Fern keeps her eyes on the ground. Her hands fan out around her, drawing elaborate designs. Surrounding herself with curlicues and swirls and zigzags. “Because of me?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Ruth kneels next to her. “Because of you.”
“But why didn’t she keep me?”
“What do you mean?” Her head is foggy and sore, skewered with hangover, and she shakes it to bring her daughter’s hazy form into focus. “Because you’re mine.”
“Because she already had Amelia and Isabelle?”
“No, Fern.” Ruth swipes a hand roughly at the corners of her eyes, then places her palms down on the sand. “Auntie Stef had you for me, and Daddy. You were always going to be ours. We told you this.”
“You didn’t.” Fern is finally looking at her now.
There is something so familiar about her little face, something Ruth sees in the mirror when she really looks at herself. The crease in her brow when she’s confused or annoyed. Three little lines. Why didn’t she notice it before?
“Daddy told you,” Ruth murmurs. “I didn’t. You’re right.”
“You never did.”
Ruth had lain very still in her and James’s bed that long-ago night, listening to his faraway voice on the monitor telling their daughter that she was a gift from Auntie Stef, who had grown Fern in her tummy until she was ready to meet Mommy and Daddy. She was the best present that Mommy and Daddy had ever been given, and they were so grateful.
Ruth had pulled the blanket up, securing it around her neck the way she’d done when she was a kid, so only her face poked out. Less surface area for the monsters that way. She had waited for Fern to ask him what was wrong with Mommy’s tummy? Why couldn’t she grow in there? But she didn’t. She just said, “Okay,” and went to sleep. Ruth curled up under the covers and listened to James easing himself off of Fern’s bed and stepping quietly out of her room and closing the door. He stayed at the other end of the apartment and Ruth stayed in bed, and after a while she fell asleep too.
In the morning, the truth was there, but Fern just smiled at her parents and ate her cereal. So Ruth never talked about it at all.
The sun warms her shoulders. It radiates all over, filling her with light and heat. Loosening her limbs and making it easy to sit down next to her daughter and look right at her, and say in a clear and steady voice, “I’m sorry.”
Fern nods. She studies a pink pebble, turning it around and around until she spots some imperfection and then flings it away.
At the cottage with her parents, Ruth would spend hours examining rocks on the beach. Admiring their smoothness and colour and degrees of shininess. She always wondered where they’d all come from. How did they end up there, with her?
Her daughter is silent for what feels like a long time, digging in the sand again. Then she stops and leans against Ruth and says, “It’s okay, Mama.”
Ruth leans in too, collapsing around her. She says something that sounds like, “Thank you,” but it’s just a noise, the feeling instead of the words, and then Fern is showing her something, holding up the amber shard proudly and waving it in the air. “Look! Treasure!”
The piece of Ruth’s broken beer bottle gleams. The one piece Marvin didn’t find, and he tried so hard.
“It’s pretty, sweetie, but you should put it down. I don’t want it to cut you.”
Fern listens to her, and then her lower lip wobbles. “Pick me up.”
“Okay,” says Ruth, and all of the movements are so practised and familiar that she’s barely aware of them as they happen, but she tries to pay attention now: knees bending, hands gripping, knees straightening, biceps flexing, hip jutting out. Then her whole body relaxes as the small arms and legs wrap around her.
She pictures a baby girl curled up in her dark hiding spot, smiling, and then closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.
We would’ve given you a name, thinks Ruth. We couldn’t think of the right one, but we would’ve thought of it eventually.
They stand there together by the emerald lake, under the clear blue sky and the wild, yellow sun. In the distance, toy boats patrol the horizon, trying to do something good.
“I saw him, Mama,” Fern whispers, close to her ear. “I saw him go into the water like the Bog Princess.”
Some neighbours had found Marvin’s paddleboard in the morning, washed up on the shore by their dock.
“Was he wearing a life jacket?” Ruth asks. Hope edging into her voice.
“No.” Fern shakes her head, slowly. “He was not being safe.”
A shadow flies over them, and then there are more. The gulls are frenzied, fighting over something, and the air fills with their screaming before the flock breaks apart and soars away.
Marvin had disappeared by the time Sammy reached the shore. When Ruth got there a few minutes later, hopelessly out of breath, Sammy told her to tell Stef that he’d spend the night on Marvin and Lesley’s couch. A few of the partygoers had arrived by boat, so he was staying behind with some of those guests to go out looking on the water.
Ruth only vaguely remembers the bumpy car ride back to Stef and Sammy’s cottage, all of them silent with the night pressed against the windows and the dark forest reaching for them.
Lesley was deep in her drugged sleep, impossible to wake, so Stef had found the keys to Marvin and Lesley’s car and drove Ruth and kids home, slowly and very carefully. Ruth sat in the back with Fern on her lap and the twins sitting on either side of her, and none of them were strapped in. Their seat belts dangled uselessly, far away from their buckles. There was no one else on the road. “We’ll bring the car back in the morning,” Stef said, mostly to herself. “We’ll see everybody in the morning.”
Ruth dimly remembers Stef parking and the car doors opening and closing, the two families walking together across the lawn and up the steps and into the cottage and then going their separate ways without a word. Ruth went downstairs with Fern and tucked her in, and they both fell asleep in their own beds.
She doesn’t remember what she dreamed about.
But she remembers a moment. After she and James came home alone from the hospital.
James had called Stef on the way, and she was waiting on the steps outside their apartment. She stood up when she saw them, and her eyes were so sad.
And Ruth went to her. She walked into her friend’s arms, and they were warm and strong when they wrapped around her.
“It’s all right,” Stef whispered to Ruth, even though she knew it wasn’t. But it was the right thing to say.
James stood next to them awkwardly for a minute or so, holding the overnight bag that they hadn’t needed, and then he went inside.
The sun was shining and the day was hot and it was just the two of them, like it had always been. Holding on to each other while the birds sang around them, and it was really good.
And then it wasn’t. But there were moments.
And there is Fern.
“Marvin was so sad,” she tells Ruth in a reverent hush, a secret she’s finally confiding. “I wanted to invite him to my birthday party. He could have some cake and we wouldn’t have any squishy pie.”
Ruth sighs and reaches up to stroke her daughter’s soft, yellow hair. “Who else would you like to invite?”
“All of my friends.”
Ruth smiles. “That sounds good.”
“And all the kids in my class.”
“That’s a lot of kids, honey. And you might not like them all.”
“Nope,” says Fern. “I will.”
“Okay, we’ll see.” Her daughter is getting heavy, but Ruth keeps holding her tightly. “How do you feel about school starting? Are you worried about it?”
“I don’t get worried. I want my cake to be vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles.”
Ruth laughs. “Noted.”
Fern starts counting with her fingers. “We have to invite Nanna and Poppy and Grandma.”
Ruth’s smile wavers, but she nods anyway. And sends some
extra love to her dad, who would’ve been such a wonderful grandpa.
“And Daddy and Auntie Stef and Uncle Sammy and Amelia and Isabelle.”
“Of course. They’ll always be invited.” Ruth pauses, listening to the silence she’s made. It’s full of distance and absence and relief. And a closeness that’s been right in front of her all this time, waiting. (Knock, knock.) “No matter what.”
Fern looks at her. “And you, Mama. I want you there the most.”
“Oh.” The word falls out of her, and she doesn’t trust herself to say anything else yet so she just kisses Fern on the cheek and stays there for a moment.
Her daughter’s skin is impossibly soft, and sticky from something. And her breath is sweet, probably from some illicit frosted breakfast treat that Stef let her have on the sly.
It doesn’t matter.
She blinks back the tears because she won’t let them come. Not yet. She takes a shaky breath and says, “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Can we please go swimming now?” Fern asks again.
Ruth bends down and lets go of her daughter, and this time she says yes.
“Yes!” Fern echoes.
The two of them stand beside each other, one little and one big. The trees are filled with singing birds behind them and the lake is wide open in front of them.
Then Fern reaches up and grabs her hand, and Ruth holds on as they walk to the water together.
And when they’re almost there, they start to run.
Acknowledgements
I’M GRATEFUL FOR THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT I RECEIVED for Worry from the Ontario Arts Council through their Recommender Grants for Writers program (and thank you to the publishers who recommended my work).
My heartfelt thanks:
To all of the readers, librarians and booksellers (with an extra shout-out to the phenomenal independent bookstore folks).
To my exceptional editor Jennifer Lambert, for your invaluable suggestions, super-precise edits and staggering insight. From our very first meeting and throughout the entire process, you’ve connected with this story and helped me to clarify exactly what I wanted it to do, and then got me there. Thank you for the tremendous care you’ve taken with Worry. It’s been such a joy to work with you.
To Patrick Crean for seeing a spark in an early draft of Worry, for our coffee meetings that buoyed me up and for guiding me from chamber music to the symphony.
To Karmen Wells for her notes on Worry that made me grin wildly, to Suzanne Sutherland for her excitement from the start and to Iris Tupholme, Lisa Rundle, Michael Guy-Haddock and the rest of the incredible HarperCollins Canada team for their dedication and their wonderfully warm welcome. I’m grateful for Catherine Dorton’s copy-editing wizardry, Jess Shulman’s meticulous proofreading, Natalie Meditsky’s stellar production editing and Jaclyn Hodsdon’s dazzling publicity work. For gorgeous typesetting and the perfect cover, many thanks to Alan Jones.
To Sam Hiyate for helping me develop this story, for giddy texts back and forth and for being in my writing corner from the very beginning.
To my dear first readers. Without their ongoing encouragement and brilliant feedback, I never would’ve figured this book out. A bazillion thanks to: Shannon Alberta for our magical phone chats and for energizing me the whole way along; Teri Vlassopoulos for sharing my glee and for early motivation at a sunny picnic; Sara Heinonen for uncanny perception up above the city and in the garden; Grace O’Connell (lit-wife extraordinaire) for shedding light early on at a candlelit Bellwoods Brewery; Kelli Deeth for Thursday-night insight over beers at our spot; Ali Lamontagne for her marvellous art and for being my fellow Fool; Robin Spano for uplifting literary gab sessions and belly laughs; Jim Munroe (Hoity King) for many years of thoughtful critique and sage advice at Buddha’s; Neil Smith for wisdom and boundless championing.
To Val Quann for her excited reading and encouragement.
To Dharini Woollcombe for her generous reading and support.
To Meg Wolitzer for stick figures at brunch, inspiration at the Ritz-Carlton and for helping to make my outline sound like something out of The New York Times.
To Zoe Whittall for her moving endorsement and her wonderful writing.
To Ann Ireland for seeing the teacher in me and for “no fiddle-faddle.”
To Kelvin Kong for early encouragement and legendary Lahore Tikka House pilgrimages.
To the Salonists for brilliance and guidance and friendship. Special thanks to Maria Meindl and Elizabeth Ruth.
To Conan Tobias, who published an early excerpt of Worry in Taddle Creek, and who has been cheering on my writing since the days of “Steak and Eggs.”
To Andrew Pyper and Elisabeth de Mariaffi, whose beautifully spooky novels inspired me to write my own version of a scary story.
To the editors who heartened me with the interest they showed early on, especially Kiara Kent, Jen Knoch, Bryan Ibeas and Hermione Thompson. And to Scott Fraser for the most amazing reader’s report that was instrumental in helping me fix a lot of what was wrong.
To Jen Noble for falling down with me in alleyways after long-ago spicy falafels, and for sharing elation and dejection throughout.
To Jasmine Macaulay for cheese Danishes during Psychology and Oja after the Varsity, and for being there for the highs and lows. And many thanks to Dr. Viren Naik for the medical fact-checking.
To Steve Sakamoto for never giving up on my long-abandoned high-school sci-fi tale about world-weary cowboys tasked with wrangling ornery lab-grown meat.
To Brittan Ullrich for saving me with her nursing knowledge, and for that breathless talk about plot over mini-pizzas.
To Karen Becker for reassuring advice and celebratory tea.
To Amy Silverman for morale-boosting and popcorn.
To Sheryl Faith for her eleventh-hour rescue.
To Kate and Nousheen, dearest freighbours.
To (Aunt) Betty Dick, for cheering me on since I was a baby with a bottlecap on my head.
To my cousin (Auntie) Kate Barton, for (among so much else) an excellent talk on an airplane with a much-needed tiny bottle of wine.
To my cousin Don McKellar: rinkrat, international explorer and champion pick-up-sticker.
To (Great) Aunt Lori for her love and support and strength.
To Grandma (Great G-G) Marion for being famous in McDonald’s, for all that she’s taught me and for endless love.
To Klaus (Opa) Wuenschirs, Jane (Yia-Yia) Wuenschirs and (Uncle) Jason Wuenschirs for all of their love and support.
To (Uncle) Cameron Westhead and (Aunt) Marcella Campbell for all of their love and for cheerleading with the kitties.
To my dad, Tim (Poppa) Westhead, for showing me the stars (above us and onscreen). To my mom, Linda (Grandma) Westhead, for always waiting for me to end our hugs first. To both of you, for always believing in me.
To Derek Wuenschirs for being with me through all of it, for consoling me and whooping with me, for never grumbling when I woke you up scribbling by flashlight in the middle of the night, for making me laugh, helping me be a better human and being the other half of the united parenting front I always dreamed of. I love you.
And to Luisa. For writing and reading with me, for being so patient when I disappeared into this story all the time, for fortune tellers and Crazy Eggs on the GO Train and other adventures, for making me laugh, helping me be a better human and always reminding the three of us to jump up and down on hotel beds. I love you. XOXO
About the Author
JESSICA WESTHEAD’s fiction has been shortlisted for a CBC Literary Prize, selected for The Journey Prize Stories anthology and nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her short stories have appeared in major literary journals in Canada, the US and the UK, including Hazlitt, Maisonneuve, Indiana Review and Hamish Hamilton’s Five Dials. She is the author of the novel Pulpy & Midge and the critically acclaimed short story collections Things Not to Do and And Also Sharks, which was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, a Kobo Best eBook o
f the Year and a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Westhead is a creative writing instructor at the Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University. She lives in Toronto.
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Copyright
Worry
Copyright © 2019 by Jessica Westhead.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Cover photo by Jake Olson/Trevillion Images
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition: SEPTEMBER 2019 EPub ISBN: 978-1-4434-5886-3
Version 08022019
Print ISBN: 978-1-4434-5885-6
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Recommender Grants for Writers program, administrated by the Ontario Arts Council.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request.
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