The Almost Wife

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  “Did Buddy pick up Olive’s scent?” I asked.

  Nathan shrugged. “In this heavy rain, he’s going in circles.”

  I headed for the back door. “We need to go farther into the forest, under tree cover. Maybe he can pick up her scent there.”

  I trained the flashlight outside, across the wall of black. Rain fell in a glossy sheet from the overhang. The storm had only gotten worse. Wind pushed the young trees almost horizonal. Branches fell from the larger trees. Everything was in motion, branches and leaves swirling in the black. And there, standing at the edge of the bush, was a figure in the dark, a girl.

  “Olive?” I called. Or was it my doppelgänger?

  “You see her?” Nathan asked. “Where?”

  “Olive?” I called again. The shadow of a girl ran into the bush, disappearing into the glistening blackness. I launched forward, running through the rain and wind, pushing through the branches as I entered the bush. The dark swallowed me, making it almost impossible to see even a few feet ahead, but there was something moving in front of me, a shadow also pushing through the bush. “Olive,” I cried. “Stop!”

  Behind me, I heard Buddy barking as he picked up the scent or the chase. As Nathan and his dog ran to catch up with me, I could hear twigs breaking under his feet, the beagle snuffling. The light from Nathan’s flashlight bounced off the trees ahead. But I had lost sight of the girl running through the woods. I slowed and shone my light back and forth across the groaning trees. There was a small clearing up ahead, my father’s firepit, surrounded by logs, seating where we often had lunch during a hunt. I had waited on one of those logs, rifle in hand, for him to flush out a deer on that last day. As I stepped into the clearing, I saw a figure sitting on that log now. The black outline of a girl. She turned to look at me, and I came face to face with my past.

  But then Buddy reached me and barked, and Nathan was there at my shoulder, and my young self faded away.

  “Was it Olive?” he asked.

  I shook my head fiercely, as if I could shake the ghosts loose. “Nathan, I think I’m losing my mind. I’m seeing ghosts everywhere.”

  He laughed a little. “I’ve seen all kinds of things out here in the forest. Heard things. Nutty things. My mind playing tricks on me. Remember what your father always said? What you think you see in the bush—”

  I finished for him, “—is rarely what’s really there.”

  My father had drummed that saying into me when he took me hunting. To avoid hunting accidents, he said, wear hunter orange and be aware that what you thought was a deer might very well be another hunter or a hiker. It had been on my mind during that last hunt with my father, after Teresa left, as I waited on the log that was in front of us now, my brown and green pants blending into the leaf mulch dropped by the sugar maple and beech towering above me. But I wore a hunter-orange cap and vest, as my father did. Humans could see it as that brilliant color, while deer experienced it as gray or brown. My father left me there and went to flush out deer, warning me, again, to keep quiet and be ready for the deer when it launched through the bush. It would be my first kill.

  As I repositioned the rifle, I purposefully steadied my breath and felt my heart rate settle, the shake in my hands lessen. Slowly I entered that familiar state of grace I so often experienced while running, where I was both hyperaware and oblivious to the passage of time. My sense of self dissipated and then, painfully, snapped back into place as my calf cramped. My right foot had fallen asleep. Had I been sitting here for minutes? Hours? My belly grumbled at the thought of the rice pies and jelly pigs we’d have later.

  I scrutinized the bush around me, alert to any movement: the lift of branches shifting in the wind, the flutter of a bird’s wings. A chipmunk leapt from one tree to another and ran off, chattering. Somewhere close by, a chickadee sang, chickadee-dee-dee.

  Then a twig broke in the underbrush ahead and I tensed. My heart raced, thundering in my ears, and my breath grew short. I struggled to calm my nerves as I peered through the rifle scope at the forest beyond. Another twig broke, and I saw my target moving through the bush. The hunter orange. But before the flock of cedar waxwings erupted from the trees into the sky, before the deafening crack of the rifle, even before I squeezed the trigger, the dark shadow of a thought, an excuse—a way to get away with it—winged across my mind. An accident, I could say, a hunting accident. A tragic mistake. It happened every year in the province. Most of the time, the victim was a hunter who accidentally hit himself or a buddy. A bullet to the shoulder or foot. But occasionally it was much worse. A hiker had been shot and killed just two years before. She didn’t know hunting season had begun, and had gone for a walk with her dog. A hunter had fired at a deer and missed, and the stray bullet had caught the hiker in the chest, killing her. That could happen here, and no one would know otherwise. As my father always said: What you think you see in the bush is rarely what’s really there.

  23

  Standing in the dark beside Nathan, in the rain and wind, by the log where I had fired that shot, I started to shake uncontrollably, then, overcome, to cry, and then to wail. I fell to my knees in the muck around the campfire, my hands open on my thighs. Thinking of nothing. Feeling everything. It was like every emotion, the grief, the guilt I’d suppressed as a kid poured out of me. I’d once hiked to a waterfall with my father, one with a gaping cavern behind it that the water seemed to flood out of. Now, with my face tipped up to the rain, my mouth open, I was that cave, and the howl that flooded out was both animal and unearthly. Buddy took up the lament, howling beside me.

  “Kira!” Nathan cried, squatting beside me. “For god’s sake.” He gripped my shoulder so I would look up at him. Rain thundered down from the sky above us. “Kira, what’s going on?”

  “It was my fault,” I said. “I meant to do it!”

  He looked with me into the forest, at the path beyond, where my father had walked away from me that day, where the trees had enveloped him. His expression slowly changed as he realized what I was talking about. What I was telling him, after all this time. Then he pulled me up from the ground and hugged me like he thought I might slip away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that you never felt safe enough to tell me the truth. I know things with your family were messed up. Whatever happened with your dad, we can talk about it soon. You just let me know when. But it has to wait. Right now, you need to get your shit together. There’s a young girl alone and scared in this forest, in this storm, wet through and getting colder by the minute. We need to keep moving.”

  I nodded. Breathe, I thought. Breathe.

  “I’m right here with you,” Nathan said. “You can do this.”

  I must do this, I thought. For Olive. For myself. As I opened my mouth to tell him we should carry on, I suddenly saw movement in the corner of my eye. Could she be that close?

  “Over there!” I pointed.

  Nathan pushed into the forest ahead of me, following the trail my father had taken that last day. “Olive!” he called, over and over, and I echoed him. “Olive!”

  Buddy took off ahead of us, finding a scent trail now that we were under more cover, and Nathan picked up his pace. When he disappeared into the dark forest ahead of me, I called, “Nathan?”

  He pointed his flashlight back in my direction. “I’m right here,” he said, his voice warm, reassuring. “I’m right here.”

  I held a hand up to protect my face from wet branches and followed the orb of Nathan’s flashlight, hearing the squish of my own footsteps through mud and wet undergrowth. And then, up ahead, Buddy barked and barked.

  “I think he’s found her!” Nathan cried from some yards ahead, his voice thin in the wind and rain.

  “You see her?” I asked.

  “I think Buddy does. Over there!” Nathan shone his flashlight in the direction of Buddy’s bark, which was coming from a dense cedar bush. “Kira, you need to come and talk to her. Every time I move forward, she moves back.”

&
nbsp; Nathan pointed out the section of the woods where he thought she was hiding, and we made our way toward it. Wind swirled the rain, and within it I thought I saw the girl—my younger self. But then the wind retreated, and the fetch dissipated.

  “Olive?” I called, then, to Buddy, “Where is she, boy?” He barked and pointed his nose toward the thicket. Branches shook ahead of me.

  “Olive, is that you?” I asked. “It’s okay. This my friend Nathan and his dog, Buddy. I asked them to help me find you.” I heard her move back, farther into the bush. I stopped moving. “It’s dangerous to be out here in the rain for long. You must be chilled.” I listened. She was close. I could feel her eyes on me. I could feel someone’s eyes on me, at least. “You must be so scared. Let’s get you out of this dark forest, out of this storm.”

  I trained the light across the patch of bush. There was a flash of white. An arm, and then Olive’s young, scared face. A twig snapped as she quickly stepped back, out of the flashlight’s glare. I skimmed the light over the undergrowth and found her again, squatting, huddled against a tree trunk, wet through, shivering. She stood and held up a hand to the light, squinting. Buddy’s eyes reflected green, like some strange hellhound, as he turned back to us and wagged his tail in triumph. Another successful game of hide-and-seek.

  Nathan called the dog to him and made a show of praising Buddy. “Good boy! You’re such a good boy! You did so good!” He tossed a treat and Buddy caught it in his mouth. The dog circled Nathan, barking excitedly, wagging his tail.

  I held out a hand to Olive. “Let’s go inside—” I started.

  But then we heard a woman’s voice carried on the wind. Madison’s voice, calling through the woods in the distance. “Olive! Olive!”

  “Maddy?” Olive cried. Then, louder, “Maddy?”

  “Olive!”

  She bolted toward the sound of Madison’s voice. I sprinted after her, shining my light forward, pushing branches out of my face. The white of Olive’s skin flickered in and out of my beam as she dodged trees, leapt over logs, pushed through bushes. An owl, frightened by our passage, screeched and glided away, a ghost in the rainy night.

  I quickly caught up with Olive and took her arm. “Olive, please stop. If you want to see Madison, we can make it happen. We can meet her at the cabin. But for god’s sake, stop before you get lost again!”

  She yanked her arm out of my grip and stared into the blackness, in the direction of Madison’s voice, as if trying to make up her mind.

  “That’s really why you ran at the bridge, wasn’t it? To see Madison?” When she didn’t immediately answer, I added, “I know she was in the minivan with you and that woman, Sarah. The van is parked here, at the road. Sarah’s here too, somewhere in this forest, looking for you.”

  Olive’s eyes grew large. Busted. “I just wanted to see my mom, you know? Dad won’t even let me talk to Maddy. But she’s my mom.” She looked up at me. “Will you tell him? I mean, if you let me see Maddy now?”

  I looked back at Nathan, and he shook his head. “No,” I said. “Aaron doesn’t need to know about any of this.” About how I had let Olive slip away a second time, about Nathan being here, tracking her down.

  Olive eyed Nathan and me, trying to gauge whether she could trust us, I thought. “Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s go.”

  I wrapped an arm around her, pushing her wet hair out of her face. “My god, you’re freezing. We’ve got to get you warmed up right away.”

  She nodded, shivering, and Nathan took off his rain jacket and draped it around her.

  “Madison?” I called out into the storm. “Madison, we found Olive. Meet us back at the cabin.” I listened a moment. “You hear me?”

  There was a pause, as if she didn’t quite know how to respond, and then she called back from the black forest. “I heard you.”

  I squeezed Olive’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get out of this rain.”

  When Nathan snapped Buddy’s leash onto his collar for the hike back, Olive bent to scratch Buddy’s head. The smell of dog rose up. The beagle, in turn, sniffed her with interest. And for the first time that day—that week, that month—a genuine, spontaneous smile appeared on Olive’s face. When we got home, I was going to buy that girl a dog.

  24

  The rain-peppered cabin windows reflected the flickering amber light of the lanterns within, and I felt a pang of nostalgia, as if I were visiting the past. I half expected to see Dad pass by the window, carrying the kettle from the stove to the small wooden table to make hot chocolate. If I peeked inside, would I see myself, that girl, seated with my father at the table? But, of course, time had moved on, and my father was long dead.

  Nathan removed his wet rain jacket from Olive’s shoulders and hung it on a hook near the door, next to my father’s plaid jacket. I wrapped a gray camp blanket around her and took a good look at her. Her lips had taken on a bluish cast and her makeup was smeared, darkening the area under her eyes. I fished in my purse and handed her a fresh baby wipe. She dabbed her face with it, removing the mascara from beneath her eyes.

  “As soon as this storm lets up,” I said, “we’ll run to the truck and get you back to the house. You can have a hot shower and tuck into bed. I think we’re all ready for a good night’s sleep.”

  “I’ll get a fire going for now,” Nathan said, kneeling near the stove to arrange newspaper and kindling within it. “This place is so small it won’t take long to heat up.”

  It never had taken long, even in November. My father had insulated the walls of the cabin well, and it warmed up within minutes of someone starting a fire.

  “When is Maddy going to get here?” Olive asked.

  “Soon, I expect,” I said.

  She sat in a chair at the table to rub Buddy’s head. “He’s a tracker?” she asked Nathan.

  “I trained him myself,” Nathan said, grabbing the box of Red Bird matches.

  “Buddy’s a blood tracker,” I explained. “A hunting dog.”

  “You mean he tracks down wounded deer,” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she looked accusingly at me. “So you can kill them.”

  “So they don’t endure pain any longer than they have to,” I said.

  “A good hunter never wants an animal to suffer,” Nathan said. He lit a match and held it to the kindling.

  “You guys hunt together?” Olive asked, looking first at me and then at Nathan. She was asking how we knew each other.

  “We haven’t hunted together for a long time,” I said. “Not since we were kids.” Hunting with my father, though not with rifles. I didn’t carry a gun until that final year, after I turned twelve. “Nathan and I grew up together,” I said. More or less. I’d spent summers and much of the winter here on Manitoulin when my father was still alive, hunting or cross-country skiing, snowshoeing.

  “I’ve never heard you talk about him,” Olive said, pointing a thumb at Nathan.

  I exchanged a glance with him. Still kneeling by the fire, he offered her a Snickers from his jacket pocket. “You hungry?” he asked, trying to redirect the conversation. Awkward.

  Olive didn’t bother to answer. Her eyes slid from me to Nathan and back again. The kid was far too attuned to the grown-ups around her, too aware of their associations and concerns, picking up cues other kids would miss. I just hoped she wouldn’t mention Nathan to Aaron; if she did, it would become obvious that she’d run away a second time, to get to Madison. We’d have to have a conversation about exactly how much Aaron needed to hear about today’s events.

  “There,” Nathan said, closing the stove door and standing. “That should warm us up in no time.” The fire crackled, already throwing some heat.

  Olive pulled the blanket snug around her neck and rapped her knuckles against the metal gun cabinet that stood against the wall behind the table. “What is this thing?” she asked. “Some kind of safe?”

  “That’s where my father stored his hunting rifles,” I said. One was likely still there, a gun I h
ad never got around to disposing of. I was so foolish, cowardly, not drumming up the courage to venture into my father’s hunt camp and deal with this. The low crime rate on Manitoulin was a point of local pride, but anyone could have broken into this cabin over the years and taken the rifle. Kids, even. One hard strike of a rock on the cabinet’s lock would have busted it open. I could have been responsible for some dumb kid’s death. I rummaged in my bag for my set of keys and flipped through them until I got to the key marked Guns. I opened the cabinet to check. My father’s Remington Model 700 was still there in the racks, thank god, along with a box of cartridges on the shelf above. The cabinet smelled of mice, and droppings lined its base. I closed the door and put the lock back in place. I would have to come back and clean this cabin out, sell the property finally, rid myself of the memories.

  “Your father was seriously into hunting,” Olive said. She stood to open the case of hunting knives that hung next to the gun cabinet, dragging the blanket along with her.

  “Some of those knives were mine,” I said. Gifts from my father. “From when I was about your age, actually.”

  Her eyes widened. For once I had impressed her. She opened the dusty case, took down a knife and flipped the blade over. “Cool. I mean, it looks like something from one of my games.”

  “Just what kind of video games does your father let you play?” Nathan asked.

  Olive and Aaron played first-person shooter games together, mostly. It only occurred to me then that perhaps this wasn’t the most appropriate father-daughter activity, but who was I to judge? My father had taken me out into the forest to kill deer.

  “It’s not a toy,” I said, taking the knife from her. I held it a moment, hearing my mother’s voice. When you’re staying with him at the cabin, you’ll need to protect yourself, she’d said. There are all those knives in the case. He’ll never notice if you take one. Keep it under your pillow. When he tries something, you’ll be ready. She’d made a thrusting motion, as if holding on to the hilt of a knife and jabbing. Always be ready.