“I think we’re lost, Mawmaw.” Aria huffs as she slaps another mosquito dead on her arm. “13” she whispers under her breath. She has noticed the tiny dirt path they started out on has all but disappeared under the weeds and bushes and tiny pinecones that lace the edges of where they are stepping. It feels as if the trees are closing in on them, trying to suffocate them.
“I told you to wear a long sleeve shirt. And we’re not lost child.”
“It’s like 200 degrees out. If I wore a long sleeve shirt, I would melt.”
“I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt and I’m not melting. Not yet,” the old woman tells her, not looking back, not breaking her stride. Aria hears the humor in the old woman’s voice and rolls her eyes for perhaps the 100th time this afternoon.
To take her mind off her misery, she mimics her grandmother’s walk, taking great big steps but still falling behind. She watches the way her long red hair bounces with her steps. Red like hers, like her mom’s. But Mawmaw’s is also streaked with bright white lines, tentacles, she thinks, scattered haphazardly between the deep red. She doesn’t look like other grandmothers Aria knows. Well, actually, she doesn’t really know any other grandmothers. Only the ones she’s seen on TV and in movies and they certainly don’t look like Mawmaw. Mawmaw. She stops just short of snorting and rolls her eyes again instead. Why does she have to call her Mawmaw anyway? Why can’t she call her Granny or Gramma or even Beatrice? Since she doesn’t really know her. Mawmaw is such a baby name. Maybe if she was five. But she is eleven. Almost 12 and the kids in New York would have a field day if they heard her say Mawmaw. A field day. That’s what her mom used to say. If I let you go to school like that, your teacher will have a field day. If I miss work again, my boss will have a field day. And then, to take her mind off her mother, she changes the subject. As if there has been a conversation all along.
“Are there bears?”
“Of course, there are bears.”
Aria stops and peers cautiously into the woods where it goes dark. The green eaves hang low, reaching towards the forest floor. A perfect hiding spot, she thinks and quickly runs after her grandmother, slowing just shy of catching up.
They round a bend and the trees suddenly give each other a little more space, and she can better see the sky now. But the light is still dim. There is no blue above them, only a dreary grey pushing down on her and she feels the full weight of it. Looking at her feet, Aria wonders again if they are really lost and Mawmaw doesn’t want to admit it.
Slap! “14” she says, louder this time. “How much further?”
“Just around the next bend.”
But she said that three bends ago. And Aria just wants to go home. Not her new home. Her home home. Back to the apartment in New York where she lived with her mother. And more than anything, she wants her mother to be there with her. She hates the woods. The trees. The mosquitos and the flies. She hates the crunchy needles under her feet, and the birds. She especially hates the birds. Maybe more than she hates the mosquitos. Always singing as if the world is wonderful. The birds in New York don’t sing. They know better. There are trees, but they are in the parks, where they belong. Not out here in the woods, hiding the bears and who knows what else.
Wiping the sweat from her eyes with the hem of her t-shirt, she remembers that her mother had once been happy; when they used to dance in the dim light of their tiny apartment, twirling round and round until Aria was dizzy. And then collapse in a fit of laughter onto the couch where her mother would light a long white cigarette. In between puffs, she would drink from a small glass that tinkled with ice and Aria remembered that sound most of all. She would inch closer as her mother wrapped them both in a fuzzy blanket. In awe of her long, tall beauty, smoke swirling round her like a ghostly aura, Aria would say a tiny prayer that she would grow up to be like her. And it was good.
But the laughter had stopped. The dancing gave way to stillness, an unbearable and oppressive stillness. No more music. The only sound was the tinkle of the ice and her mother’s soft breath as she puffed on those long white cigarettes, the smoke still swirling and ghosting.
“Here we are Aria,” Mawmaw says, stopping so suddenly that Aria runs right into her and has to catch herself. Mawmaw turns around and looks at her and for a moment so brief, Aria sees her mother. And then it’s gone, flitting away into the soft, stillness of the woods.
Aria looks away, past Mawmaw, at the river suddenly stretching before them. Not like any river she’s ever seen, although she hasn’t actually seen that many rivers. This river is green and blue and brown and yet, she can see all the way to where small rocks sleep peacefully and content on the sandy bottom. The water is so still that she catches sight of tiny creatures swimming around the sleeping rocks. Tadpoles? Minnows? She doesn’t know. But she sees them.
And then she notices the shadow reaching across the river like a bridge. Looking up, she sees that it is a bridge. But not like any bridge she’s ever seen, and she has certainly seen many bridges in her life. No. This is a bridge made from…from the earth itself, she thinks. From a huge rock that stretches towards the sky. And there are trees growing out of the rock. She didn’t know trees could grow from rocks.
“What is this place, Mawmaw?” she whispers, afraid she might disturb the magic she is seeing.
“This is where your mother used to play.” Mawmaw pauses, and Aria sees in her eyes what she feels in her own heart. “It’s where I used to go when I was a child. I first brought her here when she was just a little thing. She didn’t like the mosquitos either.” She paused again, the memory bright across her face, as if somehow the sun had gotten through the trees. “When her daddy died, this was her place. She said it was magic.”
“Did she ever cross it?” Aria points to the top of the rock, stretching her neck. She tries not to think about the other bridge. The one in New York. The one they pulled her mother’s body from under only a few weeks ago.
“She never did. She was too afraid.” She follows Aria’s gaze and then quickly looks away. “Sit child.” Mawmaw guides her to a rock. They slip off their shoes and dangle their feet, their toes touching the cool water. Aria breathes in the mossy scent of the river. The bridge provides shade. And comfort somehow.
“Mawmaw?” Aria tries to find the right question, but it doesn’t come. Mawmaw stays quiet, as if she knows. As if she may not have an answer anyway.
“Mawmaw?” she tries again, looking not at her grandmother, but at the bridge that looms above their heads.
“Yes, child?”
“Why?” It comes out now. Under the shadow of this bridge that her mother could never cross.
Mawmaw reaches over and takes Aria by the hand and Aria can feel the softness in the folds of her skin. “When your mother was, oh, maybe your age, she said she wanted to cross the bridge. That she was no longer afraid. But only if I would go with her. So, we hiked up. She stood right there.” Perhaps remembering, she points up to their side of the bridge. “But she couldn’t bring herself to cross it. She said she had decided that we should just stand on our side. I tried to show her that there was plenty of room. I even crossed so she could see that it was safe. But she wouldn’t follow. She was so frightened.” Mawmaw pauses, and Aria sees that she is crying.
“So, I came back,” Mawmaw continues. “And we stood together, looking across to the other side. But then she said something I’ll never forget.”
Aria looks up as her grandmother hesitates. “What did she say. Mawmaw?”
“She said, ‘I just can’t. What if I get to the middle and get stuck? What if I’m too afraid? What if I have to jump to save myself?’”
Aria squeezes Mawmaw’s hand and inches in closer, resting her head on her shoulder, and closes her eyes. And thinks of her mother up on those two bridges. And knows.
About the Author
Shannan Chapman placed 3rd in the Summer Short Story Contest, August 2021, with their award winning story Two Bridges. Shannan won the $100 cash prize and publication in Indie It Press’s forthcoming Anthology, 2022: COURAGEOUS CREATIVE.
Shannan is a writer, a mother, grandmother and wife who lives in Tucson, AZ. Besides writing, she loves red wine. And cold beer on a hot summer day. With chips and guacamole. Oh and travel. And reading. And cake. Chocolate cake. Which is why she’s always on a diet. She says a perfect day would be: “me, on a plane on my way to Guatemala, drinking wine and eating chocolate cake while listening to a relaxing playlist. And when I arrive, I am whisked away to Lake Atitlan where there awaits delicious food and a cold Gallo beer. And the friends I have made there.
