Out of the Woods

Chapter Nine Day Two of Reignite

Nine

Day Two of Reignite

Every inch of my body is sore but I’m vertical and choosing to ignore it to put one foot in front of the other. Thankfully, I slept well before the sun shining through our thinly walled tent woke me up at the ass crack of dawn. I tore down the tent while Caleb made our breakfast—apple cinnamon oatmeal from a packet—and Nina came over to chat while I finished packing up, offering extra coffee from her thermos before she went to find somewhere to relieve herself. I got great joy in imagining a stunning, elegant, giraffe-like woman such as her pissing behind a bush.

We’re all equal in the woods, as Sondheim once wrote… probably.

When Caleb wandered back from the fire, holding two spoons and a small silver pot filled with our breakfast, we chose to sit on the ground next to our things and eat together.

“How’re you feeling?” I ask, scooping oatmeal from the pot.

“Fine,” he answers between chews, already reaching for more. “Tired. You?”

“Better, for sure.”

“Good,” he mumbles, his mouth full of food.

“Morning!” Helen chimes, wandering past us with a bell in hand, ready to wake the remaining campers. “You two are up and at ’em nice and early! I love to see it!”

I smile at her, but immediately realize there is oatmeal coating the outside of my teeth when her eyes dip down to them. “She’s so peppy,” Caleb says quietly, blinking his droopy eyes in Helen’s direction.

I lick my teeth clean. “I prefer Mrs. Chipper over Madam Clairvoyant over there,” I say, watching as Yvonne lays a hand on Kieran’s shoulder. I can tell her eye contact with him is uncomfortably intense, even from a distance.

Caleb mumbles something incoherent, shoveling far too much oatmeal into his mouth.

“What?” I ask, smirking at him.

He swallows his spoonful. “I said: Please welcome to the stage, Claire Voyant,” he announces proudly.

I laugh, barely swallowing my food before it sputters out. This is a bit we used to do but haven’t in quite some time. Our first apartment was above a bar and they’d frequently have drag performers on Friday nights. We’d spend the night curled up in bed, listening to the performance below, giggling at each of the genius, punny names the performers had given themselves. My personal favorites were Lynn Gwistic and Penny Tration whereas Caleb favored the more sophisticated Dame Judi Bitch. We’ve been searching for Caleb’s drag name ever since. Mine, if ever given the chance, will be Paige Turner.

“You could definitely be a Claire,” I say. “It suits you. And, it fits in with your family’s weird C-name thing…”

He smiles crookedly at me, bringing my attention to some oatmeal on the corner of his lip. I reach over to help him, taking the food away from his slowly forming mustache and onto my finger. He dips his lips around the tip of my finger and licks it clean, eliciting a giggly, warm response that is followed by a wave of electricity throughout all seven trillion nerve endings.

“Don’t do that,” I whisper, still holding up my finger between us like I’m scolding him. In reality, I can’t seem to remember how to lower my arm.

There’s something about Caleb out here. Something about being told not to have sex with my husband that makes me hot and bothered. Something about the early morning sunlight filtering through trees, the birds and echoes of nature closing us in some sort of bubble away from the outside world and all its realities… and him preventing my reading streak from ending.

I am a simple creature, at my core. Give me books, sunlight, water, and a handsome man looking at me like I’m some rare jewel, and I’m all set. Especially when it feels like a long time since I’ve shined for him.

“Or else?” he teases, a lopsided smirk ever-growing as he reaches for his water bottle.

“You’re trouble, Linwood,” I stammer, watching Caleb’s Adam’s apple bob as he gulps back water.

He lowers his bottle into his lap then leans in closer, his nose nearly bumping mine. “You know, I was thinking last night…”

“In the six seconds before you fell asleep?” I tease.

“Maybe we can’t have sex…” He sighs wistfully from the hollow of his chest. “But they didn’t say a single thing about touching ourselves.”

I attempt to fight back a smile, but almost immediately lose. “That is an excellent point.”

“No rule against watching, either,” he says, voice low and as gravelly as the ground beneath us.

I nod, feeling heat pool in my belly. Suddenly, our parting kiss yesterday afternoon was a century ago and I miss his lips. “That is also a great point,” I whisper, my voice unsteady. “Maybe, if you’re not too tired after today’s hike…”

“Too tired?” Caleb leans back, satisfyingly smug. “I would climb mountains for the chance to watch you come undone, baby.”

I blink at him, slightly shocked but mostly turned on. Caleb’s great in bed, sure, but he’s not usually much of a dirty talker.

He holds out his water bottle toward me. “Here, take this. You look thirsty.”

“Shut up,” I say, snatching it from him.

Just then, a tent across from us begins opening in a manner that suggests the zipper is sticking. “Morning,” I say to Libby as she stumbles out in her fuzzy purple pajamas. She glares my way but raises a palm before dramatically letting it drop to her side.

“Grandma H…” she grumbles, locking eyes with Helen. “My stupid tent is broken,” she says, pointing limply.

“Yikes,” Caleb says to me quietly, flaring his eyes. “Good morning, Little Miss Sunshine.”

My eyes follow Libby as she dodges a hug from Helen, places her back against a large tree and crosses her arms, glaring at everything and nothing all at once. Yikes is right. But…“I don’t know. Seems fair to me.”

“Really?”

I keep my voice low. “I mean, she’s not mad at Helen, she’s just angry at the world. Which, I think, she has every right to be. Losing your mom is already hard enough but then being dragged on a weeklong hike with a bunch of adults you don’t know the summer before the fifth grade sounds like one nightmare on top of another.”

Caleb pouts, nodding softly. “Okay, that’s fair.”

“Plus, dead mom or not, I wouldn’t wish being a ten-year-old girl on my worst enemy. It’s lousy.”

I remember it all too well. All the contradictory feelings of being trapped in that tedious prepubescent stage between girlhood and whatever mysteries lie beyond that feel out of reach. All the while becoming increasingly aware that there are secrets you must learn to transition into womanhood and wishing time would move faster as your body starts to shift and change. That growing awareness picks and chips away at childhood until you’re suddenly twelve and crying in the bathroom because you got your first period and came to realize that everyone was right. You shouldn’t have wanted to grow up. Womanhood is just a trap of a different making.

“But…I could be projecting,” I add once I notice Caleb’s obvious concern. “Still, she could be nicer to Helen, for sure.”

He smiles softly, his head tilting just enough to the side to signal that he’s thinking deeply. His eyes dancing over me in such a way that I know he’s thinking about me. I don’t pry into his thoughts…. I’m not sure how complimentary they’d be.

Caleb and I finish our breakfast and place our bags with everyone else’s under a large oak tree, then, once everyone’s ready, the group gathers for a morning meeting. Yvonne leads us through a brief sun-salutation stretch and then we are given some time to quietly disperse and write in our journals. We’re encouraged to write our intention for the day, two things we wish we couldchange but can’t, three things we can choose to accept, four things we can change for the better, and five things we’re grateful for.

Afterward, we break off into two groups, separating from our partner, for the morning hike. Yvonne, Libby, Jai, Henry, Phil, and Caleb get a head start, setting off onto the trail before the rest of us.

“Distance can make the heart grow fonder,” Helen says, clasping her water bottle to her shoulder strap. “But more importantly, it also gives us time to air our grievances to one another. Use your group as a sounding board this morning. Be honest with one another and be open to pushback. Remember, other perspectives can often bring clarity and resolution. We’re all here to work, and many hands make a lighter load.”

“Scheduled gossip time?” I ask Maggie quietly, smiling. She rolls her eyes affectionately as she grins back at me. “I love it,” I add. “ This is the shit they should put on their website.”

“Thank god, because—” Nina struggles to clasp the buckle that connects her pack’s straps across her chest. I walk over and assist her, then step back into position in this circle the five of us have formed. “Thank you,” she says to me with a quick look my way as she stands straighter, lifting her chin defiantly. “I seriously cannot believe Jai didn’t tell me he was engaged before. He completely blindsided me. And he did it when I didn’t even have cell service to put his ass on blast.”

We all nod passionately. “How long have you two been together?” I ask.

“Exclusive or…” Nina glances at Maggie, then Helen, and hesitantly mumbles, “sleeping together.”

“Exclusive,” Kieran answers. A grin pulls at his features as he hoists his bag up his back.

“Seven months,” she answers. “I knew he had exes, I’m not like delusional but it bothers me that he was engaged, and I had no idea. We’ve never even talked about marriage, not that I want to. I get that he’s twenty-eight and might be ready for that sort of thing but I’m only twenty-three. That is way, way too young to even consider getting married. I’ve always said that I’d get an Emmy, an Oscar, or a Tony before a husband. Preferably all three. I’d basically be a child-bride if I got married now.”

I chuckle to myself. Except it wasn’t to myself, I discover, when four sets of eyes turn toward me in confusion. Nina’s perfectly plump lips fall into a frown.

“Oh, no, sorry, I’m not laughing at you, Nina!” I say in a quickened panic. “How you’re feeling is extremely valid. I’m sure I’d feel the same. It’s definitely not cool that Jai didn’t tell you about his engagement before you got here. I only laughed because of that last thing you said…” I look around, making sure everyone can hear that I’m not being an asshole… I’m not an asshole, right? Oh god, am I making it all about me? Why can’t I ever shut up?

“What thing?” Nina asks, her expression hard to read.

I swallow thickly. “About being a child-bride at twenty-three. It’s just…I was only nineteen when Caleb and I got married. What you said reminded me how ridiculous that truly is, that’s all. Anyways, ignore me, you were saying?” I clear my throat nervously. I attempt to take in all their expressions at once, but it takes me a minute to make it around the entire circle.

The group seems to have landed somewhere between politely shielded horror, confusion, and surprise. Other than Helen, that is, whose expression remains neutral in what seems to be a professionally trained manner. Her lack of surprise could also be because she already knew what age Caleb and I were married from the registration questionnaire. But then again, she called me Sierra yesterday so perhaps she didn’t exactly put it to memory.

“Nineteen.” Nina says the word as if it’s foreign to her, an impossibility. I nod, feeling my lips pull into a tight-lipped smile. “Why?” she asks, then admonishes herself with a shake of her head. “Well, not why, but like…why then ? Were you…knocked up or…?”

I laugh weakly, rocking back on my heels. “Heh, no…My, uh…” Helen’s words repeat in my head, be honest, we’re here to work, many hands make a lighter load. “My mom was ill and, well, Caleb and I knew we would probably get married eventually anyways. We both wanted her to be at our wedding and it was something she really wanted to be there for—obviously—so we…got married.” I say it in a lighthearted way that I’m sure is entirely unconvincing, based on the hard lines between Kieran’s brow, Maggie’s nervous glancing around, and the soft, lip-parted grimace from Nina.

This is exactly why I never talk about it.

I’ve often found myself envying anyone who can fondly look back over their wedding day. I’m jealous of my friends with stories that are only marred by rain, a broken heel, a drunken groomsman, or a shitty DJ. Those who can recall every detail of their “special day” and actually want to. I’ve never wanted to.

Recounting that day feels like picking at an old scab. Grief is so deeply intertwined with our wedding, with that entire year, that the day no longer feels like ours. It feels closer to a parting gift. A checked-off item on Mom’s bucket list. A memory we could still share before it was too late.

We threw together a wedding in six weeks once Mom’s condition began to worsen. We sent out email invitations—which nearly put Caleb’s mother in an early grave of her own—and gathered twenty of our nearest and dearest to a dimly lit, century-old church, which neither Caleb nor I had ever stepped foot in before, that my mother picked out.

We sang songs none of us knew the melodies to, holding the hymnal books loosely as we fought back laughter, desperately trying not to sing out of place to an unpredictable rhythm set by an organist who looked to be at least a hundred years old. We said our vows in front of a priest who kept referencing my “sacred maidenhood” and who, truthfully, smelled a bit dusty, as if his robes had sat in a closet for far too long. I held a horrendously ugly bouquet picked up from the supermarket and wore a dress that didn’t quite fit.

Mom, Win, Aunt June, and I had gone to pick out my dress a month prior. It was on clearance, and it was a bit too long, but it was good enough and affordable. Lacy, modest, and relatively plain—the dress was nothing like what I’d imagined I might wear someday. I didn’t have the heart to tell my mom that it wasn’t the right fit—both literally and figuratively—when she said she loved it and began to tear up.

Mom had always been an incredible seamstress. I didn’t want her to know that her daughter’s wedding dress needed to be hemmed shorter just weeks after she’d lost all motion in her dominant hand. I knew alterations from anyone else would cost almost as much as the dress itself and my mother would have insisted on paying. So, I wore it as is. Impressively, I only tripped once and managed to not fall flat on my face.

“Is she okay now?” Maggie asks, her features softening into a concentrated, hopeful stare. “Your mother?”

I apologize to her with downcast eyes, wishing I had a happier answer for her sake as well as mine. “She passed away three months later.” I keep my tone as even as possible. “She’d been sick for a while,” I add for reassurance, as if to say It was her time— which has never once felt like the truth.

They all hum and tsk, making the appropriate, apologetic sounds that I’ve learned typically follow this conversation. I thank them with a wistful smile, hoping to get back to Jai’s terrible timing and manners or quite literally anything else.

Anyone here ever run a marathon? You should talk about it at greatlength. Just how rigorous is that training process? Please, spare no details.

“Did you guys meet in college?” Nina asks, unknowingly diverting the topic away from my mom but onto an equally touchy subject.

“We started dating in the tenth grade. I never went to college, actually…” I feel myself disassociate a small amount, the trees and sky blurring into one in my line of vision. “I looked after Mom and then…” She was gone. “Caleb comes from a wealthy family so, uh, once he turned twenty-one, we got his trust fund. He started his company shortly thereafter.”

Life kept going, the Earth kept spinning, everyone moved on, but I stayed still.

I leave out the time between my mother’s death and Caleb’s trust fund coming in out of embarrassment. I had given myself permission to wallow for those two years, believing I’d go to college once Caleb graduated and the heavy foot of grief stepped off my neck. We were scraping by just fine on the money Caleb was making from programming in his off time but, unlike his tuition, we would’ve had to pay for my education out of pocket or with loans—which the Linwood family decidedly did not do. So, it made sense to wait for Caleb’s trust to come in and wait out my sabbatical of self-pity.

Whenever times got tight financially, usually when Caleb was working less due to exam season or internship programs, I would try to work. But I couldn’t keep a job for very long. I was rightfully fired from two different retail gigs and one fast-food restaurant for my “bad attitude” before I admitted defeat. I simply cannot tell these near-perfect strangers all of that. It’s far too humiliating.

“So,” I say, picking up where I left off, looking around the circle of faces hanging off my every word. “I’ve been holding down the fort ever since.” Although I hate how the phrase sounds every time the words seem to slip out of my mouth, holding down the fort has become my go-to cutesy explanation for my permanent stay-at-home-wife status. There’s no saccharine way of saying I do nothing for a living! that doesn’t make me feel like gagging on the size of my own privilege.

If my mother could hear me now, she’d roll in her urn… That really doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Once Caleb graduated, he immediately launched his company, Focal. He was working almost constantly to get it off the ground, and we realized that we’d never see each other if I enrolled for a fall semester. I had already given up on the possibility of being a writer at that point, so I’d decided a diploma in business management would be best. At least that way I could help at Focal or maybe Win’s camp that she’d always dreamed of owning someday. But Caleb insisted that I should wait for his work to slow down first before enrolling.

He knew I was still, somehow, not up for the challenge. Though he never actually used those words.

Regardless, he was right. It would have been difficult for me to commit to a full schedule of classes. And doing so while he worked seventy-hour weeks? That could have ended us. And, though I’m not proud to admit it, I know it also could have ended me. I was clinging on to Caleb like a life raft in every spare moment during those days.

Shortly after my mom passed, Aunt June won ten thousand dollars on a scratch-off ticket and immediately fucked off to Florida to regroup. She’d planned on it being a three-week vacation, but a few days in she met a guy and decided to stay put, giving up the apartment we grew up in and closing that chapter of our lives, officially, forever. Win had left for university on a swimming scholarship the month after Mom died—which we’d all wholeheartedly encouraged her to do—but we barely saw each other during her four years of school. She was a six-hour drive away and dating a total dickwad who was far too controlling and wanted her all to himself.

At the time it felt like all my support systems had died with my mom. All but Caleb.

I felt alone, and sad, and constantly tired even though I couldn’t bring myself to do much of anything around the house. Caleb, in his brief moments between work and sleep, was cradling my sanity in the palms of his hands.

When I could tell it was becoming too much for him to handle, I got nervous. I began worrying that he’d grow to resent me and decided to pour all the energy I had into the role of the level-headed, busy housewife. I convinced myself that it might begin to feel natural if I tried hard enough and Caleb seemed glad to see me step into the red-bottomed shoes.

After that, my days were filled with house decorating, baking, party planning, and various other superfluous things that, for a while, somewhat fulfilled me or at least kept my brain occupied enough to avoid slipping back into that dark place. And when reality crept in to an uncomfortable degree—I’d escape with books.

When Win moved back home after university, it gave me purpose. Not only did I have my best friend around again, but truthfully, I was also relieved to see that she was a bit of a wreck. Win was struggling after her tumultuous breakup and found herself in a post-graduation financial slump and I could help. I finally felt like myself again, having someone to look after.

Then, five years later, Bo showed up. And a short nine months later, baby August. I had a front row seat, watching as my best friend built a life worth envying…and it made me confront the fact that I didn’t like mine all that much.

That’s where the fundraiser came in. I’d decided to stop moping, take a page out of Win’s book, and finally do something. No more words. No more excuses. But action. I’d help a cause near and dear to my heart and feel some sense of purpose.

Then, one half-baked comment from Caleb where he called it our event had me reeling and grasping for total control. It was as if I woke up out of a ten-year daze, looked around and saw Caleb’s shadow in every single aspect of my life, and decided I had to do it all on my own.

But I couldn’t. I failed.

Now, I’ve landed us here. Clinging onto a husband that I’ve started to resent, through no real fault of his own, other than his being a safety net I wish I’d never needed in the first place. And for what may pathetically be the first time, I’m considering whether I’m perhaps not even a fully realized person at all. That, most likely, I’m incapable of ever becoming a productive, helpful, functioning member of society because I can’t seem to move past shit that happened over a decade ago.

It’s not until Helen softly nods that I realize, mortifyingly, that I’d been talking out loud. I’m not sure for how long…and I’m not even totally sure what I said or didn’t say. But panic creeps up just the same. “I guess I really had to get that off my chest.” I attempt a joking tone, though it’s clearly not effective. I paw at my chest, then lay a palm across my beating heart and will it to slow down. “Sorry,” I add for good measure.

Maggie, Nina, and Kieran all avoid eye contact, though Maggie keeps failing, her eyes briefly catching mine with a comforting, quiet acknowledgment before she turns away.

If there is a saint of shutting the fuck up , my mother never introduced us. Ideally there would be a patron saint of reversing time who’d hear my plea. I could just try to pray to the Big Guy himself for a conveniently timed bolt of lightning to put me out of my misery…Or would that be Zeus? I’m not picky, I’ll ask whomever.

I weigh my options and decide against seeking divine intervention. I got myself into this mess, and I intend to get myself out. Perhaps my newfound independence needs to apply to the supernatural as well.

Plus, Helen did ask us to be honest! I’m just doing as told! Hello, fellow hikers, here are all my cards laid out on the fucking table! What do you think of me now? Scared? Yeah, me too.

Oddly, it does feel good. My mouth got ahead of me, sure, but there’s something freeing about having most of my crazy aired out in the open early on. I feel lighter for it. I’m an uncorked bottle of wine or toothpaste after it’s squeezed out of the tube—there’s simply no going back.

I tilt my head toward Helen, pleading. Come on, I say silently. Fix me, I implore. Do whatever you need to do. A lobotomy perhaps? I could go gather some sharp sticks. Seriously, I’ll do anything. Just…help me. Please …Say something! Anything!

“How about you and me walk and talk for a while?” Helen suggests, gesturing for me to follow her, jutting her chin toward the trail. “It’s about time we got going anyway.”

I nod, then hang my head and pretend to adjust the straps of my pack as everyone gathers themselves to leave. I turn over my shoulder toward Nina once we all take to the trail. “Sorry I interrupted,” I say softly. “I sort of lost my cool there,” I add, in the understatement of the century.

“No, girl,” she says reassuringly before blowing out a long breath. “You have way more going on than I do…You take Helen. I’ll talk Kieran and Maggie’s ears off.”

I turn to face forward, pointing my blank smile at a tree branch as I pass under it, as if there’s a hidden camera inside recording my own personal documentary. You know times are tough when one of the other members in group therapy decides you should take precedent.

Perhaps, instead of requesting lightning, I’ll pray to be Nina’s age again. Or, at the very least, I’ll pray for the tits I had at twenty-three—when my nipples pointed out like perky headlights and not like Caleb’s mother’s ancient shih tzu with two lazy eyes pointing in slightly different directions, as they do now.

“What’s on your mind?” Helen asks as we put distance between us and the rest of the group.

“I miss my tits,” I answer, keeping this thin filter between my mouth and brain intact. “The way they used to be,” I explain further, looking toward her as we keep walking the trail.

Helen studies me for a long, thoughtful moment, and then nods slowly as she looks down at her own chest, covered by a simple black T-shirt, and sighs. “Don’t we all.”