The Light Through the Leaves(3)

She hastened the tadpole catching. The boys complained about her helping, but at the rate they were going—Jasper with two tadpoles in his jar, River with four—they would be there for hours. Ellis scooped tadpoles into the net she’d taken from Jasper and dumped them into their jars. When she tried to get them moving, River complained that Jasper had more in his jar.

“It doesn’t matter. They’re all going into one tank,” she said.

“It’s not fair,” River said.

She dropped another net of the wriggling creatures into River’s jar, increasing his catch by at least half a dozen. He shot Jasper a triumphant grin.

“Mom . . . ,” Jasper began.

“Enough,” she said, screwing the lids onto the mason jars.

Viola was still asleep. Ellis wrapped her arm around the carrier handle, picked up the bag with nets, and headed down the trail. Every step closer to the van was like heading for a cliff edge. When Jonah got home, she’d tell him what she’d decided. She had to step off the precipice, end this charade they were calling a marriage.

No, she wasn’t ending it. Jonah already had. She had to be firm with herself about that.

A raven called its guttural croak from the direction of the trailhead parking lot. Something had it riled up, maybe a hawk near its nest. As Ellis arrived in the parking lot, she saw the raven. It was perched on a branch over her van, calling with strange urgency, voicing the wretchedness of her situation. She wished it would shut up.

River and Jasper were already arguing about who got middle and who got back. Ellis hated to do it, but she gave easier-going Jasper the short straw as she often did to minimize conflict.

“But River got middle on the way here,” Jasper said.

“Did he?” Ellis said. “Go on, get in.”

“But, Mom, it’s not fair. It’s my turn.”

Of all days for him to start challenging River’s authority. But Ellis liked his sudden confidence.

“Okay, River in back.”

“I don’t want to sit in back!” he said.

“She said!”

“But first she said I had middle!”

The raven added its throaty kraa, kraa, kraa! in quick succession.

“Get in!” Ellis shouted.

River climbed in back. Jasper went to the middle. Ellis put the bag with the nets on the floor and held Jasper’s jar while he buckled his seat belt.

A howl rose out of the back seat. “My tadpoles!” River screamed.

Ellis set the baby carrier on the ground and leaned into the van, seeing River’s entire jar poured over the back seat, tadpoles wriggling in the thin veneer of water left.

“Why wasn’t the lid on?” she said.

“I was trying . . . I was trying to get that other thing out of there. That big, scary bug!” River cried.

Probably a dragonfly larva. The predatory insect was scary looking.

“Mom, they’re dying!” Jasper said. “Mom! Help them!”

Jasper’s pronouncement made River wail louder.

Ellis ran around to the other side of the van so she didn’t have to lean over Jasper. She grabbed Jasper’s jar, crawled over the middle seat, and tried to pick up the tadpoles. But she couldn’t get a grip on them.

Both boys yowled, the raven squawking along with them.

Using a rag from the supplies, Ellis swiped as many tadpoles as she could into Jasper’s jar. But some were beyond sight on the dark carpet. And one was wedged in the crack of the seat. If she tried to get it out, she’d probably squish it. Seeing it dead in the jar would upset the boys more. They protested loudly when she closed the jar.

“You didn’t get all of them!” River said.

“There’s one stuck in the seat!” Jasper said. “It’s dying! You have to get it out!”

“We’ll try to get it at home,” she said.

“It’ll die!”

“I want to go back and get more!” River said.

“No! You shouldn’t have taken the lid off. We’re going, and we still have plenty.”

“We don’t have enough!”

“There’re two on the floor!” Jasper shouted.

“Mom!”

The raven was still croaking along with the boys as Ellis started the van. When she turned out of the lot, River burst into melodramatic sobs.

“It’s okay,” Jasper told him. “Maybe they’ll still be alive when we get home.”

“They won’t!” River cried.

“If Dad is home, he’ll save them,” Jasper said with certainty.

Ellis could almost taste the bitterness of her thoughts. Why was Jonah their hero? How did being so rarely at home bestow him with noble qualities? Jasper wouldn’t be glorifying his father if he’d seen the son of a bitch kissing another woman that morning.

Ellis was dizzy thinking about what he’d done, what he’d been doing.

River’s crying ebbed by the time they came to the main road.

“Mom?” Jasper said.

“What?”

“You forgot Viola.”

Ellis pushed the brake and looked back. She stared at the empty seat next to Jasper. Not possible. She wouldn’t have left her baby behind. But the carrier wasn’t there. She’d forgotten to put the baby in the van when the tadpoles spilled.