So maybe to avoid that effort, I lied. “Okay,” I said. “I won’t be mad.”
Natalia reached out and touched my arm. “Good,” she said. Then we parted—she into the woods to pee, and me to eat my blueberry sandwich. As I sat down to eat, Silas stood up. The men on the fishing boat continued their haranguing of the poor dog. Silas rooted around in his canoe and then pulled a wad of bills from his pack. He splashed out into the water, holding the money above his head.
“Hey,” he yelled to the fishermen. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for that dog.”
There was a brief moment of silence. Then the one with the hat stood up, picked up the dog, and tossed him into the water. Silas threw the money into the boat. The dog swam past him, toward the shore, without looking back once.
By the time Silas got back to us, Meredith had already fed the dog two pieces of bread. The fishermen had motored off, perhaps worried that Silas would change his mind. I patted my knees, and the dog wiggled his way over to me. I gave him the rest of my sandwich and scratched his head. He seemed like a nice dog, with a big grin, not affected by the previous abuse other than being very happy to have escaped it. When Natalia emerged from the woods she sat down next to me. The dog thrust his fat nose directly into her crotch. She pushed him away, holding his face firmly in her hands.
“What did I miss?” she said.
“I’m in love,” I told her, loud enough for everyone to hear.
We both laughed. Jane frowned across from us—either unhappy with the new addition to our crew or assuming that I meant Silas and not the dog.
chapter ten
the drop-off point
We reached our drop-off point at dusk, rowing through a light rain. It felt like reaching Avalon, with mist and twilight all around us, the dog perched and wagging in the bow of Jane’s canoe. We had all taken turns carrying the dog in our boats, but he seemed to know who had masterminded his rescue. Given a choice he hopped in with Silas every time, and shadowed him closely whenever we reached camp. Two nights before, after much discussion, Silas had christened the dog Bucket Head.
“That’s a terrible name,” I said.
“He’s a terrible dog,” Silas said, which was true enough. Bucket Head had so far proved himself sweet but stupid. His first night camping with us, he had ripped into the food bag and eaten the last of our bread and marshmallows. Whereas before we had packed up our food halfheartedly, not quite believing in the need to protect it from bears, we now had an inside threat and made sure we sealed the cooler, even though we had almost nothing left but a sad assortment of dented cans.
The two other groups who shared our drop-off point had already arrived. Almost immediately, the three Youth at Risk found one another, which surprised me a little because one of them was African-American. Mick and the other two guys gathered by the edge of the lake, laughing and telling stories. I saw him gesture toward Natalia and then lean in close to whisper something. Three big guffaws erupted jarringly. If Natalia noticed, she didn’t say anything. For the past two days she and I had wandered together through an unnaturally silent truce. She had stuck physically close to me in an obvious effort to avoid being alone with Mick, but I think we both felt like any sort of real conversation would just lead back to an argument.
Now we explored the other campsites, looking for the friends we’d met at base camp. I hoped I might find Cody, but no such luck. We roamed among the other kids, everyone looking more or less the same in our unwashed shorts and dirty raincoats. The main thing we learned from brief and passing conversation: the mail and food had not arrived yet, and all the other group leaders had been preparing much more elaborate meals in their reflector ovens. One group we visited was in the middle of devouring a pineapple upside-down cake. They gave us a piece, which Natalia and I immediately took into the woods, not wanting to split it more than two ways.
“I’m glad the mail hasn’t come yet,” Natalia said, between glorious sugary bites. “It gives me another night to work on my letter to Margit. Will you help me?”
“Sure,” I said. We licked the last of the cake off our fingers and went back to our tent. Meredith and Lori were off somewhere else, so we had it to ourselves.
Natalia stared at her sheet of paper. “It’s not really a letter at all,” she said. “Just a list of questions. How can I send her this?”
“We could redo it,” I said. “Write a little introduction, then the questions.”
She lifted her pen as if to add a question, then pressed it to the paper and drew a large X. It struck me as a meaningless gesture—the words on the paper still visible, nothing really ruined.
“You know what I wonder most,” Natalia said. “I wonder what my father was like.”
“Your father,” I said, carefully testing the new possessive pronoun.
“Yes, my father. I wonder if he was kind of a delinquent, kind of a loser. Like Mick or Steve.”
I didn’t like hearing these words attached to Steve, whose only claim to loserdom was public school and some very minor teenage brushes with the law. If I really went to Bulgar County High in the fall, maybe Natalia would start referring to me as a loser too.
“Steve’s not a delinquent,” I said. “He’s not a loser.”
“Oh, but Mick is?”
“You’re the one who said it,” I pointed out. I didn’t remind her that Mick had already admitted to the biggest crime a person could commit.
She relaxed her shoulders. “Did you see how those three guys found each other the second we landed our boats?” she said. “It’s like they’re from the same tribe or something. What I’m thinking is, maybe my father was like Mick and Steve, some goy from a crappy family. And that’s why I’m drawn to these guys, because of my genetic makeup. My DNA. Like, if you had your baby, it would grow up to cruise Overpeck for boys exactly like Tommy.”
I ignored this unpleasant vision of the future and thought of Margit’s standard-issue husband—handsome, successful, from a good family. Margit had always seemed like such a prim and obedient person. I couldn’t imagine her straying too far from the fold in terms of mate selection. “The father was probably someone from Linden Hill Country Day,” I said. “It was probably her high school sweetheart, a perfectly nice guy.”
Natalia looked down at her list of questions and drew another line through it. “I never heard of her having a high school sweetheart,” she said. “I keep trying to think of her, remember what I know about her. Like, it seems like five minutes ago I would have said we were so close. Now all I think is I don’t know her. I don’t know her at all.” She pressed down hard with the pen, but still didn’t do much damage to the overall legibility.
“It’s just weird,” she said, “expecting them to tell me the truth now, when all they’ve ever told me is lies.” A large tear dribbled to the end of her nose, then plopped onto the paper. I gently eased the pad out of her hands and ripped off the top sheet.
“Dear Margit,” I wrote, on a fresh piece of paper.
“She knows that’s not my handwriting,” Natalia said.
“So she’ll know you dictated it,” I said. Natalia stared off for a minute, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She sat up straight.
“Dear Margit,” she said. “As you probably know, I found out that you are not my sister, but my mother. Obviously we have a lot to talk about, and I want you to be prepared. Here is a list of questions. I hope you will answer each one truthfully when we see each other again. I really think that at this point everybody owes me some serious truth.”
She paused, waiting for me to catch up. My penmanship was nowhere near as good as hers, so I took pains to write clearly, if not prettily.
“In the meantime,” she said when my pen stopped moving, “I want you to know that I understand you had a choice, and that I’m grateful you decided to have me. I’m thankful for this life I have, and I deeply respect your courageous decision.”
I stopped writing. Outside the tent, shadows and voices
milled, new people getting to know one another. Rain fell on the roof, not hard enough to make noise, but creating strange shadows, dark lines that rolled across Natalia’s face. I put the pad back in her hands.
“Here,” I said. “Write it yourself.”
I climbed out of the tent and zipped it shut behind me. Silas and Jane had built a fire, which struggled to stay alive in the gathering dampness. The two of them reunited with the other counselors, talking and laughing. Bucket Head stuck close to Silas. I could see Mick and his shady friends down by the water, but Brendan was nowhere to be found. Only Meredith and Lori sat by the fire, eating the wild blueberry mash with their fingers. I walked over and joined them. “Is that all the food we have left?” I said. My body had quickly digested the pineapple upside-down cake, and now my stomach grumbled furiously for more food. Jane, socializing fifty feet beyond, didn’t look like she planned to cook us anything.
“There’s a couple cans of hash left,” Meredith said. I opened one of them and settled it into the smoldering embers in an attempt to warm it up.
“So,” I said to Lori, who crouched miserably underneath the rain. “Do you think you’ll change your mind?”
“I’m getting out of here the very first second I can,” Lori said. Meredith looked at me and shrugged apologetically. I smiled at her.
By the time I fished the hash out of the fire, the two of them had crawled into the tent to get out of the rain. A few minutes later Natalia sat down next to me. The food had heated up surprisingly well, and after a few bites I handed the can to her. She tasted it daintily, then scrunched up her nose and handed it back to me. The meat had an old, metallic taste, and the tiny potatoes tasted slimy and dense. But I couldn’t stop eating. Sensing Natalia’s eyes on me, I thought my gestures were too ravenous and put the food down. Bucket Head appeared immediately, sitting up at attention and wagging his tail. I picked up the can, in case someone else wanted the food.
“You might as well give it to him,” Natalia said. “He’s got to eat too.”
I removed the fork and handed the can to the dog. His nose disappeared as he greedily lapped up the last of it. One second he’d jam his nose deep into the can, and the next second he’d paw at it frantically, trying to work it off his nose. Natalia and I laughed, and for a second I thought we could leave the weirdness of the tent behind. But then she said, “Mick says you’re going to hell.”
A cold wave of fury washed over me. Part of me could understand why Natalia had gone haywire. However screwed up my own family was, at least I knew where I came from. I had never been lied to, never had the entire world shift around me and my identity. I got why she had a hard time with the idea of my abortion, even though it completely screwed up my ability to get one. But still.
“Mick says I’m going to hell?” My voice shook too much to rise above a whisper.
“For having an abortion,” she said. The can empty, Bucket Head trotted back to Silas. Natalia picked up a stick and poked at the dying embers. I could hardly see her face, half-hidden by her neon pink rain hood. I wondered why I didn’t feel like crying. Weren’t my hormones supposed to be going crazy? Shouldn’t I want to cry at the slightest provocation? But I didn’t want to cry. I just felt cold and tired and strangely dead inside. I wished, for the thousandth time, that I’d never met Tommy, or at the very least that I’d spoken up and insisted on stopping before it came to this. It was all so unfair. The mistakes I’d made weeks ago had taken up the most insignificant, fleeting moments. And here I sat, still paying for them. If things kept progressing at this rate, I might be paying the rest of my life.
“Don’t you worry about it?” said Natalia. “Don’t you worry that you’ll go to hell if you have the abortion?”
“Why are you suddenly talking about hell?” I said. “I thought Jewish people didn’t believe in hell.”
“How do I know I’m even Jewish?” Natalia said. “I could be Catholic or Muslim or Buddhist. I could be someone who believes in hell. How am I supposed to know?”
“I thought it only mattered if your mother was Jewish.”
“If that were true,” she said, “then why all the hysteria about dating Jewish boys? The father matters. Believe me. He matters big-time.”
I had seen Natalia cry before, many times, and in the past I had held her hand and rubbed her back and helped her find solutions. But now I did something new. I stood up and walked away from her. As I left, she ratcheted up her sobs, so clearly for my sake that I only moved faster. My hood slid off, exposing my hair to the come-and-go rain.
I found Mick by the lake with his friends. They sat on land in one of the empty canoes, passing a deer moss joint. When Mick saw me coming he blew out a stream of smoke and stepped out of the canoe. “Hey, Syd,” he said. His raised his eyebrows, taunting and suggestive, then held the makeshift cigarette out toward me. I shook my head.
“I guess it’s a little late for you, huh?” he said.
“I guess so.”
“So what can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I hear you’re a Catholic now.”
Mick laughed, a thin stream of smoke tracing the exhale of his breath. “Born and bred,” he said. “Don’t take it personal, Sydney. I’m just looking out for your immortal soul.”
In the darkness I saw Mick’s chiseled, restless face—a caged animal waiting to spring from his own skin. I knew he didn’t believe in hell any more than he believed in the world where we now stood, the close woods and the vast lake and the hundreds of animals living out their lives, unseen, all around us. He had only been baiting Natalia, trying to get closer by placing a wedge between her and me, and of course by agreeing that I shouldn’t have an abortion.
I wanted to ask him not to tell anybody, but knew this would be exactly like telling him to spread the word. The less he knew about my fears, the less he could exploit them. For now, Natalia had told him to keep quiet. I would have to trust in this motivation, protecting me, to please her.
“I could always help you out, you know,” Mick said. He leaned into me, his bright blue eyes inches from mine. He put one hand on my shoulder and drew the other back in a fist. He pulled back his elbow, then pressed the fist into my belly in a broad, frightening pantomime.
I stepped back, out of his grasp. I could feel my breath, quickening as if he actually had pressed the wind out of me. He laughed again, a jeering burst. “Just let me know if you change your mind,” he said. “I’m here for you.” He ruffled my damp hair like a well-meaning big brother, then jogged back to his friends in the canoe.
The rain picked up. I could feel it gather in my hair, flattening the curls, water streaming down my face. My view of the three Youth at Risk, their own little rainbow coalition, blurred. Part of me wanted to run back to Mick and beg him, insist that he ram his fist as hard as he possibly could into my stomach and end this whole nightmare. Because who cared what happened to me? All I cared about was having this thing, this extra being, gone. At the same time, a more primal part of me brought my hands to my belly, terrified that his simple touch had done damage there. An ancient instinct, contrary to everything I knew about myself, cupping my hands like a mother. A mother! The one thing in the world I knew I didn’t want to be, not now, possibly not ever.
I ran into the woods, through the rain, scratching my shoulders against trees, my sneakers squishing and squeaking over the wet leaf litter. And I wished for bears to come out of hiding, to maul me and harm me until my body expelled its invader. I wished to fall, a hard, bruising tumble that would bring days of fever and pain. I wished to get lost and starving in the woods, alone and hungry, nowhere near enough food to sustain one life, let alone two.
The bears stayed quiet. My feet planted themselves frantically but firmly. And no matter how far I ran, I could hear the voices from camp bouncing off trees; teenage voices in their swirl of festivity and petty drama, not one of them understanding the life-and-death struggle I had no way of escaping.
By the ti
me I got back to our tent, Meredith, Lori, and Natalia were already asleep. I crawled over them and peeled off my soaking clothes, then climbed naked into my sleeping bag. In the darkness, my heart pounded from running and from the memory of Mick’s fist against my stomach. For the first time in my life, I seriously considered the idea of hell.
Neither of my parents was particularly religious. My father brought his new family to a Presbyterian church one or two Sundays a month, but he saved his fire and brimstone for social and environmental matters. My mother had been raised Catholic, but I’d never seen anyone in her family pay attention to anything Christian besides Christmas, which involved presents and roast turkey but no midnight Mass. I’d never heard my mother mention the word “hell,” and if she knew I was pregnant she would deliver me to an abortion clinic faster than you could say Hail Mary. But still. What if hell did exist? And what if abortion earned me a one-way ticket? I tried to imagine a world with devils and pitchforks and never-ending flames. But none of it felt as frightening as a huge pregnant belly, or childbirth, or finding myself a mother at sixteen.
In the tent the other girls snoozed beside me, dreaming their simple dreams, unaware how lucky they were, to house one single soul.
chapter eleven
my life, not flashing
before my eyes
Every night we burned our garbage in the fire. When the girls got their periods, throughout the day they would collect their tampons in a brown paper bag, which they would toss into the flames with the rest of the trash. Spared this ritual myself, I would watch the witchy smoke climb high into the Canadian night, its spell not powerful enough to make my body join in.
The night after we left our drop-off point, Natalia burned her last bag of tampons. I sat next to her as she used the flare of light to read her letter from home for the thousandth time. She and I had forged another strained truce, maybe because we couldn’t avoid each other, or maybe because we felt so sorry for each other.
Every Little Thing in the World Page 15