We kept moving. Phoebe wheeled around, eyes alight, and exclaimed, “Guys, look at the hole in that tree! It’s shaped like a heart.”
My face broke into a smile, watching as she lifted Dad’s camera and snapped a photo. Then I glanced at Dex to find him already facing me, and I could feel his eyes beneath the dark lenses.
We made it another few feet before Dex let out a sharp sound—something in the realm of a shriek—and flailed, hands blurry as he swiped at himself, flinging off his sunglasses in the process. Phoebe appeared beside me to watch with her mouth hanging open.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Whathappened?”
“There was…” Chest heaving, he scanned the ground as he rubbed at his arm. “Spider.”
Phoebe snickered. A flush swept up his neck, staining his cheeks.
“Wow. That made this whole thing worth it,” she said, turning to continue down the trail. I bent to retrieve Dex’s Ray-Bans, now missing a lens.
“What a fucking calamity,” he groused as I handed him the glasses. I half expected him to toss them in the woods, but he hooked them from the collar of his shirt to deal with later.
“So,” I said. “Flying and spiders.”
He clenched his jaw and kept moving. “It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m curious. I’ve never seen you so vulnerable.”Outside an elevator, I didn’t add.
“I walked through a spiderweb with a huge-ass spider in it and it was gross. The end.”
“You shrieked,” I pointed out. He picked up the pace and I had to jog to keep up, careful to avoid tree roots or loose stones. “Imagine if there were flying spiders. That would be your worst nightmare.”
He shot me a dark look. “This is you not laughing at me?”
“Sorry.” He slowed slightly and I managed to catch my breath. “It’s not bad to be scared of things, Dex. Tell him, Phoebe.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t even turn. “Fear is in the eye of the beholder or whatever.”
“Beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
She considered this. “I like mine better.”
At the end of the trail, we were treated to a view of a piercing blue lake and a wide open sky. Phoebe snapped a picture of the view, and then forced all of us together, holding the camera atarm’s length to take a selfie. Dex even smiled. We ended up staying for nearly two hours, drinking in the sunshine and telling stories about other beautiful views we’d seen. Phoebe and I reminisced about a trip we took with our dad to Acadia National Park. Dex let it slip that he’d been to Greece and Phoebe and I proceeded to sing the entirety of “Mamma Mia.” It felt like discovering a new appreciation for nature, at least until a swarm of gnats descended on us and we headed back down the trail.
Phoebe hummed an unfamiliar tune, leading the way. Dex and I stayed together, close enough that every few steps our hands or elbows brushed.
“You’re quiet,” he said. I glanced at him, finding his eyes locked on me, and I wondered what percentage of my rapid heart rate had to do with the cardio.
“I’m not always talking.”
“No,” he allowed. “But this silence seems louder than most.”
He probably thought I harbored hurt feelings over the elevator, despite having dumped every bit of water under the bridge.
“I’m thinking,” I said. He tilted his head as if to say,Go on. “She seems different, doesn’t she?”
He tore his gaze from me to regard Phoebe curiously. “Less bite, maybe.”
“Is this a turning point? Or am I naïve for thinking that?” I exhaled and palmed a handful of sweaty hair out of my face. “I know grief isn’t linear. But is this the part where it stops being so exhausting?”
“I don’t know.”
“It feels different,” I told him, my voice low. “Kids bounce back quicker, right? That’s proven by science?”
He smiled, almost indulging. “Sure.”
