What the Woods Hold

CW: Illness, death, grief

We each carried a walking stick, stripped smooth by Dad’s pocketknife.

My little brother, Ben and I followed his broad frame through thick limbs and tall grass, trusting he knew the way.

Mom packed our lunches, deli meat and American cheese on white bread, mustard bursting through the crusts. Warm chocolate chip cookies softened through brown paper bags. We carried olive green thermoses, ours for water, Dad’s steaming with black coffee. I loved sipping out of the lid.

He quizzed us on the names of trees, taught us not to pull the white, paper bark of birch. Held up the limbs of pine for us to take in its fresh scent. We paused to examine animal prints, Dad tracing their patterns with his finger. He showed us what we could eat and what would poison us, popping wild grapes under his black, full beard.

Maroon-stained fingers plucked berries for simmering, tart on our tongues and smeared across our cheeks. Red handkerchiefs were knotted to fallen sticks to carry them home.

A chill pressed against the nape of my neck, carrying the musky scent of rain. Deep blue and purple bruises spread beneath a sepia sky. Cool air slid up my arms. Instinct turned us home.

I can still see Dad on his orange tractor building our trail, black beard lifted in a smile, thick glove raised in the air.

Before the trail became a way back.

*

Shelters made of sticks and stolen twine, rocks placed in a circle for fire. My brother and I built forts as far in the woods as we dared to go alone. We tended to an imaginary garden, collected and stacked sticks to prepare for a darker season.

Tense jaws and red faces, we knew what to look for. A burned dinner scraped into the trash. Tears behind locked doors. Cupboards slammed, voices raised. We’d scattered like startled birds.

The trees drew us in with long, patient arms, folding us into their shade. The river moved softly beside us, leaves shuffling overhead, robins whistling from high branches. Sunlight streamed through gaps in an umbrella of leaves.

“She runs like a deer!”

I carried Dad's voice around the loop. Hours would pass, I never kept track. Charging its hills until my thighs and chest burned. There was always dirt under my fingernails and salt at the corners of my mouth.

*

I was tying my shoelaces, phone pinned between my ear and shoulder, when mom told me about the divorce. Grandma and Grandpa were getting divorced too.

Divorce, divorce.

I said I was fine and ran out my dorm door.

At the trail, I hung my arms limp at my sides, swaying softening tension from shoulders to fingertips.

Loose sandstone slipped beneath my shoes up Marquette Mountain. Grabbing at moss and mud, light raindrops met tears on my cheeks.

Wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt, I leaped between roots and boulders, craving the climbs. Teeth clenched, their peaks found me collapsed.

I stayed in the woods until dark settled in.

*

Dad danced to a Rolling Stones album, turning up the record player he’d leave for me. Shuffling back and forth, fingers wiggling in the air, he did his best Mick Jagger.

Ben had laughed nervously.

They waited until our bowls of mint chocolate chip ice cream had melted into bright green puddles.

Dad spit up blood that morning, Ben said quickly. A lot.

He lowered his face, already changed.

They think it’s from his job sites.

Cancer.

Stage 4.

We started checking off hikes in a Michigan trail guide. He’d join us for as many as he could. We’d finish the rest.

Smiling pictures were sent to Mom, cheeks pulled high.

We still placed our feet in his prints, ignoring the slowing pace. Dad was always picking out thicker walking sticks. Our nature lessons became more frequent; we didn’t mind the breaks.

*

Dad liked the view from the top floor, sunsets spilling over the bay.

When he woke from a nap, he found me reading by the glow of a book light.

“It’s like we’re camping!"

I smiled from a couch folded into a bed, stiff sheets sliding against plastic. The night nurse had brought us a stack of blankets. I’d carried a pillow from home.

Missing was the smell of bonfire smoke in my hair, and burnt marshmallows on my lips.

The fluorescent glow of a mounted television replaced the stars. We watched reruns of Man vs. Wild, taking notes as if we might find our way back. The relentless purr of machines replaced birdsong.

I ordered Dad a burger from a laminated menu, sneaking packets of mayonnaise from the cafeteria. He’d raised the top half of his bed and slid the dinner tray closer to his paper gown.

A single chocolate chip cookie sat on a cold plate.

I burst through the hospital’s automatic doors, from conversations about resuscitation and strangers’ cries, past weeping faces and long embraces. I stayed out longer after my brother and I traded pain.

The trails climbed uphill through tall grass and stands of coal-black and paper-white birch. Miniature fairy houses sat like portals at the bases of larger trunks. Neon burst across a sprawling willow, its branches lit with graffiti.

My legs grew heavier each time, stones gathering in my pockets.

At the top, the hospital filled the view.

I let the scream inside me break.

*

I’d thanked him for the trail, curled in his lap like I was small again.

He told us to remember him on our favorite trails, near the best views, Lake Michigan in its shifting blues and greens, the Manitou Islands. Where autumn burns brightest in orange and yellow. On the shoreline that feels like the moon when it's covered in snow. Our spots.

“Hey, AJ!”

I can still hear his voice, though his face is beginning to blur.

We search for his footprints in the dirt, pause when monarchs flutter close, question sudden gusts of wind.

Lose our breath over single feathers.

The earth remembers what we forget.