Counting Tadpoles

We were ten, maybe 12 years old when Richie Galanter and I finished a hot game of street handball. August in New Jersey was a sweltering oven and we were both dripping in sweat.

           “Wanna go to the creek?” Richie asked as he bounced the pink handball on the sidewalk. “We could count the tadpoles.”

           The creek was in the woods behind the school. It wasn’t deep enough to swim in but we could take off our sneakers and wade in to cool off. The trees were thick and it would be cooler there than sitting here on the sidewalk. We often went there and took turns looking for tadpoles. They swam in the pools of water made by the sand and rocks. Sometimes they’d get stuck when the level of the creek went down and we made it our mission to scoop them up and place the little frog babies in the center of the creek lest they get trapped in those little puddles and dry out in the afternoon sun.

           “Let’s go.”

           There wasn’t much to these woods, but as kids we thought it was a pretty cool place to hang out. The terrain was made up of small hills and dips lined with rocks and tree roots. The creek ran down the center of the woods. In just far enough that it couldn’t be seen from the school or any of the houses that surrounded this little piece of kid’s paradise. Squirrels and birds and other woodsy creatures were lurking in the brush, along with the tadpoles, frogs, and turtles that swam by our feet when we waded in. That’s where we were headed. Deep into the woods to our own special place.

           Rich and I walked and climbed and made our way down the muddy slope to the creek. We sat in the hollow of our favorite tree. A big old oak whose roots had been washed away on one side by the ebb and flow of the creek. In August the creek was at its lowest point so the roots bowed out in a kind of seat for two. We sat between the strong roots now and shed our sneakers, carefully placing them to the side before dipping our feet in the cool, clear water that edged up toward the tree.

           We were not yet at the stage where Rich could put his arm around me, but our shoulders touched and that felt good. Too innocent, too young, but I felt that shiver of excitement when we were this close.

           I miss those innocent days. Where things were thrilling and sweet at the same time.

           “School starts in 2 weeks,” Richie said. “We should be getting our class assignments soon.”

           “Yeah,” I said and watched the tadpoles dart in and out of the weeds in the pool by my feet. I held very still so as not to scare them away. “Six babies here.” I counted.

           “Did you get yours?”

           “Not yet.”

           “I hope we’re in the same class like last year.”

 “That would be great.”

We sat there for a while counting the little pollywogs wherever we could spot them. Some of them nuzzled up by our feet and then swam away. Were they looking for food between our toes?

“Look.” I pointed to a larger baby further out in the creek. “His legs are coming in.” This little tadpole had little limbs starting on his side which would soon be his froggie feet.

The air was cooler here in the woods, the creek water carried a bit of a chill, not warmed by the sun, hidden here by the bounty of trees above. I wriggled my feet deep into the sand and felt it slide between my toes. This motion scattered the tadpoles back into the weeds and I lifted my toes to watch the sand slide off again.

“I feel like this is our tree,” Richie said. “This tree fits us.”

“Our tree?” I said it like a question but I liked it. We had a tree of our own.

With that Richie pulled his pocket knife from his jeans. This was the knife his father had given him when they went camping last summer. Richie carried it everywhere. The handle was a metallic blue with his initials engraved on one side: RMG.

“Watch,” he said and stood to face the tree. With careful precision he began to carve.

So he didn’t drop any of the bark in my hair, I stood and waded out into the middle of the creek. The water was just above my ankles here and I could feel the gentle pull of the current. There were more tadpoles out here and on the opposite bank a frog leapt into the water with a plop. I watched it swim down with the flow of the creek.

“There,” Richie declared.

I looked up from my frog observations and saw the rough outline of a heart carved into our tree. The initials RG & MC were inside.

“That’s us,” I said dumbly.

Richie looked at me, uncertain for a moment then with some conviction said, “Yeah, that’s us.” Then he looked away quickly, back toward the heart.

I waded back to the tree and pressed my hand over our initials. “I love that.” Then, in a bold move, I reached for his hand and linked out fingers together.

Taking my other hand in his, Richie looked at me. “If we are ever separated by time or space promise me we will meet here in the year—” He looked around, then up toward the patches of sky winking through the trees. “2043.”

I laughed. “We’ll be twenty—”

“Twenty-nine,” he said.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be separated,” I said looking at the heart on our tree.

Richie gave me my first hug then, a boyfriend hug. So much different from when your mom hugs you. He wrapped his arms around me and I hugged him back.

And then he kissed me.

A gentle brush of lips, a little pressure before pulling back. Was he shy? Was I? Either way it was nice. Slowly, he leaned in again and I lifted my lips to his. This time the kiss was deeper and I felt a tingle all the way down to my toes.

We walked out of those woods that day hand and hand and I was in love.

The next day Richie and his family died in a house fire. And my heart broke.

I wept for weeks. It got so bad my mother talked about getting me professional help. She knew Richie and I were friends but I don’t think she knew just how close we were. Eventually I learned to just hide my tears from her. I’d cry in the shower where no one could hear or late at night, muffling the sound into my pillow. Even as the years passed the pain would sneak up on me even on the best of days. I’d hear something or see something that would remind me of Richie and the agony of loss would slam down on me again.

I never meant to go back to our tree because it was no longer ours without Richie. I told myself it was just another tree now. I kept the handball we played with that day on a shelf in my room. My last connection to Richie. Eventually it was moved to a box I kept of memories that I collected through our years together. We were young but knew each other since pre-school. I kept class pictures, notes we passed in school and his pocket knife.

A week after the fire I went to Richie’s house. It was just a burnt-out shell with caution tape surrounding it. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I needed to see it. To walk through the ruins and maybe try to feel a little closer to Richie. He died there and I wondered if his ghost or his soul or whatever we are when we pass over still lingered. A childish wish for connection, I suppose. Or maybe it was just for closure. A final goodbye.

The sun was barely up when I approached and a strong tang of smoke hit me as I drew closer. It hung around this blacked shell like a shroud. Looking at the remains of what was once my best friend’s home. I tried not to think of the horror that night must have brought to Richie and his family. I just had to walk through the remnants of what was his life and maybe find something. What that thing was, I did not know.

I ducked under the yellow tape and went over to where the front door would have stood. Now only charred two by fours where the frame used to be. The door was there, on the ground, blackened and misshapen metal. Part of the roof must have caved in here, there was charred boards lying across part of the floor inside.

I edged in sideways so as not to touch any of the burned wood. Most of the inside walls were gone, just half structures or less. I had to stand there for a moment to orientate myself to the layout of the home. There were so many times over the summer I had been here with Richie. We watched TV and his mom would make us popcorn. I sat at the kitchen table and ate dinner with his family. Now, at what was the front door I imagined the kitchen was to my right. Beyond that a dining room. What I saw was nothing like the home I knew.

Richie’s bedroom was straight ahead and to the left. I kicked at the ash and debris and made my way back. Unidentifiable things crunched under my sneakers like dried autumn leaves. I winced. I knew there were no bodies here, I had been at the funeral, seen the closed caskets, but still I felt like I was stepping on someone’s life.

Richie’s room had been reduced to rubble. I could see where the bed had been and what happened when the fire broke out. Was he there or somewhere else in the house? Did he have any warning? Why didn’t the smoke alarms go off? I knew there were smoke alarms because Richie and I had burnt a bag of popcorn once and as the smoke billowed out of the microwave the alarm had gone off. Loud and piercing. Did they not work that night? 

Shuffling my feet through the cinders of what might have been his rug I connected with something hard. Looking down I spotted the blue handle of Richie’s pocket knife. The metallic blue was covered with soot but it was there. I reached down and brushed a finger across the handle and saw the initials RMG.

“Oh Richie,” I whispered.

Picking up the knife I wiped it against my jeans to clean off the smokey dust. I touched those initials again, rubbing my thumb back and forth across it as I thought of our tree again. My gaze went back to the bed then I looked up at the sky, folded my hand around the pocket knife and hugged it to my heart. Was Richie looking down at me now? How I so wanted to believe that. “I love you,” I whispered and wept.

Now, 17 years later I stood just outside the woods where we shared our first kiss. I pulled Richie’s knife from my pocket and ran a finger over the initials one more time.

So many years had passed and this was just one memory out of millions. The memory I’d been running from for 17 years came rushing back. Today, to fulfill a promise I made all those years ago, I was going back to see our tree one more time. I took a deep breath. The mossy aroma of the woods was the same, the underbrush thicker but I knew these trees, this terrain and uneven hills and slopes. It felt a lot like home. I walked into the woods.

When I got to the creek, I followed it down a bit to where our tree still stood rising with the same stately beauty that had surrounded us. The roots still made that same circle of space where we shared our first and last kiss.

“Our Tree,” I said. “Still and always our tree.”

I took off my shoes, rolled up my jeans and stepped into the cool water. The sand shifted and moved beneath my feet and I looked for tadpoles, remembering. I waded down a few steps and turned to face our tree. The carving was aged and the wood which had been brightly raw the day Richie had carved it was now weathered and darker but I could still see the heart and there in the center were our initials, RG & MC.

Moving closer, stepping into that circle of roots, I reached out to touch the heart he had carved so many years ago. Closing my eyes, I started to weep. The pain came rushing back, the shock and agony of that morning after we had shared this special time. When my mother sat me down and told me about Richie, his family, and the fire. I wept now for all the lost years of what could have been.

“Maggie,” the voice was soft but strangely familiar.

I swung around, falling back against the tree and stared. The man stood on the other bank of the creek. Maybe 25 feet away.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Who—” I started then stopped.

The man was about my age, brown hair with a lean build. He stood about 6 foot with broad shoulders and brown eyes. Golden brown eyes.

I just stared. I knew those eyes. Golden brown with amber highlights. They were the eyes I’d seen so many times in my dreams. The eyes that had gazed down at me before closing for that first kiss.

“Rich—”

He was older, the baby fullness of his cheeks was gone, His face was lean, his hair darker, a bit longer, shaggier, but this was my Richie.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again.

I launched myself toward him. Pushing off our tree and across the creek. My feet sank in the sand and I pressed forward until I was in his arms. Wrapping my arms around him, I held on tight.

“This is a dream, it can’t be true.” I was shaking. “Richie, its you, right? This is you.”

“It’s me,” his voice was soft and he returned my hug. “I’m here.”

It felt so good, holding him. He was warm and solid and this whole thing was impossible. Was I dreaming?

Pulling back I looked up into those golden amber eyes again. “You died,” I said. “You, I, what?”  In shock I couldn’t form a cognitive thought.

“I know and I’m so sorry it had to go this way.” He looked back at our tree and the heart engraved there. “I’m glad you came, that you remembered.”

“How—”

“Let’s sit and talk.”

Rich moved back and sat in the grass to take off his shoes and socks. Hand and hand, we waded across the creek together. We sat in the circle of roots. It was a tighter fit than I remembered but it was nice to feel his solid form next to mine. He was really here.

“You died.”

“It was—”

He seemed to be searching for the words and looked up at the trees above us. I had a sudden flash back of how he looked up first then picked out the year we were supposed to meet here. I stayed silent. I wanted to know where he’d been and what that fire was all about.

“I didn’t want it to go this way. I thought maybe it would be better to stay away but we made a pact to meet and…”

I nodded. “I’ve thought about this for years, but this is the first time I’ve been back.”

“I’ve thought about you. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Frowning I reached for his hand and held it in both of mine. “Please tell me what happened.”

Richie took a deep breath and exhaled. “My father was mixed up in, well, something. I never got the whole story. We were relocated for, what they said was our protection.”

“Like witness protection stuff?”

“Something like that. I didn’t know about the fire and the story of our deaths until later.”

“It was awful,” I said, tears forming. “The fire and thinking you and your family…” my voice broke.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Don’t be. Not your fault.”

“I wanted to call or text you but they said it could get us killed.”

I took a breath and nodded. “I understand.”

We sat in silence for a while. Watching the creek and we were transported back to the day we sat and counted tadpoles. I didn’t know where we were going from here and was afraid to ask. What if he left again? Was the trouble over or would this follow him for life? So many questions but did I want to know the answers?

I shifted and Richie brought his arm up and round my shoulders. I snuggled close, resting my head against his chest.

“I suddenly feel 12 years old again,” he said.

“Mmm.” It was a good feeling.

“One thing I didn’t say that day,” he said and gave my shoulders a gentle squeeze. There were a few beats of silence before he finished with, “how much I loved you.”

I looked up at him then, searching for the answer in his eyes. He lowered his head and when his lips met mine this was no chaste 12-year-old’s kiss. This kiss held passion and promises.