she’d been able to find when she was researching her paper for freshman lit, a limerick that had been written well before the form devolved into grotty riffs on fucking, although it pointed the way in that direction:
“‘A girl once hid in tall grass,’”
she crooned.
“‘And ambushed any boy who walked past.
As lions eat gazelles,
so many men fell,
and each tasted better than the last.’”
A girl, she thought, almost randomly. Her girl. It came to her, then, what she was doing. She was out looking for her girl, the one she was supposed to be babysitting, and oh, Jesus, what an unholy fucking mess—the kid had wandered off on her, and Becky had to find her before the parents got home, and it was getting dark fast, and she couldn’t even remember the little shit’s name.
She struggled to remember how this could’ve happened. For a moment the recent past was a maddening blank. Then it came to her. The girl wanted to swing in the backyard, and Becky said Go on, that’s fine, hardly paying any attention. At the time she was text-messaging with Travis McKean. They were having a fight. Becky didn’t even hear the back screen door slapping shut.
what am i supposed to tell my mom, Travis said, i don’t even know if I want to stay in college let alone start a family. And this gem: if we get married will i have to say I DO to your bro too? hes always around sitting on your bed reading skateboreding magazine, i m amazed he wasn’t sitting there watching the night i got you pregnant. you want a family you should start one with him
She had made a little scream down in her throat and chucked the phone against the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster, hoped the parents came back drunk and didn’t notice. (Who were the parents anyway? Whose house was this?) Beck had wandered to the picture window that looked into the backyard, pushing her hair away from her face, trying to get her calm back—and saw the empty swing moving gently in the breeze, chains softly squalling. The back gate was open to the driveway.
She went out into the jasmine-scented evening and shouted. She shouted in the driveway. She shouted in the yard. She shouted until her stomach hurt. She stood in the center of the empty road and yelled “Hey, kid, hey!” with her hands cupped around her mouth. She walked down the block and into the grass and spent what felt like days pushing through the high weeds, looking for the wayward child, her lost responsibility. When she emerged at last, the car was waiting for her and she took off. And here she was, driving aimlessly, scanning the sidewalks, a desperate, animal panic rising inside her. She had lost her girl. Her girl had gotten away from her—wayward child, lost responsibility—and who knew what would happen to her, what might be happening to her right now? The not-knowing made her stomach hurt. It made her stomach hurt bad.
A storm of little birds flowed through the darkness above the road.
Her throat was dry. She was so fucking thirsty she could hardly stand it.
Pain knifed her, went in and out, like a lover.
When she drove past the baseball field for a second time, the players had all gone home. Game called on account of darkness, she thought, a phrase that caused her arms to prickle with goose bumps, and that was when she heard a child shout.
“BECKY!” shouted the little girl. “IT’S TIME TO EAT!” As if Becky were the one who was lost. “IT’S TIME TO COME EAT!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, LITTLE GIRL?” Becky screamed back, pulling over to the curb. “YOU COME HERE! YOU COME HERE RIGHT NOW!”
“YOU’LL HAVE TO FIIIND ME!” screamed the girl, her voice giddy with delight. “FOLLOW MY VOICE!”
The shouts seemed to be coming from the far side of the field, where the grass was high. Hadn’t she already looked there? Hadn’t she tramped all through the grass trying to find her? Hadn’t she gotten a little lost in the grass herself?
“‘THERE WAS AN OLD FARMER FROM LEEDS!’” the girl shouted.
Becky started across the infield. She took two steps, and there was a tearing sensation in her womb, and she cried out.
“‘WHO SWALLOWED A BAG FULLA SEEDS!’” the girl trilled, her voice vibrato with barely controlled laughter.
Becky stopped, exhaled the pain, and when the worst of it had passed, she took another cautious step. Immediately the pain