Worry

by Jessica Westhead

  “Are we going the right way?” Ruth asks.

  “I know the way,” says Stef, a few paces ahead. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” says Ruth, and the words startle her. The mocking tone of them.

  Stef cocks her head to the side. “What did you say?”

  A weak laugh trickles out. “Nothing.”

  “Really?”

  “Hey, kids!” Sammy hustles Amelia and Isabelle and Fern farther ahead, pointing at something on the ground. “Look at all this moss—it’s like nature’s carpet!”

  Stef stares back at Ruth. “I’m just trying to help you chill out. Because we’re supposed to be having a good time.”

  Ruth takes a shaky breath. Her anger isn’t new, but the strength of it is. The way it rushes through her, making every nerve stand at attention. “You don’t have a care in the world, do you?” she says to her friend’s back. “You don’t even know what worries are.”

  Stef tenses, but keeps walking. “Don’t be so sure.”

  The anger drains away, leaving Ruth limp. She keeps going too, tripping over roots and sticks in her sandals and scraping her bare arms on the edges of unruly bushes and tall, spiky weeds. Even the blades of grass are sharp—Which must be why they call them blades, aha—and she reaches down to scratch the pink welts multiplying on her bare legs.

  Stef and Sammy are wearing T-shirts too, but they’ve got jeans and running shoes on.

  Why didn’t Ruth change into jeans and running shoes? Because she is drunk.

  As she and Stef catch up with the others, a twig snaps somewhere behind them and Ruth inhales sharply. “What was that?”

  “A unicorn,” says Sammy.

  “Yay!” Fern shouts. “I love unicorns!”

  “Unicorns are for babies,” says Amelia, and Isabelle snickers.

  Ruth says, “Can we walk a bit faster, please?”

  “I packed sparklers for the girls,” says Sammy.

  “Yeah! Sparklers!” Amelia and Isabelle yell.

  “I’ll help you with yours,” Ruth tells Fern.

  “She’ll be fine,” says Stef. “Let her have some fun.”

  “I just want her to be safe.” Ruth frowns. “Sparklers can be dangerous.”

  “I don’t want a sparkler!” says Fern.

  “Don’t listen to your mother,” says Stef. “We love her, but she gets a little goofy sometimes.”

  “Yeah.” Fern giggles. “Goofy.”

  “Hey!” Ruth squeezes her daughter’s hand, smiling.

  If James were here, he’d let Fern have a sparkler.

  Stef hip-checks Sammy. “Did you pack fun things for the grown-ups too?”

  “Who did you marry?” he asks her.

  “Do we have flashlights?” says Ruth. “To get back?”

  “Locked and loaded,” says Sammy.

  “Can I have one?”

  “Chill, my dear, they’re all in here.” He pats his bulging cooler bag.

  “Just give her one,” says Stef. “It’s getting dark.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He digs a small flashlight out of his bag and hands it to Ruth, and she tucks it into the backpack.

  Stef watches her. “Doesn’t that thing get heavy?”

  “No,” Ruth lies.

  “Let’s play hide-and-seek!” shouts Isabelle.

  “Hmm,” says Ruth, “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  Stef snorts. “Of course you don’t.”

  A mosquito is whining in Ruth’s ear. She swats at it and misses. Then it zeroes in on Fern, diving toward her neck. Ruth smacks her hands together, then opens them to reveal the mangled bug inside.

  “Whoa,” Fern marvels. “You hit him so hard that his legs fell off.”

  “Okay, everybody,” shouts Stef, “Auntie Ruth is going to count and we’re all going to hide!”

  Ruth grips her daughter’s hand and shakes her head. There is no way she’s losing sight of her in here. Even when they play hide-and-seek at home, Ruth will cheat. Fern will tell her to close her eyes, and Ruth will always peek through her fingers. And Fern can never understand how her mother is able to find her, every single time.

  “Fine, I’ll count.” Stef makes a show of squeezing her eyes shut, then places her hands over her face for good measure. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”

  Sammy and the twins take off running, flying away in different directions.

  Fern tugs on Ruth’s hand. “Mama! Let’s go!”

  She allows her daughter to pull her into the bushes. They find a hulking, grey trunk and crouch down behind it.

  Dying sunshine filters through the trees, pulsing light and dark all around them.

  “The forest is a bit spooky,” Fern says quietly.

  “You know what?” says Ruth. “I think it’s a bit spooky too.” And immediately she thinks, Stupid. “I mean, mostly forests are happy places. The trees give us shade so we don’t get a sunburn.”

  “But not at night,” says Fern. “At night it’s a monster’s house.”

  “Ten!” calls Stef, and Fern puts a finger to her lips. Making sure Ruth doesn’t open her big mouth and ruin everything.

  “You guys are good,” Stef says from somewhere far away. “I’ll give you that.”

  Fern huddles closer to Ruth and whispers, “Don’t let her find us, Mama.”

  Minutes pass, and then Stef trumpets an “Aha!” and one of the twins squeals.

  “I’ve already got Isabelle!” Stef crows. “So the rest of you better start worrying!”

  There is a rustling behind Ruth and Fern and the two of them cringe away from the sound. Then Ruth’s phone starts buzzing and she answers it fast without checking the display. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ruthie.” It’s her mother, and her voice is still sad.

  Ruth feels a rush of guilt for not calling her back. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  Fern grabs the phone and presses it against her ear. “Hi, Grandma! We’re playing hide-and-seek!”

  Ruth wraps an arm around her daughter. “Shh.”

  “I have to be quiet. Here’s Mommy.” Fern gives the phone back to Ruth.

  “Should I let you go?” her mother asks.

  “No, it’s fine. We’re just playing a game.”

  “Oh. I won’t keep you, then.”

  There is silence between them, and then Ruth asks, “Are you okay, Mom?”

  “I’m all right. I’m just thinking about him, that’s all.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  Her mother sighs. “The summer is hard on both of us now, isn’t it?”

  Ruth doesn’t answer, and her mother’s voice brightens a little. “Is the cottage nice?”

  “It’s really nice. It’s big.”

  “That’s good. Stef deserves a nice place. Did you tell her I said hello? It’s been so long since I’ve talked to her.”

  Not very far away, there’s a scuffle and a crash and then a yowl from Sammy.

  “Got you!” Stef gloats.

  “I told her.” Ruth clears her throat. “I guess I should probably—”

  “Of course, honey. I’ll talk to you another time.”

  “Bye, Mom.” She hangs up and slides the phone back into her shorts pocket.

  Fern looks up at her. “Why are you sad, Mama?”

  Ruth’s eyes prickle and she squeezes them shut to force the tears away. “I’m not sad, sweetie.”

  “Yes, you are.” Fern leans against her and whispers, “I wish I got to meet your daddy.”

  A tiny sob escapes before she can stop it. “I wish that too.”

  They hold on to each other and then a twig snaps under Fern’s pink sneaker and suddenly Stef is there with Isabelle, jabbing a finger at them. Claiming her next victory.

  Then there’s a bigger rustling from the bushes and all four of them scream and jump, and Sammy runs out, baring his teeth and growling.

  “Okay.” Stef crosses her arms. “N
ow where’s Amelia?”

  “She told me she knew a good spot,” says Isabelle. “Where you’ll never, ever find her.”

  “She doesn’t know who she’s up against,” Stef says, and charges into the woods.

  Ruth and Fern and Sammy and Isabelle stand still, listening.

  There are invisible birds everywhere. They warble from somewhere up high, revealing themselves every so often when one or two swoop overhead, switching branches for a change of scenery.

  The temperature is starting to drop, slowly, but the humidity is relentless tonight. Everything here is too close, too much. If Ruth knew what poison ivy looked like, she’d be watching out for it. But she doesn’t, so she just pulls Fern against her and listens for animal noises.

  The shadows have lengthened in the dimming light and the shapes around them are less defined now, obscured by the growing darkness. There’s a big, rotting tree stump to their left—Ruth knows it’s only a tree stump—but as dusk falls, it wavers. She blinks and it’s a wolf, hackles raised, ready to tear them all apart.

  In the distance, Stef is calling Amelia’s name and zigzagging through the trees, heedless of all the delicate living things she must be crushing underfoot.

  Ruth waits for the roar Amelia will release when she’s discovered, but it doesn’t come.

  Eventually Stef stumbles back to them. “I can’t find her.” She’s out of breath, wheezing. “I looked everywhere.”

  “Told you,” says Isabelle.

  “Isabelle.” Sammy’s voice is hard. “Do you know where your sister is?”

  She looks at the ground. “No,” she mumbles.

  “Fuck.” Stef runs a hand through her messy hair. Her arms are covered in scratches. “Where did she go?” She peers around them. “Goddammit, I don’t know where we are.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” says Sammy.

  “Jesus, Sammy,” she says, “don’t swear in front of the kids!”

  The forest crowds in around them. Tall trees and fallen logs and plants of all sizes coiled over and under, swaying and dangling and grasping.

  “We need to get back on the path,” says Ruth.

  Her friend stares her down. “Do you know where the path is?”

  She points vaguely behind them. “Over there, maybe?”

  Stef growls in frustration. A tear slides down her cheek and she swipes it away angrily.

  “Mama,” says Fern, “are we lost?”

  “No, honey,” says Ruth. “But Amelia is, and we need to find her.” She looks at Stef. “I think we should split up.”

  “She’s right,” says Sammy. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”

  Stef nods reluctantly.

  The mothers take their daughters’ hands and set off in opposite directions, and Sammy trails behind, all of them calling Amelia’s name.

  It’s much darker now, and Ruth pulls the flashlight out of her backpack and trains the narrow beam ahead of her and Fern, shining it at the shifting woods.

  On either side of them, two other flashlight beams bounce erratically, slicing through the gloom. As all five of them crash through the brush, the combined thudding and crackling from their clumsy footfalls is amplified, and then fades away.

  The silence that follows is so startling that Ruth jolts to a standstill, halting Fern as well. She looks over her shoulder, searching for signs of the others, but the trees have devoured them completely.

  And then Ruth hears something else.

  “Why did we stop, Mama?”

  “Shh. Just listen.”

  Somewhere off to her left, or maybe it’s her right, she thinks she can hear crying. She starts moving again, tugging Fern along, following the sound and wondering if Stef hears it too.

  Her friend has always been proud of the fact that she isn’t maternal. When the twins were infants and Ruth was visiting, she always noticed their cries before Stef did. Stef used to joke that she had selective hearing. “Because they always need me for something,” she’d say. “‘Give us food. Clean the filth off of us. Don’t let us die.’ It’s too much.” And Ruth would hold her friend’s beautiful babies in her empty arms and laugh like she was expected to.

  The crying gets louder, so Ruth keeps moving in the same direction, pulling Fern along with her until they’re far ahead. “Amelia!” she calls, over and over, until there she is.

  Stef’s little girl is sobbing on the forest floor next to a small something—it’s not clear to Ruth at first what it is, but then the glare of the flashlight illuminates a furry mass, and then the eyes, squeezed shut in their dark mask. “Oh, honey,” she says. “What did you do?”

  Amelia sniffles. “I found it and it was sick.”

  Fern creeps closer. “What happened, Mama?”

  “Don’t look,” Ruth tells her, and Fern reaches up and covers her face with splayed fingers.

  “I was just trying to help it breathe,” Amelia says. “I took a stick and made a hole where the lungs are. Because it was having trouble. I thought maybe it swallowed something bad.”

  Bile rises up Ruth’s throat, a drowning wave of thick, black poison, but she forces it back down. “Yes,” she says, “sometimes that happens.”

  “And then there’s nothing you can do.” Amelia shakes her head forlornly. “No matter how hard you try.”

  “You’re right,” says Ruth. “There’s nothing.”

  The birds chirp and caw at the three of them, the calls coming faster and louder until they sound almost mechanical. The beeps of machines, signalling something bad.

  Ruth says, “When I was a little girl, I found a clam after a seagull smashed it on some rocks.”

  Amelia looks up at her, away from the raccoon, and Fern whispers, “Why did the seagull do that?”

  “Because it needed to break the hard shell to eat the soft body inside,” Ruth tells her daughter. “Animals in the wild have to eat each other sometimes, to survive.”

  “I know about that.” Amelia wipes her nose, smearing her cheek with pink. “I know about animals because I’m going to be a veterinarian when I grow up.”

  “Okay,” Ruth says, trying not to show anything but kindness, “so what’s the prognosis?”

  Amelia frowns. “What does that mean?”

  “It means what’s going to happen.”

  “Oh.” The little girl looks at the small pile of fur, which is still moving slightly. Panting, but very slowly. “I think it’s going to die.”

  Ruth nods. “I think so too.”

  From far off but coming closer, Stef’s voice rings out. Shouting Amelia’s name.

  “She’s here!” Ruth calls back.

  Amelia starts to cry harder, and Fern takes a few tentative steps forward and pats her awkwardly on the head.

  There are ferns everywhere, so many of them. Their lacy fronds nodding in the breeze, their bright green fading as the night rolls in.

  Before Fern, Ruth and James had never been able to agree on baby names.

  But one day, Ruth found “Fern” on a list in a book she took out of the library. She’d always been scornful of names that were inspired by natural things, but this one felt right. And it was different from all the others.

  And then Stef is there. She shrieks and runs over, leaving Isabelle with Sammy and falling to her knees in front of their other daughter. She grabs Amelia’s small, trembling arms and holds on tight. “Are you okay?”

  Amelia’s breath hitches, and she manages a tearful nod.

  Stef sees the raccoon and her eyes widen. “What the hell is that?”

  “It was already hurt,” Ruth says. “She was just trying to do something good.”

  “But it didn’t work, Mommy,” Amelia sobs. “I tried but it didn’t work.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” Stef clings to her, staring at Ruth over her daughter’s heaving shoulders. “Mommy knows.”

  Ruth looks away, and sees the path through the gloom. Just beyond their little clearing. Close by the whole time but hiding too, waiting for
them to find it again.

  Isabelle tiptoes closer. “Is it a baby?”

  “Yep,” says Sammy. “The mother probably pushed it out of the nest for being bad.”

  “Daddy.” Stef shoots him a warning look.

  “You have to help it now.” Fern’s voice is hard. “Because it’s in pain.”

  And Ruth realizes she’s been watching all along.

  “She’s right,” says Sammy. “Why don’t you guys walk ahead and I’ll take care of it.”

  Stef and Ruth usher the girls away, back onto the trail to Marvin and Lesley’s place, and they all start walking.

  Before they get too far, Ruth looks over her shoulder.

  In the shadows of the trees, Sammy steps forward and stomps down, and the raccoon is finally still.

  Seven

  THE SUMMER IS JUST STARTING, AND THE MOTHER-TO-BE IS walking along the sidewalk with her giant belly floating in front of her like a beautiful balloon. She’s holding on to it, rubbing circles into it.

  She’s tired because she’s forgotten how to sleep. Her baby has stolen that knowledge from her, but the mother-to-be doesn’t care.

  “The doctor says you’re supposed to rest,” the father-to-be keeps chiding her. “Just lie down and close your eyes. It’s easy.”

  But she’d rather spend her time waiting to feel the gentle knock-knocking that lets her know she isn’t alone in her body. (“I’m here, Mama.”) And when she doesn’t feel it, she stings with need, desperate for her unborn daughter’s entrancing company.

  Because she’s found a new fellow adventurer and she wants to tell her all about the weird, wonderful world she’s going to live in. Because she’s found a new audience and she wants to delight her with endless performances. And it’s awful when she doesn’t pay attention.

  As soon as the knocking stops, every inch of the mother-to-be is on fire, itching for a hit of reassurance. Please, just for a little while longer. But when it begins again, she’s ready.

  She likes to sing to the baby. Mostly she revisits and revises the anthems of her wild and carefree university days, her misspent nineties youth: “Here you are now, I’ll entertain you!” She goofs around with the lyrics because everything has a different meaning now: “Today is gonna be the day that we’re gonna look at birds and squirrels.”