Frayed Threads
Ren Crewell-Fuerst
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Marta did not notice the rock until Tuesday evening when she went to get the mail. She took the eleven steps to the mailbox and pulled out the week’s bills with an efficient motion that allowed the flap to close on its own. She turned back to her small farmhouse, crooked shutters drawn tight across the middle window. There, on top of her forsythia and wild roses, was an inexplicable boulder. It resembled the ordinary quartzite in her driveway. It scraped the lowest branches of the maple tree. It sat there, without warning or invitation, crushing her flowering shrubs.
For two and a half seconds, Marta stared.
Almost, she veered across the yard to investigate, but she did not tend the garden until Fridays, and the threads in her pocket were too precious to waste on curiosity. Instead, she allowed herself one breath, then hurried back to the house and shut the door behind her.
On Wednesday afternoons, Marta’s weekly grocery order came. Marta had not visited a store in fourteen years and ten months, but she required little. Young Rami, who biked her deliveries from his mother’s shop after school, stared wide-eyed at the boulder for a good thirty-six seconds on his way up the walk. As he carried the brown-paper bags into Marta’s kitchen, the boy lobbed inconvenient questions like water balloons. He wanted to know where the boulder had come from, when it had appeared, was it a meteor, had aliens dropped it there, and what would she do with it? Marta answered that she did not know twice, then probably not twice, and again that she did not know. Thirteen additional words from her normal Wednesday, the rock had cost her. The threads in her pocket would thin.
Rami pushed up his glasses, studying her with his forehead creased. He asked why she wasn’t curious. She did not have an easy answer for this, certainly nothing in fewer than five words, so she left this question unanswered.
After Rami set down the wheat bread, brown eggs and adobo, the one-percent milk, the instant coffee, and the sale-price chicken breast, he shot back out the front door, which banged behind him. Marta relaxed into her usual, well-ordered quiet. Six minutes and twenty seconds later, as she was methodically folding the paper bags, the child let himself back in without knocking to report that the rock looked like a really big rock, and that the pricker bushes were pretty crushed but a few of the yellow flowers might be okay. Marta was pleased enough to hear the last third of this pronouncement that she expended another two words to thank him politely.
She had less than usual to add to the mason jar in the pantry that evening. Marta’s fine, translucent threads of saved time nestled tidily behind the ridged glass. Still less than a third full, and nearly fifteen years since—
She shut the jar.
Her chest knotted as she considered the time she’d wasted that day. Still, the way Rami had blinked in surprise at her thanks, and the bright grin he’d shot her, had almost been worth the exchange.
Thursday evenings, Marta did laundry. Always the same amount of clothes, towels and sheets, the same wash cycle, and the same number of steps to the dryer, inefficiently located on the other side of her kitchen. The same amount of time running the dryer, because the load was always the same weight and volume. The same awful buzz when the dryer finished, and the same ache in her shoulders as she folded the hot clothes.
To put everything away, she had to walk through the hall, past the door she never opened. As usual, she turned her eyes out the window instead of looking at it, but today, without her permission, her gaze strayed to the rock a few feet from the corner of the house. From this angle, she could tell that her wild roses were unsalvageable, even if the rock could be moved. She’d have to hope the roots were still alive, deep in the earth. The rock had also flattened her forsythia—though, as Rami had noted, a small section remained—and marred the careful edge of her lilacs.
She had not known about the lilacs. The lilacs felt excessive.
Marta squinted. On closer inspection, the rock was striking. Whorls of gray-green that looked more metamorphic than sedimentary. The heat and pressure required to form a rock like that would be monumental, but the amount of time—
With a jolt, Marta realized she’d spent eight seconds woolgathering. Pushing down the tightness in her chest, she skipped the bathroom closet and went directly to her bureau before she got further behind.
On Friday, Marta stood at the sink washing her dishes. One bowl, one spoon—both sticky from instant oatmeal. One water glass. One mug for instant coffee. Marta hated instant coffee. She missed making oatmeal properly on the stovetop, with cloves and cinnamon, brown sugar and salt. Still, the instant versions were far more efficient. She dried her hands and touched the frayed threads that slowly multiplied in her pocket each day. She could skip watering the wild roses today; that would add several minutes’ worth to the threads of saved time that would go into the jar that evening. In that way, the boulder might gain her back the time it had cost, at least in the short term.
As she turned from the kitchen counter, a loud crack sounded from outside her front windows, followed by a cry of pain. A young voice.
Marta froze, her body ready to fly apart. She breathed through it, blinking hard. She could see a hand gripping the counter. She moved the fingers. Under them, the rounded corner of the counter was smooth.
She was in her own kitchen.
God, that sound.
If she went to check, that would be most of the remaining threads—but she had to go and check. Her body was already moving. She threw the towel toward the sink without hanging it to dry and ran the seven steps to the front door. She stumbled to the walk, her eyes flicking across the yard—and there, bless it all, was Rami, on the ground near the rock, holding his elbow with one hand and waving sheepishly with the other. A narrow branch from the maple, the one the swing had once hung from, was sprawled under him across the lawn.
Marta crossed the lawn in fourteen steps she barely counted, breathing against the heavy knot in her chest. She shot Rami a glare she hoped inquired what the blessed hell he was thinking while also asking urgently whether he was all right.
Rami grinned up at her, irrepressible, and informed her he’d almost made it to the top of the boulder. He shuffled the branch behind his back, as if hoping Marta would not notice. She didn’t bother to comment. Instead, she scowled and knelt to examine the child’s injury. Rami’s elbow was scraped, but not terribly bruised. At her careful touch, he bent his arm experimentally and then flung it out in a tada! motion that narrowly missed Marta’s face. She let out a breath, shoulders softening, and helped him up. Was it a waste of words to request that he avoid attempting this again? Instinct told her he would apologize with genuine regret but might try again anyway. The conversation would waste further strands of time, and she still needed to clear the branch and deal with the broken bushes. The rock was even encroaching on her hydrangeas, which she had not noticed from the mailbox or the hall window.
Marta walked Rami into the kitchen and pulled a bag of frozen peas from the freezer. He sat at her kitchen counter for the next thirty-seven minutes, nineteen of which were spent icing his elbow, chattering away about the rock. He collected rocks, he confided, but had never seen one this big. Marta‘s throat went thick and she lost the thread of the conversation for a moment. She perched against the edge of the counter, staring at the dish towel she had not put away, half-listening to the boy ramble. It was a nice sound.
When she stowed the now-thawed peas in the refrigerator to eat for dinner, Rami paused long enough that she noticed the break in the flow. It was odd how quickly she had gotten used to a young voice again. When she glanced over, the child shifted in his seat, wasting energy and motion, and pushed his glasses up. Quieter now, he asked why she was always in a rush.
Words rose and died in Marta’s throat. In the end, she simply shook her head and herded the boy back outside. She stood on the porch, watching him retreat down the driveway. He was so busy eyeing the rock that he almost walked into the road without looking.
That blasted rock was becoming a safety hazard.
Thankfully, Marta would not see the child again until the following week’s grocery delivery. Perhaps by then the rock would disappear, returning to wherever it had come from. Pushing away the urge to check the threads in her pocket, Marta crossed the lawn a second time, ignoring her momentary nausea, and dragged the broken branch to the treeline. Now was probably as good a time as any to care for what was left of the front garden, too, so she went to get the hose and, after hesitating, a trowel. She spent the next two hours and seventeen minutes digging up what was left of the forsythia. By the time she was done, she had a plastic five-gallon paint bucket full of water and rescued greenery, and not a single thread in her pocket. Yet, the time had been almost pleasant to spend. She had forgotten how much she loved caring for her garden, rather than simply upkeeping. She walked back to the house with aching arms, dirt she would have to scrub from her fingernails, and a sense of peace she had not known in years.
On Saturday mornings, Marta cleaned the small house. Most of the house. As she pushed her vacuum cleaner down the hall past the door she did not open, she heard another noise from outside. It did not sound like a child’s cry this time, but after yesterday’s bother her heart was already choking her throat and she was halfway to the door before she registered what she was about. When she threw it open, there was Rami again. He did not seem injured this time, and it was clear he’d dropped his bike against the front porch—that was the sound she’d heard. He was standing right up beside the rock, neck craned, but he turned and waved when he saw her.
Rami ran his hand along the rock’s surface and asked what Marta thought it was made from. Before she could stop herself, Marta said time. She sighed inwardly, expecting a barrage of questions, but the boy nodded as if he understood. The two of them stood in companionable silence, watching the rock as if it might do something interesting. Marta realized with a jolt of unease that she had lost track of time. It must have been nearly noon. She got herself moving and told Rami to come inside and call his mother while she made lunch. The two of them sat at her table eating cold chicken sandwiches on wheat bread while Rami told her about his rock collection. After they’d sat for much longer than Marta would ever have spent here on her own, Rami asked where the bathroom was. Marta sent him down the hall to the right, and washed the dishes, two of each thing. Wasteful. She would lose threads again today.
By the time Marta hung the dishtowel properly, Rami had not returned. Marta walked cautiously down the hall, calling his name—and stopped.
The door was open. The door she’d kept closed for the past fourteen years and eight months was open.
Marta’s stomach turned and she reached to close the door. Then she saw the child standing beside the twin bed in the soft light filtering from between the shutters. For a glorious, terrible moment, she thought—but no, it was Rami. Of course it was Rami. The boy gazed at shelves of carefully-labeled stones with wide, delighted eyes. Sensing Marta in the doorway, he turned. This was an amazing collection, he said, and why did she keep it shut away, he said, and whose room was this, because he wanted to meet them, he said.
Marta’s throat closed, thick and hot. The roaring in her ears deafened her. She grabbed the child by his uninjured elbow, shoved him back onto her front steps, and slammed the door behind him. She snapped the lock into place with the finality of breaking branches.
Afterward, she spent eight minutes and forty-six seconds with her forehead against the cool surface of the door, eyes blurred and stinging, wishing the child would come back so she could spend more precious threads on an apology.
Marta watched for Rami on Sunday, Monday, then Tuesday. He did not come back. She told herself it was for the best, that she would regain some of the time he had cost her, but it was a bitter victory. The quiet pressed against her skin as it had not done in years. She caught herself thinking of things she might have said to the child if he had been there. She stared at her mason jar as if it could provide answers, but it sat silently in her hand, less than a third full of those thin, frayed threads after so many years saving time.
On Tuesday evening, Marta did not go to bed. She shut her eyes and pushed open the door of the little bedroom she’d kept closed for so long, carrying a doubled brown-paper bag.
On Wednesday, after school, Rami brought Marta’s groceries. This time, he did not grin, nor try to draw Marta into conversation. He walked each bag to her kitchen counter politely and turned to leave. Marta’s breath caught. Wait. Please. I’m sorry. She pushed the difficult words into the silence of the kitchen. When Rami paused and turned, she took his hand and walked him into the little bedroom, where she had carefully packed some of the best rocks in the collection. They deserved to be with someone else who would love them. She nudged the bag toward Rami, but he frowned behind his glasses. He asked, as if he’d been thinking about it for a while, who used to live in this room. Marta swallowed. Her daughter, she managed. This had been her daughter’s room. The boy nodded. With the same gentleness he might have offered a skittish stray cat, he asked what had happened to her.
Marta forced them past the tightness in her throat: the worst four words, the ones that were hardest to say. I wasn’t fast enough. Elena had fallen from the maple tree while Marta was at work. By the time she’d found her little girl—
Marta pressed her eyes shut. The warmth of a small hand surrounded hers and squeezed. Marta’s eyes welled over. She struggled to keep her voice steady. Elena had been hurt very badly, but if Marta had gotten home faster—
She felt more than saw Rami bow his head. He asked if that was why Marta worried so much about wasting time, and she could only nod. She began to explain that she was storing the saved time in her pantry, holding on to it, so that if someone she loved ever needed her to be fast enough again—her breath caught and she blinked hard. Because she’d pushed everyone away in the saving, hadn’t she? With the solitary life she lived now, who would that person even be?
Marta realized that she was crying. Had been crying. Rami had led her back to the kitchen, as if planning to fetch a bag of frozen peas for an injury that first aid could not possibly touch. He sat next to her, saying nothing, his hand still in hers. Then he tipped his head, slanting Marta a half-smile, and asked if Elena would have liked the big rock.
The two of them went out into the half-crushed front garden and sat leaning against the boulder. Marta let Rami talk, but she found herself talking, too. She told Rami that Elena had been about his age. That she’d collected rocks, acorns, pretty leaves, and one memorable summer, live bugs. That Elena’s curiosity and warmth had lit up their home. That, like Rami, she had always known when someone needed a friend.
Sunset washed across the sky. The soft texture of a spring evening settled over them. Marta glanced at Rami. Cautiously, she asked if he might like to have this rock for his collection, even though moving it would be difficult and he would probably need to come visit it here.
Rami said that would be awesome, but only if they fixed the flower bushes, since Marta liked them so much.
Marta reached into her pocket and pulled out the single thread still nestled there. She held it in her open palm. Then she blew it into the air like dandelion fluff and watched it spin away. Where it landed, moss grew along the edge of the rock, and a few tendrils of wild roses stranded their way up from beneath its weight. Marta swallowed against the open softness in her chest.
She had done none of the laundry and found that she did not mind.
“I’d like that,” she said, and meant it.