Stork (17 page)

“Can I get you something, honey? I made a casserole.”

“I’m not hungry. I think I’ll lie down.”

Though it was probably only about six p.m., I brushed my teeth, dressed in my warmest pajamas, and pulled the bed covers to my chin. My mom sat at my desk chair. At first she fiddled with the pens and pencils in the desktop mug, asking me if I wanted extra blankets or Tylenol. Then she started to explain the events of that fateful day.

“It was two days after Christmas. You were so thrilled to go skating outside. We usually visited in the summer, so the snow was very new and exciting to you. Amma gave you a pair of my old skates. You, of course, insisted on a proper skating outfit to go with them, so she dug up an old red woolen coat of mine from the attic. It came to your knees and had a matching fur-trimmed muff. She also found you a diamond-patterned knit hat that had pom-poms on strings, which I remember bobbed up and down as you spun around the ice.”

My mom exhaled and crossed her legs. Her eyes were distant. It was as if she were transported to that moment and reporting back, a kind of play-by-play. I felt very small and far away listening to her.

“You’d had lessons at the rink in Culver City, so you could do a few spins and turns. It had been cold for weeks already. The first snows had come in mid-November and were still on the ground. All the local kids were skating. They assured us it was safe. Amma and I sat on a bench watching you. Afi was at the store that day. And then Amma’s feet got cold, so we decided to wait in the Buick.”

I felt fingers walk down my back. They needed filing. The image she was painting was so vivid. I remembered my mom calling out to me that they would be in the car. I pictured Amma in her short little black boots, dark nylons, and plaid coat trudging through the snow. It was all coming back to me:

“I remember now. I didn’t know any of those kids. They weren’t very friendly. One big kid almost knocked me over, so I moved to an area of the lake where I could be alone. It was just on the other side of some orange cones. I did a jump, and a girl in a blue hat called me a show-off, so I skated a little farther away. I remember falling through. And I remember the cold. More than anything, I remember the cold.”

“Honey, if this is too much for you . . .” My mom must have heard the strain in my voice. She stood and came close to the bed, laying a hand on my forehead. “Don’t struggle. Don’t try to force it. If I remember anything from the therapist, it’s that the mind needs to deal slowly with trauma.”

I was suddenly very sleepy. “Mom,” I managed to say. “Is the accident why we never came back here? Why you went alone to Amma’s funeral?”

“Yes.”

“Not because Dad hated it here.”

“No. Certainly not. He didn’t hate it here.”

I rolled onto my side. My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. “I really, really miss Dad.”

The last thing I remember is my mom looking down at me with a tenderness so keen it seemed to pulsate.

The baby cries, and I know instantly that I must find her. Obligation tears at my heartstrings. Is she hungry? Sick? Lonely? I start one way, only to be driven back by a gale. I try again, but a coil of wind spins me around so I face the other direction. Confusion wracks my brain. Which way toward the baby? She cries again, and I’m sure it comes from in front of me. Yet the next cry originates, I’m certain, from behind.

A gust lifts me off my feet and hurtles me down the path. The wind is in charge. I have no choice but to bend to its will. I feel its icy fingers under my arms, urging me along. I feel its hoary breath whisper in my ear, “Hurry. Hurry, Katla. Or it may be too late.”

I run and soon realize I am barefoot. The path transitions from hard-packed dirt to jagged rocks. Each step is pure agony, but the wind is insistent. At times it carries me over the path, and for this I am grateful. At times it sets me down hard, and I wonder if it’s laughter I hear echoing through the trees that tower on either side of me. Something wet now covers the surface of the piercing stones. I turn and discover red footprints behind me. I think crazily that I’m being followed, until I realize, with resignation, that I’m trailing myself.

The bleat of the child pierces the air. I am headed in the wrong direction. A trick of the wind! The cry came from my right. I must fight this storm. I know with certainty that I will do whatever it takes to find the child. Obligation fuels me. I will endure and defeat what comes between me and the baby. I release a sound so primal, so guttural, it could only be described as a growl. I glance into the thickest of forests. How could trees grow so densely? Can I even squeeze between them? I step from the path, shimmying between two thick trunks of coarsely textured bark. My coat, my lovely red coat, catches and rips. My hair, braided in two perfect plaits, pulls and tangles as twigs with spindly fingers crowd around my head. I push between tree after tree, as they seemingly tighten ranks.

The forest floor is strewn with sticks, and leaves, and acorns. I feel every jagged edge and pointy length radiating in pain up my ankles and calves. Soon the ground levels. It is ice, as smooth as glass, so slick I slide across its surface, and it is cold. Too cold. The pain travels up to my knees and thighs. Where are my boots? Where are my pretty white skates? My teeth chatter, and my shoulders rock with chills. To stop would be unthinkable; continuing, impossible.

Just then the terrain changes. I am on a decline. A solid frozen chute. I manage to stand for a minute, but then I fall hard on my backside. I fall and fall and fall.

With a crash, I am in the clearing. Jaelle and Monique sit atop their coarse chairs, unaware of my arrival, unaware of anything but the baby, who babbles contentedly in her earthen cradle. This time, the infant wears a wreath of bright-orange marigold blossoms.

I hear a rustle in the leaves to my right. I watch as my mother steps into the clearing. Her hair is a bird’s nest, so snarled I almost don’t recognize her. She fusses with the tangles, her fingers catching in the knots, clearly bothered by the disorder. And I realize that she, too, has fought the wind in her journey to this spot. She then approaches one of the chairs. I watch as she stares with curiosity, examining the interesting texture. She runs her fingers over the corrugated bark. She tests the seat, scooting to the left, then right, before leaning against the whittled backrest. She reaches an arm behind her, lifts a rug of sod from behind the trunk, and drapes this cloak of clover-green grass over her shoulders. She’s in the same predicament as Jaelle and Monique, in some sort of meditative state. The baby continues to gurgle, happily, batting at dandelion fluff as it dances above her head and still gripping the curls of vine, even with her tiny toes. A bit of fluff floats in my direction and tickles my nose as it descends. I stretch to swat at the seeded parachute and find it wet and cold. Snow blankets me suddenly, and I discover, alarmingly, that my limbs are frozen. I attempt to yell across to my mother, but by then, I’ve also lost the use of my voice.

I woke with a start. OMG. My mother. How could that be? She was too old, wasn’t she? Thirty-eight. She’d had me at twenty-two, senior year of college, six months after marrying. My birth was a feat my parents had never been able to duplicate, try as they might.

If the events of yesterday hadn’t been trauma enough, this newest discovery plunged me into a deep funk. I lay in bed for a very long time. I was aware of the clock sounding out seconds, but I couldn’t rouse myself — not for a shower, though my hair was matted to my head — not for food, though my stomach growled angrily. There was something else about the dream that was incredibly clear to me now. The maternal instincts I experienced were so brutish — I was the mama bear. Nothing and no one could have stood between me and the baby. I shuddered, realizing that Jack and I had been in mortal danger. Given only a split second to decide between lunging in our direction or toward her charge, the bear went the cub’s way. What would have happened had we stood between them? How much could my guardian eagle have helped then?

It was all so much to deal with. I could barely keep the events of the last few days in chronological order, never mind make sense of them. And now the idea of my mother as a vessel was heaved to the pileup of brain junk, clogging neural pathways and blocking the flow of information.
No way,
I thought.
Not my mom!
And then it came to me. No way. Not my mom. I had some control here, didn’t I? Not only was I on the steering committee of this decision, I was chairman, wasn’t I? Just then, my mother knocked softly on my door and opened it slowly.

“How do you feel this morning?”

“Exhausted.”

“What about school? Are you up to it?”

The thought of shuffling from class to class was unbearable. It felt trivial. And I had more important things to occupy my mind. Then I thought of Jack. No school meant no Jack. And though I felt my Stork duties were coming to some sort of thunderous head, I wanted to see him.

“I think I should go. That English paper is due.”

My mom bit her lower lip. “If you think you’re up to it.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I walked across the wide expanse of lawn that fronted the school. The brick courtyard was teeming with kids, and I found myself anxiously looking from one group to another, seeking out Jack’s profile. I realized, too, that I’d done this every morning since that first stupid argument at Afi’s store. A subconscious memory? Realization of a connection? Something fluttered in my tummy. And then I spotted him, sitting on one of the low brick walls that edged the courtyard. All alone and obviously waiting for something, or someone. I advanced, unable to keep my smile in check. He got the full flash, gums and all. I was trying to think of something witty or clever to say. It seemed to be a pivotal moment. As I came close to him and opened my mouth — having decided to go with a simple “good morning,” unable to come up with another coherent greeting — his long arms stretched out and pulled me into an embrace so crushing and intimate, I may have whimpered just a little. He then released me enough to look deeply into my eyes before he lifted my chin with his right index finger and kissed me quickly, but hungrily, on the mouth.

“Great morning,” he said.

Dang, he even one-upped me there. “Best ever.” I was instantly proud of my reply, which was, I thought, an artful mix of clever, encouraging, and game-on. Yay, me. Though the whimper was worth a demerit or two.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t show. Would be too . . . tired or something.”

There were definitely a bunch of somethings going through me right then. My arms and legs had turned to quivering, utterly useless attachments. And my digestive system was going through some sort of emergency evacuation drill. “I wanted to be here today.” I couldn’t believe how breathy I sounded. Ugh. “Plus, I have an English paper due.”

He laughed, a sound I could definitely get used to. The first warning bell rang. “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand. “You’ve got a paper due.”

And I thought I’d been an object of curiosity on my own. That was nothing compared to the spectacle that Jack and I holding hands created. Jaw-dropping, traffic-stopping, bug-eyed stares. I was in a tug-of-war between pride and embarrassment. The only thing keeping me from splitting in two was that, judging by Jack’s own glowing smile and viselike grip on my hand, he was enjoying himself.

He led me straight to the door of my first period class, English, and I wondered how he knew my schedule. And then I plumped upon realizing —
he knew my schedule
. Class was torture. Besides turning in my paper, I had no clue what transpired or what we discussed. I did or did not participate. I really couldn’t say.

Jack appeared at my side, almost magically, after English. He hooked his arm around my waist and my right hipbone popped into place. I actually heard it. It’d been misaligned my entire life. It’s a wonder I’d ever been able to walk.

He dropped me off at Social Studies, where we started a new unit. I only know this because we’d finished the old one the Friday before and had been tested. I vaguely remember turning pages in a book, my finger trailing over a picture of some place. Or was it a person?