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12
Emma
After my fruitless visit to Main Street yesterday, I decide to tackle some of the garden today.
I’ve noticed the overhanging branches of a tree in the hedge, and, delving into the garage, I retrieve the stepladder we used for decorating. I knew where it is, because Finn and I put it back. As I nosed around in the garage a little further, I also found all sorts of tools. Now, I’m no landscape gardener, and I have little experience with power tools. For that reason, I decide to choose a simple saw instead of the rather huge and dangerous-looking chainsaw that sits on a metal shelf.
I don’t mind a bit of effort and elbow grease. Better that than cutting off my arm entirely and having no elbow at all.
I position the ladder under the offending branch and climb several steps. The ground isn’t very level, and the ladder is not terribly steady, but it’s not entirely unworkable, either. With the saw in one hand and the branch in the other, I slowly begin to make my cut. As I work steadily at the branch, Sylvie’s declaration when she arrived home yesterday still rings in my head.
“So, you and Nick, huh?”
Maybe I wouldn’t have minded so much if Finn had not been in the kitchen at the time. Martha and Danny were not home yet, so the clattering of plates and cutlery could only have been Finn. While I’m sure he was busy fixing himself something to eat, the man would have to be deaf not to hear his sister’s eager announcement. Perhaps, if I didn’t have the recent discovery of his divorce in my head, it might not have felt so poignant.
But I do, and so it does.
I’m likely jumping the gun, but I don’t want him thinking I have any interest in Nick. I also know my reasons: if there’s even the slightest chance that something could blossom between me and Finn, I’d throw all of my mother’s advice out of the window and take that chance. At dinner last night, he did not seem to act weirdly toward me or anything. Not that he would. It’s not like we’re dating and me seeing Nick ought to have caused him some distress. But secretly, I hoped it would. It’s not that I want him to suffer any more than he’s already clearly suffering, but that would give me an inkling of whether he has even the slightest bit of interest in me.
Using my legs to brace myself on the ladder, I’m getting along just fine, and soon enough, one branch has been cut through entirely; they’re not big branches. It falls to the ground.
I shift the ladder a little, so I’m able to reach the next branch. I follow the same procedure. Brace my legs, take the branch in one hand, and raise the saw in the other. I am halfway through my second branch when I hear a terrifying sound. A very high-pitched buzzing sound, to be exact.
Now, if you’ve never been stung by a bee, first of all, I’ll say you’re pretty lucky. It is a really painful experience. As an adult, you wince and maybe curse, and then put some ointment on the affected area. But as a child, the experience is a hundred times worse.
When I was three, I was playing in a park near my home. My mother was sitting and talking to other mothers, as mothers do, while I was at the top of a slide. A large bee came flying around me, and, doing the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do, I started swiping at it. But this bee was not alone. Soon, there were several bees surrounding me. I’ve since discovered, by my mother’s recollection, that only half an hour before, I had eaten an ice lolly. No doubt, at three years of age, I had spilled some of it down the front of my dungarees, which is what had attracted the bees.
Standing at the top of this slide, I fought off several bees. When my mother ran to my aid, I was too scared to come down the slide. She yelled at me several times to slide down, but I was just too frightened. In my head, as a three-year-old who did not have the capacity for common sense yet, my mind told me that if I stopped swiping at the bees, they would sting me. Well, they did that, anyway. Three of them. Two stings on my arm and one on my leg. It was a dreadful experience, which caused me not only lots of pain, but also a visit to the hospital. The stings swelled up so much that Mum was terrified I was having an allergic reaction. I wasn’t; they were just bad stings.
Regardless, it’s a childhood trauma I have carried all the way through my life, and ever since, I have been terrified of bees. And now, here I am, almost reliving the same scenario. Up high, too terrified to get down, and nearly frozen with fear. Not so frozen, however, that I don’t do the same thing I did all those years ago and swipe at the bee.
Unlike the slide, however, the stepladder is not solid at all. At my movement, it starts wobbling beneath me. I drop the saw, more to give me another hand to swipe at the bee than for any safety reasons, but this bee is relentless. I can hear it fly right past my ears, like it’s circling my head and readying to strike.
My heart is now pounding out of my chest, and all I can think of is getting this bee away from me. My swipes get wider, and suddenly, the ladder lifts off two of its feet. Like I’m traveling in slow motion, the ladder stops in midair for the slightest second before it starts to topple sideways. I hear a voice cry out behind me, but I’m too busy trying to figure out what I should do.
Jump, Emma. You’ve got to jump.
As the grassy lawn appears to be rising up to meet me, I know staying on the ladder is likely to result in more pain and a worse injury. I don’t have a choice. I launch myself off the ladder.
Throwing my arms out to break my fall, my left hand lands first, and my wrist bears the brunt of most of my body weight. I twist my body to try to protect myself from serious injury, trapping my wrist and bending it into an unnatural position under my body. The ladder lands heavily on the ground a moment later—only it does not feel pain, unlike me in that moment.
An excruciating pain shoots up my arm, and I yell out. When I finally roll onto my side, I take hold of my injured wrist, as though holding it is somehow going to take the pain away.
“Argh!” I cry out.
Milliseconds later, Finn drops onto the grass beside me.
“Jesus, Emma!” he exclaims. “Let me look at you.”
I’m still lying on my back when he carefully takes hold of my arm. “Where does it hurt?” he demands.
“My wrist,” I cry. “I’ve hurt my wrist.”
“Okay. Come on. Let’s get you up and inside. I can’t do anything with it out here.”
Taking a deep breath in, I pull myself to a sitting position. I’m about to hitch myself onto my knees, given both hands are still in front of me, one hand cradling the other arm. I immediately feel strong hands at my waist. A second later, Finn lifts me clean off the ground and then sets me back gently on my feet. With his arm now around my waist, he guides me across the lawn and up the porch steps.
“Are you mad, woman? What on earth possessed you to go climbing ladders in the garden with no one else around? What if you fell backwards? What if I hadn’t come into the kitchen at the exact time you started to topple?”
