Good-bye
by Olivia Murphy-Major
In the summer our yard was enclosed by lush forest. The storm took down a large maple in the yard and left it laid up against the brushline, across the grass. I felt that the tree must be relieved to lie down after so long. When it first fell Mia and I walked along it, then on it, exploring the holes woodpeckers made, the smooth, fragrant interior of the tree. We felt the bark, rough on our feet. When the tree fell its roots went with it, a sprawling web holding clumps of dirt, leaving a pit of earth in its absence. Both nights after the storm, I dreamed of Mia and I running along a forest full of fallen trees, almost floating across their trunks. I was not sure if we were running away or toward something.
My mother sat in her wooden chair on the porch, a thin dress hiked up around her hips so the sun would touch her legs. She wore a sunhat that let pricks of sunlight through to rest on her fair face like stars. Mia walked around the yard, collecting things from the grass. I watched her crouch and pick up a fallen milkweed husk, grey and brittle. She plucked away the soft floss and sprinkled it into the air, saying, “Good-bye. Good-bye.”
“Mia, come here,” my mother said to her. “I need to put more sunscreen on you if you're going to waddle around naked.”
Mia set down her findings and walked to us. She was like a loyal dog. She never put up a fight and never wandered far off. My mother told me Mia had been the better baby—I was fussy, I had been known to bite her, and sometimes I’d escape from my crib at night.
My mother turned toward me. “Could you, Sophie?” she asked, placing the bottle of sunscreen in my hands. Mia stood in front of my chair as I spread the lotion on her back and shoulders. When she turned so I could put some on her chest, she brought her hand to her mouth and wiggled her top tooth with her fingers. She looked at me with the wide-eyed, vacant stare young children have.
“Sophie,” she said, taking her hand away from her mouth, “Can we go to the river?”
Our mother once told us that the river running through the valley was no one's—people owned land that extended to the riverbank, but the river itself could not be owned, and so it was fine to travel along it. We went often in the summertime, and since I had turned twelve, my mother trusted me to bring Mia and watch after her. At six years old she could wade and doggy paddle, and I had begun to teach her to float. I planned to teach her to really swim later on, but first, she had to trust her body in the water.
Before we left for the river, I took a five dollar bill from a tin box I had beneath my bed. I wanted to buy us ice cream at the country store on our way. This felt ceremonious, because all told I only had twenty-three dollars in the tin box, counting quarters and silver dollars. Mia could not quite understand the extent of my generosity—because of her age she didn't have a grasp on money in the way I, a twelve year old, did—but this made me feel more satisfied with my kindness.
We walked down the driveway, the canopy of trees darkening the day. We turned onto the dusty summer road and passed the houses of our neighbours, their socks and underwear flapping on the clotheslines. We walked beside the cornfield, which would soon be cut and ground for the cows. It was late August, it could happen any day now. Thinking of this I ran my hands along the cool green stalks.
Inside the country store, there was a large jar filled with oily coffee beans that shone like beetles, coolers filled with soft drinks, shelves of canned fruit. We saw plums, perfectly ripe, the purple skin gleaming at us from the icebox. I took two and gave them to Mia to hold, along with two wrapped fudgesicles. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cecelia Dunn, a widow who lived in the centre of town. She rounded the corner of the produce aisle and surveyed a shelf of packaged donuts from a distance. Her face held a look of deep consideration.
As soon as I recognized her I turned on my heel in the opposite direction, tugging Mia's shirt sleeve so she knew to follow me. I had nothing against Miss Dunn, I simply did not like socialising with older people without the safety of my mother’s buoyant voice floating above me, speaking to the adults first. I did not mind feeling small when I was with my mother.
“Girls!” Miss Dunn called. Reluctantly I turned, and we walked to meet her halfway through the aisle.
She had a loaf of bread tucked under one arm. Half circles of sweat appeared on the fabric of her shirt beneath her breasts. I hoped she would not hug us; older women seemed shameless about the fact that I was right at breast level when they embraced me.
She gave us each a squeeze on the arm that felt more medical than affectionate.
“I haven't seen you two at church in a while,” she said, looking down at us, smiling to reveal her veneers.
“We don't like to go,” Mia said, opening a bag of chips she had plucked from the shelf, “We only go when Mama makes us.”
Miss Dunn grinned and threw her head back so her neck was extended—I watched her larynx move up and down as she laughed. “Well aren't you honest!”
Mia took a chip from the bag and placed it in her mouth, her expression unchanged.
It was true we didn't like to go. I disliked almost everything about mass—the ceramic crucified Jesus above the altar, the spots of blood painted on his wrists and ankles. I was unsettled by the uniformity of the men’s drooping mouths, the women’s painted faces. There was a strange light in the church, too, that came in shafts through the windows, but was swallowed by the dark wood of the pews. I did like the sound of the organ, how it carved its way through the voices.
“Well, I can see you have ice cream,” Miss Dunn said, pointing at the fudgesicles, which were beginning to melt beneath their plastic films.
“Better go and eat those before they turn to soup.”
Mia wrinkled her nose.
“Good day to you two. Enjoy the sun and say hello to your mother for me.”
She turned and walked toward the cash register, her skirt swirling behind her.
When Mia and I got outside, we walked around the corner and sat in the shade the building offered. The grass tickled my legs as I sat with my back against the stucco. We decided to eat the plums first. I bit into mine and felt the cold, sweet sensation on my tongue; I savoured the way the skin of the fruit gave under the pressure of my teeth.
I opened my eyes and looked at Mia. She was still, staring at her plum, which had half a bite taken out of it. Blood streamed out of her mouth, it made her lips and chin slick with red. I cupped my hand beneath her jaw to stop the blood from getting all over her.
“I lost my tooth,” she said, lisping.
We both looked at the plum, and the tooth like a white pearl lodged in its flesh.
“I lost my tooth!” she said again, excitedly.
I nodded.
“I wonder what the tooth fairy will bring you. Here, spit into the grass.”
Blood had begun to pool in her mouth. She spat to the side and wiped her forearm across her mouth. She studied the tooth while I wiped my hand on the grass. I brought my hand up to my face and studied the blood that had settled into the creases and webbing of my palm, the rivulets winding across and up to the crease where my fingers began.
Mia’s fudgesicle cooled her mouth on the remainder of our walk to the river. She had no stains on her clothes, only traces of red on various parts of her body. She got into the water first, eager to feel the cold. She wore yellow shorts. Her belly was on display, round and faintly pink, and when she turned, I saw her little shoulder blades moving as she swung her arms, her fingers gliding along the surface of the water. Her shorts floated up around her as she submerged herself further in the water.
“Rip-ple” she said, touching her pointer finger to the surface of the water and retracting it again.
“Rip-ple.”
I watched the light playing on the water around her. I tried to memorise the feeling swelling in my chest. I breathed in the muddy scent of the river and savoured the warmth of the sun on the tops of my shoulders.
The river stones were covered with algae and it was easy to slip and fall. Once I got in I warned Mia against this and we walked upstream, our legs pushing through the current. Fallen branches were scattered across the banks, some lay like bridges across the water. We could hear the frogs chirping, and the croaking of a lone bullfrog somewhere in the marsh.
“What should we pretend to be? Sailors again?” I asked Mia. Crawfish flitted from stone to stone at our feet, their carapaces glinting in the light.
“We could pretend we are bandits,” Mia said, “Frog bandits, here to steal all the frogs.”
“You can't carry more than two frogs.”
“Well if I had a hat I could put them all in it and then put it on top of my head.”
“But then,” I told her, “you would feel all the slimy frogs on your head. And maybe you'd smother them.”
“You can't smother a frog because they breathe through their whole bodies like fish.”
“That's just not true.”
“Frogs have no bones,” Mia continued, “No bones what-so-ever.”
“Shh,” I held my finger to my lips and stopped walking.
We were coming around a bend. I heard laughter, voices echoing across the water. I splashed further, peering ahead and saw two floating heads. They were laughing, and then they were kissing.
I waded through the water with Mia rushing up behind me and we crept into the brush. We picked our way through the brambles, the voices getting closer. Mia poked me hard in the back and said, “What are you doing?”
I kept on until we were yards away, hidden from view in the bushes. I could feel my pulse in my temples. In the brambles we settled in, several Japanese beetles were roaming around on the raspberry leaves, eating them. On the riverbank ahead of the brush I could see their belongings. Two towels, one moth-eaten so it showed patches of the stones it rested on. There was a six pack of beer with three cans missing, and clothes scattered around.
The girl swam toward the river bank, each arm raising and cutting into the water. The water in this part of the river was deep and shimmering. I had not seen such beautiful depth at any part of the river. The birch trees on the opposite bank shivered, shaking their leaves so that the silvery undersides showed.
Once the girl reached shallower water she stood. She was naked. She squeezed the water from her hair and wiped drops from her eyelids. She looked around the river bank, squinting. I saw her skin glisten, the water droplets shimmering on her legs and chest. Her hair was dark with water and fell around her shoulders, dripping on the rest of her body. She had small breasts that lifted with each breath. I looked at her long, golden stomach that led down to the dark hair between her legs. The hair spread to each side and down the tops of her inner thighs. She reminded me of a horse—standing steadily, unmoving and majestic, blinking softly against the sun. I was afraid to spook her, as I would fear spooking an animal. I held my breath in my lungs.
The boy called after her, shouting her name, I thought, but I couldn’t make out what it was. She turned to face the river and I saw a delicate map of freckles down her back.
“I’m coming,” she told him. The boy’s floating head spat an arc of water into the air.
I turned to Mia, whose eyes were locked on the woman.
“Don’t look!” I told her, and she clamped her hands over her eyes, resting her elbows on her knees.
I could feel Mia’s warmth; she had scooted so her leg and shoulder were leaned against mine. Her skin was hot from being in the sun. I felt suffocated by the brush, the stillness, and Mia’s body touching mine. I lowered my face and rested my forehead between my knees, and closed my eyes. I traced my finger from my hairline down my forehead, the slope of my nose, my cupid’s bow. As if to remind myself, here you are.
Gently, Mia took my hand in hers. “I'm hungry,” she whispered.
I turned my head to look at her. The sun streamed through, making her eyes look wild, their brown shade turned orange.
“Okay,” I told her. We lifted ourselves from our crouched position and went back through the brush, the voices growing quiet behind us.
As we walked, I looked around at the houses flanking the road. Many had slate roofs, some tin roofs glimmering in the sun, and most had trees surrounding them so that I could only see fragments of windows, porches, and gardens. Those who did not have forest to shield them had high hedges, manicured so that they looked dense and even.
I looked at Mia, who had her eyes fixed on her feet as she walked. Her head hung forward enough that the back of her neck was exposed, and peach fuzz was visible, golden in the sunlight. The hair at the nape of her neck sprung up in little curls from the humidity. She strode lightly, perhaps unaffected or at ease with the sight of the woman’s body. I wished Mia would reach over and take my hand. My gaze travelled to our long, wavering shadows on the road, and a sombre feeling washed over me. I watched our swinging arms in predictable rhythm, the misshapen silhouettes, the way they quivered and bent across rocks and divots in the pavement. I was reminded of the way my reflection looked in the river, how the image of my face dissolved into ripples when the surface was unsettled by current or wind. I could feel the summer slipping as dusk neared, I felt a change in the air, and felt I was going with it.
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