The Last House on the Street(35)

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Our back deck is huge and beautiful, the composite faux wood the same color as the gray-brown bark of the trees that surround it. There are a dozen planters built into the railings, but they are empty. Filling them was to be my job and I fear it’s going to take me a long time to find the enthusiasm to bother with them.

Last night, after I put Rainie to bed, I sat out here with a glass of wine. I heard the hum of cicadas. This is so nice, I told myself. So peaceful. Then I heard what must have been an owl, the sound eerie and echoey in the darkness. It was followed a moment or two later by an unidentifiable animal sound. It was almost a scream. It sent a chill up my spine. The woods were invisible, just a flat, black screen in front of me that my vision had no chance of penetrating. I heard footsteps off to my right, but could see nothing. Heart thumping, I reached for my wine, ready to go back in the house. Suddenly, the deck lights illuminated the tawny coat of a deer at the edge of the woods. One doe, then another and another. I laughed at my nerves.

“Hi, beautiful,” I said aloud. “Have we taken over some of your land? Can we share?”

The doe stared at me a while longer before slipping back into the darkness with her followers. I listened to them retreat, the human-sounding footsteps on the forest floor making me smile this time. I’d have to get used to living in the woods, I thought. What a wonderful playground they could be for Rainie.

Now I study our harmless-looking backyard in the daylight. There is no grass at all in this yard, only moss and wood chips. I look at the circular trail that begins at either end of the deck before disappearing into the woods. Although Jackson had wanted to walk the trail with me, I hadn’t gotten around to going with him, one of the many things I wish I could have a second chance to do.

“Which way do you want to go?” I ask Rainie, pointing from one end of the deck to the other. “Both paths lead right back here.”

She looks back and forth, then points to the left. “That one,” she says, walking across the deck toward it.

“Perfect!” I say. “Let’s go!”

We set out on the trail that runs west from the house. It begins with large slate stepping-stones, but once inside the forest, the floor of the trail is the packed carpet of leaves and earth, and the trees instantly create a tunnel around us. I should really embrace these trees Jackson was so drawn to. While I can tell an oak from a maple and a pine, that’s about as far as my tree knowledge goes. I’ll get a book on tree identification and teach Rainie how to tell one from the other.

We’ve gone a short distance when Rainie runs ahead of me and trips over a huge root, falling to her hands and knees. I wait for the howl I know is coming, but it’s more of a whimper of surprise. I catch up to her and squat down.

“That must have really surprised you,” I say.

She looks at the dirt on her palms. Rubs her hands together to get it off. “I tripped.” She gives me a wounded look. Tears are in her eyes but she’s in control of them.

I touch the root that stretches across the width of the path. “Do you know what this is, Rainie?” I ask, pointing to the root.

“A pretend snake?” she asks, and I smile. The root does look snakelike. “I like that funny answer,” I say, “but it’s actually a tree root. The water in the earth goes up through these roots and feeds the tree. So we have to be very careful on this path because there are probably a lot of these big roots.”

“And we don’t want to hurt the trees,” Rainie says, as though proud of herself for making that leap in understanding, and I just want to hug her to pieces, but I keep my hands at my sides as I help her to her feet.

“Well, it would be really hard to hurt the tree because it’s very, very sturdy,” I say, “but it could hurt us if we trip over the root, as you just found out. So we need to walk instead of run. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go find the lake, Mama!” She reaches for my hand and we begin walking again.

I’ve always considered myself more of a beach girl than the woodsy type, and now I remember why. Woods are spooky. The trees are on our right, our left, ahead of us, above us, and when I turn to look behind us, they are there as well. Without this narrow trail—a trail that will soon be swallowed up if I do nothing to maintain it—we would be quickly lost out here, just yards from our new house. I feel a weird chill, a draft of cold air slipping over my shoulders. I look up at the sun-stealing canopy of green above us and sigh to myself.

“Mama, I see water!” Rainie points ahead of us and I see what’s caught her attention: the dark murk of a lake through the trees. I sense her energy. She wants to dart ahead of me and find a way to that water, but she knows better than to run now. We can’t get to the lake, anyway. The trail we’re on is about ten yards from the lake and the brush is so thick it would take a person—or at least it would take me—half an hour to work my way through it, assuming I didn’t get bitten by a snake along the way.

“How do we get to the ducks?” Rainie asks, her shoulders drooping in disappointment.

The oval-shaped lake is about twice the width of our new house and three times as long. A few skinny trees grow straight out of the water, which is an impenetrable dark brown. Whether the color is from silt or muck or simply the lack of sunlight reflecting off it, I can’t tell. It’s not an inviting body of water, that’s for sure. There is something truly creepy about it. I hold on to Rainie’s shoulder as though the lake might somehow pull her in. At the very least, it’s most certainly a breeding ground for mosquitoes and I feel more sure than ever that there are snakes close to our ankles, waiting to chomp on us. I’m also certain there are no ducks. I doubt a duck has ever gotten within half a mile of this nasty body of water.