the last day of July

He didn’t struggle to get away from me, or put up a fight. This time, he let me hold him close. His head was in my lap, and his eyes blinked wearily, watching the sky in front of him. The sun rose from the lake, casting peachy hues onto the clouds and calm water. I kept a hand on him, petting his head, smoothing down his hair. And I watched the sun too, the familiar warm air causing my cheeks to become hot, and my hair to stick to my sweaty skin. He was never this calm, this allowing of my affection. 

I met him a month ago well after the new regime started. I was forced to leave my home, as many were. After phoning my cousins on the border, they invited me to stay with them so that I would be safe. And so I immediately began my journey, with nothing in my hand but my coin purse. I left everything I ever knew; my home which they had been set ablaze, my love who I didn’t know if she was alive and well, and my beautiful town that I watched burned down around me.

He was squatting down in a cabbage patch near the road. I was passing through a village, and like many of the others I passed along the way, it was stripped of its contents, burned down. People were sheltering together in the nearby businesses, or on the streets. I saw him when I was looking for a place to sleep for the evening as my feet were throbbing from walking all afternoon. As I walked back the other way from a shop I purchased food from, I saw him again. In the same position, crouched.

I sat down in the grass by a trench and unwrapped my food. It took the pressure off my feet and aching back. I crossed my legs and I watched him. He was very still. Though he looked around, as if waiting for someone. The sky turned purple, and my surroundings grew dark. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I knew he was there. The noise from the passing local townspeople began to lower, and the buzz of the cicadas came to ear. I stood up, and walked passed the shops again, and crossed the road from where I came from, and I went over to the cabbage patch. I crouched down in front of him. He looked up at me, not saying a word. 

“Where are your parents? Are you waiting for them?” I asked him. He did not answer. I looked around. I found no faces that looked like his. I turned back to face him, then I held up my food. “Are you hungry?” He held out his hands, but I pulled the food away. “Come over here.”

I stood up, and began to walk back over to where I was in the glass by the trench, hoping he would follow. And to my surprise, I heard small, almost inaudible footsteps behind me. I turned and sat down in the same grassy spot I was before. He sat down in front of me. I handed him the food, and I watched him shove it in his face, not leaving even a crumb. After he was finished, he looked up at me. I took the hem of my dress and pulled it up so I could wipe his face, but he dodged me, making a grunt. So I sat back. And with the moon glowing high in the air, I wasn’t able to keep my eyes open any longer. 

When I awoke, he was feet away from me, sleeping in the grass. His shirt looked clean, but his pants and shoes looked to be worn out, and his pin straight black hair sat just above his eyebrows. And the morning sun only seemed to tan his exposed neck and face. The boy couldn’t have been any older than two. I worried for him. I looked around, and still did I not see any passing faces that looked similar to his. I squatted before him, and placed a hand over his back, giving him a small shake.

“Hey,” I said, “Do you know where your parents are?” I got no response from him verbally but he tossed around in the grass before opening his eyes. He looked at me, then scooted away. He was still sleepy, probably emotionally worn out. I sighed, “Look, just tell where I can take you—”

Before I got to the end of my sentence, there was a deafening sound of an explosion. I flinched, and looked behind me to see just that, fire rising high in the air just blocks away, followed by screams and fast shoes on gravel. I grabbed the boy, and started towards the main road again without another thought, tossing him over my shoulder with my right hand and holding the end of my dress up with the other. He bounced up and down as I ran, while he screamed and grunted, trying to push me away, making it much more difficult to hold him. I ignored him, tightening my arm around his torso to keep him in place as I felt him slipping. Then there was another explosion. I didn’t stop or turn back. Though he paused his kicking and screaming, as he watched the explosion before his eyes. I trailed off the road and ran into the woods. 

The sun disappeared behind the thick trees, and the wet air cooled my skin. The ground below me was mushy and much harder to run on. I let out a moan and came to a stop, panting. I set the child down and stood back up, resting my hands on the back of my hips and letting my head back, when out comes another moan of pain. I tried to catch my breath. My head fell forward and I opened my eyes. He was standing in front of me with a blank expression. I scrunched my eyebrows together and leered down at him.

“I don’t know what to do with you.” I panted. I looked around at the surrounding trees, the faint sound of birds chirping in high places. “If you stay here, I think you’ll be safe. Then you can go to your family.” He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t even looking at me anymore. I watched as he trailed over to a bush and began picking off the leaves. I sighed. “Are you even listening to me?” I still didn’t get an answer. I dropped my hands to my side, and decided on a new approach. “What’s your name?” When I got no answer, I continued anyway, tiptoeing towards him, “Mine’s Adeline.” I watched as he pulled a branch from the bush and started waving it around. The woods were so quiet. No one else was here. I swallowed and looked down at him. “Come with me. We’ll be safe where I’m going.”

I turned and began walking. I looked back only to find he wasn’t following me, only glaring at me. I patted my dress and went into a pocket, pulling out the leftover food from last night in my hand. I held it out. He came running with his arms in the air. The boy ate as he walked a respectable distance behind me. This began our time together.

We walked most days and found places to sleep most nights. The summer was hot, and so I made it so we were walking in the woods most of the time to stave off the heat. If we found a town along the way, we’d stop and I’d buy him some food. My mouth was dry and my hair had become greasy; it was an added bonus if we found a water pump or pond as well. It wasn’t easy, traveling on foot. But he made it more difficult. He was tired, and hungry. We wouldn’t tell me but he’d whine and grunt at me out of anger. He’d sit down in the middle of the road while we were walking, with a sweaty forehead and a pout. 

“We have to keep going,” I would tell him, “Here, let me carry you—” and the shouting had begun. He wouldn’t let me touch him. Not to relieve his tired feet by holding onto him, not to help him wash his hands after playing in the dirt. Nothing. He followed me and he accepted the food and the water I gave him, but he contributed nothing else to our relationship. It was fine. I only wanted to make it to where I was going, and I wasn’t going to leave him behind. Sometimes he put up a fuss when I told him to sleep. “I know you’re uncomfortable, but you have to go to bed.” I would tell him. The ground was no place to make a bed. It’s all I could think of the more and more we spent time together, and the more and more he fussed. I only told myself we’d be there soon.

There was a large town nearby that we had stumbled into one night. We took shelter in the woods, and I woke him early the next morning so that we could travel into town and get some things. He was hungry, and his shoes were so worn out. I was lucky to have the money I had with me. But as I learned from the last couple villages we traveled through, supplies were running low, and the regime had caused shortages on most necessities. In town, I went to every shop I possibly could to get hot food. Most places turned me away. I only collected a handful of things for our travels. I even had a tough time at clothing stores.

“I need little baby shoes. Not for an infant, but for a toddler.” I told the man in the shop, holding up my hand to give him a rough measurement of the shoe size I was looking for, “You don’t have anything like that?”

“Let me look in the back.” He replied with a bored tone. He came back out, holding a box. He opened it in front of me and flashed me the shoes.

“That’s perfect,” I said to him. I grabbed my coin purse and pulled out some money, setting it on the counter. The man looked at me with a hand on his hip. 

“That brooch in your hair looks pretty pricey. Real pearls?” He commented, waving his finger. I let out a breath. Then I pulled the pearl clip out of my hair that my mother had given to me when I was a teenager, and I set it on top of the stack of money on the counter, not saying another word. The man then smiled and handed me the shoe box, and I left. My frown disappeared as I met with the boy again. I opened the shoe box. 

“I got you some new shoes!” I told him, “Do you wanna try them on?” Though, he was looking at me with a grumpy face, while scratching his arm. “What’s wrong?” His skin was covered in bites from the summer mosquitoes. I pulled his hand away from the bites. “Don’t scratch. Try your shoes on.” He took his old shoes off and put his feet into the new ones. He stared down at them. Then I handed him his breakfast and he followed me back on the main road. He walked better. He collected rocks and put them in his pants pockets. He was certainly the exploring type, I noticed. He was adventurous in his own ways, without my help or my presence. But getting into things was a chore on my part. We passed a tomato patch one afternoon. I told him to stay away, and that none of those belonged to him, but his hand kept reaching for the produce. This was the final time I wanted to tell him not to touch something. I marched over to him.

“What did I say?” I raised my voice, and grabbed his wrist to tear him away from the tomatoes. He struggled to free himself but I held on tight. “You need to listen when I say no. You can get us in trouble!” He only whined and wailed, and so I let go. He stumbled backwards and fell on his bottom. I looked down at him, my shoulders tensing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” I was caught off guard. He didn’t cry, he simply found something new to distract himself with. I started to wonder if he just didn’t listen to me because he couldn’t hear me. 

With passing time, being with him only confirmed my wandering thoughts. There was a strike one late night, and there were, what I can only describe as, a series of explosions. It tore me out of my sleep. I sat up. They sounded close, but far from where we were in the woods. It was loud enough to wake a sleeping child. I looked down at him only to see he was sound asleep, breathing steadily. No tossing or turning. I picked him up and began walking at a quick pace. Of course that ended in him fully awake and grumpy and not wanting me to carry him like I had.

My feet were so sore that I felt like I was dragging them. I couldn’t stand to walk. I found that I was walking more than I was resting, and I was on my feet more than I was sleeping. My head began to hurt after waking in various places. Then I had to fight with the boy just to get him up for the day, or just to get him to stop itching his skin. It became a bit more difficult than it had to get food. He was hungry, I know he was. He eats everything I give him at lightning speed. But I wasn’t giving him much anymore. There was just nothing to give. I was losing energy. 

We arrived in another town and stopped for a water well or pump. I was able to find a payphone and I called my cousins on the border to tell them I wasn’t far and that I should be there very soon. I kept my head up, trying to keep myself from just losing everything in me.

“We’re almost there.” I told him. I said it with a smile to show him that something good is to come along for him. But he looked worn out. More than usual. He sat down in the grass. I went over to him and crouched down. I pressed a hand to his forehead. It was hot. I couldn’t tell if it was from the sun or what. “We need to keep moving, okay?” I tried to reason with him. But by night his forehead was still hot to the touch. I was able to find a lake and took him there. I thought maybe he’d run to the water, but he didn’t. He only lied beside a tree. I dipped the end of my dress into the water and went back over to him, dabbing the wet fabric on his face and neck. He didn’t move as tended to him. Not one flinch, one grunt. He lied still, his body unresponsive to what I was doing. I promised myself I would take him to a doctor once he gets well enough to walk.

We hadn’t moved for days. His fever wouldn’t go away. He stayed under the tree through the heat and through the night, not budging one bit. He wouldn’t eat or drink anything. It worried me, but I told myself that he’ll manage until we get there. 

This morning, he didn’t struggle to get away from me, or put up a fight. This time, he let me hold him close. His head was in my lap, and his eyes blinked wearily, watching the sky in front of him. The sun rose from the lake, casting peachy hues onto the clouds and calm water. I kept a hand on him, petting his head, smoothing down his hair. And I watched the sun too, the familiar warm air causing my cheeks to become hot, and my hair to stick to my sweaty skin. He was never this calm, this allowing of my affection. 

I picked him up and cradled him in my arms. I began tiptoeing silently through the grass and away from the lake. I looked down at him. My face began to sting. He looked up at me; his brown eyes, and his eyelids that threatened to shut. It was the first time he let me hold him. And it was the last time. 

I sat before that very same lake later that night. I was alone, letting the last day of July pass me by. My heart weighed me down, and my body was aching. Grief came over me, like it had many times that day. I thought about our month together: how I promised him he was going to be safe where we were going. And how I couldn’t even keep him safe before we got to safety. I watched the midnight moon reflect on the water as I sobbed.