In the Woods

We take Luke for a walk in the woods behind the town where we both grew up. The townspeople have been arguing about the woods for months. Should the town sell them to a developer or leave them the way they are?  The town is shrinking. Many of the houses are owned by come-from-aways and are only inhabited for half of the year. There are problems with the water and the sewer systems. The town requires a broader tax base. The developer promises to build an affordable, family-friendly neighbourhood. We would like to live in the town but we probably wouldn't buy one of those new houses. The town wouldn't be the same without the woods.

David pushes the stroller up the rocky bank behind the swimming pool. I trudge along behind. "I wonder how many of those you could count back here," David says, pointing to a condom wrapper.

I can't bring myself to feel upset about it. I remember lying back on pine needles, looking up at leaves, cloud, and sky. The taste of kisses in clean cold air. I take a deep breath. "Smell the fresh air," I tell Luke. "Doesn't it smell good?"

"Are we in the woods, now, Mommy?" he asks. I tell him yes.

We walk through the woods to the graveyard.

"Why are we here?" says Luke.

"Because Grandma is buried here," I say. "She used to be Daddy's Mommy." I will him not to ask for more details about "buried." I wonder if I should have said, "She is Daddy's Mommy."

"Is this a different kind of woods?" Luke asks, looking around him at the gravestones.

We don't say anything. Yes, it is, I think.

I stop the stroller next to my mother-in-law's grave. David circles it. His hands hang limply at his sides. We discuss the possibility of planting a tree. I notice there is room here for several more plots. He says he should bring a picture up here.

"Of what," I ask.

He doesn't answer.

"How will you protect it from the weather?" I ask.

He doesn't answer.

"Look," he says to Luke. He crouches down on the other side of his mother's grave, scoops something black up in his hands and tosses it over the marker and onto the path in front of the stroller. It is a cricket. It doesn't move. Luke laughs and climbs out of the stroller and leans over it, peering down.

"It's dead," says Luke, who doesn't really know what that word means.

"No, it isn't," says David. And he gives the cricket a gentle push with the tip of his finger. The cricket hops a bit.

Luke laughs and drops a pebble on it.

"Don't kill it!" says David.

Luke begins to run down the path, pausing to thrust one arm out and bounce wildly from foot to foot. Although no one else would be able to tell, we know he is sword-fighting with monsters. We follow him.

"This is a different kind of woods!" Luke shouts, running back toward the cricket. I look over my shoulder to see him dropping some more pebbles onto it."We will never get out of it!"

You're right about that, I think.  At the same time, David says, "Oh, yes we will."

Comments

[zan]

This is beautiful.

[Steph]

Thanks, zan. It was a lovely, if bittersweet, walk.

[elizabeth ellen]

i had the same comment as zan:
beautiful.
maybe you should write a memoir of motherhood, steph.
are you keeping a journal?
i suppose your posts are like a journal.
anyway, xoxo.
-ee