The Woodlands

After a few minutes, Joseph and Deshi calmed themselves and took on the task of scouting for water. They would divert from the tracks every few kilometers and head into the forest. They always came back with their hands in the air. Nothing. They were way ahead of us. Apella and Alexei walked hand in hand in front. Joseph kept looking back at me, but thankfully, he was giving me the space I needed. He knew me well enough to know I didn’t want to talk to him just yet. Or maybe he was afraid of what I would say.

Clara took my hand. It felt tiny in my own. She swung our arms together like we were schoolgirls. She was like a tiny ray of light—always smiling, always a comfort. She looked to me and smiled, shiny white teeth gleaming, her springy, black hair bouncing up and down as she walked.

“I’m glad to have you to myself for once.” She gave my hand a squeeze.

“Me too,” I said. Distance from Joseph was a good thing at that moment.

“It is so beautiful here. In Palma we wrote about the Wilderness but only from our imagination. It’s so much more than I had expected,” she said, her face full of wonderment.

She was right. From where we stood, we could see a carpet of alternate greens. The sky was clear blue. The spring weather brought with it warmth but not heat. The grey, rocky mountains contrasted with the pines. There was life everywhere. She patted her belly.

“Yes, we could be at home here.” She was talking to her child, so dreamy. Sometimes I did wonder if she was ‘all there’. She was full of hope, which was not a bad thing, but I couldn’t understand from what source it originated. After everything she had been through, she seemed unaffected. It had to be the baby that kept her so buoyant, something I neither comprehended nor wanted.

Something occurred to me that hadn’t before. Spring weather.

“What month is it?” I yelled to Alexei.

“It’s just turned to April today,” he replied. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” I said unconvincingly.

Alexei shrugged his shoulders and returned to his conversation with Apella.

Clara was looking at me curiously. Her eyes asked me, what that was about?

“I turned seventeen two days ago,” I said with a sigh.

“Happy birthday!” Clara said, clasping her hands around my shoulders and pulling me to her. I had never heard that phrase before. A change of age was not marked by anything in Pau, except access to a new ring. She was giving me a big squeeze when she jumped suddenly, like someone had kicked her.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed. Then in the sickly sweet voice she reserved for her baby, she said, “Naughty child, you shouldn’t hurt your mother so,” with her finger raised in mock disdain.

“Are you ok?” I asked. She looked weary. We needed to rest. I flagged the others and we let her sit for a while.

“I’m all right, really. I’m just hungry, and thirsty, but so is everyone else,” she said, waving her hand, shooing us away like bothersome flies. We had to find something soon. We were all getting hungry and weak after our night in the trees. I sca

“Rash,” I whispered, smiling to myself. Forgetting where I was for a moment. Joseph looked at me. Eyes searching but I was replaying a memory in my head, looking right through him. I was reading about the pines. Rash was teasing me about having no life. I punched him in the arm. What I was reading was interesting because the plaque described the spring needles as being edible and that the male pollen cones were sweet. We needed sugar. I limped down the side of the hill, and picked a few of the small, yellow cones. I put one in my mouth. It was sweet, chewy. I filled my pockets and dragged myself back up the hill. I handed them out.

“Try it,” I urged. Joseph chucked one straight in his mouth, always the trusting one. Clara did the same. The others waited until they were sure I wasn’t pla

“What’s rash?” she asked i

I laughed, but it came out stiffly. “Rash was the name of my friend at the Classes. I mean is—Rasheed is his name.” These memories were painful, dredging up feelings my conscious had not had time to deal with. Although it had been months since I had seen them, for me it felt like only a couple of weeks. I had had no time to grieve, or even decide whether I should grieve.

“You hurt him,” she said plainly. I wasn’t sure what that meant.

“I guess so, I mean, no not really.” I was confused. I didn’t hurt Rash, well, not directly anyway.

“Joseph doesn’t understand your feelings for this Rash; you need to explain it to him.” She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She thought I had hurt Joseph.

“I can’t talk to him. I don’t know what to say,” I explained, upset. She could cut right through me. She saw things I couldn’t see, or didn’t want to.

“Do you love him?” she asked, stopping us mid-stride, turning to face me. Her face was imploring, kind but urgent in its need for an answer.

Without question, I knew the answer, “Yes.”

She looked baffled, “Then why? Why don’t you go to him, tell him?” For her it was simple.

“I don’t love this thing inside me, and I think he does or he will.” I knew he did.

“Oh, is that all?” She waved her hand in dismissal. I stared at her in disbelief. “Rosa, it’s obvious to everyone here, except you, that he will choose you, every time, he will choose you.” I didn’t need to hear that.

“He shouldn’t have to make that choice,” I uttered, mostly to myself. I didn’t believe her anyway. I knew she thought I would change my mind, that when it was born, somehow something would kick in and I would be a mother. Then we could be a family. But the idea made me feel ill. It wouldn’t be real. None of this felt real. It was all backwards.

I was staring out at the trees, sca

“Siberian Irises love water!” I cried.

“What?” she called after me, but I was already stumbling, halfway down the gravelly hill.

Joseph caught up to me as I was entering the thicker part of the wood, the group disappearing from sight. He put his hand on my shoulder.

“Wait, where are you going?” he sounded out of breath and worried.

“I’m not ru

Surprising me, he held out his hand, indicating for me to pass him and said, “Lead the way.”

It was cooler down here, with only small snatches of light shining through the gaps in the trees. I kept a straight line, hoping that I hadn’t led us off course. We walked for about half an hour, the dense foliage closing in around us as we moved deeper into the forest. It was mossy and damp with spatters of small, white flowers tucked in the tree roots. I was sure we should have hit it by now and I was begi