All the way to the far north, to Kiruna and across into Finland, to Kilpisjärvi. From there you keep going, Alta, then Nordkapp; I’ve looked on the map, nothing but space and sky, the water and the ice. Svalbard. Greenland. Land so barren you would surely feel like the first person to set foot on earth. Or the last.
All those voyages north, the polar expeditions into nothingness and white. Searching for the unknown, for places to name and land to call one’s own. Or maybe it was just blankness they were after, a world made new.
I ran and ran, stumbling occasionally over uneven ground and unfamiliar terrain; rocks and roots and the stumps of felled trees. I ran until I could no longer breathe, until my legs could no longer move me forward or support my weight. I collapsed to the ground. I gasped air into my shocked lungs; I gulped at it like it was water. More, more, pounding heart, ready to burst right out of its fragile cage of bone. I held my hand over it. It would not quieten. It was the feeling of death. Or maybe of being alive.
I lay in the soil, leaves at my back, millions upon millions of subterranean creatures busy belowground with secret endeavors. A discarded husk of snail shell I held and then crushed, the sharp points digging into my fingers. My breath was steadying slowly.
And still, my heart raced. The feeling of being free. Here where I am no one and everyone, a mass of cells and atoms like everything else that lives and breathes and is of this earth. It all came flooding in, the noise of the silence and the stillness and the smell of life uninterrupted. I tried to inhale it, to steal some for myself.
I don’t know how long I lay on the ground.
Before the baby and I made our way back home, I paused to take a photograph on my phone. Something about the light and the colors compelled me. Perhaps I would send it to Frank. A taste of what’s in store.
Wasn’t that fun, I said to the baby, who had woken. Wasn’t that a fun adventure for us.
He gifted me with a smile, and I was reassured. His cheeks were a little flush, his hair matted to his skull from all the movement. I made a note to double-check the safety of the forest, to rule out any encounters with wild animals. But I shouldn’t think there’s anything sinister in these parts.
Did you have a nice bonding session? Sam asked as we walked through the door.
I smiled. I felt genuinely happy. It was just what we needed, I said.
We had a visitor today. Sam was in Oslo; he took a flight late last night. Before he left, he paused a moment at the door, his new blazer buttoned up, his new sneakers blinding white on his feet. I suppose he is trying to fit in.
I’m sorry, he said. I know it’s a lot of travel. I know you’re alone a lot – too much, probably.
It’s unlike him, to apologize for something. I was caught off-guard. I didn’t know what to say.
It’s all right, I replied eventually. It’s just until you’ve established yourself, isn’t it. You’re doing it all for us.
He looked like he might say more, but instead he kissed my cheek, chaste and strange.
I slept soundly, all alone in the big bed. I spread out, I rolled over onto Sam’s side, smelled him in the sheets. There was a stain, the dried markings of our reproductive quest. Well, his. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold the wolf from the door, how much more time he’ll allow to pass before he sends me off to the doctor to be examined and explored for faults and flaws.
It seemed to happen so quickly before, he said.
It’s different every time, I assured him.
I dreamed of Frank, a dream or a memory, I don’t quite know. The two of us were in my childhood home, that tower of marble and glass. In my bedroom, I had a cabinet with a collection of porcelain dolls inside, beautiful, delicate, fragile things, so inviting for little girls to hold and touch, and yet they stayed always locked away, unmoving behind the glass.
They’re not for playing, my mother said. They’re special dolls just for looking. If you play with them, they will break.
Trust her to have filled my bedroom with immovable faces. I could never understand the point.
Frank in the dream had the cabinet unlocked, and a doll in her lap – my favorite one – the dark-haired little girl with red painted lips and a blue organza dress. She wore a pearl bracelet and shoes that could be removed from her toeless porcelain feet. Why do you have her, Frank? I shouted. I pulled. The doll was mine. I was crying in the dream; it was too unfair.
Carol came running into the room and took the doll away from us both. There, learn to share or no one plays, she said. Her dress was full of blood. She was trailing her insides all over the white carpet, the womanly parts that killed her in the end.
Carol, Carol. I think I was crying in my sleep.
In the morning, I went into the baby’s room. He was lying on his back, eyes open, watching me. Big eyes unblinking. What do they see, I wonder. What secrets will they one day spill?
I dressed in my running clothes and sat him in the stroller. We go every day now. I salivate for it. I cannot do without my little escape into the woods.
When we returned, I lifted him up. He needed changing, his diaper full and sodden. I lay him on the bed and closed the door behind me; settled onto the sofa to watch my shows. It was supposed to be a laundry and linens day, but I wanted to enjoy the empty house while I still could. I must have spent four hours in front of the screen, following my plastic housewife counterparts in Miami.
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