Freddy wasn’t supposed to go into the woods alone. It was a rule she’d been ignoring since kindergarten. No one had ever tried to hurt her here.
It was cooler under the trees, but not by much. No one was in the woods. Freddy reached the bench and slid down onto it and curled up and squinched her face into her knees, and then she just cried for a long time. A crow gave a short, harsh caw from somewhere close, and she thought, Go away, and then, It’s not fair. Why can’t they just…? She didn’t think they would ever be able to just. It hadn’t always been like this. They had fought before, but everyone’s parents fought. It was this last year that had been all screaming and freezing and throwing things. Maybe the D-word wouldn’t be such a bad thing. No, that’s not true. They’re supposed to love each other. People could stop loving each other. Jonathan’s parents had, and Rochelle’s. But it’s not fair. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work.
She wrapped her arms around the backs of her knees and drew in a shuddering breath. She really hated crying like this, fighting not to make a sound while the tears streamed down her cheeks to pool on her thighs, but she hated crying the way Mel did more. All that noise was just embarrassing.
The crow cawed again. Freddy became aware she was not alone on the bench.
She wasn’t sure what she noticed first. She couldn’t have sworn the person hadn’t been there when she arrived; in fact, thinking about it afterwards, she was almost certain the bench had been occupied all along. But the cawing was a sound from outside her net of misery, and it made her notice other sounds, too, and one was the slight scrape of a foot against gravel, not far away. Freddy turned her head slightly without raising it from her knees and peered out through swollen eyelids and her mane of curly hair.
A woman was sitting on the other end of the bench. She was one of the things that would seem both fuzzy and sharp to Freddy when she thought about this day later on, perhaps because she had cried her eyes into a semi-functional state by then. There was nothing particularly unusual about the woman herself, but something was wrong with her clothing, which looked as if it had been through a shredder. It was, thought Freddy, pretty good clothing: the kind of blouse and slacks her mum wore to work, plus flats and a little green purse. Or that was what it had been until recently. Afterwards, Freddy would remember staring at the rags that the blouse had become and thinking about how the fabric looked almost new. The slacks were in ribbons. One of the blouse’s arms had been yanked almost entirely off, and the front of the blouse was gaping open, hanging together only by its two remaining buttons. Freddy twisted her neck a bit farther to the right, shifting her eyes up towards the woman’s face. The woman was gazing straight ahead of her, off into the trees, apparently oblivious to Freddy’s presence. She had dark brown hair, neither long nor short, that had also been through the shredder, then tangled into knots and shoved down over her face.
Freddy sat up, still blinking away tears. She couldn’t go to pieces with some stranger here.
At her movement, the woman spoke. Still staring into the woods, she said, “Have you ever had one of those days where everything goes so stupidly wrong that you find yourself saying every five minutes, ‘Now, this can’t possibly get any worse’? And then it does?”
Freddy edged very slightly away from her. She knew she wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. She didn’t like talking to strangers. Strangers always wanted to make conversation, and Freddy could never see the point.
“What am I saying?” The woman was still gazing raptly at nothing in particular. “The desperate crying indicates you’re having one of those days now. I sympathise, though if we had a pity party, I think I would win.”
“Your pants have a tear in them,” said Freddy. Even as the words came out, she knew it was a dumb thing to say. The woman’s pants were one giant tear.
“I expect they do,” said the woman. “There was a thing that happened just now.”
Freddy edged a bit farther along the bench.
Now the woman turned towards her. Freddy saw two bright eyes peering through the hair. “Your parents have told you never to talk to strangers.”
Freddy nodded.
“I don’t count,” said the woman. “I was sitting here already when you came howling through the trees. If I’d had a predatory intent, I would have joined you afterwards and promised to show you a puppy.”
“A pred…?”
“… atory intent. It means I drive around child-friendly neighbourhoods in a van with blacked-out windows and snatch innocents off the streets. Or it would if I did. You’re too young to be getting any of this, aren’t you?”
“I’m ten,” Freddy said indignantly. She hated it when people assumed she was Mel’s age. She knew she was too small.
The woman nodded. “I can see that. So why all the wailing and carrying on?”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“That’s why I’m interested.” The woman leaned forward. More hair fell into her face. It was beginning to bother Freddy that she didn’t just push it back. “I need a distraction from my own woes at the moment. You’re handy. Why were you crying?”
It was just an ordinary summer day, hot and still, with a lone bird calling in the trees. The moment Freddy would remember most acutely afterwards, however, was this one: the roughness of the bench, the woman facing towards her in a polite sort of way. The only other part of the memory with nearly the same power would be the bit with the key. But the one thing Freddy could never recall was why she answered the woman’s question. She knew she should just leave. Instead, she found herself saying, “My parents are getting a divorce,” and the tears started again. The crow cawed once more.
“Ah,” said the woman. “That would explain it. Do you think they shouldn’t?”
Freddy gulped back half a sob. “Yes. I mean, no, they shouldn’t. They’re my parents!”
“Your answer is somewhat lacking in logic,” said the woman. “I approve of it. Is there ever a better reason for not wanting two people who spend most of the time longing to drive steak knives into each other’s hearts not to get as far away from each other as possible? ‘They’re my parents’ is about as good as you’re going to get in this situation. Does crying help?”
“What?”
“Does it help?” The woman waved a hand in a lazy circle. “Does it make you want to sing show tunes in the street?” When Freddy just stared at her, she added, “Does it make you feel better?”