The Reflection of the River

It started the summer I turned sixteen—that hollowness. It was quite a surprise when I realized it; it had snuck up on me. In my isolation, what had started as an inch had morphed into miles of forest between me and the next living soul. The main street of Maresville eventually turned into a dirt road that led to the winding path alongside the creek we lived beside.

I say I was miles away from the next living soul because I don’t think Ma had much of a soul left in her.

When my aunt came to visit in the sticky heat of summer last year, she showed me pictures of Ma when she was my age. She was beautiful. Not just beautiful, but like something right out of a fairy tale. Her hair was long and curly, like a silky curtain down her back. In all the pictures it seemed to have a wind of its own, always in motion. Her mouth was always open in laugh, her teeth tucked just beyond her lips like whatever she was laughing at was the funniest thing in the world. What really got me though was her eyes.

Even with the stain of years of tender handling, ink smeared a touch here and there from excited fingers sharing memories, there was something dazzling in her eyes. They were bright, like the flash was coming from them instead of reflecting.

I stole one of the pictures, kept in the tin I keep under the squeaky floorboard by the left end of my bed. I know I shouldn’t have. Myself and every other child in this town and the ones that run down the way have been taught that stealing is wrong, but there was something so invigorating, some carnal need I had for this photograph.

The picture had a tear stain on it, the ink smeared right where a face should be. Aunt Fiona told me that it was my father, but there were not features left to decipher. The only thing I could recognize was the wedding suit that still hung up in their closet collecting dust and a menagerie of moth wings until my mother would take it out every spring and clean it like a newborn. Ever so carefully, like the threads would simply unspool in her hands if she pulled too hard.

I was named after my mother. Mind you, only at my father’s insistence. She sends me off into the forest or to town most days, and I wonder if the thought of two Ainas in the house is too much for her. I am beginning to see her face in mine when I look in the mirror. It is not quite the face in the picture, not so happy, so free, like the weight of her now is pressing on me as well.

The picture I stole was for her eyes; eyes that I do not recognize as my mother’s. There is something there that has been changed, though it is hard to put my finger on. A spark, a glint, a fire, a hope, a something that has long been lost.

She packs a lunch for me, bread and fruit wrapped in cheese cloth, that I tuck into my dress pocket before I run outside. She gives me the ghost of a smile when I take it from me, but she is staring out the window again before I even reach the door.

“Aina,” she calls, but doesn’t look my way, “make sure you are home before it gets dark out. We have an early day tomorrow.”

So many words strung out from her lips at once steals my own. I wave my acknowledgment and close the door behind me.

I know what tomorrow is, but I decide to push the thought away until nightfall, until the reality has nowhere else to escape to. I grab my bicycle up with one hand and sling my leg over. My legs burn already as I start to push my way down the bumpy road, in search of something to fill my time with. I have riding too far the last few days.

It started as something silly, to see how far I could really go, if whatever ties me to this creek would pull taut and snap or if it would just keep stretching on forever. The road outside of Maresville is bumpy for a while, all strewn rock and weeds pressed down through constant travel but not yet wilted. While the road is not the best, the forest that surrounds it is magnificent. The trees grow tall and in the coolness of spring many of them produce glistening fruits that sputter out their juices as sharp teeth sink into them.

I could survive in this forest I’m sure. I’ve thought about it many times, running away. I would just follow the creek until I found the perfect clearing with just enough fruit trees and some fish that would swim lazily by for me to catch. I would go deep enough into the forest that no one would ever find me. It would be just me and Ma with her bright eyes and jarring smile.

I could almost feel the joy radiating from my daydream, the completeness it offered me. Joy had always been an arm’s reach away: a dandelion bright yellow in the field, crackling logs on the fire, the soft yarn of my afghan pulled up to my chin against a chilly October night.

It was so close now, I could almost taste it, but spring is nearly over and the summer is fast approaching. The heat will be a looming presence like it is every year, something to keep me from the peace of the forest, to keep me from the freedom of the open road.

The flowers along the road are blooming, yellow and purple dots the path winding into the forest on my left, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from following it. I push my legs faster, ignoring the ache as I head for the next section of road that evens out into packed dirt. A much faster and smoother ride, and one that lets me know that town will be on the horizon sooner with every scrape of the chain.

I have to admit that I am running from something. From my Ma, specifically. I run and I go back, every single day, but I am worried that she can feel the shift. That she knows I am pedaling farther and farther each day, that the dust I kick up into my lungs is polishing them for the day I take that final ride.

I tell her that I go into town to see my friends, to hear the gossip and look at boys like girls my age are supposed to do, but she can hear the bitter boiling in my throat—I know it. I want to keep that picture of her with her smiling eyes in my pocket, but I know it is really the thing that ties me there, not the silhouette of a woman I still barely know after 16 years.

Sweat slides down my brow as dirt pumps to the smooth tread of road, and the ride is easy enough that my legs pedal up and down of their own accord. Her eyes, like mine are a pale color, not quite grey and not quite blue but something muddied in the middle. I am afraid that one day I’ll look into the mirror and see emptiness reflected back, that the stone in my chest when she calls my name will drop into my feet and keep them rooted to the ground, my bike gathering rust until it eventually is reclaimed by the weeds.

There is something so lifeless about her eyes. I used to ask, but there are so many nonanswers one can take before they have the sense to accept nothing as an answer. Even if she wanted, I’m not sure she has another one to give.

I caught her by the riverbed once, we call it the river when the creek swells with the April rain, and she was just staring down into it as it rushed by. I called her name from the window, but I guessed she couldn’t hear me with how loud the water was. When I ran out there, she was like a statue, alive and not all at the same time.

“Ma, be careful about slippin’,” my voice was too loud to my own ears in the silence. She didn’t move or acknowledge me, simply stared down into the water. My shoes were thick with mud by the time I had carefully stepped my way to her.

She wasn’t looking at the water, not quite, it seemed like she was staring at her own rippling reflection, the way the sun glinted off the pushing water and made her body look alive with movement. It wasn’t until her gaze shifted to the eyes of my own reflection that she saw me. Something snapped back into place as she stumbled back into the mud, her dressing robe coated with the thick, dark brown mud.

She stammered out some sort of apology, but for what I’m still not sure. I gently pulled her to her feet and after me as I made a path with boots that would take hours to scrub clean again.

I put the kettle on in the kitchen after I settled her into one of the dining room chairs. She didn’t seem to notice the mud anymore as she curled her legs into her chest.

“What were you looking for down there, Ma?”

She sits in her silence, and I wait until the kettle starts to holler. I stand there staring at her as the whistling gets louder and louder until it seems to penetrate. Finally, she looks up from the floor directly into my eyes.

“I wasn’t looking for anything in the river,” she said.

It was the most true thing I think she’d said in months. Still, I had no answers, and I could feel her slip away again, not wanting to answer whatever questions lay dormant on the back of my bitter tongue.

The sun is high and hot now as I cruise my way to the outskirts of town. Maresville is the town around here, but it’s still nothing out of a storybook. There’s a post office and a toy store and one bar in town that houses all the town drunks away from the elements every day of the year. There is something here that I can’t describe that makes it feel so much safer than the rickety house I’ve grown up in by the creek. Maybe it’s the people, as they mill about and go along their business.

There is something there that I think is starting to slip away from me. Some spark that is dulled by the rhythmic water of the creek and the swaying of the trees. They laugh and smile with each other. Two well-dressed woman sip coffee together outside the little blue café that sits on the corner of main street among all the other novelty shops telling of a town that wants to be up and coming but hasn’t quite found it’s niche yet.

I want to sit in the intersection and bask in it. I want to ask the ladies what they are so amused about, how they take their coffee, what fabrics are their dresses made out of, but I don’t. I tell my mother that I come into town to visit my friends, but I don’t. There are none here or anywhere really.

Just a million words on the tip of my tongue and the ache in my legs as I continue pedaling my bicycle straight through the other side of town. Just the apples and bread bouncing on my hip. Just another answer I don’t have yet to tell.