Rebecca Coleman - The Kingdom of Childhood

He grinned and hesitated, trying to think up a new way to lure her back. But then, behind her, he saw a woman walking swiftly toward them, wearing a down vest much like his own. As she came closer he realized it was Rhianne.

“There you are,” she said, clearly exasperated. “Zach, can I have a word with you privately?”

He immediately stood up, and Fairen shot him an odd smile and a small wave. “Catch up with me in a minute, okay?”

“Sure thing.” She walked off, and he asked Rhianne, “Is my mom in labor?”

“No. She’s fine. I’m glad I found you. Seems like every kid from Sylvania is here.” She took a deep breath. “Zach, listen to me. You have to break things off with Judy McFarland right away.”

His eyes widened at hearing her name from Rhianne. Immediately he felt the gut-level panic he had feared for months at being found out. He said, “I already did. There’s nothing going on anymore.”

“You’re sure she understands that. Because that woman’s not stable, Zach. She’s dangerous, and she might try to say you raped her.”

He shook his head. “She won’t really do that. She’s just upset and got her feelings hurt. I didn’t do anything to her that she didn’t want me to do.”

“Well, you need to be prepared for what she might accuse you of, if she’s crazy enough to try. Which she might be. She hit me and shoved me into her stove.”

“Really?” He half laughed, and Rhianne gave him a look of alarm. “Glad it’s not just me. She gets pissy when you tick her off.”

“I’d get a restraining order if I were you.”

Now his laugh was outright. He felt impatient to get back to Fairen. “You’ve seen her, right? She’s about the size of a twelve-year-old. I’m not worried about it.”

“I think you’re underestimating her.”

He shrugged and let his gaze wander over her shoulder. “People mouth off when they’re mad. Word getting out about what happened is the last thing she wants, trust me. It’ll blow over.”

Fairen was wandering back toward him, her gaze curious, her purple ski vest swinging stiffly in the cold air. Her flaxen hair was backlit by the wicker man in a halo of yellow. The drummers in the circle stepped up the rhythm into a near frenzy, hands striking drumskin with a force he could feel in the ground.

“Come on,” she yelled, gesturing with a broad arc of her arm. “You said you’d dance with me!”

He offered Rhianne an apologetic nod and walked over to where Fairen stood, smiling and dancing, her hair aglow in the light of the burning.

I needed to get my head together, as Scott said. To sit and think.

I drove out to the lake, where I imagined I could park in the shadowy little spot where Zach and I had often stopped, and look out at the water, and talk myself back into a clearer frame of mind. Beneath those trees I could consider the full arc of our relationship. There I could follow the trail of memories from our first covert, intoxicating visit to that space to the last, when I climbed onto his lap and felt his skin blazing hot around me, delighting in it for the last precious moments before the just universe would begin to confront me with every sorry truth about who I was. Before it dismantled the playhouse my mind had built, hoping it would serve as a for tress.

But the parking lot was jammed full of cars. I had never seen it so full. I heard music not far away and realized there was a festival going on. Gradually I remembered seeing the posters around town, a straw effigy burning in some sort of Celtic winter ritual. I parked my car illegally on the painted stripes beside a handicapped spot, and left my motor running.

In spite of the crowd, I stared out at the water and called up my memories. In my mind I could still see the urgency in Zach’s movements the first time we stopped here, hear the ragged sound of his breathing that seemed magnified by the deep silence around us, like a voice calling across a field on a snowy day. I remembered the bone-deep comfort of wrapping my arms around his body and pressing my face against his belly, and knowing there was no chance he would send me away, because the car was mine, and the keys were in my pocket, and I had something he very much wanted.

I sighed brokenly and pushed my hair back from my forehead. Through the windshield I watched a couple making out, and envied them their passion, their indifference to the crowd around them. The young man turned the girl onto her back and climbed over her, and quite suddenly, from the shape of his arms and shoulders and the angle at which his bangs fell, I realized it was Zach. I exhaled hard in surprise, and then, as he kissed her from above, cupping her breast with his free hand, I felt a tightness gathering around my heart. How easy it must be to be done with me when he had the willing blonde. The lawyers’ daughter, the one forever kissing boys on the playground, the girl with her bent knees now on either side of Zach’s hips.

I pushed in the cigarette lighter.

A breeze blew at the stand of pine trees in front of me, and through their wavering branches I caught sight of the straw man beginning to burn above the water. The man was unrealistically silent, but the crowd screamed for him. The flames spun around the body like a swarm of bees. I pulled a Martinmas lantern out from the box on the floor behind the driver’s seat, wadded in the cleaning cloth for my sunglasses, and dug into my purse for the vial of Bach’s Rescue Remedy. Its maker purported the flower essences were blended specifically to help in traumatic situations, and whether or not they worked as claimed, I was certain the alcohol tincture would function reliably.

I doused the cloth in Rescue Remedy and stepped out of the car. When I dropped in the cigarette lighter, the instant blaze shifted the lighting such that I could see my reflection in the car window: hair long and wild, expression blank, eyes dark hollows that disappeared into my face. The image was strangely soothing. I had become nobody, only a caricature, a cautionary tale of the body gone terribly awry. I was a book of moral lessons, and children had reason to fear me.

The wind had calmed. I stepped toward the trees, but to my dismay Fairen was gone. Now Zach stood speaking to a woman who, as I drew closer, appeared to be Rhianne. She gestured to him with broad, adamant strokes of her hand, and although he kept his distance and shook his head, I felt a chill that countered my burning hands. Then Zach stepped around her and walked toward the dancing group, hands in his pockets, leaving her standing beside the blanket in a disgruntled posture.

I sighed and set the lantern on the asphalt. The flames leaped well above its rim, but I doused it with my leftover cup of coffee, and it sputtered out.

Then I jammed my keys in the ignition and headed back home.

When I returned to the house there was an ambulance sitting in the driveway, all its red lights whirling. The front door stood open. I gathered my purse and walked up to the door, where a medical technician in a blue uniform greeted me and told me Russ was dead. I felt anxious and a bit surprised. Scott had found him, they told me; and only then did I realize this explained why Russ had not come downstairs during my disagreement with the midwife. The two medics told me the police would arrive soon, as a matter of routine, so I sat in the rocking chair and waited for them. While I waited I wound balls of yarn, as I often asked my students to do during quiet time.

When they arrived they appeared surprised to see me there. The one policeman said, it doesn’t seem to come as much of a shock to you that your husband is dead in his office. So I said, Officer, my husband has had a drug problem for a long time now, and I warned him that eventually he would probably die without treatment. So I suppose you could say I feel a bit resigned.