Tent Worms

The summer I turned eight, the tent worms invaded the shrubs at the end of our yard, the thin bushes my sister Ruth and I called the little trees. The worms stretched papery webs around entire branches. The leaves curled dead and dry inside like browned babies.

Our father put on his thick work gloves and took a metal trash can and long-handled shears out to the bushes. Ruth and I followed and watched him trim the bad branches into the can. It was awkward work. He would grab the base of a branch and maneuver its end into the trash can he held under his arm, tipped at an angle. Then he cut the branch. He did this until twelve mummy branches stuck out of the metal mouth.

I had snuck down to the little trees earlier that morning and watched the dark worms moving in their web, the hair at the back of my neck crawling with them. Now I stood behind Ruth and saw our father squeeze lighter fluid into the trash can. He set fire to the worms and their tents with a match. A smell that was something other than what I knew from cook-outs reached me.

Ruth took my hand and we walked closer to the worm fire. The smoke was thick and brown. Dad lit a cigarette and stepped back to watch. Ruth brushed the smoke from her face, like she would a cobweb. "They look like they're dancing," she said. Then she looked at me.

"Dance with me," she said.

I stretched out my other hand and Ruth took it. We started by swinging our arms back and forth. Then Ruth dropped my hands and began to turn. She started spinning fast. I followed her lead and soon we were dancing like worms. Our arms stretched over our heads and our hips moved in small circles. Ruth began to hiss, no louder than the fire. I fell to the ground and watched my sister spin and twist like a burning tent worm.

Dad flicked his cigarette into the trash can and told me to get up. "Go get the garden hose, Lizzy," he said.

I dragged the long green hose from the side of the house, the hose spool squealing from rust. Dad took it from me and I ran back to the spigot.

"Ready," he called out over his shoulder.

He stood over the metal can while I twisted the spigot knob. Ruth had stopped her dancing and stood with her mouth open, panting. She watched while our father filled the can with water. The smoke thinned and then stopped. I heard the water, a sizzling in the branches, and Ruth's heavy breathing.

"You hot?" Dad asked Ruth after a minute. She looked from the dead fire to our father and nodded. He raised the hose and put his thumb over the mouth. A wide spray of water began to fall on the grass as he swung the hose from side to side. From where I stood near the house, there was a shimmering waterfall arching from the hose.

Ruth closed her mouth and watched the water. Our father moved his thumb and aimed the hose at Ruth's feet. She jumped back and he laughed and made another waterfall. Then he turned the hose on the little trees. He moved the arc of water over them, first one direction and then the other in a long, smooth sweep.

Ruth stretched up her arms to be watered, too. I ran to join her in the shower. Dad moved the water to fall where we stood. We were both still now, feet planted and arms sticking up through the sheet of water. I felt tiny streams moving fast along the edge of my wet shorts and on down my legs.

The next year, Ruth set fire to the little trees. She said later that she'd only meant to clean out the tent worms. She walked down to the end of the yard in the early morning and struck a match at the base of each of the little shrubs. Our mother found her dancing in the front hall, her hips moving in small worm circles. Our mother's panicked footsteps woke me when she rushed to get Dad. I watched Ruth dance from my bedroom door. I saw my father race into the yard while my mother took Ruth into her arms.

Mom wrapped her in a blanket. She sat with Ruth against her chest on the living room couch while our father stomped out the fire in the yard. When he came into the house, Mom looked up from Ruth's face. "She's got a fever," she whispered. "She's on fire."

After my sister's death, I thought about this night more than any other. A year or two after Ruth left college, she fell from a fourth story balcony at an apartment building across town. I still imagine her twisting in the air as she fell-not unlike a burning tent worm. I mentioned this to my mother at the funeral. I told her that I couldn't stop thinking about the fires in the little trees.

"Lizzy," she said, "Ruth fell. She didn't burn."

I told her she didn't understand what I had meant. I told her I knew how my sister had died. She turned away and walked the length of the sanctuary to get away from me. She went to my father, who put his arm around her shoulders.

I could see them talking. She gestured in my direction and he looked straight across the sanctuary at me. He shook his head. His face was creased with a frown. I pictured him with that same look, stomping on the fire that Ruth had started. I remembered that the front door was open and the light from the fire lit Ruth's dancing figure, her shadow flashing on the walls. She wore a light cotton night gown with puffed sleeves. Her feet were bare and covered with pieces of wet grass. I also remembered being at the hospital that same night and falling asleep on a couch in the waiting room. I woke up once as Dad was tapping a cigarette against his watch crystal. He was on his way out to the parking lot to smoke. The whole night his lips were pressed into a tight line.

That same tightness stretched over him now. He took my mother by her elbow and led her to a pew. He made her sit down. I thought he would come and speak to me next, demand that I stop being so difficult. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be," I could imagine him saying in my ear. But he didn't cross the sanctuary. He walked straight down the aisle. My father approached the coffin.

Ruth was dressed in a thin fabric, it was a gray web wrapped around her body.

My father touched her hand. I expected him to hold it. But instead he reached down into the coffin and drew Ruth up into his arms. Her head tilted back limply. Dad began to sway. His eyes were closed. He was dancing. One of Ruth's arms marked time against the edge of the coffin.

Over the soft beat of this dance I could hear my mother sobbing. Then my own feet began to move, my hands gripping the back of each pew. When I reached the front of the sanctuary, I touched my father's shoulder.

He stopped his dancing. I took Ruth from his arms and laid her back in the coffin. I folded her hands. I kissed her forehead. Then I turned back to my father. His eyes were still closed. He was crying. Soft, quick gasps of breath escaped from his mouth. I took his hands and began slowly to swing our arms back and forth, back and forth.

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