The Mamma

Helen stumbled through the bushes, walking on what was maybe once a trail now heavily grown over with thick dry foliage. She tasted dust. She knew her face was bleeding. She long ago had given up crying; it did no good. It was time to save herself, and she kept on walking.

Lydia walked back up to the public restrooms where she looked in both the Women's and the Men's. Coming out of the Men's the first real shudder of fear entered her soul. She kept herself from running, but she walked quickly back down to the river where she stood on the beach that was filled with sunbathers, and she looked out on the rustling brown river with the canoes, and the fishing boats, and the dozens of windsurfers.

The path was grown over to such an extent that Helen felt trapped inside a field of iron bushes. She came to a dead stop and listened. She heard a hawk. She heard the buzzing of bugs. She heard the wind rustling the trees. She could smell sage. But she could not hear the river or the laughter of people and she wanted very much to hear the one or the other, or preferably both.

“Helen!” Lydia called up river. “Helen!” she called the other way. “Helen!” she called again and again expecting her little girl to show herself at any moment. “Helen!” she called with a stamp of her foot. She decided to walk down the river, and she told herself that was where she would find her little girl.

Helen could not go further ahead because of all the bushes. She stood where she was and gathered her courage. Then she walked back along the route she had come and she was glad her mother had insisted she wear her tennis shoes, for the ground was hard and uneven. There were rocks and lizards, and she wouldn't be a bit surprised if there were snakes. She knew that the way back was a long one, for she had been walking for such a long time, but she had to do what she had to do. It was time to be a big girl. It was time to grow up.

Lydia walked down along the river bank. She called “Helen!” every few seconds. Some of the people sitting in lawn-chairs looked at her and looked away. Some stared at her as she walked past them and met her eyes, and those people Lydia asked, “Have you seen a little blond haired girl? I've lost my little girl! Have you seen a little girl?” The people shook their heads in a mute fashion and Lydia moved on down the river feeling their eyes on the back of her neck. “Helen!” she screamed. “Helen!” she screamed louder still. She was beside herself now-- “Helen, damn it!” she screamed at the very top of her voice. And she burst into tears.

A skunk appeared, just like that. Helen stopped dead. The skunk looked up at her and began to lift it's tail and Helen watched without moving as the skunk sniffed the air, and looked at Helen. Then a baby skunk appeared and then another baby skunk and then another and another and another. Helen watched them watching her. Then they moved on through the bushes and down an embankment and out of her sight.

A park ranger appeared, just like that. “Is there a problem, ma'am?”

“Yes! Yes! Oh thank God! I've lost my little girl!”

“Have you been drinking, ma'am?”

“What? No... I've lost my little girl!”

“Why don't you have a seat over here.”

Helen walked and walked and walked. She came back to the spot where she remembered having turned one way, and this time she turned the other. She walked a good deal longer in this direction with the idea firmly in her head that she was going in the complete opposite direction of where she wanted to get to, and then she heard a motorboat. And then she heard a child's laugh. And then she heard a woman screaming, and she recognized the woman's voice as belonging to her mother.

“I'm telling you, you ass-hole, I lost my little girl!”

"Stay calm now, ma'am-- stay seated! Have you been drinking?”

“Oh for the love of-- I had a glass of wine!”

Helen came out of the bushes along a trail which was a different trail than the one she had first followed. None the less, it took her back down to the river. She came out onto the thick sand of the rocky beach and there was her mother seated on the sand. Her mother's eyes were red. She was talking to a tall man who was dressed in green.

“Momma...” Helen said touching Lydia on the shoulder. She felt the tall man staring.

Lydia turned her head and looked at Helen with an expression far from friendly. Then her eyes closed and she grabbed the little girl strongly and pulled her in to her chest.

“Momma!” Helen said again.

Back at the camp with the little tent and the big one, Helen was being tucked into her sleeping bag by her mother.

“You be a good girl, now.” Lydia said and Helen nodded her head.

Later that night, way in the dark, Helen heard her mother cussing Jeff, who was her mother's boyfriend. Her mother and Jeff were in the big tent, and it was very cold and very dark out, and Helen heard her mother saying something mean to Jeff and she remembered the momma skunk and all the little babies, and then she went to sleep.

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When it gets light, and after her mother has had her coffee, Helen will tell the story of all she saw, but she will leave out the part about her mother.

997 words