The Forest
– Nonfiction by Jean Grabow –
I pull a picture from the box, cradle his hand, skin stretched over sinew and bone. His eyelids flicker as he wakes from a doze.
“Do you remember the forest next to that house we lived in when I was five?”
The picture reminds me when icy air made soil steam. I tagged along behind my sister and her friend into the forest at the end of our street. In a five-year old’s red corduroy coat, white knit hat fastened under chin, gazing up, always up, at tree tops tickling clouds.
Then, I shivered alone, my sister gone. Waiting, waiting for a bear to stalk me, chase me up the tree I’d fail to climb. Salty frozen cheeks, bark snagged the back of my coat. I sank into soil and leaves. Footsteps crunched, closer, closer. Breath halted. Hands fisted in pockets. Eyes squeezed shut.
I opened my eyes to dad boots, your mouth silent as snowfall. You lifted me to your shoulder, wool coat scratching my skin. Steady rhythmic steps carried us home.
“I got lost and you found me,” I say.
He’s somewhere, maybe in that forest. I squeeze his hand.
“It’s alright, I’ll remember for you.”
About the Author – Jean Grabow
Jean is a marketing professional living in California. Her grandparents and many generations before them are from Eastern Canada. She recently completed her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and writes poetry for adults and children, novels in verse, and short and long fiction.
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