35
THAIS
The sun was bright the next morning, reflecting off the surface of the pond. Every tree, every bush, every tuft of grass looked like it had been dipped in glitter before I crawled out of bed early to get a start on the day.
I set out while Atticus slept. I thought he might sleep all day, and if so it would do him good. But I would have something for him to eat when he woke.
I slipped past the house, past the graves, and went into the woods in search of food where I picked wild lettuce and dandelions, and found a sprawling wild blackberry bush. Just a few, I told myself as I plucked them from the brambles. Maybe five for each of us so we’ll have more for the next several days. Just a few. Oh, maybe eight for each of us. Yes, eight is a reasonable number considering the size of this bush. I made it an even ten.
I wasn’t out long when I heard a voice on the air, smiled in anticipation of seeing Atticus awake again, and I hurried back to the cabin.
ATTICUS
“THAIS!” I flew off the back porch, my gun in my hand. When I saw her walking up from the woods, I cut across the backyard in just a few short strides.
“Where did you go?” I shouted. “Why did you leave the cabin?” I reached out and grabbed her upper arm and shook her; a bowl of blackberries and dandelions and wild lettuce fell from her hands but I barely noticed.
“You never leave like that!” I told her, still shaking her. “Do you hear me? You never leave like that alone!”
Thais lowered her eyes, her mouth pinched with frustration.
“I’m sorry…I just wanted to find you breakfast.”
I released her arm. As the reality of what I’d done finally caught up to me, I just stood there looking down at her in her pretty dress as she bent to pick up the food and placed it back into the bowl.
“Thais, I’m sorry.” I stooped in front of her and helped. “Definitely didn’t mean to treat you like a child, but you scared the shit out of me.” I dropped a handful of blackberries into the bowl.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t go far. I kept the cabin in sight. I just wanted to find you something to eat.” Then she smiled brightly and added, “I found a blackberry bush.”
I looked at the bowl, and suddenly everything became obvious. She went out into the woods to find me food? Then I looked at her, and my heart sank; my breath came out in a long sigh.
I helped Thais to her feet.
“Promise me you won’t do that again.”
She nodded.
I noticed the dress she wore, how clean she looked since I’d seen her yesterday, the softness of her long hair as it lay against her back, the smooth, young skin of her face no longer streaked with dirt. Did she comb out her hair with her fingers? Where did she bathe? I looked beyond her at the water glistening off the surface of the pond, and though the thought of her going there alone also filled me with anxiety, I pushed it down.
“How are your feet?” she asked.
I looked down at my feet. The dirt was gone; the legs of my pants had been rolled up a few inches so they didn’t touch the open blisters and cuts and bleeding sores. But the wounds also had been cleaned and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I yelled at her for leaving the house alone while I left her alone, while I slept for no telling how fucking long. She had time to bathe, clean my feet, and go into the woods to find breakfast for me while I slept? I gritted my teeth.
“How long have I been asleep?”
The last thing I remembered was standing on the front porch looking at the skeleton slumped in the rocking chair. Fuck! I left the skeleton in the rocking chair!
“Atticus, you needed the sleep; don’t beat yourself up. I can take care of myself.”
Thais went toward the cabin, clutching the bowl underneath an arm. “You seem to forget,” she said as we walked together, “that I practically grew up living off what the land gave us. I’m not a child. I can go into the woods by myself.”
I stopped.
“You just told me you wouldn’t do it again,” I pointed out.
She nodded. “I know. And I won’t go out alone if it worries you that much, but you should know I’d be fine if I did.”
We walked again; the back porch slowly came into view.
“Even my father trusted me to go to the lake to fish, to go into the woods and forage”—she glanced over at me—“and I was careful. I listened to everything around me, watched for anything out of place.”
“It’s not you that I don’t trust, Thais.”
“That’s exactly what my father said.” She shook her head. “But eventually he agreed to let me go. Atticus, I can’t stay cooped up inside forever. But if you want me to stay, I will. I don’t want you to get upset like that.”
I stopped again, just feet from the back porch, and turned her around to face me.
“Is that the only reason?” I asked with worry, my eyes slanted with severity. “Because you’re afraid I’ll—”
“I told you I’m not afraid of you, Atticus.”
She reached out a hand and touched the side of my face. “You should get a bath,” she said. “There are clean clothes in the bedroom. I’ll wash the ones you’re wearing afterward and hang them to dry.”
I wanted to kiss her, oh how badly I ached to kiss her, but I was still fighting with myself over whether it was okay to touch her in that way—in any way. While sleeping in the forest it had been Thais who instigated such affections, Thais who curled up so close to me in the night that come morning I ached with sexual frustration. She wanted me to touch her, I knew this like any man would know, but something about her gave me restraint. She seemed conflicted and unsure of what she wanted, and to take her, no matter how softly so as not to break her, felt…wrong.
I snapped out of it and looked at the porch, for the first time noticing the intricately placed pile of sticks and branches set against the side of the house. I took stock of the fire pit she’d constructed, the microwave shelf sitting atop the rocks placed around it, its thin silver bars already blackened in the center from a fire she’d burned last night.
“Thais,” I began, taking it all in, “what all did you do while I was…sleeping?” I hated myself that she did anything while I slept.
Thais waved her hand at the wood on the porch and the fire pit as if it was nothing. “Not too much”—she waved a hand toward the pond—“I set out a fishing line last night, but haven’t caught anything yet. Haven’t checked it this morning though; thought I’d forage first, give the morning fish time to bite.”
I was still stuck a few words back.
“You. Set. Out. A. Fishing line?” I sighed. While I slept?
Thais smiled so bright that her teeth showed.
“Yeah, my father taught me. Fisherwoman, remember?” She grinned.
I lowered my head, formed a tight O with my lips and let my breath out.
“Are you mad?” Her smile faded.
I shook my head.
“No…I’m not mad.” Not with you. I got a good whiff of myself then. “Where did you say the clean clothes were?”
Thais’ bright smile returned, and she practically danced up the back-porch steps and went into the house. I followed.
She set the bowl of soon-to-be-salad on the kitchen counter.
“I’ll show you,” she said, grabbed my hand tight and pulled me along.
On the way to the bedroom I noticed the other things she had done while I slept, but I couldn’t be negative about it anymore. I wondered how I could be so lucky in such an unlucky world to have Thais, who was as resourceful and independent as she was soft and nurturing.
Thais unfolded the clothes set against the wall and held them up to me to test the fit.
“Yes, I thought these might be too short—you’re so tall!” she said. “But you can wear them until I wash your camos.”
After three T-shirts, Thais decided she liked the plain white one on me best. And because she liked it best, so did I.
She gave me the grand tour after the fitting, telling me about the sheet she’d found in the bathroom closet, and on the way back to the living room she waved her hand about the floor where the cigarettes lay, and she told me about how they were good for bartering. I already knew this but didn’t say a word. I just smiled, privately in awe of her.
She took me into the kitchen where she cheerfully flung open the cabinets to show me where everything was stored. Though it wasn’t much, and the emptiness of the cabinets dwarfed the items, everything was set in a neat row as if on display in a grocery store. And then she opened the cabinet underneath the sink, climbed her little body halfway in—I glimpsed the soft flesh of her round butt through the fabric of her dress—oh dear God, I’m gonna fall over dead if I don’t do something—so she could get to the hidden stash of pills and bottles of Crown Royal.
Finally, when she shuffled me out the back door with my clothes and the frustration between my legs, I couldn’t get to the pond fast enough—and bathing was the last thing on my mind when I got there.
By the time I made it back to the cabin, I felt somewhat better, but to see Thais flit around the kitchen in that sheer flowered dress that hung to her knees, I realized I had a serious problem. Of course, she could’ve been flitting around in a thick wool nightgown buttoned up to her throat and that serious problem would be the same.
“Did you check the line while you were out there?” she asked, setting a bowl of freshly picked salad on the counter in front of me.
“No, but I will in a few minutes. And I’m going to take the snare wire and set out a couple traps, and then after that I’ll probably gather some more wood, and then—.” I stopped and held up a finger. “No, before I do anything I’m getting rid of the bones on the porch.”
Thais frowned.
“I think you should leave him,” she said; she brought her fingers together in front of her, coiling them.
“Leave him? Why?” I looked at her, puzzled.
Thais shrugged her small shoulders.
“I found his wife and son buried beside the house,” she said. “I don’t know…I just, well I just think that if he wanted to be buried, or if he wanted to be dead beside them then maybe he would’ve killed himself beside them.”
I licked the dryness from my lips and ran a hand over the top of my damp hair.
“Thais,” I said after a moment, “I’m going to bury him. You don’t need a reminder outside, just a hair away from a window.”
Thais sighed. “I’m asking you to leave him.”
She came toward me, reached up and touched my face. “He wanted to see the woods,” she said. “Maybe he used to sit there every day, watching his wife and son playing in the small patch of grass in the front yard. Maybe that spot in that rocking chair was the place that never failed to give him peace, and if you take him from it and put his body in the cold ground, shutting out the sun that once warmed his face, you’ll take away the only peace he made sure to take with him when he left this world.” Her fingers grazed the side of my neck. “Please, leave him. For me.”
I thought about it. I didn’t like it—and it bothered me how little it bothered her—but I gave in.
I walked away, heading for the back door.
“Atticus?”
I stopped in the doorway.
“I’ll leave him on the porch,” I said, and my bare feet went into motion again.
“But where are you going?”
I was already down the steps when she ran out onto the porch.
“To check the line,” I called out, and then slipped around the side of the house.