Worry

by Jessica Westhead

  “We used to play hide-and-seek a lot,” Marvin says. “He loved that game.”

  A paper airplane dangles from the ceiling. A soccer ball is wedged into the bottom shelf of a bookcase.

  “And then one time I couldn’t find him forever. He found a really good spot.”

  Ruth wants to ask him where, but then she knows. Because the answer is the punchline to Fern’s favourite knock-knock joke. The one Marvin liked so much.

  “He was the best hider. And so quiet, so he wouldn’t give himself away.” Marvin is still holding her hand but his grip is tighter now. “He never even called for help, for me to let him out. He must’ve just fallen asleep in there.” His hand constricts around hers and all of the bones are pressed together, forced to be smaller and smaller and it hurts, it hurts. But then he lets her go.

  Ruth pulls her hand to her chest and cradles it there, her heart thudding against her throbbing fingers.

  In a far corner, a red fire truck sits silently with its white rescue ladder extended and empty. So there are a few stereotypical boy things in the room, after all. It’s hard to avoid. Ruth never planned on dressing Fern in all pink and purple, but that’s what she wants.

  “We kept the trunk because Lesley won’t let me get rid of it. It’s been three years now and she won’t even talk to me about him, but we still have to look at that goddamn thing every single day. It’s a pretty green, at least.” His sorrow is so wide. It expands inside him, breathing through him. “Once in a while we babysit someone else’s kids, so Lesley can pretend. And every night I make her a cup of her special tea, so she can sleep.” He pauses and looks at Ruth intently. “I promise I wasn’t lying about your drink. I’m always careful with Lesley’s medicine because it’s very strong.”

  “Okay,” she says, but only because he’s waiting for an answer.

  He nods, and continues. “Lesley keeps Alex’s baby doll in our bed with her because that was his favourite toy. Like your Fern and her dragon.”

  Ruth remembers the look on Lesley’s face when the doll tumbled down the stairs. Full of pain that Ruth hadn’t understood.

  Marvin gives her the smallest smile. “He was three and a half, like your Fern too. But not like her, because she’s going to keep growing and growing. And one day you’ll look at her and she’ll be all grown up and you’ll barely recognize her. She won’t even look like you anymore.”

  Anymore, he said. She grabs onto the word and holds it tight.

  “Stef told me everything,” he says, gently. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  Tears prickle at the corners of Ruth’s eyes, and then her vision blurs from them. They stream out of her.

  From the bedside table, beside the awful clown lamp, Marvin plucks a tissue from a box and places the white wing against Ruth’s face. Dabbing it delicately wherever her skin is wet. “We always keep these in here,” he says. “They do the job.”

  Ruth nods. Or at least she thinks she does.

  “About a week after Alex was born, Lesley told me something amazing.” He’s looking past her now. “He was napping so she was trying to sleep too. She was in our bed and he was in a little basket we kept beside it, and a feeling came over her. She started twisting around, getting tangled in the sheets.” His voice is filled with wonder and he’s staring at the turtle picture. “She said she felt like she was moulting. Shedding her old skin so she could grow her new mother skin.” He gazes at Ruth again. “Did that ever happen to you, with Fern?”

  Almost, she wants to say. But not quite.

  She has the memory of how her first daughter felt, at least. Her bare skin on Ruth’s bare skin. The way they fused together on their island of hospital bed under the fluorescent light, after they used to be one.

  “You don’t have to answer me,” he says. “I know it’s hard.”

  The two of them are alone here together in this little boy’s room filled with lonely toys, and Ruth wants to wrap her arms around Alex’s father and tell him, Shh, it’s all right, but she doesn’t. Because it’s not, and she’s afraid.

  “But you can understand how it feels.” Marvin clasps his big hands together and traps them between his knees. “I could tell that about you right away. Even if Stef hadn’t told me, I would’ve known.”

  In all of her life, no one has ever given her this much attention. Not as long as Stef has been there to steal it.

  No, she corrects herself. There is someone.

  Sometimes she lies in bed next to Fern and tries to memorize every detail of her face because she knows it won’t be exactly the same in the morning. Some small aspect of it will shift overnight and then her daughter will be new in a way that Ruth can’t place, but she’ll know something has changed. So she lies there and looks. There is the curve of her cheek, the pink swell of her lips. Her smooth forehead, the very slight point of her chin. And Ruth whispers, when Fern is asleep, “I will keep you safe.” Even though she knows this is impossible.

  Ruth feels the thin, invisible wire between her and Marvin quivering. It extends past them to the doorknob and tugs at her like the clown is tugging on his bunch of balloons.

  “Marvin,” she says, “I’d like some fresh air. Could you please open the window, just a crack?”

  “Of course.” He stands up and walks away to grant her wish. He eases the window open, and the woodsy tang of distant smoke immediately fills the room. The echo of faraway revellers drifts in too and then Ruth is up and running, pushing herself toward the exit because Fern is somewhere on the other side and what will she do if Ruth is gone?

  “No!” Marvin shouts behind her, his voice full of desperate fury and hurt, and he’s running too and now she’s pulling on the doorknob and now he’s wrenching her fingers off of it, yanking her back roughly with his arms around her waist.

  She struggles against him but then goes limp because it will be easier that way. He tosses her onto the bed and she curls into a C shape and tries to make herself smaller and smaller until she disappears, but it doesn’t work.

  “I’m sorry.” He’s breathing hard. “I don’t want you to leave yet.” He sits down next to her again, heavily. “But I should’ve asked you politely. Please stay. Okay?”

  She nods for him, the slightest upward movement of her chin.

  On the middle shelf of the bookcase there is a tall glass jar full of something, it’s not close enough to tell what. Coins? Rocks? She could run and grab the jar and smash it on the floor and then she’d have the shards to use. Even if they cut her, she could use them.

  Marvin sees her looking. “That’s our shell collection,” he tells her. “Alex and I found them together. It took us a long time to fill up the jar. But we did it, in the end.” Then he reaches over and turns off the light.

  “Why did you do that?” she hears herself asking in a voice that’s too high, almost a whine. “Why did you turn off the light?”

  He lies down beside her. “Because I want to tell you a story.”

  A sob falls out of her then and she closes her mouth tight. She presses her hands there to keep everything in. He throws an arm around her and she tries to pull away from him but he’s everywhere, the heat and weight of him pressed against her. So she lies still and listens to him talk, and waits.

  “Every so often our power would go out in the cottage,” he says, “and Alex would get scared. We always explained that it was only temporary and that people were working hard to fix the problem. We’d make a game out of it and put candles everywhere, but he’d always hide in his bed and make Lesley or me lie with him. One night the power went out and I was lying with him and the cottage was completely dark. I couldn’t sleep because it was so quiet. I could hear every little creak. Usually I sleep with the fan on, even though Lesley complains that it makes her cold. Even if I point it at the wall. But I can’t sleep without the noise, so I put it on anyway. But that night there wasn’t any power and I was lying right where you are. Alex was cuddled up close to me and his eyes were closed, but th
en they were open because there were a bunch of loud sounds outside. Rumbling, banging, slamming and men’s voices. Then a flashing yellow light came on outside his window. Alex blinked and rubbed his eyes, and then he started shaking. He said a funny thing, and I said, ‘Shh, don’t worry, of course not.’ I told him to go back to sleep and he did. Because it didn’t make any sense, what he was saying. He was still half in a dream.”

  “What did he say?” Ruth asks in a whisper.

  “He said, ‘Don’t let them take me away, Daddy.’” A sigh shudders out of him and he moves even closer, wrapping all of himself around her.

  This time Ruth doesn’t try to get away. What would be the point? He’s bigger and stronger than she is, and she’s tired.

  “The next morning we woke up and the power was back on, like magic. Lesley made us pancakes and then she went out grocery shopping, and Alex and I stayed home and played hide-and-seek.” Marvin is crying now, very softly. “I never actually looked out the window, you know. I imagined the hydro workers with their orange vests and their tools and their truck with the yellow flashing light. But I never actually saw them.”

  And then he’s pulling at her, rolling her over, and she lets him. She allows him to move her body so she’s facing him. Their heads are only inches apart on the pillow, which is damp from his tears.

  His pupils are very large, she notices now. There is only the thinnest green ring surrounding the glassy black circles. Cartoon eyes.

  His breath is hot and sweet but the men’s room at the park had smelled so awful, she remembers that now. How did she forget the smell? The ripe, wet rot of it had filled her nose and she wanted to plug her nostrils but she couldn’t because the man’s face was too close to hers. Breathing on her and then his tongue was in her mouth and it was a live thing burrowing, filling her up. His teeth scraped against hers and his mouth was a clam with the shell smashed open and the slimy guts hanging out, rubbing against her lips and chin and making them slimy too. And then Stef was calling for her, setting her free.

  “Ruth!”

  The shout comes from outside. Below the window, which Marvin opened just a crack.

  “Where are you?” Stef’s voice reaches for them through the glass.

  “I knew I should’ve left the light off the whole time.” Marvin sighs. “But I wanted you to see.”

  Ruth tries to sit up, tries to call out, “I’m here!” But his heavy arm is pressing her down so she can only lie there, doing nothing.

  “Ruth!” Stef is louder, getting closer. Coming to save her again.

  “Is she a good friend?” Marvin asks. “I’ve been wondering about that.”

  “Ruth!” Another voice from outside, deep and booming. “Are you in there?” Sammy is looking for her too. That’s nice of him.

  “I’m going to go now,” Marvin says. “But I need to tell you a secret first. It’s only for you, because no one else wants to listen.”

  “What are you going to give me for it?” said the stranger in the tiki bar. He was joking at first but then he wasn’t.

  Marvin’s nose is touching hers and his tears are on her cheeks. “I miss him.”

  And then he kissed her. Mashed his mouth against hers and she squeezed her eyes shut tight, and he walked her backwards until her back was pressed against the wall and all around them everyone was dancing and laughing and nobody cared. They stood under the flamingo while the rainbow-coloured disco ball turned and turned and made everything beautiful, and her husband was far away with someone else and he didn’t care either.

  “Auntie Ruth!” More voices now. A chorus of them, coming to find her.

  Then she went home alone and turned on all the lights in their quiet apartment, and she stuck a new maxi-pad into her underwear and threw out the old one and got into bed, and she was too tired to change out of her tight clothes but she still didn’t fall asleep for a very long time.

  “I miss him,” Marvin says again, more urgently this time, but so quietly that only Ruth can hear. “I miss my Alex so much.”

  She doesn’t turn away. She doesn’t close her eyes. She lies there and listens and lets him cry, and waits.

  The front door bangs open and closed downstairs. The noise is softened by Alex’s door, shut tight against the rest of the world.

  She pictures a boy curled up in his dark hiding spot, smiling because his daddy couldn’t find him, and then closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep. Almost the same as what happened to her own baby, who’d been snug and safe inside Ruth for the longest time, until something went wrong.

  “Mama!”

  That one word reaches her, above all the other sounds.

  Marvin smiles a little and finally pulls away. “There she is.”

  He takes another tissue from the box and carefully dries her face, but not his own. “Life keeps going.” He leans in again. There’s a new looseness to his mouth, and his voice is slightly slurred when he whispers, “But I’m not prepared.” Then he stands up and goes to the door and opens it. “Thank you, Ruth.”

  And then he’s gone. And Ruth is alone with the tortoise on the wall, both of them drifting out to sea.

  Footsteps pound down the hall, getting closer. Big and little. Little and big.

  “Ruth!”

  “Mama!”

  And then she appears. The one she was waiting for all along.

  Fern runs over to the bed and lays her head on Ruth’s belly. “Mama, why are you sleeping?”

  “I’m not sleeping, honey.” Ruth smiles at her. Marvelling at her. Relief is flooding all of her limbs and she’s buzzing with it. “I’m awake.”

  And then her friend is there. Silhouetted in the dark doorway for a moment before she runs in too, but her familiar face is less familiar now. Because Stef never worries about anything.

  “Marvin just ran past us and said you’d be fine. At least I think that’s what he said. He’s pretty wasted. What the hell was he talking about?” Stef gazes around the room then, her eyes wide. “Holy shit.”

  “We did sparklers!” says Fern. “And we threw our marshmallows into the fire and they exploded! But I ate some too. They tasted like clouds, I think. And the fire was hot but I didn’t let it get me. Then we went to Marvin’s beach but Auntie Stef found us and said we weren’t being safe. We were playing too close to the water and the water isn’t safe at night.”

  The twins barrel in then, followed by Sammy.

  He leans against the door frame, huffing and puffing. Then he gapes around the room too, taking everything in. “Wait a minute. Holy shit. I thought they didn’t have kids.”

  “They don’t.” Ruth strokes Fern’s hair. “But they did.”

  She is about to tell them that his name was Alex, but she keeps that detail to herself. It wouldn’t help anyone if they knew it anyway.

  Stef walks over and sits next to her, and heaves the backpack onto the bed between them. “We were looking for you and I saw this under your chair and I was like, When does she ever leave that behind? And then I texted you about Fern and you didn’t text me back, which was even weirder. That’s when I started freaking out.”

  Isabelle and Amelia are examining Alex’s toys now, holding them up and turning them this way and that, and Fern wanders over to join them.

  Ruth sits up and pulls the backpack onto her lap. She looks at Stef. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Mama!” Fern calls, holding something up. “I found your phone!”

  “Thanks, honey,” says Ruth. “I don’t need it now.”

  Stef looks at the phone, so far away from them, and back to Ruth. “How—”

  Ruth shakes her head.

  “Why do Marvin and Lesley have all this little-kid stuff?” says Isabelle. “It’s dumb for adults to have this stuff.”

  “I thought he was harmless.” Stef reaches out a shaky hand to smooth some hair out of Ruth’s eyes.

  Ruth had wanted to do that for her too once, when Stef was lying on the hospital bed and Ruth was holding
Fern, and James was standing beside them with the biggest smile.

  After Fern was born she let out the loudest wail, and Ruth and James cried too. She was a mother now and he was a father, and what a wonder that was. And their baby was crying so much and whoever knew that could be such a good sound, and they leaned against each other and wept with her, marvelled at her. The miraculous reality of her. Here was their daughter, who had finally stayed.

  Ruth had wanted to place her cool hand against her friend’s shining brow and push the damp hair away so Stef could see all of their gratitude. How big it was.

  But then Stef grinned around the room, taking everyone in, and when she had the attention of the smiling doctor and nurses and medical students and James, always James, she said, “Okay, who’s next? Stitch me up and get me some Gatorade and I’m good to go.”

  And they all laughed and laughed, and then Ruth joined in too. But her hand stayed on Fern, holding her tight.

  “Nothing happened,” says Ruth. “He just wanted to talk to me.”

  Stef pinches one of the zippers on the backpack and tugs it open and closed, open and closed. “You’re lucky, then.”

  Ruth hears the hardness in her friend’s voice, but then her own voice goes flat. “Marvin said you told him everything.”

  “But I didn’t.” Stef shakes her head, frowning. “I only told him about the end. I know you don’t like to talk about the beginning.”

  The night is warm and close, and the room smells like smoke. Sammy stands by the window looking out, and the two mothers watch their children play.

  “Actually,” Ruth says slowly, “I don’t like to talk about any of it.”

  “Yes, because that’s the healthiest way to do things, isn’t it?”

  Ruth tugs at the quilt, wanting to pull it over her, but it’s stuck beneath them. “It didn’t happen to you.”

  “You’re right.” Stef nods. “Other stuff happened to me instead.”