tells everyone she’s going to be a model as soon as she hits five seven, which, by Ruby’s estimation, will be by the time they’re in the eighth grade.

  In the backseat the girls giggle and talk. Ruby stares straight ahead at the road in front of them. It is still foggy out, the mist like ghosts in the trees. For a mile or so, it is nearly impossible to see through the thick haze. She is aware suddenly of how deep in the woods her mom lives. She never thinks about it, but with Marcy in the car, looking out the window at the thick trees surrounding them, she feels self-conscious.

  “What do you do all the way out here?” Marcy asks suddenly, and Ruby realizes she’s talking to her. “I mean, do you like even get cable?”

  Ruby thinks of the antenna on the roof, the snowy pictures on the screen of the small black-and-white TV they used to have so her dad could watch his basketball games. She thinks about her cell phone that doesn’t work.

  “My mom thinks that TV rots your brain,” Ruby says, and Gloria turns to her, smiling.

  “That is totally stupid,” Marcy says. “No offense, Gloria.”

  Ruby feels her face get hot. Everyone their age calls her Mrs. Sinclair. She’s the only kid she knows who is allowed to call her Gloria.

  As Izzy and Marcy retreat back into their whispery little world in the backseat, Gloria asks softly, “Are you having a nice time at your mom’s?”

  Ruby nods, but her throat feels thick.

  “I miss her, you know,” Gloria says, and it feels like she wants something from Ruby. Like she wants an explanation.

  Ruby nods again.

  The girls giggle in the backseat, and it makes her heart ache.

  “I think we’re moving to North Carolina,” Ruby says, startling herself.

  “What?” Gloria says. And the car goes silent in the back seat.

  “You’re moving?” Izzy says.

  Ruby turns around then, and looks at Izzy in that stupid pink shirt with that stupid ponytail. “Yeah. Near my uncle. We’re going to buy a house on a little island off the coast. It’s like right on the beach.” She can’t stop herself now.

  “No way,” Marcy says.

  Ruby shrugs. “It’s called Wanchese. You can look it up if you want.”

  “When?” Izzy asks, and Ruby can hear just the faintest bit of something in her voice: sadness? Fear?

  “I don’t know. They’re checking it out. If it works out, probably soon. My dad is going to buy a fishing boat there. And my mom will come with us too, of course.” Now she is just lying. But strangely, she doesn’t feel the way she has felt in the past when she stretches the truth. This feels good. Izzy’s wide-eyed disbelief feels wonderful. Even Marcy’s scowl feels good.

  “I thought your parents were divorced,” Marcy says.

  “No, they’re just separated. But they’re getting back together.” Ruby’s chest hurts. Like she swallowed a rubber ball.

  “Oh, Ruby,” Gloria says then, and when Ruby turns to look at her, she sees that her eyes are wet. “I don’t want you to move.”

  And suddenly it dawns on Ruby that she’s just told the biggest fib in her life. For one thing, she’s not even supposed to know that her dad is looking at a house, at a boat. She also has no idea, really, what his plans are. And the business about her mom is just wishful thinking. The enormity of the lie hits her like a punch in her gut. She blinks hard and looks out the window.

  “I mean, we’ll just have to see. It might not happen.”

  Marcy snorts, and it takes everything Ruby has not to turn around and glare at her.

  At the fair, Izzy and Marcy cling to each other like the baby raccoons, and Ruby hangs back with Gloria. She goes on a couple of rides with them, though each time winds up sitting behind them in the cars, staring at the backs of their perfect ponytails: the Himalaya, the Chinese Dragon roller coaster, the haunted house. After they leave her wandering through the hall of mirrors in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Funhouse, she gives up and just sits with Gloria and watc
hes as Marcy and Izzy go around and around and upside down. Gloria buys a bag of cotton candy and they share it as Marcy and Izzy run from one ride to the next. Ruby feels sick to her stomach and worn out by the time the sun starts to go down and the lights come on.

  Izzy and Marcy seem to have forgotten she’s even there. They hold hands, locking pinkies, and Ruby just wants to go home.

  “Hey, let’s go up in the Ferris wheel,” Gloria says quietly as Izzy and Marcy get in line for the Zipper for the hundredth time. “Just you and me.”

  Ruby nods, and Gloria reaches for her hand, taking her to the metal ramp, which leads up to the Ferris wheel. There’s a long line, and as they wait to get on, Ruby studies the architecture of the ride. She examines the physics of it, marvels at the beauty of the steel and lights. It’s miraculous to her that just two days ago, all of this wasn’t here. It was disassembled, packed away in trucks or on trains. It is amazing that something that looks so permanent can be so ephemeral.

  “Ready?” Gloria asks, as the carnie motions for them to come up and get in the bucket.