Fiction by Noelle Gomez
During rainstorms, the ground opens up and uncovers a treasure trove of earthworms. Phoebe and I sprint through the misty curtains of spring showers that hang off the edges of the tall oak trees in her front yard, racing through them to the dry parts underneath each tree’s canopy. Our rain boots giggle as we stomp through the large puddles of her uneven, black-top driveway. At Phoebe’s house, life is paradise.
I’m tasked with carrying the bucket, which means Phoebe is running ahead until she finds the next one, always gasping like it’s the first. The earthworm looks like a strand of pretty pearls in her small hands. “Maya!” she screams, just to make me get to her quicker. Her smile is a coastline of uneven waves. She’s the first of us to lose one of her two front teeth. “Look at this one, it’s huge!”
I nod, too excited to speak. She’s holding the worm out to me like she always does, and I know she’s secretly hoping that I’ll be brave enough to take a turn holding it. The truth is, I’m scared. The earthworm lays limp in her hands, as frail as a piece of string. I leave both of my hands on the bucket’s handle, leaning forward to get a better look. The soft pink is kissed with brown undertones, just like Phoebe’s tongue after she’s eaten chocolate ice cream.
“What should we name him?” Phoebe asks, holding the worm out into the open rain so that some of the dirt and gravel will be washed away. “How about Pinky?”
“You’ve named the last four Pinky,” I remind her.
“I know, I just can’t think of anything else.”
“How about Fred?” I offer. “Or Bobby?”
“It’s a worm, not a person, Maya. It deserves a wormish name.”
“Okay,” I say. And we both think for a good six seconds.
“How about Wormy McMelon the Third?” Phoebe asks. “You know, like he’s royalty? He seems like a royal worm. I think he’s the biggest one yet.”
I smile. “Perfect.”
“Okay.” But she’s still curious. “What did you come up with?”
Wormy McMelon the Third finds his throne in the bucket, on top of all the other worms we’ve found this afternoon. We will keep them safe until we get tired of the rain or get bored of searching, then free them back all over to the weedy yard. Phoebe is fascinated by the way they come out to play in the rain. She loves to count all of them. She’s always hoping there’s more and more every time.
I watch as Wormy wiggles uncomfortably, but doesn’t exactly find his way to the bottom, and I think that maybe he is royalty. I think maybe we’ve found all the worms in the entire world. When I look back up at her, Phoebe’s gazing patiently through the smudge of brown bangs that’s stuck with rain on her forehead, her tongue resting on her bottom lip through the gap of her lost tooth. Her freckles have become more pronounced against the golden glow of her olive skin, even though her cheeks are as full as peaches from the cold.
I shrug. “I couldn’t really think of anything.”
“That’s okay,” Phoebe shrugs back at me. “Keep thinking and you can pick the next one.”
We travel farther into her family’s giant yard, straying from her house and the highway, journeying toward the creek that’s hidden behind the overgrown brush her family only half-heartedly tends to. It’s the middle of September, so the sharp arms of the bushes stab us through our jeans as we make our way to the bubbling, autumn rain-fed water. Phoebe wades into the middle of it, careful not to go deep enough that the water seeps over the tops of her boots. Down here, the earthy smell of water and rock clings heavily to the air. Despite the chill, it smells warm, too warm, like my mother’s breath when she wakes up in the morning.
“Careful, Phoebe!” I call out to her, selfishly glad she’s willing to go in to see if there are any more worms farther down. I don’t know what I’ll do if she falls and gets scraped up by the sharp rocks below the surface.
If Phoebe hears me, she doesn’t react. She just wades out farther into the middle of the rainy mist. She looks like a ghost from here, the edges of her blurring into the background of a finger painting, her yellow raincoat becoming the new sun of the now-darkening sky. Suddenly I realize how late it is, how far she’s gone out, how much of her I can’t see. I realize just how stupid we are to have gone this far, without telling her parents, when it’s downpouring to the point where I can hardly even see my own hands.
“Phoebe!” I yell, but I can’t get to her on land. There are too many rocks, too little gravel. I’m still holding the bucket of worms. I yell her name again, but my voice is lost in the downpour’s cry. I can still see the yellow of her jacket, but it’s hard to make out if she’s okay.
When she doesn’t answer after my fifth scream, I ignore the hammer of my heart as I drop the bucket and sprint for her. The freezing water instantly floods my shoes, making my stomach twist in an urgency I can taste. It almost makes me sick. My arms and legs burn as I stumble and run, my boots smacking the muck at the bottom, and it sounds eerily similar to the sound my mom and stepfather make when they think I’m asleep. In the purple smudge of mud and rain, I see the bruises Ma would always have the morning after, always blooming out from underneath the sleeves of her waitress uniform. I yell for Phoebe again, frightened she’s hurt or worse. I am picturing her skin blushing in the same blue and maroon, but my voice is still lost this time because I’m sobbing for her, searching through the smear of rain for the familiarity of her face.
When I finally reach her, she’s pointing joyfully down the creek where there’s a tangle of branches preventing the water from continuing farther into her neighbors’ thinly-spread woods. I swallow a spoonful of snot and wipe my eyes to find a family of muskrats floating in the opening, the water bubbling around the whiskers on their chins. We are so close that I can see why Phoebe is excited, but I can barely breathe. They have this look in their eyes, so glossy and bright despite the grayness of the rain, the pinkness underneath showing a certain hollowness as it makes its way up from the inside of their chests. Ma’s face is still stuck in my head, as if she’s been with me this entire time, and suddenly I feel the tightness in her voice when she tells me to quickly go to my room before Pete gets home. Suddenly I realize that that look is fear, that it’s always been fear, that I must have that same look in my eyes as the muskrats and my mother because Phoebe is wrapping her arms around me and trying to hold me together.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she hums, cooing in the same way I’ve only ever heard her mother do for me whenever I come inside with a new bruise or scratch. “It’s gonna be alright.”
“I thought you were hurt,” I whisper back, relaxing into the sweet vanilla of her soaked hair. “I didn’t want you to be.”
“I’m fine.”
“You didn’t hear me yell.” Then, after a moment, I choke out, the words sticking painfully to the back of my mouth, “I’m sorry I got scared.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she says, her toothy grin washing away the lump in my throat. After a moment, we are just two girls again, braving the late-summer storm to catch the earthworms as they answer to the call of the rain. “Let’s just go back.”
Phoebe takes my hand. We move slowly even though we’re both shivering, not quite sure what to make of the way I had cried. Neither of us says anything about it. I don’t mind. Phoebe’s hand is cold against mine, but it’s hers and she’s here. She’s with me.
When we get back to where I’d left the bucket, we continue to stand in silence for a while, despite the rain and the darkness and the cold. Everything is heavier.
The wind has caused the bucket to tip over onto its side so that it’s partly submerged in the shallow water. Half the worms are gone, drifted away, and the others are still, left stuck inside the bucket’s open mouth, water licking the inside clean.
