Nonfiction from Annie Marhefka

Photo: Joanna Huang

How to make friends

There are two mothers watching the entrance when the little girls disappear into the hay maze. There are two mothers with sleeping babies strapped to their chests, phones slipped into back pockets, spit-up stains on their blouses. One mother has her hair in a ponytail. The other left her hair down. They have met, once or twice; their daughters became friends at summer camp. The mothers don’t even know how it came to be that they are friends, as the girls are only three years old, and they share bits of their summer camp experience in snippets: Molly wore an Elsa dress today. Jax got in trouble. Someone made me cry.

The mothers are here, at the hay maze, trying to form a friendship, because of the girls. Otherwise, they would not have met.

The hay maze is a tough place to watch a child, because you only watch them disappear. The hay bales are stacked tall for an adult’s height, five or six feet maybe. The sightlines don’t allow for the tops of children’s heads to be visible. The mothers don’t discuss it, but one moves to the left side of the maze, and the other to the right, so both exits are covered. They can’t chat from this distance apart, stationed at their hay maze corners, but they toss each other smiles and coo at the babies strapped to their chests, and this is enough.

For a while, it feels relieving to tend to one child when she normally tends to two. One is safe, swaddled against her torso, soft cheek squished against a breast that teems with milk. The mother rocks her hips side to side, keeping the baby asleep with her movements. The other child is safe inside the hay maze.

The muffled giggles and rustling of hay are soothing sounds, almost as quiet as a sunrise before the babies wake. Farther out, there are joyful noises: a boy squealing as he whooshes down a slide, a girl laughing as she admires her glittery butterfly face paint in a hand-held mirror, a vendor hawking kettle corn and cotton candy, pink or blue. The hum of a food truck’s generator. It is not quiet, no, but it feels quiet to the mothers.

It has been some time since the daughters disappeared into the maze. The mothers start to fidget. One drums her fingers against the baby’s bottom, an anxious ticking of the seconds. The other checks the time on her phone, tries to recall what time the girls entered the maze, checks her phone clock again. The mothers smile at each other, shrug their shoulders as if to say, It’s too soon to panic. Right?

More minutes slip away, and the mothers start to think the girls are lost inside the hay maze. One mother offers, I can go walk through and find them? The other nods, too eagerly, and says, I’ll wait here and watch. One mother steadies herself against walls of hay with her hands, trying not to wake the baby with a scratch of hay against the infant’s leg, trying to cover each turn, each dead end. The other mother waits, eyes darting between maze exits. When one mother emerges without the girls, they switch. The other mother searches, tracing the same path or a different one. You can’t tell once you’re inside. It all blends to hay.

The mothers don’t remember how many times they searched, switched places, searched again, before they start screaming for help.

The farm staff have a viewing platform above the maze, where they can help a maze-goer if they get stuck. A farmworker gets a description of the girls from the mothers, races up to the platform and searches. He shouts down to the mothers, shaking his head: The maze is empty. The farm is not quiet now. It is aroar.

The other families visiting the farm hear the descriptions of the girls and try to match them with children they can see: Pigtails, blonde, purple dress, rainbow leggings. The other mothers grab their children’s hands, whisper: Don’t leave Mommy’s side. The farm staff press buttons on their walkie-talkies, order someone to stand at the gates, instruct them to make sure no children leave alone or against their will. Someone chirps over the radio, What does against their will look like? The walkie-talkies squawk with updates.

No one can hear the hay rustling now.

The mothers aren’t sure where to stand. Should they run around the farm, race to the road, look for a fleeing car? Should they walk with the farm staff or listen to the play-by-play of the missing girls dialogue on the walkie-talkies? Should they stay by the maze, in case the girls come back to the place where they left their mothers?

The mothers think: How could I have missed her escaping? Did I look away too long? Did I close my eyes? Did I let myself relax? They feel responsible. They whisper, I’m sorry. One mother grabs the other mother’s hand. They squeeze. Each thinks the other’s hand feels softer, calmer, than her own. But something feels off, scratchy. They look down and discover a piece of hay between their hands. Neither mother lets go.

—§—

Inside the maze, beneath one very sturdy wall of hay, a small, compact hole has been dug by two pairs of toddler hands. The hay has been parted left and right, torn from its molded block and softened to form a crevice just large enough for two petite three-year-old girls. They are wedged into the hay wall, huddled together, giggling. Their nook is so low to the ground that it can’t be seen by a mother peering over a baby strapped to her chest; it is so tucked away under a mess of hay that a farm worker can’t spot a purple skirt from the viewing platform above. One girl holds a sweaty palmful of hay with a gleeful grin; the other girl balls her fists in excitement. They lace their fingers together and press against each other, against the hay.

—§—

And this is it, this is the moment. It is two girls holding hands while the world swarms around them. It is two mothers, mothering. The world swarms and all they know is the sensation they hold in each other’s palms. They know it is the same.
.

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Annie Marhefka is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland whose writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her recent publications include prose and poetry in Pithead Chapel, Variant Literature, Reckon Review, Literary Mama, and others. Annie is the Executive Director at Yellow Arrow Publishing, a Baltimore-based nonprofit supporting and empowering women-identifying writers. She has a degree in creative writing from Washington College and an MBA. Follow Annie on Instagram @anniemarhefka, Twitter @charmcityannie, and at anniemarhefka.com.