In the Woods, Bears

Chapter 2 - Mother

"Yellow." If her mother cried, Kennedy was going to die. The shoulder seam on her stuffed bear gaped apart as she gripped the talisman of her childhood tightly with both hands.

Their words buffeted her, burned her skin with cold. Anxiety crawled like bugs along her scalp. Pain and grief peeled back the veneer of the two adult women's inability to tolerate each other. When Kennedy began screaming, a sound she did not choose to make, the cry rose out of the center of her. Her childhood ripped free of her body, rising above the cold, pulled toward the sky where she knew her father must be, somewhere warm and filled with light.

It took both the nurse and her Nana to get her into her room. Releasing her bear to the floor, where he would lie for the next six months, she cowered on her bed. Stuffing gathered dust around the bear's ruptured seam until they lost the house and moved into the rental. With her mother still in a wheelchair, the lawyer explained when the disability would come through. After all the casseroles were gone, and people had moved on to comfort others, the silence had been unbearable. A hole in her chest, where all of her hope lived, remained frozen, drawn into that contained space, leaving her numb.

Always strained, the rift between her father's mother and her mom had opened like a frayed seam without her dad to keep them stitched together. Much like her forlorn bear, the breach was something she couldn't fix.

Even as an adult, living with her mother had challenges. Her mother's fork jittered briefly in her hand as she gathered eggs onto the tines. In the past year, she'd developed a tremor. To fight the nerve damage, she'd begun drinking the smoothies at every meal. Every once in a while, Kennedy tried to talk her mother into easing back on the green components in the recipe, but every morning, right next to her toast, the murky gray-green glass of goop would appear. The first thing Kennedy learned to make after the accident was scrambled eggs. Every morning since that one, including today, she'd made their eggs and toast while her mother made their smoothies. If asked, her mother would swear the reason she could still walk was because of the vitamins in her concoction. During occupational therapy, the first thing her mother mastered was making their morning smoothies. It had been a point of pride for her.

The click of their forks on the blue willow plates, the residue of their past life, and the scrape of their glasses on the scarred kitchen table were the only sounds made as they both avoided discussing Kennedy's trip. Leaving would make things difficult for her mother. There were still so many tasks that were hard for her to do. She'd have to order groceries and ask her church friends to come over to help her with basic things, which always stung her pride.

The community had been kind in the beginning, but you can only ask for help so many times before people's kindness thins and people start avoiding your calls. When Kennedy had been sixteen, her mother had fallen in the shower and become wedged against the wall. Stuck as she was, Kennedy hadn't been able to move her. Naked, pale white from the icy water, with a terrifying yellow and purple bruise on her hip, Kennedy had discovered her when she got home from school. Angles and ribs, breasts sunken, hips scalloped. The sight of her mother had remained with her. The phone had shaken in her hand as she called 911. Wet from turning off the shower, frantic, she'd had to repeat her address multiple times before the woman understood her. Her mother had been so high from her pain meds that she hadn't known it was Kennedy who found her.

"Gin, it's so good to see you."

"Mom, it's me." Phone held by her shoulder, she covered her mother in towels, trying to warm her chalk-white body, her blue veins forming an alien map.

"I thought I'd never see you again. How did you get back?"

"The school bus brought me. It's Kennedy."

The voice on the emergency line asked, "Is she bleeding?"

"No. I don't think so." How had she gotten wedged in so tight? When Kennedy tried to move her mother's oddly placed arm, she groaned loudly. Fighting panic, Kennedy said, "She's in pain. Hurry! Please, get here soon."

"Stay with her. They are on their way." A calming tether, the woman's voice held her in place. "Can you cover her with something? Is the water off?"

"Yes, but she is cold, blue, and shivering. I put towels over her."

"Good."

Her mother's eyes looked at her but did not see her. "I did what I promised. But it's been so hard since George died."

"Mom, who are you talking to?"

The emergency dispatcher asked, "Is the front door unlocked? They are going to be there in just a minute. Is she still breathing?"

*

As Kennedy dragged her pink childhood suitcase to the door, one wonky wheel fighting her with every step, her mom called out from the bedroom, "Kendie, do not forget the bag I left you by the door. A teaspoon every morning. Promise me. I put the stick blender in there for you. Use a milkshake if you have to, but don't forget."

With her fingertips, Kennedy pulled the small black shopping bag open. There were a few boxes of shelf-stable milk, a can of pineapple, and a tin of her mother's obsession. "I've got them, Mom."

"Every day. Promise."

Every bit of her wanted to sling the whole thing into the yard. "I promise. Every day."

"It is important."

"Yes, Mam."

"And Kendie..." Why couldn't the woman remember she was an adult? "Use sunscreen. Those kids get drunk and boil themselves like crawfish." Hand on the cool doorknob, Kennedy waited for an opening to say goodbye. She couldn't go into her mother's room, or she would insist that they pray. She'd make her swear she would drink her smoothies on a bible or something equally ridiculous. "Be careful."

"I will. It's just a week, and I will be home again. Mr. Bob is going to come by this afternoon, mow the lawn, and bring you groceries. I already paid him, so don't pay him double." Kennedy didn't expect a thank you. Her mother's pride couldn't bear that. Help had become an abrasion against her skin. "See you later." Before her mom could say anything else, Kennedy threw herself through the door. There had to be something other than this. The Polaroid burned in her pocket, warm. I'm coming to see you, little town. I'm coming home.

*

The next day, an hour and a half into her bus ride...

Kennedy rummaged in her backpack for a chapstick. The air on the bus was dry and tasted artificial. An industrial wasteland and the suburban sprawl north of the city had given way to small towns that blurred past the scarred bus window. When the internet became spotty, she grew tired of scrolling on her phone. Kennedy traced her initials on the window glass. Was she named after the girl in the photograph? She imagined her birth parents.

Over and over, they climbed to the top of the rock, looped their arms around each other, and turned to smile at the camera. In her mind, her birth mother's laugh was just like her own. What music were they listening to? Bluegrass? Pop? Punk? Did they smell like coconuts and cheap beer? Was there a bottle of hooch just out of sight? Or was it sweet tea that had them smiling? Or love? Were their friends starting a bonfire? Were they alone? Kennedy questioned every shadow captured in the photograph. Resting her forehead against the cool glass, she ran her tongue against the empty roof of her mouth with no names to place there.

The old lady next to her shifted in her seat and her elbow brushed Kennedy's arm. Drawing herself further from the shared armrest, Kennedy breathed in the smell of the woman's bitter liniment, distracted by the strike and scrape of her knitting needles breaking through the music in Kennedy's shitty earphones. An awkwardly shaped baby garment twitched back and forth to the rhythm of the stabbing needles. Kennedy wasn't sure if the woman was a bad knitter, or if some poodle or wretched chihuahua was destined to be stuffed into what she was making. No baby was shaped like that. Kennedy's bladder ached, but she wasn't going to squeeze past those sharp twitching needles a moment sooner than she had to.