Worry Read online

  “What are you thinking about?” Marvin asks her.

  “Nothing,” says Ruth.

  He nods, and his chin bumps the top of her head when he does that because he’s so tall. “That’s all I ever think about too.”

  Every so often, a girl will steer her boy over to another couple and she’ll tilt her head close to the other girl’s, and they’ll whisper to each other.

  “If we do this, I know it can’t be a secret,” Ruth told James at home after the funeral, after they’d said goodbye to her weeping mom, when Ruth finally agreed. After her idea for one more try had turned out to be the wrong one and that baby was gone and everyone was sad, and then her dad was gone too and there was nothing left to do but say yes. “But I don’t ever want to talk about it, because I don’t ever want to think about it.” She gave him a small smile before he could argue. “We don’t talk about a lot of things,” she said. “It’s easy.”

  Suddenly there are shouts and shoving close by. “Leave me alone! You’re hurting me!” A girl is yelling at a boy and the firelight makes it all seem extremely cinematic.

  Ruth feels Marvin’s arms wrap around her protectively and they move away.

  Now the boy is yelling at the girl, which is not cool. But he’s doing it and the girl is trying to pull away but he yanks her back. “Fuck off, don’t be stupid,” he yells at her. “There are old people here and they’re watching us.”

  The girl shouts, “This is assault! You’re assaulting me!”

  And the boy says, “You shouldn’t say that shit because my mom had cancer last year.”

  Her hands fly from her sides and up to her mouth and she says, “Oh!” and envelops him in her bare, bruised arms. She says, “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

  He rests his zebra head on her pointy shoulder and says, “Why are these old people here, anyway?” Then he kisses her, hard. Mashes his mouth against hers and the girl squeezes her eyes shut tight, and is that blood? No, it can’t be blood. Just smeared lipstick. They’re only kissing. They like each other.

  “You poor mothers of daughters.” Marvin shakes his head sadly. “You have to be very vigilant, don’t you?”

  Fern.

  Ruth unwinds herself from Marvin, every part of her coiled up tight.

  Shreds of laughter reach them from the other side of the fire and she squints at another couple dancing by the flames, farther away. The woman is leaning her head on the man’s shoulder. Ruth can only see their backs, but she knows who they are.

  Why didn’t he tell me he was here?

  Because he wanted to see her first.

  She takes a few steps toward them and calls out, “Hey!”

  But they just keep dancing.

  She waits for them to stop and turn around. She waits for them to see her and run over and feel guilty and apologize.

  “Ruth?” says Marvin. “Are you okay?”

  “Hey!” she yells again, and this time they swivel to face her, frowning.

  Just two strangers. She doesn’t know them after all. She doesn’t know Marvin either and now he’s steering her toward his cottage, which is mostly dark now.

  Something is missing.

  She doesn’t have the backpack. Where did she leave it? Under her chair?

  I need to find Fern.

  The party is slowly dying down but there are still several huddled clumps of people scattered around the large property. Their voices are loud and insistent, laughing with too much exuberance or else filled with exasperation and occasional outrage. Empty bottles fall onto the lawn with hollow thunks.

  She waited too long. Fern Fern Fern Fern—

  There’s a scraping sensation low in her belly until she’s raw and hollow, and then Ruth doubles over and vomits onto the grass.

  A few teenagers around them chuckle knowingly and Marvin bends over her, gathering strands of her hair and pulling them back. “You’re not well,” he says. “Let me help you.”

  “Fern.” She wipes the drool and sick out of the corners of her sour mouth. She spits out ropes of saliva that hang there, shining.

  Strong arms ease her upright, and she lets them. She’s completely empty now and Fern was never inside her to begin with, but that doesn’t matter, of course it doesn’t matter.

  “Here, rinse out your mouth.” He’s pressing a bottle to her lips, and she drinks. “Just a sip now, don’t overdo it.”

  Too sweet.

  “She’s all right,” says Marvin. Reading her mind. “I promise.”

  But you don’t know, she wants to say. Because he’s not a parent so he doesn’t know anything. That’s not fair, she scolds herself, and the scolding is a reprieve from being scared but now the fear is back and it’s worse and where is her child?

  She must be with the twins. They’re off having fun somewhere.

  Ruth stumbles along with Marvin and pictures a mound of sand with her daughter inside it.

  Fern wouldn’t have struggled at first because they were all playing and of course Isabelle and Amelia were going to dig her out when they were done—they were her friends! They were practically her sisters. They would’ve smiled as they patted the sand down around her, so smooth, and it would’ve been cool on her skin, and heavy. They were playing a game and Fern got to be buried first, and soon only her head was poking out and wasn’t that funny, and they all laughed together, but then Isabelle or maybe Amelia would’ve shouted, “Let’s bury all of you!” And Fern would’ve agreed because she loves them. And the people we love want to help us, not hurt us. It’s the strangers we have to worry about.

  “We’ll have to be quiet,” says Marvin. “Lesley will be sleeping.”

  She wants to ask how he knows that too, but of course couples just know things about each other. She and James can look at each other and know if something is wrong. They can tell just by looking. They don’t even have to ask.

  Now Marvin is guiding her up the creaky steps of their front porch, and Ruth frowns. So why didn’t he know that she didn’t want him to go away with Stef all those times? Even though he had to, for work.

  Cruises and resorts and hotels, for team building, where everybody had to wear the same T-shirt with the company logo on it, and play tug-of-war and lead each other around a conference room blindfolded, and James always complained afterward that he hated all that stuff, but at least Stef was there to make it bearable.

  And Ruth would laugh and say yes, it was a good thing Stef was with him.

  But he left when Ruth was bleeding and he also left too soon the other time. And her father died when James was away and he should’ve been home but he wasn’t. He was on a boat with Stef instead, getting sick on seafood salad. Rubbery clams in bad mayonnaise. That made Ruth feel a little better at least, later on.

  They’re inside now and Marvin closes the door behind them and holds a finger up to his lips. “Shh.”

  The living room is dark but she can make out the big shape of the couch and the smaller shape of the steamer trunk as they pass by. Its lovely green is dimmed now, nearly black.

  Her legs are unsteady and she wobbles a bit, but Marvin braces her.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” he says. “I want to show you something.”

  She’s here, thinks Ruth, with absolute certainty, but she keeps the thought to herself because she needs to be stealthy. She can’t let on that she knows.

  Fern is with Lesley. Of course she is. It’s ridiculous that Ruth is just figuring this out now. The way Lesley looked at her. She’s been waiting for her opportunity, dreaming of a child of her own.

  Ruth used to read other people’s birth announcements about their happy, healthy, bouncy babies, and the rush of grief and resentment would surprise her every time, because she expected to be glad for them. She’d pull the little, white envelope with its sharp corners out of her mailbox, or click on the proudly trumpeting subject line, and stare numbly at the photo of someone else’s beautiful newborn. She wanted to celebrate with them but she couldn’t. All she could
do was delete the email, or crumple up the card and take it outside and walk with it burning in her hand until she found a bin far away to bury it in.

  Marvin guides her up the stairs, helping to support her weight because she’s floppy and lightheaded. He makes her feel light.

  I’ll run in and grab her.

  They reach the top and keep walking.

  I’ll carry her to safety.

  They pass the empty guestroom, and then the empty bathroom. The hallway is so long.

  We’ll go home and everything will be all right again and we’ll all be happy.

  They pass the master bedroom, where Lesley and her doll are sound asleep on their nest of pillows.

  Not there. Ruth sags against Marvin.

  “So peaceful,” he says. “But I can guess what she’s dreaming about.”

  Ruth moans. A small sound that grows, and this is all she can do. Everything is wrong and she can’t make it better.

  “Shh.” He tugs her away and they continue down the hall together, getting closer to the room at the end of it with the closed door.

  It must be him, then. The one who worried her from the beginning. Why does she never listen? Because he focused on her, and she liked it.

  Her mind skitters around the edges of the bad things Marvin might do to her daughter—might have already done—and she shakes her head against the images of him and Fern that rise up.

  As they walk, the white walls flicker dimly with all the bad things that grown-ups do to kids every day, everywhere in the world. Little mouths screaming and grieving parents on their knees.

  She tries to puzzle it out, though, and can’t. He’s been with Ruth the whole time. There is no way.

  Her phone begins to vibrate. She reaches into her back pocket and fumbles with it, nearly drops it, but holds on.

  “Here we are,” Marvin says. And he opens the door.

  The tiny screen lights their way. There are words on it for her and she needs to read them but they’re too small and she’s moving too fast.

  James must be checking in again. He misses them.

  Marvin pulls her inside and shuts the door with a click that’s louder than the insistent buzzing.

  Ruth tries to steady the phone with her shaking hand, trying to read the message but all she can see is the name blinking at her from the little window.

  Stef. Not James after all. Their names are always so close together, though.

  Marvin takes the phone from her, gently but firmly, and she doesn’t try to take it back.

  Her eyes have started to adjust, and she can discern the outlines of objects all around them. There is a large pile of small shapes against one wall.

  “We forgot to take off our shoes.” His voice lowers, conspiratorial. “Don’t worry, though, we won’t tell Lesley.” And he eases her down so she’s sitting somewhere soft.

  She’s on a bed and something is next to her, crouching on four legs. A table. But what’s on it? A lamp, maybe. The contours are odd, though, if that’s what it is. Round bumps instead of straight lines.

  “I knew we’d end up here.” Marvin sits down on the bed too. “As soon as I met you, I knew it.”

  This was a mistake, she thinks. The thought fills her fuzzy head until there’s no room for anything else. This was a mistake this was a mistake this was a mistake.

  He glances at her phone in his hand, nodding as he reads. “Stef says she found Fern, so you can stop worrying now.” He holds up the tiny, helpful machine and presses a button so her friend’s message glows in the dark. “See?” he says. “I told you.”

  Then he sets the phone down by his feet and slides it across the floor to the other end of the room, where it hums for a while longer and then is still.

  Fern is safe.

  “There,” he says. “Now we’re alone.”

  But Ruth is not.

  “What did you put in my drink?” she asks, and the force of her voice surprises her because he is the strong one here and she is weak, and he can do anything he wants to her because now they’re alone and the door is closed and how did she let this happen? This was a mistake.

  “Nothing,” he says. “It was only fruit punch. You’re just very drunk and very high.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I can’t control what you believe.” He shrugs against her and the movement nearly knocks her over. “But I’m telling the truth.”

  Now her fear is for herself, and the last of her strength drains out with a whoosh. Everything inside of her is cold. Everything inside of her is looking at the door that is closed and thinking about the other side. The wide-open hallway and the stairs down to the living room with its attractive, comfortable furniture and the front door that opens onto the sweet, fresh air and the smoke from the bonfire and the people laughing and dancing and drinking, but she is in here.

  It was better when she was out there. It was better when she was not in here.

  I told you. I told you.

  But now this is where she is.

  “I would never hurt you,” Marvin says quietly. “I hope that you know that.”

  There have been so many times in her life when she has told herself, Don’t worry, it will be fine. And it was. There have been times when she has thought, This is a bad idea. And she listened. And everything was fine.

  She knows that she has been lucky so far.

  There have been times when she has witnessed other women walking into bad situations and she just let them go because, oh well, they knew what they were getting into. She wishes she’d said something to them now. Don’t go. Be safe and stay here with me.

  There was one time when she left a girl alone in a basement with two boys and never went back for her. She wishes she’d gone back. But she was young and scared and her friend was brave and anyway she was fine after all. “I just screamed and they let me go,” Stef told Ruth when the two of them were alone later, flipping through fashion magazines on Ruth’s bed, and they never talked about it again.

  “Lesley spends a lot of time in this room,” Marvin says, mostly to himself. “I used to come in here a lot too, but not so much anymore. Too many bad memories.”

  Ruth wonders how James would feel if he knew. He would’ve rushed to Stef’s rescue, she knows that much. Would he rush to Ruth’s rescue now, if he knew she was in danger? She thinks he would. Probably. But he’s so far away. It would take him too long to get here, even if he drove very fast.

  Once, when Ruth was very pregnant, she and James had a picnic. They went to the little park near their apartment and tried to find a nice spot to sit, but there was only dirt and dried-out patches of grass because most of the trees had been cut down by the city. They had some sort of bug in them. James said, “Oh well,” and spread the lobster towel out over the greenest section, but when they sat down, they could feel everything through the thin material. Rocks and twigs and the sharp spines of discarded feathers. There was even a small, broken piece of shell that poked right into the back of her thigh, and Ruth held it up and said, “How did this get here?” James said, “A seagull must’ve dropped it.” And they were both quiet for a long time. Ruth was thinking about how far away the lake was. She didn’t know what James was thinking, which bothered her. She’d never been able to tell.

  Marvin sits very still beside her, breathing in the dark. Then he shifts his weight subtly, moving against her as he lifts his hand and brings it to her face.

  Ruth flinches away but not quite in time, and the stranger strokes her cheek before he reaches across her and switches on the bedside lamp.

  And all at once the room is very bright, and she can see.

  There is the bumpy lamp. Under the lightbulb with its striped, circus-tent shade, a laughing clown clutches a bunch of balloons in all different colours, floating on sharp-looking strings. The red paint on his mouth has worn away, as if someone used to rub it.

  “It’s easier to let new people think we never had children to begin with,” Marvin says. “A
nd the neighbours who knew us before don’t talk about it, because it upsets them.”

  Ruth squints against the harsh, yellow light.

  “We just have to keep this door closed. That’s the hardest part.”

  The small shapes are stuffed animals—bears and frogs and elephants and lambs. There are so many of them and they’re all smiling. She thinks she sees something familiar, a green glint, but her eyes must be playing tricks.

  “His name was Alex. Lesley called him Alexander but he liked Alex better. He liked me better too”—Marvin clears his throat, making it a silly sound—“but you didn’t hear that from me.”

  The bed is small, and covered by a quilt decorated with farm scenes. Little red barns and white fences and bales of hay and cows and horses and chickens.

  “The fire is always for him,” says Marvin. “Like one big birthday candle every summer.”

  This room faces the water. She’d caught a glimpse of it through the shifting shadows of the trees before Marvin switched on the lamp. The night is inky black outside the window, which has been placed low on the wall. Just the right height for a small child to look out at the lake.

  Exactly the way we wanted it, Lesley had told her. It’s our dream come true.

  Marvin grasps Ruth’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “We had to try for a long time too, like you did. But then we had Alex and he was such a good kid. Before we lost him, he was just starting to learn to swim, and one day we were in the lake together. I let go of him for just a second and he went under. When I pulled him back up, he coughed up a bunch of water but he was smiling. I told him I was sorry and he said, ‘It’s okay, Daddy.’” He makes a strangled sound and looks apologetic for it.

  The room isn’t blue and that’s good, Ruth thinks. Too many boys’ rooms are blue these days, and what if the boy doesn’t like blue? The sunny yellow walls are decorated with pictures of more animals. The one closest to Ruth shows a bright-green turtle floating on bright-blue water over the words, “The tortoise drifted out to sea. It wasn’t long before he was out of sight.” She wonders if that’s from a story. It seems like it must be.