The Wall

He snorted, wetly, and wiped his face with his sleeve. Hessa reached up and touched his tear-stained face, which only made him go another round of bawling.

“Don’t take him away from me, please,” Deshi begged, shaking a little.

Confusion messed up my thoughts. The unfair, but very strong, urge to smack him and tell him to pull himself together was making my hands shake like they were straining at the bit like the sled dogs. My total lack of sympathy reinforced to me what a terrible mother I was.

“Why would we do that?” I asked. I thought he was upset about Joseph and me and of course, I was wrong.

Deshi took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes, considering his speech. “Well, now that you and Joe are all happy families, and Joe keeps calling Hessa and Orry brothers… I guess I thought maybe you were going to make that official.”

I laughed. Deshi looked offended. “You have been more of a parent to Hessa than I will ever be. I wish I were better, but I’m not. I would never take him away from you,” I said, realizing that may not be how Joseph felt, but I would make him see. I hoped.

He stopped sniffing and ran his hands down his shirt. He straightened up, clearly embarrassed by his behavior. “All right then. Good. Thank you.” Hessa nuzzled into Deshi’s chest. I knew it and hopefully Joseph would see it too. They belonged together. He started walking back to the carriage. I stayed where I was. What I had said was right. Deshi was a much better parent than me. How long would it take before Joseph realized that and his disappointment started to affect our already strange relationship? As if hearing my thoughts, Deshi turned around, his demeanor much calmer now.

“You know, you’re not a bad mother,” he said. “I don’t think anyone expected you to be the kind that fussed over her child, or clapped every time they did something uninteresting like blinking.” I just stared at him. He was saying I was cold. “You don’t realize that this mother thing, well, you’ve been doing it this whole time. You care for your son; you feed him, change him, and respond to him when he cries. I’ve seen you rocking him for hours. I guess, what I am saying is, you are a mother. You love your son. Stop being so hard on yourself.”

I sighed and nodded. He tipped his chin just slightly and walked back to the group. Maybe he was right. But I still felt lacking, like I had made promises I hadn’t kept. Sometimes, it was so easy to get lost. I had lost myself to my grief for Joseph. I needed to start keeping my promises. Begi

Just one thing I needed to do before we left.

Matthew was sitting at the front of the carriages. Everything about the way he sat oozed sadness. It rolled off him in waves. His shoulders were hunched and he was squatting down, observing rocks in a distracted way that made me think his mind was elsewhere. I leaned down and touched his back gently. His muscles tightened. He startled but quickly composed himself, giving me a thin smile.

Matthew was different from the others. He seemed less able to let the fallen go, more likely to cling to life. I could see the rest of them kissing their necklaces and following each other off a cliff if that’s what they were told to do. Matthew was a fighter. Not like me, though. I just closed my eyes and started flailing my arms around, hoping to co

“What’s the matter, Rosa?” he said wearily.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” I said

He waved me off. “Oh, I’m fine. It’s just been a long day. A lot of lives lost, which happens, I mean, it happens all the time, people die but…” He seemed unsure of himself again, stuttering. The survivor philosophy was shackled to him but it didn’t quite sit right on his shoulders.

“It’s ok to be sad about it,” I said, trying to sound comforting.

“I know, dear, but it’s not useful,” he replied, standing and dusting off his pants. He was handsome for an older man. I wondered if he had a wife or kids at home.

I screwed up my face at that. “Who cares?” I wasn’t even sure what he said was true. If death was a part of life, so was grief. It was important. It made me think that everything needs a proper goodbye.

He laughed weakly. “I like you, Rosa, but there is a lot you don’t understand.”

I tried not to snap at him. My mouth was bursting to give him a smart-mouth retort. I put my hand to my lips, physically trying to keep it in. I shrugged my shoulders. “I came to ask you something. Can we go out to the woods for a bit?” It was getting dark.

“I suppose,” he said. “Just keep your ears open for choppers.” Then he returned to staring at the ground. I remembered when I sat staring at the rails, thinking they were the only thing keeping me from being swallowed by the ground, half-wishing I had the courage to just let go and let myself be swallowed. I frowned at the memory but then smiled at the fact that, somehow, I got through it. With help, I got through it.

“Ok.”

I took a lighter and a knife from one of the men’s bags and made my way back to the carriage where our snow suits were stacked inside the door. After putting the outfit on, I tramped out into the woods. The cold was a shock but I pressed on, looking for a nice circle of trees with low, protective branches.

The trees were kind to me, bending down. The snow pulled the branches towards me in an embrace and hid me from the menace in the skies. There was barely any greenery, just different shades of brown, iced with fluffy white. The sounds of my feet crunching over the ice were not that different to the crunching my boots once made over the gravel of the railway line. Thoughts were dangerous but I let them take me back, laughing at the fact that all that time, the rails were in use. It explained why they were so intact. If we had stayed on them, perhaps we would have been run over by one of their invisible trains. It wasn’t really very fu

It took me about half an hour but I managed to get a fire going after digging a hole in the snow, right down to the frozen dirt. I made sure it would last and then walked back to the tu

I convinced them to come with me, reluctant to explain until we got there. They dressed up in their snowsuits and followed me out into the cold. Confused faces looked bluish against the white. I was starting to feel a bit unsure myself. It seemed like a good idea before. Now I wasn’t really sure what I would say, and whether it would do any good.

As we walked, I kicked the snow off some low-lying shrubs and pulled off the leaves. I snapped off some of the branches and showed them to Orry. “This is a rhododendron.” I held the straggly, wooden branch in front of his face. His eyes blinked as drips of cold water splashed on his face. Joseph looked amused but he held his tongue. Ignoring him, I continued. “I know it doesn’t look like much but in late summer to autumn it will have a beautiful, delicate, papery flower. It could be pink or red or even purple…” Joseph took the twig out of my hand, his eyes twinkling.

“Eat or don’t eat?” he said. The words filled me with equal parts joy and sadness. I felt tears come to my eyes.

“Don’t eat,” I said quietly, blushing in the cold.

We walked towards the orange glow of the fire and everyone stood around it, not wanting to sit in the wet snow. We gathered up some more firewood and threw it on until we could feel decent heat radiating from it.

Apella’s face was sorrowful, but at least it had some color to it, although that could have been from the fire. Now everyone was looking to me expectantly, asking me with their eyes what the hell we were doing here.