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The earth’s cool on her hands. As her fingers dig in the dirt her knuckles cake with soil. It smells of minerals.
She sits on the ground. Or almost anyway, there’s a stray cushion from one of the patio chairs between her and the actual dirt. It’s not much, but it softens the edges and sharp corners of the rocks and pebbles embedded in the footpath between the rows.
She pauses from her task. Pulling and tugging- from the roots- you have to get the roots, otherwise…
She looks off and then wipes her brow with the backside of her wrist, careful not to smear in the sweat.
The sun hangs overhead, now. It’s climax- zenith.
The rhythmic tapping’s what turned her head. The Woodpecker is still there, drilling and boring into that old dead pine, finding use in the carcass of a long-paled tree. He’d meant to cut it down that spring- use it for firewood, he’d said. But her new friend found something they like, maybe grubs. He’s the pretty kind, with the tuft of red hair and a matching little beard. She can’t help but think it’s a he. It is a wood-pecker, after all.
His drumming bounces off the tree line and then echoes through the wide-open space. Threatening to subsume the softer, more melodic songs. There are Robins or a pair of Finches- she’s not sure- flitting or fighting over the Serviceberry bush at the base of the steps. Vines from the Hops are healthy this year and wrap and weave around all four beams of the gazebo. He’d finished it last fall, finally. Planing and carving, staining and sealing the wood him self, the wood he’d harvested. She’d watch from the house, keeping her distance. It was better from a distance. If she’d come too close he’d start lecturing her on all the things he was doing- why this; why not that; here, feel this groove. He loved to explain. Even the things she already knew. So she kept her distance. But marveled at the craftsmanship. He’d built it for her.
Her joints are stiff from crouching all morning. Her knuckles swollen and their creases filled with black dust. But there’s a certain relish to the pain, a sweetness that tells her she’s doing something. She’s still here. Her gardens need her.
She clenches her fists and pushes off. And then bends her back in the other direction, its stiff- the hunching has got to go. She shuffles to the end of the garden bed and then inspects the sundial. Careful not to shade she studies the iron disk. And then looks to the star and shakes her head.
“It can’t be before noon,” she says. And then remembers it was April when she’d set it. Months ago now since she’s adjusted the gnomon to match the axis of the earth- she’s in a new cycle. It’s late enough and the sweat trickling down her side says so.
She ambles back to the cushion, holding her back the while she bends to snatch it from the ground. In her other hand she’ll carry the small bucket with all her tools. The tiny shovels and trowels used to loosen and sheer the earth.
The fifteen cement slab steps that lead up the hillside to the house are one of her last trials. Before she pierces her placid lake to cut all sound and thought off. To be absorbed by something bigger. Deeper.
This was their favorite part of the summer; she muses, as she summits the steps, one stair at a time. During the early hours of their chores, as the day grew hotter, her promise of a cool dip had been enough to sweeten any toil or task.
She smiles to her self in the bedroom. She’d kicked off her sandals and then rinsed her grubby toes with the hose before she came in. “Don’t need to change,” she says aloud as she slides her torn and grimy work shorts off. She stands in her old black one-piece bathing suit. She’d realized years ago the trick was to work, in her bathing suit. Then all she had to do was slip her tan shorts off and wrap her towel around her- she’s ready for the lake.
She lingers on the threshold of her bedroom and hallway. In a reflex, she almost called up the stairs; Ready to go? But it’s just her. They’re grown.
And it’s been quiet most of the day, most of the days. They’ve gone now, off doing their things. Making their way. They don’t need me anymore.
The house is quiet without them. But isn’t this her time? Now that she’s made it to the other side she wonders, what’s left of her self from before? From before she metamorphosed into this a-sexual maternal being. Now that she’s all grey. Not much left of the old her, she thinks. But who was that old version? Maybe she never was.
He’s been gone all morning. But she can’t complain. They’ve still got years and years together, hopefully. And she’ll savior the mornings and afternoons when it’s just her. When it’s quiet, besides her winged friends.
She fills a water bottle and then makes a sandwich with leftover rye-bread heels, cream cheese and a plump cucumber. It’s the peak of their season and she’d picked it on the way up. She likes when the cheese melts and moistens the bread in the hour or two she floats.
He’d taken the car- running errands in town- but the truck is all she needs. It’s only a couple clicks down the gravel road to her secret alpine lake.
The windows are down and she smiles at the thought of what her youngest would say; “You gotta drive faster than the dust.” She nudges the pedal and then grins at the thrust of the old trucks horsepower. Still got it.
The washboards God-awful- and chatters her teeth as she rounds the penultimate bend. The lake comes into view. It’s pristine- placid. It’s one of her favorite words. Prudent, too. Not a swimmer or fisher in sight. Her heart flutters as she nears the water’s edge. The road describes the outline of the lake, or one side of it, anyway. The entrance is on the opposing end she travels from. So for about three minutes she’ll coast along the water’s edge. Imagining she’s somewhere else, someone else. Someone needed by more than her herbs and flowers- he needs her, too, she knows that. And can’t forget Woody.
` The dust catches up as she slows to turn into the dirt parking lot. She’s surprised to see two bikes, probably kids, off to the side with their kickstands up. She pulls all the way up to the sand, or almost. And parks in the shade of the last outstretched Cedar tree, next to the bikes. She sits in the truck with her door cracked as the engine clicks and then settles with the dust. She listens for voices, for the laughs or cries from the owners of the bikes. No ones on the dock. But when she gets out there’s a commotion. Water splashes in the creek off to the right that feeds into the lake. They must be playing in the shaded pools, she thinks. The summer canopy hides them from prying eyes. It used to be her kid’s favorite, too. They’d come running and yelping out of the bush one summer. Screaming bloody murder. Her heart had stopped until she’d seen the leech. The slimy phallic creatures were stuck to the inside of her daughter’s thigh.
She leaves her lunch in the truck. She has one thing on her mind now, and stops at the waters edge, letting her sandaled toes bathe in the freshwater ripple. She bunches her towel and tosses it on the floating dock, her sandals, too. She won’t need them.
She wades out. The cool water laps and rushes over her skin, cooling and prickling her dusty flesh. The chill of the water’s sharp, it catches her breath; she looks to the peak that slopes into the water, into the lake at the base of a mountain. The snowcap that’d been there till June’s finally gone. The melt’s still trickling its way to my grotto, she thinks.
She breathes deep, closes her eyes, springs down, and then launches forward with the balls of her feet. She breaks out of the water only to dive back in. Swallows her. Takes her whole being and absorbs it.
She overhand paddles out past the end of the dock. And then treads water a few meters off the starboard-bow. She looks below her; it’s clear to the bottom, about three meters. She floats there, spinning in place, soaking in the scene spiraling before her. The road she traveled is on the east side of the lake. The mountain is on the west.
She faces the North-shore, the truck and dock, and then leans back. Eyes closed until she levels out. Her breathing steadies. She’s floating now, without much effort. Her eyes open and it’s all blue. The corners of her vision tinge with the tops of trees and the peak of a mountain.
She paddles out, resting her eyes as she sails, supine, through the calm body of water.
The image of a hospital flashes. She’s in her scrubs, though, so she knows what to do. The baby’s not breathing, and the mother isn’t doing much better. ‘Help her!’
She’d known what to do; she’d been doing it her whole life. Saving lives- or at least trying to. Mostly babies. She’d loved working the NICU. The look in the mother’s eyes when she’d bring them in, swaddled in the blue hospital blankets that she’d bundled her own three.
She didn’t miss the high-stress, or the despair that’d follow when she couldn’t save a little one. She’d take care, one of the only nurses who didn’t mind, wrapping and dressing the little body. The mother would want to hold them. Say goodbye.
No, she didn’t miss that. What she did miss was being needed. Being the one that could make it all better. It’s what she’d been, prided herself on. She’d saved lives- tiny, little new ones. But sometimes they couldn’t be saved.
With rounded eyes she sinks to a treading position. Her head snaps about- a flutter of panic. But dissipates. She’s floated out this far before- never without meaning to…
In the center of a lake with the diameter of half a mile, she spins.
“Oh.” She spits water and then floats to her back. “It’s fine.”
This is her time. Her time to think and float, let her thinking float. The water’s quiet covering her ears. If she lies flat, equilibrium keeps the water out. But lets her thoughts in.
What am I now? Am I so old? What more do I’ve left?
She feels like Silverstein’s Missing Piece. Her youngest’s favorite, or, The Giving Tree, her daughter’s.
Nothing anyone wants. The cashier at the Burger Stop last week made that abundantly clear. He looked up from the cash register and scanned the faces waiting. The line was bungled; so she couldn’t blame him for that. But it was obvious she was next. She stood only feet from the till. But his vision bounced off her, repelled, she thought. And then landed on the teenager. She was cute, the teenager, so she couldn’t blame him for that, either. But his actions said enough; told her where she stood. Not that she was much confused about that. She’d known inching towards 50, and then she let her hair do what it willed. She’d put on weight, sure, but was the light in her eyes gone? That glimmer or promise of something more? Deeper? Was her spark so dull that no one cared to look?
A noise snapped her out of reverie. A deep, old sound. Primordial or atavistic-embedded in her psyche. Hard wired in her network.
It was a scream, a cry- a call for help that skated across the cracked placidity of her lake- distressed and young.
Her eyes try to focus, but the 300-meter distance affects only blurs. Her ears see clearly, however.
A hazy figure runs through the parking lot, just the one. But there are two bikes.
Before she’d made the decision she was cutting and pushing water over her body with powerful strokes. She moves the lake with her hands; with each thrust she gains ground.
After some time, she’s not sure how long; she rests and then squints to assess. The little figure is a bit clearer, bare chest, standing in the middle of the dirt lot, screaming. From what she can tell, Help.
Her head ducks under. She is the water, now. It slips off her back, smooth and fast like it is her natural medium.
She hears the cries- under the water- they’re muffled and shrill. But resound through her.
The only thing in her mind is eliminating the distance between her and the shore. The fresh water’s thinner than the coast she remembers swimming as a child. She has to fight harder for the same distance.
When she looks up again, the small body is gone. She freezes in the water, scanning the horizon, searching for her figure. She treads for a second until she hears the scream again, this time from the creek.
It’s been minutes since she heard the first scream and started back. The cries are horse now; there’s not much fight left in them.
She tries to do the arithmetic- if it was a lack of breathing, how long could she take? The thought speeds her, her arms burn.
By the time she looks up again the dock is within throwing distance. She heads for the corner, the closest land mass.
After every right-handed stroke she peaks up. A few more and she’ll feel it in her hand. She pushes hard and sails the last few feet. Her palm grasps the dock.
She never gets out this way. Usually she sails into the bay, until she can feel the golden sand between her toes. But she can run the last 30 meters faster than she can swim.
The burn in her arms is gone now. She grasps both edges of the corner, kicks the water with everything she has and then heaves herself up. The wood splinters in her skin, ripping her suit. But she’s up now, on her feet, running down the floating dock.
She yells. She’s not sure what she yells, but she calls for the small body she’d seen. Calls for the distress and fear she’d heard while floating in her lake.
They don’t need to scream anymore, though, she knows where they are.
The sharper rocks and sticks of the parking lot tare her bare feet.
She knows he’ll help soak and care for them that night. But right now she’s thrashing through the under-brush on the worn footpath down to the creek. She’d followed her kids down many times. She knew the path.
But they weren’t in the pool. That cool shaded area of the creek bed that the water filled in the summer, another, private little grotto.
“Where are you?” she calls. Softer this time, she doesn’t want to scare them.
In the silence of her search there’s a whimper around the bend. They’re farther along- the culvert pipe up the creek. She’d forbid her children from playing there. Sharp rusty corners and a narrow passageway that water could rush through any minute- cutting off oxygen and light.
It’d been too long by now, she knew- if it was a lack of breathing.
A small boy, about seven or eight she’d say, came into view. She’s good at ages, especially in kids. His voice is raspy and horse and his cheeks, swollen and tear-stained. There’s a girl, nine or ten, slumped on her side with her head resting on the muddy creek bed.
She told the boy his sister was going to be okay as she checks the girl’s airways for obstructions.
The girl was light to pull out and then she made sure the boy wasn’t hurt.
“What happened? What happened to your sister?”
She began chest compressions. The underdeveloped ribcage was small in her hands.
And then the girl sputtered.
She’d known she couldn’t do much more. The first aid kit in the truck is for minor cuts, scrapes, and burns. It says so on back of each individually wrapped item.
She’s flying down the gravel road, now. Luckily, she’s sped these bends in the snow, gaining momentum to mount the last hill. The hazards are on, she only wished she had a siren. It’s a twenty-minute drive to town. The nearest hospital.
The boy is crying. The girl, thank god, is shallow breathing. She’d pressed hard on the little chest. Then she’d spit up- the girl- water. Aspirated. Coughed, and then cried.
She knew she didn’t have much time, that’s why she swerved around the mini van on the double solid line.
Dry drowning.
“It’s okay, we’re almost there, Hun,” she says, in a level maternal calm. The same calm she’d developed through years of child rearing and neonatal care. “I’m here- it’s gonna be okay.”
The girl was sprawled on the single bench in the truck. Her head rested on her brother’s lap in the window seat.
The little legs curled and pressed against her thigh washed all her insecurities- these little bodies need her. Maybe they won’t forever, but for now, it’s the only thing that matters.
The girl’s breathing is shallow and ragged- wet.
But she is breathing.
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