Freya and Tom stood, forlorn, with their backpacks and wet towels and a fat, sad boy. Phoebe Figgs pressed her lips together as Kay pulled to a stop.
“I’m so sorry. Does he need a lift?” Kay looked to the other forgotten boy, as if she might absolve herself of sin piling upon sin.
“No, he doesn’t.” Phoebe was unmoved.
Freya huffed her backpack into the car. Tom kept his eyes down.
“Sorry,” Kay mumbled to them. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Freya frowned as she did up her seatbelt. “I want to speak to Dad.”
Kay offered her the phone. “Hello, by the way. How was camp?”
“Mum, Mum,” Tom began. “There’s this boy who can bend his arms all the way behind his back. It’s called double-joineded, and Mrs. Figgs told him he shouldn’t do it because he could hurt himself but he kept doing it, and she said—”
“Hi, Dad, it’s Freya.” She was speaking loud and for effect into his voicemail. “I need to talk to you. Mum called me a bitch. That actual word. Can you please call back.”
You deserve each other, Kay thought savagely, then took a breath. You’re her mother, you’re the mother, the mother. “We need to talk, don’t we, Freya.”
“Well, uh, I’m not talking to you.” Freya dropped the phone on the passenger seat. “I’m talking to Dad.”
“Don’t leave out the part about laughing at me when I burned my hand.”
“Mum, Mum, is that your hand?” Tom stared at the bandage. “Is it broken? Does it hurt?”
“It’s fine. It does hurt, but a nice man helped me dress it.”
“Who?” Freya’s instinct was sharp.
“A man, just a man.”
“Can we get ice cream?” Tom wanted to know.
“Not today.”
“The man at the lake?” Freya probed. “With the boat?”
Kay kept her eyes on Tom. “We can’t get ice cream every day.”
“Maybe just on the days you’re late.” Freya gazed out the window, her voice lazy and calm. “Oh, wait, that is every day.”
Abruptly, Kay pulled into a gas station, braked a little too hard. “Listen up. I was late, 15 minutes. It’s not as if I’ve abandoned you or hurt you or put you in danger. So get a grip and keep this in perspective.”
“You called me a bitch.”
“Yes, Freya, and I’m truly sorry for that. I can’t take it back. I hope you can forgive me.”
Tom began to cry, a soft weepy noise.
“Tom, honey.”
“I thought you weren’t coming. You were mad at us.”
Kay bowed her head, she shut her eyes. She got out of the car, walked around to Tom’s door, and she opened it. She kissed him, her son, her little boy: “I’ll never leave you. I’ll always be there. It’s my job as your mum and because I love you. Do you understand?”
He nodded and threw his arms around her neck. “Where’s Dad?” he mumbled. “When is he coming back?”
“He’s working. You know that. He goes away, but he comes back.”
Then Freya reached out and put her hand on Tom’s head. “It’s okay, he really does love us.”
Kay was afraid to catch Freya’s eye, to see the waiting sneer; she hoped so much the gesture was genuine. So she didn’t look. She kept her gaze on Tom. “You remember how you wanted to explore the woods, try to find that path down to the pond? Let’s do that.”
“Can we collect tadpoles? Please, Mum?”
*
There was no hurry, the warm, soft air and the house hung among the round hills—what they had come for, with or without Michael. Tom and Freya slathered on insect repellent and danced ahead of Kay with nets and jars. “This way, Mum, this way!”
Into the woods, the damp scent, mud, earth, uncoiling green; the light flickering through the canopy obscuring the sky in an umbrella of green. They were held in green, the layers of it. They were wading through it, ferns and brambles, a carpet of lilies with tiny white flowers. So much was unseen, but Kay sensed it happening around her, earthworms, insects, small birds, and deeper in, the dark-eyed doe with her fawns moving neatly on mute hooves.
“Look, Mum!” Tom thrust a leaf toward her. She refocused to discern a tiny green caterpillar. “Can we keep it?”
“Yes, Mum, yes! Say, yes!” Freya took her mother’s good hand and Kay felt a hard jolt of relief, and love. Why can’t adults forgive like children?
“Yes,” Kay said.
“We’ll show Mrs. Figgs! Mrs. Figgs loves caterpillars and butterflies. She knows all about them!” Tom could hardly stand still as Freya helped him put the leaf in one of his jars.
At last they reached the pond, the path petering out in the pliant mud and solid tufts of yellow marsh grass. Here was a small oval of water: one half held a perfect reflection of sky; the other half, shaded by tall pines, was dark, occluded. Closer in, Kay saw how the still surface in fact seethed with pond skimmers, dragonflies, all manner of tiny fluttering insects.
She stepped forward, and noticed her shoe fitting within another, larger print. Quickly, she pulled back, peered down to better see the boot print, but the mud sucked at it, and then she couldn’t be sure of the shape. Or if it had been there at all. She leaned over, scrutinizing the mud. She could see where the marsh grass had been bent at several even intervals, she could see the remnant indents. Someone or something had passed this way not long ago. A moose, she thought, that’s all, that’s all.
“Here!” Tom yelled, and Freya ran to him. “Mum, Mum, tadpoles, hundreds of them.”