The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore

Her father once told her casually that she was built like a plum on toothpicks, and the phrase was at once so cruel and so poetic that it clicked into place around her like a harness.

Alice didn’t enjoy assessing her daughter’s body in this way. She understood conceptually that it was uncharitable; and yet she also believed that part of a mother’s duty was to be her daughter’s first, best critic; to fortify her during her childhood, so that in womanhood she could gracefully withstand any assault or insult launched in her direction. This was the method her own mother had used upon her. She hadn’t liked it at the time, but now she understood it.

Peter frequently offered her criticisms, always couched as advice.

If Van Laar was curious about how Carl knew his son, he didn’t ask. Instead, to Carl’s dismay, he let out a wail, unguarded and wild, and in it Carl—a parent himself, a father of three who had once been a father of four—recognized a feeling he had the misfortune to know well.

Now that George was gone, however, Delphine’s quirks quickly lost whatever charm they might have had. Furthermore, in George’s absence, she had lost the target toward which her observations and conversation had once been directed; and she had seemingly also lost the ability to filter her thoughts.

It was more that she had come to see herself nearly exclusively through his eyes, and therefore being in his good graces was the easiest way to achieve a sense of well-being.

“Oh,” he says. His face turns a deep red. “Oh. I wet the bed.” He’s practically whispering now. The father puts his hand on his son’s shoulder. “It happens,” says Judy. “You know, I wet the bed when I was a kid too.” “You did?” She didn’t. “I did.”