The Wall (The Woodlands)

by Taylor, Lauren Nicolle

  I heard him grunt or laugh, I wasn’t sure. “How has it been for you and the baby?” The words seemed hard to get out. Was he afraid of what I might say? I thought I should be honest, but maybe not too honest.

  “It was hard at first,” unbearably so, “but we’re doing ok now.” I looked down at the beautiful boy and smiled. Yes, we were doing ok.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help you.” He sounded so regretful. He always jumped to blaming himself for things, things that were out of his control.

  “Don’t do that,” I snapped “This is not your fault. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I should have listened to Apella, not made us stop and build that damn cabin.” It hurt just thinking about it, bits of me fretting around the edges. Apella. I needed to find her, thank her… forgive her.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Rosa. This was no one’s fault,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

  I scowled, though he couldn’t see me, he was still staring at his hands. I finished with the feeding and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “Look up.”

  Joseph’s head rose tentatively. I took the two steps to his bed and handed him our son. He inhaled deeply and I could see his hands were shaking, “He’s beautiful,” he whispered as he lightly touched the baby’s forehead, swirling his fingers through his light curls.

  “You would say that—he looks just like you!” I scoffed.

  Joseph rolled his eyes, tracing his son’s brow with his large finger. Orlando opened his eyes and Joseph smiled broadly. “Ha! Hardly. Oh, you poor boy. You have your mother’s eyes.” He shook with laughter, his gown slipping down to reveal a zipper-like wound in the middle of his chest. He touched two fingers to the wound and winced. “Oh, ouch, it hurts to laugh.”

  “Good,” I said with a smirk.

  He slowed his breathing and stared at me while I stared at the wound on his chest. It moved as he spoke, “Rosa, he’s perfect. Well done.”

  I thought, don’t thank me. Thank the scientists—who concocted him in a lab. But I bit my tongue. “What’s his name?”

  I flinched a little, and then tried to cover it up by smiling, but my mouth felt strained. The memory of Cal pushing himself on me was too fresh and unpleasant. It didn’t mix well with how I was feeling right now. “Orlando.”

  Joseph screwed up his face. “Orlando? I guess it’s better than Leech. What does it mean?”

  I closed my eyes, the light shining through them making my vision pink. “Gold…”

  There was silence. Maybe he understood, maybe he didn’t. How I felt was probably different for him. But when I opened my eyes, he just gazed at me for as long as I could bear before I turned away. I think he understood. He held out his spare hand and clasped my own. He was here. We stayed like that for the longest time. Neither of us willing to move or disconnect from each other.

  Eventually, I left Joseph with the baby and excused myself to shower. The truth was I needed some time to myself to decompress, sort through my feelings. I needed to work out where I fit in this instant family. It was very hard to shake the wrong feeling. The backwards feeling.

  I was also suddenly aware of my appearance. I undid my untidy half-up and ran my fingers through my very knotty, rat-nest hair. I’d barely looked in a mirror since we arrived here and I suspected I looked like a wild girl that had just stepped out of the forest, dirt, leaves, and all.

  But I was happy—thrilled even. The rest was going to take time to sort through, bit by bit. I was a crumbling wall. People kept taking bricks from the bottom and stacking them on the top, leaving the whole structure wobbling and unsound. It stretched to the sky but was unlikely to ever reach it. I just had to hold onto to the fact that Joseph was awake. That fact alone filled me to the brim.

  I took a towel from a stack by the door and entered the women’s bathroom. It was empty but I locked the stall and undressed in there. Hot water was such a luxury. I could have stood under the stream forever. I stared at my feet and let the water drum a steady beat over my back.

  Two women came in, talking seriously.

  “You know, he used all of it. If anyone else gets hurt, there won’t be anything we can do until we get home,” a high-pitched, whiny voice complained.

  “Don’t start. He did what he had to do. He was just following the Pledge. That’s what we all have to do.”

  “I suppose. But the girl—I don’t think she’ll go along with it. She seems, well, young. Young and stubborn.”

  Stalls closed and they stopped talking. I let the shower continue to run until I heard toilets flush, sending sporadic spurts of hot and cold water over me, making me hop up and down, trying not to scream. The bathroom door closed. It didn’t sound too good. I had been so caught up in my own tragedies I had lost sight of all the questions I should have been asking.

  I held my trust in a locked box, deep inside myself, obstacles and booby traps safeguarding it. I’d never given it to these people but I’d forgotten to remind them of that. The woman was right; I was unlikely to ‘go along’ with anything.

  I finished up and dressed. There was always an abundance of clean clothes to choose from, but I found the process difficult. I was used to grey-green and green-grey. Here there was every color and every cut. I chose a red, button-up shirt and a pair of jeans. My white sneakers were high cut and fit nicely around the cuff of my pants. My reflection showed a girl of bizarre proportions, my hair was ridiculous. Untended, it had morphed into a giant, dark mane that fell nearly to my waist. I needed to ask for some scissors.

  Funny where dark memories can surface from. The most mundane things can trigger things long buried. An ache appeared in my chest. If Clara were here, she would help me with this stuff. She could also advise me about what to do about what I just heard. Although she would probably say to trust them and then I would go ahead and ignore everything she said. I plaited my hair as best I could and walked back to our room. I would play dumb, try to observe. Talk to Joseph—see what he thought about it all.

  My head felt heavy as I made my way back. Someone was lying to me but I wasn’t sure why and whether it was something to worry about. Somehow these halls had become a soggy mess of me dragging my feet, through jelly, through grass, and now wet cement. I’d had enough. I needed to get out of here.

  Matthew was arguing with Gus just outside our door. Lights flickered above. When they saw me, they stopped talking, their behavior seeming even more suspicious. Either they were talking about me or having a lover’s quarrel. Ick! Gus was a bit old for Matthew. Matthew approached me and said Joseph would need at least a few days to recover before they moved him. And by the look on Gus’s face, that must have been the issue. He had wanted to leave a while ago. Delaying the trip by even more time would definitely upset him.

  “I’m going to restrict visitors to just you and the baby for now,” he said softly. His eyes trailed a disgruntled Gus as the man stomped quietly down the hall. I sympathized. When you wanted to stomp around this place, it was very unsatisfying, the noise absorbed before it could escape from under your boot.

  I was surprised by Matthew’s orders. “Why?”

  “I have scheduled an ultrasound for Apella later and if it shows what I think it will, she is going to need some time. This way, it’s out of everyone’s hands. Think about it as a forced recovery, for everyone.”

  “Can I help? Can I see her?” I said in clipped excitement. I knew he would say no. I knew Apella well enough to know she was a private person and would want to handle this on her own, but I had to ask.

  He shook his head, his faced creased and grainy from tiredness. I touched his hand and thanked him. He said he would keep Deshi, Apella, and Alexei updated. I had questions I wanted to ask but he seemed so stressed. I had the feeling he needed some time also.

  I was upset at first, but when I thought about it, a bit of time could be nice. Could we just pretend we were somewhere else and forget what was going on around us? I decided to take this recovery time at its word. R
ecover some of the time we had lost and enjoy being alone with Joseph. I postponed talking to him about the women from the bathroom, about Cal. It could wait. The world could wait for a while. It was doctor’s orders anyway.

  We spent our days talking. Joseph was supposed to lie down so we faced each other, hands clasped together, Orlando sometimes lying between us. I was buzzing from his touch, not one single shred of that charge had waned.

  He wanted to learn everything he could about Orlando and I tried really hard not to look like the inadequate mother I knew I was.

  “So how often does he feed? Do you bathe him? Can I change his nappy?” he said in one hurried breath.

  “Um, I don’t know, quite a lot, yes and definitely yes. Please!” I answered. He was hilarious, so enthusiastic, as I knew he would be. He was already a great father, but then, he’d always wanted to be one. I felt a little tug at the idea that soon, he would overtake me.

  He raised his eyebrows and sighed, “Does it hurt?”

  “Does what hurt?” I asked, confused.

  “Feeding him.”

  “Oh no, not really. Maybe a little at first but now it just feels normal,” I said, flustered by the turn in conversation.

  “Now don’t get angry,” he said, pumping his hands infuriatingly, like he was fanning flames.

  “If you don’t want me to be angry, maybe you shouldn’t say what you’re thinking of saying.” I eyed him suspiciously, trying not to give away my amusement.

  He took a deep breath and I wondered what the hell he was going to say. “It’s just… I’m really proud of you. I shouldn’t say ‘you’ve come so far’,” his eyes were glinting with mischief. “But you have certainly done a great job with Orry.” He looked at the boy with adoration. He had already shortened the baby’s name, but I liked it. It made it more Joseph’s doing and separated it from Cal.

  I thought back to that day in the forest. How enormous I was, my belly getting in the way of everything. I was huge and on a hormone-induced anger rampage. Everything had blown up from one small comment. You’ve come so far. I remember feeling deficient, like he was saying, Look how far you’ve come from the unfeeling, incompetent mess you were before. Looking back, I could see how silly I had been. But then, it’s always easier to look back and say things like that. Given the time again, I’m not sure I would have done anything differently. I decided to make him regret saying it again, just a little.

  I snorted. “You’re hopeless. I can’t believe you brought that up!” I made a show of turning my back to him and crossing my arms. I felt him approaching me, his arms sliding under my arms and around my stomach.

  “Rosa, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  “Humph!”

  “Rosa…?”

  That was enough torture for the day. I grabbed his hands and brought them to my lips, laughing. “You really are an idiot.”

  He smirked and turned my body to face him. Kissing my neck and saying in between his lips touching my skin, “You… really… shouldn’t… tease… me… like… that.”

  I leaned away from him, finding his eyes. “You love it!”

  “No. I love you,” he said earnestly.

  I held his gaze for a moment before I dropped my eyes and jumped at him, saying loudly, “So cheesy!” I swept my arms around his neck and pulled him towards me for another kiss. Brimful of warmth and gold, I was nearly overflowing.

  Even though Joseph was getting stronger every day, Matthew embarrassingly told us to be ‘gentle’ with each other. He didn’t exactly give us a sex talk but he may as well have. Joseph thought this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, even more so when my face flushed pink and I nearly choked on my lunch. I didn’t care too much. His laugh echoed through my body, sweeping the dark corners, pulling out the bad parts and leaving some spaces empty and ready to be filled.

  We pushed our beds together and, although it was difficult, we did respect the doctor’s orders. Every single touch was sufficient for me anyway. It was more than I thought I would ever have again so I reveled in the tiniest contact. But it did start to pull at the threads I had agonizingly stranded myself back together with. I was always just a little scared that he would find the loose end, start pulling, and reveal me for the pile of dirty rags I was.

  All the same, I could have stayed like this forever—in denial and suspended in time.

  I wish I’d known the time was not ours to keep, that there was a huge trade-off for taking it. It wasn’t mine; I stole it from the others. And, unfortunately, I could never give it back.

  On the day Matthew confirmed that Apella had lost her baby, I proved my terrible acting skills. The sadness I felt, the guilt, was eating away at me. Little bits of me started falling away at the edges. Picking them up was exhausting. They were fast forming a bundle that was getting heavier and heavier to carry.

  I walked into our room and Joseph was trying to one handedly put his trousers on while holding the baby. The image would usually inspire a sarcastic remark. But all I could think was, Just another thing I have taken away from someone. Apella will have no baby—these funny events, these moments will never happen to her. The finiteness of that realization slapped me in the face. Never.

  How could this possibly be fair? Apella had a lot to answer for, but how did it work out that her baby died and I had a healthy baby I never wanted?

  My foot was dangling in the air as I thought this, like one more step would send me careening off a cliff. Joseph stared at me cautiously. He knew something was wrong. And I was desperate to tell him. I wanted to melt into his arms and tell him everything, confide and let someone else bear some of the burden. But I couldn’t do it. Instead, I made a choking, gulping sound, held my chest, and backed out. I stumbled towards the bathroom, hoping I wasn’t coming undone, that I hadn’t left a part of me, some guilty secret, lying in the hallway.

  Telling myself to breathe just made it harder. I slammed into the door with my shoulder and pulled myself towards a stall. Crouching down inside, I placed my palm against the door and focused on the pressure I had to apply to keep the door shut. Knees to my chest, I rested my head on them and sobbed. Things were easier when I didn’t care about anyone, when I flitted from bad idea to even worse idea, not caring about the consequences. Now the result of every decision hung over me like a fat cloud, dripping like a sponge that couldn’t hold any more water.

  I pulled the door ajar and lifted my blurry, puffed-up eyes. Someone had left a toiletries bag on the counter. I dragged my soaking-wet body off the floor, rifled through it, and found what I was looking for. The gold-edged blades shone hopefully under the dangling light bulbs.

  I hacked through my thick plait, feeling some physical weight dropping to the floor. It lay there like a dead animal. Scared it might raise its head or scuttle across the floor, I threw it the bin, holding it like you would a poisoned rat.

  I could see her reflection in the mirror, taking in my red, puffy eyes and my brutalized head of hair. She left as quickly as she had entered, returning a few minutes later with a chair. She guided me by the shoulders and sat me down. I let her. She took the scissors and painstakingly started to undo the damage I had done. It was calming—therapeutic in a way. My hair fell around me in a circle like pine needles from a tree. If only I could grow and heal so easily.

  When she was done, she smoothed down my now shoulder-length hair with her hands.

  “There, that’s better,” she said, smiling, nodding her head in satisfaction, like she had just pulled a cake from the oven and it met her approval. She put the scissors in the bag, collected up the hair, and threw it in the bin, taking the toiletries bag with her. She never asked me what was wrong. I think she had the sense not to.

  These people were kind. I didn’t deserve it but they were kind to me.

  I gazed at myself in the mirror, my blue and brown eyes blinking back at me. I looked… ok. My hair swished about my shoulders like a beaded curtain as I turned my head. I sighed, my shoulders pull
ing down. I felt so tense. I had to go back. He would be wondering where I was. I tied my hair back into a ponytail but then all you could see were my red cheeks and puffy eyes. I shook it out. At least this way I could hide behind it. I walked towards my room, feeling a mixture of apprehension and self-consciousness about what would come next and stupidly wondering if he would like my haircut.

  When I rounded the corner, I was faced with a flurry of activity centered around our doorway. People were stacking small backpacks against the wall, all white. Others were walking into our room as some were leaving. Had it been a week already? Deshi stood at the door with Hessa. He looked like he was trying to build himself up, convince himself to go in there. He eyed my new haircut critically, a slight curl in his upper lip.

  “You know, he’s doing really well. You don’t need to be nervous,” I said, shaking my hair around to annoy him.

  He wiped his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, I know. It’s just… oh, I don’t know.”

  “It’s ok. I won’t be upset if you hug the life out of him, I kind of expected you to.”

  Deshi just nodded and gazed down at Hessa, who was busy trying to jam his finger up his nose.

  “After you,” I said as I pushed the doors open for him.

  Deshi took a deep breath and seemed to straighten up, set his shoulders, and strode into the room like he owned it. I guess everyone’s an actor at different times. “Look at you!” he exclaimed loudly, but I could hear the quiver in his voice and it made me wince. It was easier for me. I could jump on Joseph, cover him in kisses, and no one would blink an eye. Joseph had chosen me. For Deshi, every single event, touch, and smile must have been tainted with heartbreak. He was always on a tightrope, gripping his bar and trying to maintain the balance between love and friendship.

  Joseph was standing with Orlando casually in one arm. I hated that he made it look so natural, like he’d been a father forever, and not just one week. He was out of his pajamas and was busy trying to button his shirt with one hand as he talked in low tones to Matthew and Gus. I inwardly chastised myself for thinking how desirable he looked right then, with his shirt unbuttoned and that serious look on his face. When he heard Deshi, he looked up and grinned at both of us. He pointed at the back of his head and put his hands up, mouthing “Your hair?” I shrugged, hoping my face didn’t reveal how much I’d been crying. His eyes lifted, asking me if I was ok. I waved him off and nodded. This seemed to suffice.