Thatcher Lee struggles onto the fallen tree branch, scraping her five-year-old rear across the stiff, earthy bark overlaid with moss, until she comes against the large oak, pinioned against the broken trunk. A perfect seat. Her white-stockinged legs hang over the curvature of the fallen wood, her small, closely aligned shoulders just brush against the back of the oak tree. Tall and stiff like a royal throne overlooking the slight overhang of ferns and gray mushrooms leading down to the pebble-bottomed creek. Wiping the corners of her mouth with her tongue, she can still taste peanut butter and strawberry jelly from her afterschool snack.
She pushes the blonde wisps of hair out of her eyes, thumping the white legs capped with shiny black shoes against wood. She is wearing a pleated gray skirt, a white button-down blouse and a thumbprint-sized stain of red jelly on the front. Looking up she sees the silhouette of clouds rolling smoothly by above the treetops, the sun burns only slightly. The dark periwinkle clouds speak in undertones of rain.
Thatcher can just perceive the gray roof of her home above the spindly tree line. It appears closer than the walk she took from it. After the school bus dropped her off at home, she walked across the backyard, beyond the swing set, the litter of baseball bats and soccer balls, and ducked her head through the foliage that feathers out into the grass and scraped her way through bushes and trees until she reached the dirt path running parallel to the house.
The wood is quiet, wind breezes through the trees and they creak, Canadian geese fly overhead in a honking V, spring is bursting from winter and the ground is beginning to firm up. Thatcher Lee is quite content to sit here, watching the water ripple, tumble down the rocky ledges, the smell of dirt and the musty scent of ferns refreshes the pre-school cafeteria stagnancy in her nostrils. She hears a sound, the brittle leaves crunching under foot. It’s coming from over there, to the left and she pushes the thick-lensed, blue-rimmed glasses up on her nose. A flare of color comes toward her, hospital-white sneakers, pale green jogging pants and jacket with white stripes down the sides, a yellow visor encircling tufts of dark, gray hair.
“Hello, little lady!” The voice is bold, energetic. The woman walks off the path and looks at Thatcher with a kind, slightly wrinkled face. “What are you doing out here,” she asks.
“Waiting,” Thatcher replies.
“Oh? For what? Shouldn’t you be at home right now?”
“No.”
The jogger takes one, sweeping glance around at the quiet woods, the trees standing thick and tall. “It is a nice place here, but I’m not quite sure it’s where a little girl should be, all alone.”
Thatcher Lee shrugs and picks at the bark. “What’s your name,” she asks the jogger.
“I’m Mrs. Johnston, but you can call me Linda. I live right down the road from here. Where’s your home?”
Thatcher’s finger pricks the air, “right there,” she says.
“Oh – does somebody know where you are right now?”
She nods her head evenly, “mhm.”
Mrs. Johnston’s eyebrows press together, she looks at her watch, at the gathering clouds above, at the gray roof rising just above the tree line. It’s not very far away. “Well,” she says, drawing up her chest, “it’s with some discomfort that I have to leave now – I don’t like leaving a little girl all alone in a woods. Will you promise me that you’ll go home soon? Before the clouds come much closer?”
Thatcher cranes her neck to see sky right above her head, but the tree limbs block the view. She leans against the oak and looks at Mrs. Johnston, “Okay.”
“That’s a good girl,” she says. Casting Thatcher Lee a nervous glance, she steps onto the path again, “Don’t forget,” she says, “you promised me,” and power-walks around the fine curve, out of sight.
Half an hour passes, the air grows cooler and the wind scatters the dead leaves, swirling them in little whirlwinds. The creek bubbles and ripples. The water is bottle green, pale brown near the bank. Thatcher Lee studies the clear line of foliage that borders the dirt path – no footsteps coming, no rustling of bushes, nothing, yet. With a sigh, she slides off the trunk and stands to her feet, rubs her sore bottom and crouches by the tongue of water lying still across the stony ground. One side of the brown pebble in her hand feels cold and moist, the dirt rubs across her palm. With an arching swing, she lobs the stone into the water, just the way her brother taught her to, hears the plop and sees the ripples shiver from the center of the impact. She picks up another pebble, throws it, hears the same plop and ripples, then fists a handful of stones and watches the shower fly through the air.
Suddenly, she hears a strange sound, the scraping of feet coming down the path, the leaves shuffling and crunching in an uneven pace. Trembling, she stops. Pebbles clasped in her small hand, and she turns to look down the path as far as she can without uprooting her feet. It feels like when she is tucked in bed, the dim lighting in the room creates weird shadows on the walls and it sounds as if someone from downstairs is walking up the creaking staircase. Standing by the trickling brook, Thatcher Lee shifts ever so slightly, careful not to make a sound.
A man wobbles down the path, his red flannelled arm swings a crumbled paper bag into the air and down again. She hears lips smacking. His hair is untrimmed and greasy, red blotches stand out beneath the grime of dirt caking his skin. With fierce gesture, he throws his head back, his lips purse around the glassy O in the brown bag. A sucking, guzzling sound echoes through the quiet forest.
She does not move; her eyes are round like half-dollars. Should she run? She thinks she ought to, but does not know how to control the crisp of leaves and the cracking of dry sticks beneath her soles. Perhaps, she thinks, he will not see her if she stands very, very still.
But one, red eye bulges in her direction. He lowers the bag from his wet, red lips and allows his tongue to lag behind the rivers of brown liquid trickling from the corners of his mouth. Thatcher Lee stiffens, as motionless and solid as the tree trunks around her. He points a finger at her, “Hey,” he says, leathery mouthed and slurring, “What’ve you got in your hand?”
Thatcher Lee wants to drop the stones in her fist, but cannot seem to open up her fingers and pry the jagged little edges from her palm.
He staggers closer, contents shaking from the bag. “Huh?” he asks, bending down to look her straight in the face, “don’t you listen to your elders little girl?”
The smell of whiskey on his breath floods into her face.
“What’s the matter?” he says, “cat got your tongue? Here –” he cringes a lopsided smile, “this’ll loosen you up.” He pushes the bag against her white blouse, and she finds it odd that it is hard and heavy. “Drink up, drink up,” he says, “no time like the present, that’s what I always say.” A burst of laughter rumbles from his throat, she can see straight into his mouth, the fiery-red tissue glistening and bloated. “Come on!” he barks, “have a drink with me! You like the bite of a snake.”
Bottle still pressed against her chest, Thatcher Lee looks at him and shakes her blonde head, fearfully.
“God, you’ve got big eyes,” he says, leering into her face. “It’s those damn glasses, innit? Your momma make you wear those? I bet she’s a right, sound bitch.”
She does not move but tears are forming in her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” he asks, eyebrows pulled together in foggy concentration, “you wanna get out of here? Wanna go home to your bitchy momma?”
The only words Thatcher Lee really hears are ‘go home’ and ‘momma’, and nods her head tentatively, eagerly.
“Shoulda known,” he says. “Alright – get out of here.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she darts from the creek bank with the stones giving way and crunching under foot, but his large, grubby hand shoots out to grasp her wrist just as she passes by. The stones in her fist shake to the ground.
“Just one minute,” he says, pulling her back towards him, “you gotta pay up.” With one, swift motion he tugs her back to stand in front of him. “Now, I know how to treat a woman, even a small one. One swig,” he puts the bag against her blouse, “and you can go home. Deal?”
Eyes wide, Thatcher Lee shakes her head.
“Ah, come on! One drink’s not gunna kill you! That’s what my pop said, and he was right.” He pushes the bottle into her, “Drink.”
Thatcher looks down at the black circle in the bag, it smells strong and bitter, or at least, not sweet or salty. The bag crinkles beneath her fingers; it too is greasy and dirty. She frowns and says, “No,” in her small voice.
“No what?”
She looks into his bulging, bloodshot eyes and begins to tremble. “No thank you.”
His eyes narrow murkily, the grip on her wrist constricts, “where I’m from little girls do as they’re told. You know what happens when little girls don’t obey? Their poppa belts ‘em!” He barked the last words, splattering whiskey-saliva onto her face. “I’m gunna count to three –” he says as her lower lip quivers, “and you’d have better taken one solid swig of that whiskey or I’ll throttle you!”
Swaying, he stands to his feet, looming over her and Thatcher Lee begins to sob, paper bag and bottle in hand, the tears quickly escalating into red-faced screams.
“One!”
Thatcher stands, her head swiveling from side to side, wailing into the dusky air.
“Two –”
She looks down at the bag, unable muster the fortitude to bring the fearsome black O to her lips. The tears pour down her face, now wet from crying and trails of mucus from her nose trickle to the ridge of her upper lip.
“Oh, damn it all –” he says, swiping the bag from her, “quit that griping, Uncle Johnny’ll help you.” Clutching her small face in his hand, he tips it up and pries her soft mouth open. Just then, patters of rain begin to fall. The creek echoes the plunk, plunk, plunk of the scattering rain coming a little harder every moment. The dim sound of a voice calling from over the ridge of trees just reaches her ears.
“Hear that? Better pay up,” he says, “or your momma’s gunna lock you out all night.”
He tips the harshly brown liquid from inside the bag and it falls sloppily over her nose and mouth and chin. Shakily, he plugs her mouth with the bottle and waits until her nostrils gush brown. Then he lets go. “There you are!” he laughs as Thatcher Lee falls back on her bottom, coughing, choking on the liquid flames in her throat, nose burning. She begins to cry again despite the scouring in her throat.
Tipping the bottle back into his mouth, he wipes his lips with his grimy fist and stumbles back up the embankment, “A bottle a day keeps the doctor away!”
The rain falls faster and harder. Thatcher can just see the drunk through the splatter of droplets on her glasses. He raises the bag, swoops it around his waist and bows, doubled over, “A pleasure drinking with you, madam. Same time next week?” He cringes a wink, “you can count on your Uncle Johnny.”
He stumbles away down the path, through the darkness of evening and rainfall. Thatcher Lee’s head is swimming, her insides sear and the rain soaks her white blouse and stockings into the appearance of tissue paper. For a few minutes, she sits in the gathering mud, miserable and crying. Thunder booms overhead. Dim rays of light are just breaking through the tree line. She scrapes to her feet and, lightheaded, staggers toward the underbrush leading to the backyard. She waves her hands, flailing away the bramble of bushes clawing at her clothes. Upon breaking through the foliage, rectangular blocks of light from the house glow through the downpour. A figure, one a foot or so taller than she runs towards her.
“Thatcher! Mom! Dad! I found her!” A skinny, tawny-haired boy wraps his fingers around hers, flashlight in the other hand. He keeps on calling into the rain, “I found her! Mom, dad – she’s here!”
Hazy silhouettes move towards the boy and girl, running, panting, one from the woods, the other from around the front of the house. The taller one coming from the woods runs toward Thatcher Lee and bends down, knee soaking up the rain-drenched ground.
“You scared us to death – are you alright? Are you hurt?” his voice is deep, panicked.
Hearing the question, Thatcher Lee bursts into renewed sobs. He scoops her up into his arms and makes for the house just as the other figure meets them, fingers running through Thatcher’s hair, anxious questions reeling, “What happened? Where’d you find her? Is she hurt? Oh, my God.”
The door flies open and a burst of water trails in behind the father still dressed in his dress shirt and tie, the mother bundled in a jacket above her dental hygienist scrubs, and the boy in his red, cotton shorts and fraying gray t-shirt. He, the father, settles Thatcher onto the kitchen counter and combs away the strands of blonde hair slicked across her face.
Swaying, Thatcher Lee looks drearily around, the overhead light in the kitchen is blurry, swimming. She just perceives the questions thundering against her ears, “What happened? Did someone hurt you? Thatcher? Why were you all alone in the woods? Why didn’t you come back? My God – what’s that smell on her?” A clenching feeling gnaws at her chest cavity and she does not fight the sensation of vomit rumbling up her throat. It splatters over her blouse, her skirt, the shiny black shoes already caked with mud and the faux-brick linoleum tiles that ricochet the spew onto pant-legs and shoes.
Her father takes command, “Kris, take her up stairs and get these clothes off her – I’m going to make a phone call.”
His wife wraps the whimpering girl in her arms and shuttles up the stairs, murmuring, “my God, my God” beneath her breath.
“Hop to your room,” he looks down at the boy, “just for right now. Hurry up.”
Thatcher’s brother walks up the thickly carpeted staircase, listening to his father talking in a calm, authoritative voice over the receiver and then as he climbs further up, he hears the hassled-tone of his mother, “my darling, my little girl – what would I do – oh, God, what would I do? It’s going to be alright, sweetie – daddy’ll fix everything, we’ll clean you right up…”
Reaching the end of the stairs, he peers into his little sister’s room and sees his mother buzzing here and there with a towel in her left hand, fresh underwear and a t-shirt in the other, and there in the midst stands Thatcher Lee. She looks greenish in the face, her shoulders slump and she wobbles on her feet, eyes droopy.
“My God –” the mother says, “what were you doing out there? What possessed you? Mark my word – that is the last time you will ever go near that forest.”
He tries not to allow that throb in his chest reach his throat. It feels like a worm squirming in his insides. Next time, he would remember. Next time, he would not forget that he promised to play Daniel Boone that afternoon.
...continue reading...
