Free Only Ever You by Rebecca Drake

another tree trunk, peering around in time to see Jill slipping sideways down the hillside, arm outstretched to catch her daughter before she toppled down the steep embankment.
    “Sophia, wait!” Her voice shrill. The child slipped against loose acorns, they scattered ahead of her down the hillside, a light, rushing sound, and then Jill had Sophia in her grip, the child squirming just like the dog.
    “Doggie! I want doggie!”
    “There’s no dog out here,” the woman said, squinting as she tried to peer down into the depths of the woods. She hoisted the child onto her hip, gently scolding as she began a slow climb back toward the house. “You know you’re not supposed to be in the woods alone; it’s dangerous.”
    Bea waited, heart pounding, until they’d crested the hill before moving in the opposite direction. Cosmo scratched at her arms, struggling to get down, but she didn’t dare release him until she’d gotten across the creek and halfway up the other side.
    *   *   *
    When Bea made it back to her own little house in the woods, Cosmo jumped against her legs, whining and barking to go out. “You were just outside,” she complained, wishing Frank was around to take him out, but he could never be counted on to do anything domestic. Despite her exhaustion, Bea quickly let Cosmo out the kitchen door, and he lifted his leg next to the sagging fence. She had to force him back inside, and after she’d fed him and he’d lapped up a full bowl of water, he raced back and forth in the living room, trying to engage her in playing even after she’d sunk onto the old couch.
    “Settle down,” she told the little dog. “I’m too tired for this.” When Cosmo jumped on her lap, she plopped him back on the floor, but gave up after they’d repeated this three times. “Damn dog,” she muttered. “Just sit down there, then.” She shoved him to the end of the couch and turned onto her side. Cosmo made a throaty, whining sound, but finally settled, his small body warm against her feet. She switched on the old TV and watched the local news, a roundup of everything awful that had happened in one day. She hated them all, these reporters with their smiley, overly made-up faces, feigning concern when you could see the lust for tragedy in their eyes, hear the sharklike glee as they recited it all: Murders and house fires, rapes and robberies. A veritable buffet of bad news; sidle up and gorge on someone else’s sorrow. Bea sank deeper into the couch, fatigue overtaking anger. Her eyes closed.
    She was in the passenger seat of a car watching the speedometer climb. They were going too fast, the car racing down the road and still the speedometer climbed—seventy, eighty, eighty-five—the needle trembling. The car shook. She told her daughter to slow down, but the girl just smiled. She was driving in the wrong lane, but she didn’t seem to notice. Bea could see that they were going to crash. An approaching car came closer and closer.
    Bea woke up screaming. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, and then Cosmo licked her face and Bea pushed him away, sitting up on the couch, breathing hard, her throat sore. It had gotten dark—the only light in the room the glow from the old TV. She rubbed a hand over her face and looked at her watch. It was after seven—she’d slept for over two hours.
    “I’m getting old,” she said out loud, voice scratchy. The dog tilted his head to one side, looking at her quizzically before jumping against Bea’s legs and whining until she stood and walked to the back door again. She let him out into the yard and stood there staring up at the night sky, pulled back into memory, a cold autumn night like this one, but long ago, her daughter pointing out the constellations to her mother, “ There’s Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and there’s Orion.…” Bea tried to remember the feel of those small shoulders under her arm, the smell of silky hair as she’d stooped to kiss the top of her