Fiction

Later that evening, they sat alone in their apartment, wondering if they had made the right decision.

The alder is more beautiful dead than it was alive. When its leaves fell away, they revealed slender arms, silvery wrists of bark. Woodpeckers swoop and slip inside the craggy maw that has opened at the top of the tree. The birds are deepening the alder’s transformation. In death, it has opened itself up to the sky, and the birds have moved in. 

When the door slammed, my sister wrapped her arms around my leg and cried. I eased her down to sit on my lap and rocked her until her shuddering breaths subsided. She poked her finger in my chest and said You-Boo. I nodded and hugged her tight—Yes, only me.

In a normal world, families up and down the country would have had the kids breakfasted and out the door for school. But this isn’t a normal world.

Gail has given Mother Nature a run for her money. Thirty pounds lighter than when she first conceived, she lifts weights on her lunch hour and kick-boxes after work three times a week. She’s had regular blood tests, ultrasounds, uterine surgery, two endometrial biopsies, and six cycles of Clomid.

Penelope wouldn’t have blamed her daughter for slipping outside to avoid the mortification of being commandeered as her grandmother’s wardrobe consultant, but her bet was that Jane would appear relatively fast. When you ignored Nanna, she got louder.

In the mornings, when she woke in her human form she still smelled the forest, and the soles of her feet were stained with earth and moss.

But I don’t flinch, as her hands move in, smothering me in womanly warmth. It feels nice. Hardly anyone comes near me, not these days.

I slide over and place my ear onto his chest, hear life rushing from one chamber to the next. The strength and the sound of it startles me. How can I not hear it all the time? Across the room, across the house, even? How do I forget?

As I write this from the sofa, he sits bunched at my feet, bony knees pulled to his chest to squeeze his ever-growing frame in what little room I can provide.

On Tuesday, he told me he’d give me a thousand dollars to get up with the baby on his morning.