I shake so hard, my teeth clatter against each other. I’m standin nek-kid in the winter water, and I can’t do it for long. I command myself to put the jeans back on, crumpled atop the wanwood leafmeal. I only have two pair, and I need ’em both at night.
My gait is thick and wobbly, my girl parts split like a wild turkey’s wishbone. I reckon Mama would say I’m a woman now. I lean over into a bush and retch and retch. I pull a clean T-shirt off the line and fumble with the arm holes.
Afterward, I pretend I’m fingerin’ Dvorak’s Romance for Violin, usin the music to steady my breath. When that don’t work, I repeat the lines in my head, from beginnin to end and back again, only this time, I insert my own name.
Carey, are you grievin
Over Goldengrove unleavin ?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Carey you mourn for.
Against the walnut’s rough bark, the hatred slides down my face and my sobs are shardlike and stranglin. I pick up my pee coat and slide it on after pickin’ off chips of leafmeal stuck to the matted collar. I sit my butt right down on top of the metal table, reclaimin’ it.
Accordin’ to the watch, it takes twenty minutes for the violent shudderin’ to stop. That’s when I get up, knock on the camper door.
“Ness? It’s safe, baby.”
No response. I swear under my breath, catchin sight of the camper window, screenless and unlocked. I squeeze my head through.
I find Ness in the circle of my flashlight, her thumb stuck in her mouth and the cot’s thin blanket wrappin her up in a cocoon. Her legs are drawn up to her chest and she rocks back and forth, back and forth. She sees right through me, and it’s like she don’t hear me, neither. She don’t make one peep.
I scramble through the window and scoop her up in my arms and out the door. When we reach the river, I strip her bare. One dunk, that’s all she can handle, and then I wrap her back up in the blanket and sit her in my lap in front of the fire.
We watch her dress, the T-shirt, and our underwear curl into the flames, all reminders torched to ash in less than a minute. Her blond ringlets hang limply, all the light gone out of ’em. Droplets of creek water sit on her eyelashes, and she blinks them down her cheeks. When she’s warm again, I help her put on jeans and her sweatshirt, tyin the hood snug.
“He won’t be comin’ back, Nessa. You don’t have to worry.”
I reposition my legs beneath her, restin’ a hand on my shotgun.
Not a peep.
“I took care of it. I had to. Please say somethin’?”
I jump at the touch of my father’s hand on my shoulder.
“We’re here, Carey.”
I blink at him, seeing someone else.
“We’re here,” he repeats.
He pulls onto the scenic overlook and shuts off the truck, then comes around to my side and reaches out a hand to help me down. I make pretend I don’t see it, skin and warmth, not foreign or strange like it should be. But I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve the help.
“Here.”
He reaches into the truck.
“Put on your hat and mittens.”
I take my time, even though, at the sight of my trees, my heart leaps with joy. Will they recognize me, this girl of faux ermine and bedazzled jeans?
He follows behind me. I know the way home like I know the sky at night. It’s as if no time has passed.
When we reach our clearing, I stop, unsure for a moment. The fire pit is a charred black-and-gray circle, almost undistinguishable from the surrounding snow. The camper sags in its same old place, but looking much smaller and shabbier than I remember.
I rush ahead through the brush, leaving him alone for a good ten minutes as I make my way to the hollow tree. Scooping out the accumulation of snow, the metal glints through, and I pluck it out. I reckon the string still smells like Mama. I take a sniff.
“Carey?” He yells through the tiny window. “I’m already inside.”
Up close, I see the front lock of the camper’s been busted and the door handle juts at an odd angle. In the doorway, my eyes water as the fumes sting my nose. I reckon the fire isn’t that old. I stare at the ruins.
And then I remember. Frantic, I pull up the floor panel over the front left wheel, and it’s still there—Mama’s watch—passed down by my gran.
I used to pretend watches were like outside hearts, caring about our lives. I used to hold up the watch and say to Jenessa, “Even though she’s gone, her heart is still with us.”
Jenessa never met our Gran. She died during my third year in the woods. I used to wring my hands, imagining her driving by my parents’ old house, or back at her own, pushing aside the curtains to peep out the picture glass, watching for cookie-girl. Waiting for me.