Words

by Ginny L. Yttrup

  When I finish, I take a deep breath and dive under the water into the deepest part of the stream. Water fills my ears until I can't hear anything but the pounding of my heart. I pretend I'm a mermaid. I cross my legs and kick, like I have one big fin. Then I twirl in the water and watch my hair swirl around me. I stay under until I see black and white spots in front of my eyes and my lungs hurt. I want to stay longer—I want to stay forever—but finally I have to come back up.

  I get out of the water and climb back on the rock and lay out with my clothes to dry. I'm not afraid of anyone seeing me. I hardly ever see someone here—but I always hear them coming and I hide before they see me.

  The rock is warm and my eyes get heavy. I want to sleep in the sun. But I can't—not here. What if I didn't wake up and get back in time? Instead, I get up, put on my clothes, and head across the meadow into the forest. It's a lot like the area right around the cabin with pine trees and redwoods. Only here the redwoods are like giants and the ground is covered with ferns, mushrooms, and heart-shaped clovers. The clovers are my favorite.

  I'm careful as I walk, looking for banana slugs or anything that might squish under my toes. If anyone was paying attention, they'd see the trail I've made through the meadow into the forest. But he never comes out here, so it doesn't matter. The trail leads to my tree—a colossal redwood.

  That's my favorite C word—co·los·sal. It means awesomely huge.

  The bottom of the trunk was hollowed out by a fire a long time ago, but the tree is still alive. The inside of the trunk is like a big room. When the light is right and shines through the opening, I can bend my head back and look way up and see where the fire stopped. I don't know how the tree can still be alive, but my mom said that redwoods are re—uh, resilmet, or something. I'll have to look it up. But anyway, I think it means they can take a lot. That would be a good word to put in my box.

  When I go inside the tree, I see small tracks, probably from a squirrel. Then I see that a few of the pinecones I used to make my circle are missing. Definitely a squirrel then. They love pinecones.

  I go out and pick up three pinecones and carry them back into the tree. I put each one down just right so the circle is whole again. Then I step over the line and sit in the middle. The circle is the safety zone, like in a game. No one can get you there. The only way to get into the circle is if you say, "Mother, may I?" I love that game. I like being the "Mother" who gets to say "Yes, you may" or "No, you may not." We used to play that at recess when I went to school. Sometimes I got to be the Mother, but usually Marcy Baker bossed her way into being it. But I was good at that game, I never forgot to ask, "Mother, may I?"

  I lie back in the circle with my arms behind my head and watch dust float in the light shining through the opening in the trunk. It's so quiet and still here that the dust barely moves. It just sort of hangs in the air. I wonder how much dust I breathe into my nose every day. The thought makes my nose tickle. You can only see the dust if the light is right, most of the time you don't think about it being there.

  This tree is my sanctuary. sanc·tu·ary—noun 1. any place of refuge: asylum. That means it's my safe place away from him.

  It's about time to head back. He started another new job a couple of weeks ago and I'm still figuring out his schedule. He works at a gas station now. He's there on Saturday and Sunday and then again on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. He has his schedule written on a scrap of paper in his truck, I checked it again last night. It's hard to know what his days off will be like. Sometimes he spends them at the bar playing pool. Other times he just hangs around the cabin. Those are the worst days. Either way, I stay in the cabin on his days off because I don't know when he'll come and go.

  If I go back now, I can sleep until afternoon and then go over my words for a couple hours before he comes back. I want to find that R word I was thinking about. As I watch the dust and make my plan, I hear something. I sit up.

  It's a car or a truck.

  What if it's him? What if he came back early and couldn't find me?

  The berries start churning in my stomach and I feel sick.

  I stay in the circle and wait.

  The engine stops. Turns off. Pretty soon I hear a door slam.

  It sounds different than the slam of his truck door. My stomach settles a little when I realize, now that I think about it, the engine didn't sound like his truck either.

  I crawl to the edge of the opening in the tree. Still mostly hidden, I sneak a peek outside and see a Jeep in the clearing by the point. I know the car is a Jeep, because Brent, my mom's last boyfriend, drove a Jeep. But this one looks a lot older than Brent's. What I don't see is the person who drove it. So I crawl back into the farthest corner of the tree trunk and sit in the dark spot where the sun doesn't shine.

  I wait a few more minutes.

  When I don't hear anything, I crawl back to the opening and look out again.

  This time I see a woman at the edge of the point. She doesn't move. She just stands there looking out. On a sunny day like today, you can see the ocean from there. She stands there for a long time. Her back is to me, so I know she can't see me, so I just observe her. To observe means you pay special attention to something. I'm paying special attention to her.

  I don't feel sleepy anymore.

  The first thing I observe is her hair. It's so long that it almost touches her waist. She has it in a ponytail tied with something. Not ribbon, just a band or something, so it's probably even longer than it looks. It's blonde and curly and there's lots of it.

  Then I see that she's tall, much taller than my mom. And right now she looks like a statue. She still hasn't moved. She must be thinking really hard about something. She just stands there looking out at the ocean. After awhile she turns away, reaches into the front pocket of her pants, and pulls out a piece of tissue. She wipes her eyes with the tissue and blows her nose. Then she balls it up and throws it on the ground. She throws it hard, like she's mad. Then she bends down and picks it up and shoves it back in her pocket.

  She walks back to the Jeep but instead of getting in, she puts one foot on the front bumper and pulls herself up and turns to sit on the hood. She reaches over her head and pulls the band off her ponytail and shakes her hair loose. It shines like silver in the sun. She runs her hands through it and then twists it together into a large knot at the bottom of her neck. She puts the ponytail holder in her pocket, the one with the used tissue.

  My legs are cramping under me because of the way I'm stooping to watch her. I ease back and stand up inside the tree and walk to my circle. If I sit back in the middle of the circle, I can still see her.

  Once I'm settled, I look at her again and realize she's looking right at my tree. Did she see me? I sit very still. I don't even breathe.

  She stares at the trunk of my tree. She looks surprised or something.

  Finally she leans her head back and looks up. She shields her eyes with her hand. She's trying to see the top of the tree. She won't be able to see it though. She looks back down at the trunk and then she shakes her head and smiles a little.

  She's pretty when she smiles.

  After a few minutes, she lies back on the hood of her car with her feet still on the bumper. She puts one arm over her eyes, and rests there. She looks tired. I know how she feels, the sun can put you right to sleep on a day like this.

  I decide I better go now while she's not looking. I don't know how long she plans to stay here, but if it's long, I might not have another chance to sneak away without her seeing me.

  I start to get up, then sit back down. I don't want to leave. I want to keep watching her. I wonder what it would be like to talk to her. I wonder if she's nice. She looks nice. Maybe I could tell her about my mom. Maybe she could help me find her. Just as I'm thinking this, the scream starts in my head.

  I hear a long wailing No . . . I put m
y hands to my head and cover my ears, but it makes no difference. I shake my head trying to make it stop. But it's still there. I bang my fist on the ground until it hurts. The pain makes the scream stop. But I know it will start again.

  I'm so stupid! I can't talk to her. I'd open my mouth and nothing would come out. How can I tell her or anyone else about my mom or about anything? This is my fault. If I could tell someone about my mom, then maybe they could find her and help her remember and then she could come back and get me. If I could tell someone about him, maybe they could make him go away.

  The scream starts again.

  I look at her one more time and make sure she's still asleep. Then I get up, hands still covering my ears, and I sneak out of the tree, and walk, real quiet, to the meadow. Then I run. I run through the meadow, past the stream, and back through the forest. I run as fast as I can. I run until my side aches. But I don't stop until I reach the cabin.

  Once there, I can hardly breathe. I sit on the stoop and try to catch my breath. I don't hear the scream anymore, just my heart pounding and wheezing as I gulp for air.

  I get up and walk back into the cabin. I look at my mattress and know I can't go to sleep now—not yet. Instead, I pull the dictionary out from under the board and turn to the Rs and begin my search.

  re·sign·ee

  re·sile

  re·sil·ience

  re·sil·ient That's it, I think. I read the definition:—adjective 1. springing back; rebounding, returning to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity. 2. ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity or the like; buoyancy.

  That's just the long way of saying that some things can take a lot. Like that tree, it bounced back after adversity, the fire was its adversity. I turn to the As to make sure I know what adversity means, and I'm right, it's bad. It's the opposite of what you want to happen. I think again of his bonfire a few days after my mom left. That was just one adverse thing that happened to me that week.

  A new thought comes to me. Maybe I'm like that redwood. Maybe I'm resilient too. The thought makes me feel sort of hopeful.

  For some reason I think again about the woman I saw in the forest. Then I wonder . . . why she was crying? What was wrong? Was she sad or just mad? Both can make you want to cry, I know that.

  She looked resilient—tall and strong—like she'd bounce back—so she's probably okay.

  After a few minutes, I try not to think about her, to think of something else instead. But the harder I try to think of something else, the more I think about her. I wonder again what it would be like to talk to her. I wonder what her voice sounds like and I wonder dumb things too, like if her hair smells good like my mom's did. The more I think about her, the more I want to know about her. Where does she live? What does she do? Why was she up here in the woods?

  Before I even stop thinking about her, I know what I'll do. I'll go back to my tree tomorrow and see if she comes back. And if she doesn't come tomorrow, I'll go back the next day.

  I'll just wait and see if she shows up again. If she does, I'll watch her for a while more.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sierra

  The sun in the clearing soothes me, lulls me to sleep. In sleep, I can forget the memories that haunt me today. Instead, with energy I barely possess, I pull myself from the fringes of sleep and sit back up on the hood of the Jeep.

  Haunt. An appropriate word for this day. I've seen things here that I can't explain. Perhaps in my grief, my mind played tricks on me.

  I put the thought aside. I have no desire to analyze my feelings or the deceits of my mind. I'm afraid to look too closely at what I feel or think. I know this about myself. The abyss is too deep, the grief too dark. The feelings are better kept at bay. I allow myself this one day each year to think about her, to honor her memory, and doing so always leads me to the edge of the abyss. But I won't succumb. I won't tumble over the edge.

  Instead, I check my watch. It's later than I thought. I'm supposed to meet Ruby for lunch at the beach at 1:00. She insists we have lunch on this day each year. Today I'm thankful for the standing appointment and for her call yesterday to set the time. If anyone can pull me from this funk, it's Ruby.

  I hop off the hood, but before getting back in the Jeep, I take a last look at the redwood across the clearing. Its grandeur awes me. It stands tall, oblivious to its wounds, a sentry guarding the forest below. I wonder what secrets it holds, this ancient keeper of the woods. I offer a silent salute to the old tree before climbing in the car and heading off to lunch.

  Ruby. I think of her as I drive. We met at art school. I ended up there after a year of general education courses at the J.C. in San Luis Obispo. I took two art classes during that year—a drawing class and a painting class. My instructor encouraged what she called my "gift" and gave me information about the San Francisco Art Institute.

  One visit to the campus and I was hooked. Creativity coursed like currents of energy through the students and faculty I met. I left that week with a rising passion to leave my mark on the world through artistic expression. The idealism of youth, I suppose.

  Ruby was my roommate while I was there. We connected through a SFAI list of potential housing situations and roommates. Neither of us came from families who could afford much, but we found a studio apartment a few blocks up from the Presidio, owned by a local patron of the arts who rented the studio to students at rates unheard of in the city. We settled in together for the duration of our college careers.

  Although Ruby and I came from different worlds, or maybe because we came from different worlds, we engaged right away. We were fascinated by our differences and spent many evenings that first year sharing our ideals, our beliefs, and the stories of our lives.

  As I pull into the restaurant parking lot, I search for Ruby's car, a restored 1968 VW bug, an early fortieth birthday gift from her husband, Michael, a programmer who works over the hill in San Jose.

  Looks like she's late as usual, but today I don't mind. I want the time to gather myself emotionally. Ruby knows the rules: we meet every year on this anniversary, but we don't speak of it. This is hard for her, she lives to talk, analyze, and figure things out. But she respects this rule, most of the time. However, if I arrive emotionally undone, she'll crack. I often tell her that she missed her true calling. She should have been a shrink. But she insists there's a lot of psychology in her art, sculpting. That's what I call a "Rubyism," a quirky belief all her own.

  I enter the restaurant and ask the hostess for my usual table. Distracted, she hands me a menu and points to the stairs. I reach over the counter and grab a menu for Ruby and then make my way up to the outdoor balcony just off the bar where four of the best tables hide. Only here are the tables exposed to the elements—sun, wind, and surf. The other two outdoor balconies are enclosed to protect against such nuisances. Ruby will know to look for me here.

  Crystalline sky, blue sea, and lapping surf fill my view. I try to clear my mind and soak in the healing elements of salt and sun. Instead, the images of the day replay. I see the small gravestone that marks my mourning: Annie Lynn Bickford. My mother chose her name—I was in no shape to do so. She told me that Anne was a strong English name meaning grace. Mother knew that a child born into such darkness would need grace.

  Then the images from the forest come to mind, the giant redwood and . . .

  "Hey, you."

  I jump at Ruby's greeting.

  "Whoa, you okay? I didn't mean to startle you."

  "I'm fine."

  Ruby squeezes my shoulder before going around the table and settling in the chair opposite me. And although I know her inside and out, see her frequently, had breakfast with her earlier this week in fact, I can find nothing to say to her. Today is different and we both know it.

  She looks at me and I see
the questions in her eyes, but she doesn't ask. Instead, she reaches for the linen napkin next to her place setting. "So, new outfit?" Her sarcasm breaks the tension.

  "Very funny, Rube."

  "Guess I don't remember seeing that particular T-shirt before. I like the streak of taupe across the shoulder. Looks like oil. Not your typical medium."

  I rub my hand across the stain and smile. I often feel monochromatic against Ruby's color—fiery auburn hair springing in ten different directions, emerald eyes, and today, a burnt-orange peasant top with a patterned red, gold, orange, and green ankle-length skirt that looks like it's made of scarves. The heavy gold hoops at her ears complete her gypsy ensemble.

  I finger the slim silver hoops that never leave my lobes and remind her that the taupe swatch is from my living room, "In fact, if I recall, it was you, Ruby, who was bored with painting walls and took your brush to my shirt."

  "Ah yes, a moment of artistic expression, I remember."

  We laugh and pick up our menus, though we know the offerings by heart.

  She says nothing more for a moment. But the next time she looks at me, I see the questions in her eyes again and can tell she's weighing her words. "You really okay?"

  Her question brushes the boundary I've set. I answer too quickly. "Of course, I'm fine."

  "Really?" Her prodding, gentle as it is, angers me.

  "Ruby, you know the rules."

  "Your rules, Sierra, not mine. I'm tired of playing by your rules."

  I turn my eyes from hers and look back at the ocean. I reach for my hair and unwind it from its knot and run my fingers through its length. I'm stalling, I know, searching for an answer that will appease her while wondering at the unaccustomed desire I feel to talk.

  She takes my hesitation as an invitation. "Sierra, it's time to let go of the pain. It's time to let go of Annie."