Chapter Thirteen
Sometimes, I needed to get out of the house and away from its stale stenches: the lingering aroma of last night’s dinner attempt or the artificial scents of the laundry. Of course, the outside didn’t smell much better. Suburbia had a scent so different from the farm. It was one of asphalt, exhaust, and lawn fertilizer.
You couldn’t smell the corn growing, the rain coming, the deer looking for a snack.
On the days when I found myself aching for fresh air, Wesley and I would go to the tree. Mama always said the fresh air would do us good. She said that about Georgie, too. Once his fever set in, she opened our bedroom window. The sheer curtains danced in the breeze, but no matter how much cool wind filled our room, no amount of fresh air could cure him. That’s when I stopped believing in the breeze, the breath of God that Mama claimed healed. But when healing never came, what else was I to think?
Even still, sometimes my body craved the outdoors. And Wesley seemed to understand. Most times he would bring paper and crayons so he could sit beneath the tree and draw. He wasn’t allowed to use my camera to take pictures, so instead he would sit and draw, making his own portraits of what he saw.
“Ready, Mama?” Wesley ran to the door, ready to pull it open, when I noticed his shoes. Despite having worked with him for weeks—months, even —the kid always put his shoes on the wrong feet. I didn’t know how it felt right to him. It seemed like he would feel the difference. I hesitated in
correcting him. It wasn’t like it really mattered what feet his shoes were on, but of course it mattered to Henry. He thought the boy should be taught right from wrong.
“Not yet, buddy. Wrong feet.” His shoulders slumped in protest. I saw the pout coming, and I certainly didn’t have the energy for a full-blown tantrum, so I reminded myself to soften the correction even though what I felt most like doing was snapping back at him, telling him to listen.
“Let’s fix this so you can run even faster.”
That seemed to do the trick. I bent down and fixed his shoes, but before I could stand, he looked at me, held his hands palms up, and said, “Do it, Mama.”
“It’s not bedtime,” I told him.
“Please?”
How could I resist?
“With a circle and a pat,” I began, using my index finger to trace a circle on his palm, “and a heart on top of that. I give all my love to Wes with not a single smidge less.”
“Again,” he said.
“Don’t you want to go make pictures?”
“Again.” I knew he wanted to get outside as much as I did, but I also knew he had a way of living in the moment, of not worrying about the past nor the future, but instead finding delight in the present. I decided to try the same.
“With a—”
He interrupted, “Faster.”
I obliged. And when he said faster and faster and faster, I sped up the rhyme until the words ran together and his shoulders shook with laughter.
When I stood up, Wesley finally satisfied, the room began to spin. I steadied myself on the wall, waiting for the dizzy spell to pass, hoping it
wouldn’t linger.
“Are you okay?” Wesley asked.
I saw the look in his eyes, the fear that something was wrong.
“Yeah, I just need a minute.”
“But what’s that?” Wesley pointed at the underside of my arm. I had to twist it to see what he saw. There was a lacy, red rash spread down my upper arm. I ran my hand across it, feeling the texture. It reminded me of the time that Henry and I went to the shore, a peaceful getaway in the sun, but by the second day, a rash had broken out across my arms. Henry told me it was sun poisoning—the light so bright it had sickened my skin.
“It’s nothing,” I assured Wesley. Perhaps the sun had caused it again, though I hadn’t spent much time outdoors since I’d gotten home from the hospital. Thankfully, the room had stopped spinning, so I swaddled Esther in her blanket and the three of us headed out the door.
Wesley tried to hurry me down the street, but my stride hadn’t returned to normal yet. I still took steps carefully, delicately, clinging to Esther, recovering from the husband stitch, still healing in so many ways.
I saw Bitsy’s house across the street and wondered what she was doing at that time. She probably had Katherine meticulously dressed and a matching ribbon tied in her hair. She had probably twisted her own hair into her typical updo hours ago. I don’t know how she tolerated that bun every day, so tight that it pulled at her temples. Maybe that’s why she smiled so much; her hair was pulled so severely it caused her lips to turn up.
My hair lay limp on my shoulders. I hadn’t put on my face yet that morning and doubted that I would at all that day. Henry had started getting the mail in the evening because I didn’t want to show myself in such a condition. Of course, his mother, and the etiquette book, would say that I needed to look my best for him. After all, he had been away all day, working to properly care for his family. The least I could do was meet him at the door
with a drink on ice, pearls around my neck, and a smile plastered across my painted lips. Then maybe he wouldn’t think anything of Alice.
Wesley knew the way to the weeping willow and ran on ahead, always going fastest past the Reilly house. He waited for me before taking my hand to cross the street. I remember when I had to reach for his, explain that he must hold mine, but now he did it out of habit and obedience, his warmth radiating into the palm of my hand. I squeezed his, not wanting to let go.
“Look both ways,” he said before announcing that it was all clear. He let go as soon as we arrived safely on the other side. Someday he’d cross the street without holding my hand, without me watching nor standing nearby.
Someday he’d hold my hand for the last time. Would I know the day when it came? Would I be able to recall that moment later even if I tried? Or would it blur together with so many other memories that would get pruned along the way, a heap of what my mind would deem unnecessary even if my heart would beg to differ.
He ran to our tree; that’s what he liked to call her, our tree, as if she belonged to us.
I settled beneath the drooping branches, rocking and swaying so Esther would rest, my body in a constant state of motion as long as it was standing. I considered sitting and leaning against the tree. I wondered if I closed my eyes, could I drift off to sleep? Of course I couldn’t. My mind couldn’t quiet enough for that to happen.
“Mama! Look!” Yook, that’s how it sounded. It seemed to be his favorite word. He was always saying it, always pointing to something that had caught his attention.
“LLLLLook.” I exaggerated the L as a reminder. Truth be told, I wanted him to go on saying yook for as long as his little tongue wanted to.
“It’s ants!” I nodded, delighting in his pure joy. “Look at all of them!
Climbing in a row!” He watched the black things march up the tree,
zigzagging their way through the rough edges of the bark.
I wondered what their journey must have looked like from their perspective. To us, the depth of the bark was shallow, but to them it was a valley, a deep crevice, perhaps like the Grand Canyon to humans.
“I’m gonna find the anthill!” Wesley announced before running off in search of the insects’ home. I wondered how far they traveled and how they always found their way back home. Without addresses and roads, they still seemed to know where they were going.
Then a girl’s voice called out, “I’ll help you look!”
I turned to see Katherine running toward Wesley, the ribbon in her hair flapping in the breeze as if it were a tail wagging behind her. I looked down the street, anticipating that Bitsy would be close behind, but I saw no signs of her.
“Katherine, where’s your mother?”
Children played unsupervised along our street all the time, but I had yet to see Katherine without Bitsy. And typically, Bitsy had her by the wrist, holding on as if she were a balloon that would float away if she let go.
With her attention on the anthill that she and Wesley had located, she offered only a shrug.
“Does your mother know where you are?”
Another shrug.
“Can she stay?” Wesley asked. I looked down the street, unsure of what to do. Had James followed after us, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
Nora wouldn’t mind, if she even noticed he was missing. But I didn’t know what Bitsy would think.
“Please?” Katherine asked. She really was a cute girl, with freckles across her nose and eyelashes I couldn’t help but envy. Our time there was limited, and I figured Bitsy probably knew where her daughter was. After all, a good
mother would.
“Yes, but we won’t be here long. We can walk home together in a bit.”
That seemed to satisfy the two of them, and soon Wesley invited Katherine to make a picture. They sat together and began drawing. Wesley sketched a mountainous anthill with a zigzagging line of spots marching to the top, while Katherine decided to draw her favorite insect: a butterfly.
The girl took her time with her drawing, carefully rounding the wings, trying to make them even before filling them in with a pink, blue, and yellow pattern. As they worked, I stood and watched, swayed and shushed. The breeze rattled the leaves overhead and the birds were extra chatty, calling to one another as they landed and lighted upon the branches. A chipmunk darted across the grass, sprinting into a neighbor’s yard.
As they drew, I thought of Bitsy’s overreaction the last time they had played together. And I also thought of that game Katherine had suggested with a taxi driver and a detective. Her aunt must’ve been quite sick if she was so worried about her that she’d created a game about her.
“How’s your aunt?” I asked, but Katherine didn’t respond. She looked at me, uncertain. “Wesley said she wasn’t feeling well.”
Katherine only shrugged. Perhaps she had made up the entire game, but I thought of how her parents had responded, how they looked at each other, so I pressed further. “I hope she’s okay. I’ve been worried.”
“She will be,” Katherine finally said, revealing that it hadn’t simply been a game. “That’s what Father says. And do you see this flutterby? We saw one just like it in our backyard the other day. Mother told me not to chase it, but I wanted to get closer. She doesn’t like it when I run. I used to run all the time.” She shrugged so matter-of-factly, saying it not as if it bothered her, but as if it was simply a statement of how things once were. “But things are different.”
“Do you want to run now?” Wesley asked.
“Wes, maybe she shouldn’t—” Before I could finish my sentence, they dropped their crayons and began running around the tree. I thought about stopping them, but then I saw how happy Katherine was. Perhaps Bitsy was one of those mothers who thought girls should look pretty and not be adventurous. How different my childhood would’ve been had my mother held that belief. I saw her smiling, heard her giggling along with Wesley, and I decided to let them be, to let the girl enjoy herself.
She laughed and ran for only a few minutes. Until Bitsy found us.
“Katherine!” Bitsy ran in those oxfords of hers, her feet hitting the pavement hard as her skirt swayed with every step, and Nora hurried behind her.
Bitsy darted past me to get to Katherine. “What have we said about leaving the backyard?” she asked as she looked the child up and down, making sure she was okay. “And about running?”
No longer giggling, Katherine’s eyes focused on the ground, her hands gripped in front of her. Instead of words, she responded with her typical gesture and shrugged her shoulders.
“She’s fine,” I tried to reassure Bitsy. “We came to get outside, and Katherine found us here. They were just watching some ants and drawing pictures.”
Bitsy didn’t say a word. She didn’t even look at me. She put her arm around her daughter and marched her down the street.
“What was that about?” I asked Nora as we watched them leave.
She pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit it. Between puffs, she said, “She’s upset.”
“The girl’s fine.”
“She didn’t know that.” Nora exhaled a line of smoke that curled toward me.
“How many times have our boys taken off to play? What does she think will happen?”
“Lulu.” Nora turned toward me. “She’s not us.” Wasn’t that the truth?
“You can’t take her kid without asking.”
My indignation rose, along with my pulse. “I didn’t take her kid.” I wanted to say more, but before I could, Wesley had walked up behind us, and besides, I was too tired to argue with Nora.
Instead, I took Wesley’s hand and went home. Wesley hung the drawings on the refrigerator, deciding he could take Katherine’s picture to her later. As I got sandwiches around for lunch, I looked at that butterfly, the pink mixing with blue and blended with yellow to make streaks of green in some places.
Her picture was so much more complete than Wesley’s. It had so much more detail to it.
She seemed like a good kid, though quiet. I knew the type. I wondered about her as I stared at her drawing. Her mother seemed to keep her so close, while her older brothers were off at school, even for the summer. Could I do that to Wes? Could I send him away like that? If I did, maybe I would cling to Esther, too.
A tickle ran along the underside of my arm. I scratched at the rash, thinking it had caused the tingle, but my finger felt a lump of something that moved on its own. I smacked at myself and an ant fell to the floor. I stomped on it for good measure, not wanting the intruder in my house.
As a shiver carried through my body, Katherine’s picture caught my eye.
Sometimes the late-afternoon sun trickled through that window, highlighting dust particles and causing reflections to dance. It was noontime. The sun was still high, and while daylight bathed the kitchen, the beams were not angled to play their tricks. Even still, I swear to you, as the ant flinched on the floor, the butterfly on my fridge wiggled its antenna. I know it didn’t happen—it couldn’t have—but as I finished getting lunch together, I felt it watch me as
heat prickled along my arms and a voice whispered through the noonday light, What did you really see?
