Fiction, XXX

Ed.:  I’m sure the spam comments on this one will be HIGHLY entertaining.  =D

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David watched his wife stroll off, avoiding the questioning looks from the others.  There was still work to be done, but not much of it.  The access to the ranger’s station was clear, and he could hear the forest crew’s equipment about a hundred yards beyond.  She’d skipped out on the visiting part, surprising everyone but him.  The women had been working their way closer, like a net slowly drawing closed, faces stiffening abruptly when Selena turned and left.  They didn’t know her well enough to see how she feared them.

Brad Cooper said, “What’s with her?”  And then repeated it, louder, when David pretended not to hear.

“She’s not feeling well,” he lied.

The Wives caught eyes and smiled knowlingly, and David laughed out loud.  “No, the Jeep went off the road in the storm, last night.  The adrenaline kept us both up for awhile, and she needs more sleep than that.  Makes her sick to her stomach, you know?”  More lies.  Sometimes he wished she were an artist, or something.  It would be so much easier to explain her, that way.  To be enslaved by a muse was far more socially acceptable, here, than to simply be quiet and weird.

He commiserated with them all about the hours long wait to get a tow outside town.  Declined lunch invitations, and made noncommittal plans to hook up with the guys for beers later on.  Fielded their questions about the crash and the dog, and helped pile the last of the cordwood.

The Wives had names, and David did know them, but their fundamental sameness made it hard to remember which matched who.  Long brown ponytails, twill jackets and jeans, Uggs and infant carriers in different colours but similar tones, odd splashes of rustic reds and yellows among the summer forest’s green.  They all wore a not-quite-sarcastic glint in eyes that had seen university, desk jobs and performance reviews, then fevers and first steps, helplessness and strength.  He found them unsettling like Selena did, but differently.  He wanted their life for her – meeting the girls for yoga or kickboxing once a week, and the warmth of profound shared experience over coffee.  If she could come alive inside, grow life….  She had been gone for so long.

“Earth to David,” Marlo Cooper grinned.

He laughed again, shaking his head.  “I guess I had a crap sleep, too.”  He waved and clasped hands, slapped shoulders and pecked cheeks, then headed home alone.  Selena’s tracks were still clear, and he walked beside, protecting them from the rest of the crew’s quad tires and trailers.  His smile was youthful when he saw that her steps veered off to their lake and back.  Jewel Lake it was called, though for years it had just been Theirs.  It was the other set of footprints, deeper and broader, crushing hers where her shorter stride allowed, that stopped him.

He looked at the sky, then back at the path, considering.  Had someone followed her home?  A kestrel chirped from a lodgepole nearby.  David zipped up his jacket and ran.

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© Desi S. Valentine, 2012