She pushed through brush and brambles, her shins and ankles brushing up against prickles with barely registered pain. She kept her eyes peeled around every corner as she wound her way deeper into the woods. When doubts about her safety began playing in her mind, she banished them, letting herself enter fully into her memories of past visits, of what it was to be here, of whom she used to meet there and the things they used to say to each other. There were the dreams and the whispers, the fights and the surrenders, the truths and the lies. She had been herself then, with him, but was that self a shadow of her actual self or the more realized version? Did life add to or take away from who we are at sixteen?
The path took her to the little ring of trees waiting there for her like old friends, their branches waving her over as if they’d been waiting all these years for her inevitable return. The breeze through their branches sounded like a sigh of relief. She slipped through the leaves to enter into a world apart, the place of shelter she’d run to so many times before. Their world, they claimed, hers and Everett’s. It existed just for them, and no matter what happened, they could always get back to it, hide inside it. She turned around, hugging herself as she looked up at the bit of sky visible from the center, the leaves otherwise blocking the visibility out or in.
That is what they’d loved about it, how utterly hidden they’d felt. At a time when they’d had no space of their own, this had been exactly what they needed: a place to slip from sight, to hole up and disappear together. In that space they could—and did—do anything they wanted. She’d lied to her parents so many times. She was going to Bryte’s, to the movies, to a party, to the library. But she came here. This place was the one place she’d always, always felt safe. Until she didn’t feel safe anywhere.
She shivered in the gathering dark, sensibility returning as she reached for her phone in her pocket just to be sure. She held it up to check the reception and thought of the news report she’d seen on the television her mother kept on in the kitchen all day. There was an interview with the lead detective on the case of a young girl who’d disappeared nearby. She’d started watching it with the concern of a parent before realizing the girls were there, both watching the same thing, their eyes round with horror. Pilar had looked at her as though she was uncertain why their mother had brought them to a place where little girls could disappear. She’d snapped the TV off despite her mother’s protests that the weather report was up next.
Now standing in the woods with darkness coming on fast, she thought about how far she’d ventured from earshot. No one could hear her if she screamed. Anyone could be in these woods. She wrapped her arms around herself and listened for danger. But all she could hear was wind, birds, and the rustle of the branches. What had happened before was over; she had nothing to be afraid of anymore. She forced herself to stand there a few seconds longer, and then she let herself leave, her steps out of the woods quicker than her steps in.
She returned home to find her mother alone on the porch, waiting for her but trying not to look like she was. Jencey folded her arms across her chest and waited for whatever she was going to say. She saw the concern her mother was unable to mask. Jencey held back from saying what she wanted to say, which was, I love you, and I’m sorry I stayed gone so long.
“Are you OK?” her mother asked. In the light from the bare bulb hanging from the rickety ceiling fan, she could see that her mother’s eyes had filled with tears. She blinked them away, but it was too late.
Jencey waved her hand in the air, reassuringly. “We’re OK.”
“Well, you know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need. The girls could even enroll in school.” She smiled. “I hear the schools around here are good.” The sentence seemed to have a question mark attached to the end of it, as if she were asking Jencey if what she’d heard was accurate. “I don’t know much about the schools anymore, now that I don’t have kids that age. Of course I guess they could’ve gone downhill. They’re always changing things around. Seems like something’s in the news every day about it.”
“I’m sure the schools are fine, Mom. Bryte wouldn’t have moved here if they weren’t top-notch.” She thought of the way Bryte looked at her son, like she was watching a continual miracle. “Trust me,” she added with a laugh.
“So you’ve seen Bryte?” her mom asked, trying—and failing—to sound casual.
“Yep,” she answered.
“That must be nice for you girls, together again,” her mom pressed.
“Sure,” she said. “We’ve talked some, at the pool.” Anxious to change the subject, she added, “The girls sure do enjoy having the pool. It’s made these three weeks go by fast.”
Her mother ignored Jencey’s attempt at a segue. “And it isn’t strange? With her married to Everett now?” Jencey thought of serious, intent Everett, begging her not to leave as if he could change anything that had happened, as if her father wasn’t already at the wheel of the car and her things weren’t already packed. For a while, even Everett hadn’t known where she’d gone, because he could have inadvertently let on where she was to the wrong person, a person who’d been growing increasingly bold and dangerous. She’d only had to look at Everett to confirm that.
“It’s fine, Mom. We’ve all grown up. Things change.” The way she said it, it sounded so simple.
Her mother was silent, thinking this over. Jencey rested her head against the knotty wood and listened to the crickets, cicadas, and tree frogs croaking out a summer serenade. In their previous neighborhood, there hadn’t been the sounds of nature, at least not that she could recall. They’d drowned out those noises with their sound system, their waterfall, their man-made ambience. Standing there listening, she thought that perhaps in attempting to give them everything, she and Arch had cheated their girls. She heard a shriek from inside the house, followed by a belly laugh.
“They seem good,” her mom said.
“They are,” she replied a little too quickly. “We all are.”
Her mother sniffed the air, and Jencey wondered what scent she was detecting. Her father’s pipe smoke? The charcoal grill down the street? The jasmine in the hanging basket or the magnolia tree in the yard or the gardenias in her garden? Maybe it was the baby shampoo her youngest daughter still used, innocence bottled. She didn’t ask, though.
“I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble here now,” her mother said.
“No, no, I don’t think so,” Jencey agreed.
“I’m glad you came back here,” her mother added, her voice tentative, almost cautious. “I think it was time.” Jencey sensed her mother’s discomfort around her; she felt it, too. They were relearning each other, having become basically strangers in their years apart. They no longer knew how to be around each other, so their conversations were awkward, infused with a strange tension that Jencey hoped would go away with time.
Her mother stood and began gathering the playing cards, still strewn about on the table. Jencey moved to help her, her hand falling on the ace of spades. Her mother rested her own hand on Jencey’s. There were age spots on the back of her mother’s hand that hadn’t been there when she’d left.
They stood there for just a moment like that, not speaking, their eyes locked in what Jencey assumed was her mother’s version of a promise. She would keep her safe. They would be OK. All the things a parent tells a child. Jencey knew this because she was a parent now. She knew the urge to protect, and she also knew that even when you couldn’t protect your child, you would still vow that you would.
LANCE