Proof of Life

By Erin Dawkins

The appearance of the bite landed hard in the pit of Amy’s stomach, nearly pulling her through the bathroom tiles. It was the same reaction she had when she stood in that exact spot ten years ago, awaiting the results of a pregnancy test. And when it appeared, it was the same life-altering realization. It was there now, and would always be there.

She moved her shoulder closer to the mirror, her thumb and forefinger surrounded the bite, resisting the urge to squeeze. It was raised with a red dot in the middle, no larger than the head of a pin.

When news of the bites started weeks earlier, they made a game of sealing off the house. The four of them on hands and knees, scouring every corner, inspecting every crevice. Fingers running along the floorboards and the cracks in the hardwood flooring and the walls. Caulk and sealant containers emptied and flattened like used tubes of toothpaste. They chewed squares of pink bubble gum and pulled wall putty from paper, securing the holes where light and air could push through. Towels were stretched to the length of the doors and taped to the bottom. They were without the warmth of the sunlight on their skin, without the ability to fill their lungs with fresh air. But no matter how many times every inch was surveyed, how sure they were that the house was suffocated from the summer air, a biter had found its way inside.

Though it was summer, they wore layers. Long thermals and thick socks, and makeshift winter hats pulled over their faces with the eyes and noses cut out. Their skin permeated with thick sweat that lacked the summer sweetness of sun screen and trickles of watermelon and popsicles, but instead, a heavy, sullen sweat, infused with fear. Somehow, Amy’s sweater must have shifted during a restless night. Perhaps she swatted it from her shoulder, or flicked it, or welcomed it into her sleep, where the line between nightmares and reality was currently indefinite.

After examining the bite, Amy went to the living room where her family gathered. Her eyes watching for the biter, her ears open to listen for its incessant buzzing, like a house haunted by a sinister presence. Her husband Sam helped Henry build Legos, a set that was recently discovered in the back of his closet. A treasure that would have been forgotten had it not been for idle time. Her daughter Fiona sat on the couch, long-legged and ankles crossed, reading. Possibly inserting herself to the fictional reality the story provided, if even just for minutes, hours, or the day.

“Everyone feeling okay today?” she asked.

They looked up at her and nodded yes. She walked to the kitchen, relieved. On the counter, a thick ream of paper and a black sharpie were next to the sink, paper fibers on the pad swollen from rogue droplets. Above the sink, a window where she communicated with her best friend and neighbor, Ina. Every morning they met there, sharing handwritten notes over the property line. Today, however, instead of penning Good Morning! with an exaggerated smiley face, she lowered the shoulder of her sweater until the bite was exposed.

Ina’s initial expression of terror seemed softened by relief. She disappeared from the window, and quickly reappeared, her husband James at her side. He propped his leg up onto the sink and pointed to his calf, where the swollen bite was visible from across the property line. Ina lowered her head, and returned with her paper pad held up in front of her chest.

It read IT’S TIME.

*

Ina and James owned property in Northern Michigan near a lake, where the color of the water was indistinguishable from something on a screen saver, a rich cerulean color that even the most expensive camera couldn’t capture. They traveled there every summer. Only this time, it wasn’t an annual trip. Amy and Ina had made a promise. Once it had come for them, and it inevitably would, it would be time to leave.

Amy packed the car after revealing the bite to Sam. One driveway over, James packed the car until the back window was no longer visible. Reusable bags spilling with clothing, toys, shoes, cardboard boxes with jars of spaghetti sauce and half-eaten boxes of crackers, candy bars, and gallons of water. Roads were empty on the three-hour journey, devoid of that excited feeling usually shared by strangers on the ride up north, when trucks pulled trailers with jet skis and kayaks, pinned down by tie-down straps, anticipating the fun weekend that lay ahead. They drove straight through, windows tight, vents sealed with thick strips of tape.

Amy could feel the changes. She delicately tongued pockets of fluid that formed on the inside of her mouth. Her skin and the whites of her eyes had adopted a sickened, yellow tinge. Sam held her hand and kept the other on the wheel. Every so often she lifted her glove to survey the color, each time, deepening. Sam had been overly attentive since she showed him the bite. Touching her, listening intently, capturing the last of her.

Many times throughout the trip, Amy locked eyes with Fiona through the rearview mirror. Through the rigid cut-lines of the winter hat that she wore over her face. She sensed that Fiona knew the truth, and Amy was both grateful and proud of her ability to handle the news in a discreet way, without worrying Henry.

When they arrived at the cabin, the trees swayed delicately in the breeze, the way they had always welcomed their party. Amy and James went into the cabin while the others waited in the car. They searched for signs of the biters, and sealed the windows and the doors. When it was safe, the group ran from the car to the cabin, hands thrown over their heads, as if shielding themselves from a heavy downpour. Because the bites weren’t contagious, they were able to stay together. These were people they chose when the world was moving, and the people they chose when the world stopped.

The musty smell of the cabin was comforting. The blankets on beds, dampened like fresh dew on morning grass. Stacks of board games and puzzles and books that lined the shelves near the fireplace. This was their happy place. For the first time in weeks, Amy and Ina were together. Their children played like children. The fathers poured whiskey into spotty rocks glasses. Together, they constructed a puzzle and played game after game of spoons.

Amy smiled through the nausea. She didn’t focus on the sweat that was at the base of her hairline, on the sides of her nose, pooling at the crook of her chin. Sweat on sweat from layers in the summer, and the fever that was causing her to see double.

When the sun went down, the kids built a fort in the living room, tired from so much activity following quiet weeks. They slept in a mess of old quilts, cloud-like wadding spilling out from tears in the fabric, a warm glow inside from their lanterns.

The next morning, Amy woke just before the sun, for the first time in a long time, she felt rested. She watched Sam, whose chest lifted and sunk, sleeping soundly thanks to an indulgence of whiskey. In the living room, she drew the closure of the fort back, watching Fiona and Henry, and Jude, who she loved like her own.

Her water shoes dangled from her fingers. She quietly slipped them on, dry sand from the year before settled between her toes. She left the house and walked toward the path down the wooded hill that led to the beach. She leveraged the help of branches to descend down, dizzied by the walking, breathing  slowly. She could hear the pounding of the waves grow louder with each step, the lake foam fizzling on the surface of the water. When she arrived, her calves burned as she walked unevenly into the sand. She sat on a log about twenty feet from the water. She looked down and saw a perfect fossil in the shape of a shell embedded into a rock. They found one before, on a past trip. She remembered Henry telling her it was a brachiopod. She heard his “r” sound more like a “w” and she smiled, thinking how she told herself many times she would cry the day he actually pronounced his “r’s” correctly. The tip of her finger caressed each indentation, each perfect divet, as if tracing the line of freckles on his nose. Her children swam in the distance, throwing their arms up and waving to her. Tiny as the droplets in the great open. Laughter rang in her ears. She was warmed by the crackling of a fire.

 In all the years they visited the cabin, Amy never came to the beach alone to watch the sunrise.

Her only regret.

Erin Dawkins (she/her) is a Michigan-based writer with an MA in English and a specialty in Creative Writing from Wayne State University in Detroit. Her fiction has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine, Sky Island Journal, Blood+Honey, Mouthful of Salt, WestWord Journal, and is forthcoming in The Orange Rose and others.

Read more at https://www.erindawkins.com/.