Freight

FreightFreya was a tall woman, with thick, wavy hair that was trimmed, topiary-like, into the shape of ayield sign. Her pale green dress hung limply from her skinny shoulders like a wet towel on a metalfence, all the way down to her hiking boots. When she saw the blue Jeep slow and stop in front of her,her face rearranged itself into a creature that was at least the same genus, if not species, as a smile.Lucy’s mother did not even put the car in park. “Thanks, Frey – is two weeks okay? I gave hersome money.” She pushed her layered bangs out of her eyes. Lucy got out of the car and closed thedoor quietly. She let her duffel bag brush the ground.“Freya?” Lucy’s mother leaned across her seatbelt and the gear shift, looking more frantic. “Isthat okay with you? You know I hate being a burden. It’s just with the boys, and with Jay’s practicesplitting up --”“Annie." Freya stuck her head into the car. “Go home. She’ll be fine.” Lucy’s mother gave her along, hard look in the spot right above her eyes. Lucy looked away and stretched. The mud-splattered jeep made U-turn on the gravelled road and left.Lucy watched the car drive down the road, but by the time it disappeared around a far-off bend,Freya was already climbing up from the road, her boots sinking into the wet, leafy ground. Lucyclimbed after her, the mud squishing into her sandals. When Lucy was angry, she became very silent.The sound of their footsteps and squirrels scurrying through the canopy of the Massachusetts foliagewere the only sound in those empty woods. Sunlight and trees sliced the forest floor into strips, and thetwo women cut across them, perpendicular to the shadows. After fifteen minutes of walking, the angerhad leaked from her body like soup through fingers.

“I’m in exile from Framingham,” she announced to her aunt’s back. Freya slowed down a little bit.“Why?” she asked, her eyes focused on a point in the distance.“Oh, you know. My mother doesn’t believe in healthy human relationships.” Lucywalked a little faster. The series of events that had led her to these woods played over and over againlike a song stuck on repeat: she’d come home from college to find an “I think I need some time” emailin her inbox from Erica, heard the next day from a friend of a friend that Erica’s best friend from highschool, the one that Erica always secretly loved but had never told, had come out and that they’d beenseen eating lunch at Panera, and in a tearful panic, Lucy had made the mistake of telling her mothereverything. The next day, her mother had told her that she, too, needed some time to sort things out. Sonow she was stuck in the woods. Women.“It’s hard to believe in something you’ve never had,” Freya said. Lucy raised hereyebrows. “It’s the truth. Your mom made some shitty choices. And she’s had a tough time because of it.” Lucy thought of bad choice number one, her father. There were pictures of Freya at her parents’wedding, dancing drunk on a table, pulling her pink satin bridesmaid’s dress over her knees to revealthick wool socks underneath.They walked for another ten minutes in silence, and then Lucy said quietly, “I wonderit’s in my genes to fail in relationships. It seems like everyone in this family is destined to die alone.” Atthis, Freya laughed, which echoed loudly around the forest. Realizing what she had just said, Lucy triedto backtrack. “I mean, not everyone. You know what I mean.”Lucy could see her aunt’s house in the distance. It was small, butter yellow with white detailingand a carved cherrywood front door. Her mother called it “the cake house in the woods”; to Lucy, itlooked as if a giant had grabbed this house out of some charming suburb and dumped it in the woods.

You’d expect something more utilitarian -- a cabin, something involving a woodpile and a series of tarpaulins -- but Freya had built this house and it was exactly the way she wanted it. The front porchlooked out into an endless expanse of woods, and the back deck was pressed up against the railroadtrack, so close that the glasses in their cabinets rattled when a train went by.“You’ll have to ask Tom about that relationship thing,” Freya said as they ascended thewhitewashed stairs up to the tiny porch.“Who’s Tom?” Lucy asked with interest. She didn’t know that anyone else lived in these woods.“He lives here, too,” said Freya, and there -- there! -- was a smile.The first thing that Tom said to Lucy, after shaking her hand gently, was, “Have you heard how Imet your aunt?” At this, Freya rolled her eyes. Lucy replied no, she hadn’t even known he existed untilthat moment. Tom laughed. Lucy liked the way he laughed. He had a friendly face – a close-cut beardand a thin face with circular glasses and green eyes. He looked like he was about 35, while her aunt wascloser to fifty. They sat down in the kitchen.“Well, I’ve driven freight trains for about ten years, give or take. I’ve been drivingthe MASS 2438, which runs on the track right behind the house, for about half that time. I alwaysnoticed Freya’s house, because there’s not much else to look at in these woods. You have to watch outfor deer, but other than that, it’s pretty boring.”“What's in the train?” asked Lucy.“Oh, this and that,” said Tom. “Food, chemicals, medicine occasionally -- and then I feel like ahero. Anyways, I’d always noticed of the house because it was so close to the track. I always wonderedwhat sort of person would build her house that close to the track. I thought that I was going to take out