Was She Safe?

    She set out alone with her newborn baby into the wilderness, a rocky and wooded habitat for bears and bad men. 

     She didn’t second-guess going alone with her two-week old son asleep in his carrier on her chest. Wilderness solitude was customary for her. Her mate was on a job. They were in a cold stand-off. She didn’t miss him that day, nor any day. The germs of growth and likewise decay will always bud and root, seeking the sun’s light and the earth’s darkness in unison. 

     It was a hot August day, clear and cloudless. The rocks radiated heat. Horse-flies swarmed in the stillness at the treeline. The sun illuminated her auburn hair. Except for the blue baby carrier strapped to her chest, she blended well with the landscape in her worn khaki shorts and top. Her hand rested on the baby’s silhouette just as it had on her swollen belly two weeks previous. A small knapsack carrying a knife, jacket, water, carrots, apple – and now diapers – hung on her back. Her son would be fed from her breast. 

     She moved as surely as a deer in a cedar grove. Soon the cars and people were out of sight. She tuned into the whisper of the breeze sifting through the pine trees, their tips swaying playfully, their cushiony boughs elbowing each other, softly tracing the flight of each wisp of air. Time stopped counting its familiar beats, came to a stand-still and opened its door to the pure and vast machinations of the moment. 

     Ah, this is why I’m here. 

     Her mind quietened, its mundane to-do lists, jarring memories, concerns about her marriage and the future parting like the Red Sea. It opened to different frequency. One world dissolves; another emerges. Easy, yet fragile and fleeting. 

     The moment passed. An unease crept in. She took a measured step. The forest hadn’t looked so dark before. She looked down at her infant’s hand, curling and uncurling, with its perfectly shaped paper-thin fingernails.

     He might be waking up. 

     The heaviness in her breasts calmed her. She’d have milk for him. She scanned the treeline for a shady place to sit and feed him, but he went back to sleep. She’d felt unease before, triggered by the smell of a deer or a bear nearby, she reckoned.  

     She’s hardcore, they’d say. 

     She was bold. She’d long ago ceased inviting ‘keeners’ to join her on her treks into the forest, or her paddles into lakes, portage after portage. She’d doggedly fight the fierce westerly wind where others would turn around. She’d skillfully bush-wack through the woods or traverse a creek on a fallen log, hiking until the sun went down. Acquaintances wouldn’t seek out a second adventure with her.

     She’s an Amazon. 

     But she was hooked on crossing the threshold. On being one with the presence on the other side. It was a timeless and healing pursuit.

     In the small marsh, a heron raised its head. Its twiglike legs bent at the joint, wings spread, beak pointed into the wind, as it lightly leapt into flight, whooshing in a circle above her over the shoreline and then veering into the dark forest through an imperceptible gap between two tall pines. It knew its way. The threshold charmed her again. She sighed aloud.  

     And then shuddered.  

     Wary of bears, wolves and human intruders, wind changes and weather, a menacing sense surrounded her like a shroud. Her skin went clammy. Her eyes darted to the trees lining the dark forest, to the rough craggy rocks beneath her, to the lake pitching and roiling. It was no longer a carefree sunlit summer afternoon. Heavy gray clouds formed to the west over the horizon blocking the sun, swapping its warmth for a chill. The wind was up, careening the white pines that lurched like jester hats. 

     She was alone with her tiny sleeping baby strapped to her body. Danger seemed to creep along the rocks, claw at her ankles, engulf her. 

     We are alone.

     It had been a long and difficult labour and her doctor had said a lesser person would not have been able to endure it. She’d spiked a fever and after only a brief moment of seeing him swaddled and squirming, her baby was whisked away. 

     Where are you taking him?

     In the middle of the night, after the confusion of birth and the blind trust in the system dissipated, a primal urge carried her up to the fifth floor to find him. She shuffled along the corridor seeking the room number. Finding it, she walked through the open double doors, into the high-ceilinged steel-clad room, dimly illuminated by a low light-source. A small form lay in the middle of the large incubator, like an island in a flat lake. It was him. 

     Hello my sweet child. 

     His head lifted at the sound of her voice and slowly, jerkily, using his newborn neck muscles and bracing his tiny forearms, he turned his heavy head towards her before landing on the other cheek, just as she arrived at his side. 

     You know my voice!

     A nurse emerged, closing her book. Don’t wake him up. 

     Paying her no attention, she found the sleeve into which she extended her hand towards him. Her finger brushed softly over his tiny hand. He’d grasped her index finger. And like that, they had bonded. 

     Now she was alone, walking on a trail-less rock plateau that flanked a dark forest on one side and an agitated lake on the other. A gust of wind howled past her, and then silence. A branch cracked in the woods. She froze. The realization shot through her like a branding iron. 

     It’s not just me anymore. His life. In my hands.   

    She peered into the forest. A man? Instant fear flooded her brain. She turned to scan the terrain, her hand on her son’s fragile head. He began to squirm. Did he sense her fear? No one appeared. No one was there. 

     Is someone there?  

     Another crack. A gust of wind gathered speed from the lake and stirred the pine trees. The baby’s hand appeared outside the carrier and clutched at her shirt. Soon he’d be crying for food. 

     He must eat. 

     The blood drained from her face. Seconds of silence. A rabid wolf. A bear too used to humans. An evil man. 

     We’d be sitting ducks. 

     Her son’s baby finger caught on the edge of her top. He pulled and squirmed, letting out a cry that went through her like a saber. Her full breasts felt like bullets. The crying would not cease until she fed him.   

     She scanned the area again for a flat place to sit, one with a vantage point, sheltered from the wind and sun, a tree to lean against. The brush was too thin at the treeline. 

There must be something around that bend sweet child. 

     He quietened. It was the fresh air. 

     My backwoods baby. 

     The rocky path narrowed as they rounded the curve and stepped into a quiet and serene ecosystem. A babbling stream flowed down from the forest into a shallow pebbled pool, lit up like jewels. The wind quietened.  

      I could bathe my feet here.    

     The ground beneath a pine tree was covered in soft needles. She flung the small knapsack next to the tree and sat down with slow movements. She opened the front carrier and lifted her son out, his face to her face. His eyes fluttered open and hands swung towards her. She moved her clothing aside and placed him at her heavy breast, and he latched on. 

     No problem there. 

     Instant relief. She leaned into the tree, letting her head fall back. She thought of how her feet would feel in the cool pool of water, and with only a moment’s hesitation, leaned forward to loosen her laces and pry off her shoes and socks with her toes. The crease between her eyes softened. She closed her eyes and started humming. She often hummed with him in her arms. The tune was always original; one note following the other in a minor key, a slow nocturne. 

     I was just enjoying your composition, the woman in the doctor’s waiting room had commented. Was that just three days ago? Her mind wandered. Her mate hadn’t attended the doctor’s visit. Her lips twisted downwards and eyes squeezed shut. 

     I have to take care of the baby. You’re dispensable.       

     Guilt tugged at her heart. She could never shake it off. He didn’t matter now. He was not the protector. He didn’t make the nest. It wasn’t natural. The fertile seed of a looming separation lay silent and still, biding its time. She didn’t feel safe with him.  

     Is this normal?

     The doctor had suggested perhaps postpartum depression, give it time. 

     Let’s move you to the other breast, sweet child.

     She shifted him, and he looked into her eyes. She smiled and kissed his cheek, his shoulder, his hand as she settled him in. She breathed in the sweet smell of him. The tension in her back slackened as the pressure released.

     All’s right with the world.   

     And then she saw the bear, standing still across the stream. It stared at her. 

     Sitting ducks. 

     Her body tensed. Her baby lost hold and his hand found her breast as he re-latched. Noticing movement, her eyes darted upstream deeper into the forest. Two young cubs. They’d come to quench their thirst. 

     It’s their home. 

     How could she think about the rightness of it? They were a beautiful trio. The food in the knapsack next to the tree – carrots, apple slices. Did they want it? She wanted the silence of her child’s feeding to continue. Not the calamity of his crying, of her rising up, backing away, bolting with a baby in her arms, barefoot, fleeing the danger of not protecting her young. 

     Outrun a bear? Impossible. 

     The bear stared, still as a statue, and then lowered her head as a cub sidled up behind her. Must be a sow.

     You never look a male bear in the eye. Like in a bar, a woman never looks a drunken man in the eye. 

     The sow’s head rose again. Their eyes met like magnetic laser beams across the shallow stream and held steady. A wave of calm welled up in her chest and spread through her core like dye settling in water. The baby continued to suckle, oblivious. Then, the sow slowly levered her massive form and loped upstream, her cubs at her heels. The trio veered off into the forest, over a crest, and in seconds, disappeared. 

     She scanned the hill for their possible return, pondering the instinct that had drawn them away. But she knew they were gone. And she knew they were fine, she and her child. 

     That was a good bear experience. 

     She listened to the familiar breeze, the pines, the pooling stream, her baby’s shallow breath as he pulled away from her breast. She lifted him to her shoulder and stroked his back lovingly while he rested his head, his tiny hands lightly squeezing her bare skin, like fluttering dragon-fly wings. 

     Time to go home. As she got up, his head bobbed with her movements. She stood in the pool of water at the mouth of the stream, the cool water flowing over her ankles. 

     Better than a bad man experience.  

     Her eyes narrowed and she shook her head, recognizing the habitual fear of fear itself. 

She turned her face skyward, as though listening to an echo. She no longer teetered on the brink of motherhood. She had crossed the threshold like a queen stepping into her fortress. Motherhood was a tapestry of memories passed down since the beginning of time. Like nature, it was lawless, oblivious to itself.

     She set her jaw and straightened her shoulders, arching her back like a lioness. Her eyes slowly panned the landscape, her hand resting on her newborn’s back.