Page 36 of My Dead Wife's Ex Will Do
Logan’s camera clicks steadily as he documents every tree, flower, or butterfly. He’s been filling silences with easy jokes since we left the resort and now trades the Latin and Spanish names of tropical plants with Fabio. I’m grateful for his and Fabio’s conversations about the ecosystem, how the cloud forest creates its own weather, trapping moisture from the ocean winds. It gives Kelsey and me an excuse not to talk.
I stop and wait for her, watching as she navigates around a low-hanging branch draped with moss. She moves through the world with the kind of confidence I never had at her age, but today something’s different. Her jaw is set in that stubborn line she inherited from her mother, and she won’t quite meet my eyes. Her wedding is on Friday, but instead of the pre-wedding glow she’s had up until today, there’s a tension radiating from her that makes my chest tight.
“You okay, hon?” I ask. The endearment feels awkward.
“I’m fine.” She brushes past me, lengthening her stride to catch up with Fabio and Logan. Her ponytail swings with each determined step. “Just want to get to the viewing platform before the fog rolls in completely.”
She’s lying about being fine and we both know it.
Somewhere above us, a howler monkey calls out, the sound echoing off the invisible canopy. Kelsey pauses to look up, and for a moment, she’s eight years old again, her face open and unguarded.
I look up too, trying to catch what she’s looking at. I’d love to see a resplendent quetzal here today, though we’re a little early for their peak breeding season.
“Remember when you first took me hiking?” she says suddenly, not turning around. “I think I complained the entire time about bugs.”
“You made it halfway before you admitted you were actually having fun,” I reply, grateful for this olive branch, however small.
“Yeah, well.” She starts walking again, but slower now.
“Kelsey, what’s going on? You’ve barely said two words to me all day.”
She keeps walking. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Talk about what? If there’s something?—“
“I heard you, Dad.” She throws the words over her shoulder without turning around. “Last night. I came to check on you and I heard—“ She cuts herself off. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not here.”
My stomach drops. Oh, Blessed Virgin and all the saints.
“Kelsey—“
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” Her voice is tight. Controlled. The voice she uses when she’s trying very hard not to cry or scream. “It’s my wedding week. Can we please just—“ She gestures vaguely at the forest around us. “Can we just do this?”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to fix this. So I do the only thing I can.
I follow her in silence.
We continue along the trail, the tension between us thick as the mist. Logan glances back at us a few times, clearly sensing something, but he doesn’t ask. Fabio points out a blue morpho butterfly and Logan follows it with his camera, giving Kelsey and me a wide berth.
I’m scuffling along the trail, my head down, when I catch sight of a pair of frogs nestled in the leaf litter. The smaller frog is perched on the back of a larger frog and I snort to myself. I don’t need Fabio to tell me what these frogs are doing. What are the odds of coming across frogs fucking in the midst of a fight I’m having with my stepdaughter about me fucking her father?
I crouch to snap a photo with my phone—for Victor, even if I’m not going to show this to Kelsey—and then I hear Fabio call out in a low, tight voice, “Por favor, please all stay very still. Señor Jason, muy venomous snake by your foot.”
My blood turns to ice. I can see it now, coiled in the leaf litter beside the trail, just behind my right foot, its diamond-patterned body perfectly camouflaged except for the slight movement of its head tracking me. A fer-de-lance—terciopelo, the locals call it—one of the most venomous snakes in Central America, according to the educational posters at the station where we parked and picked up the trail.
“Dad!” I can see Kelsey out of the corner of my eye.
“No!” The word comes out harsher than I intend and I’m grateful that Logan grabs her arm before she can take more than a half-step toward me.
“Back away slowly, señor. Don’t turn. Just step backward, very, very slowly.”
I straighten as slowly as I can and do as Fabio instructs, easing my weight onto my back foot, then slowly slide my other foot behind me. The snake’s head follows me, tongue flicking, tasting the air. Heel to toe, I slip one step, then two, away from the snake. Sweat beads up on my forehead, despite the cool mist, but I don’t dare wipe it away.
Three steps. Four. The snake uncoils slightly, and my mind is racing. If it strikes, we’re an hour or more from the ranger station, no cell service, no idea whether Fabio has anti-venom in his backpack, how the hell was I supposed to know we’d need it?
I take a fifth step back, and the fer-de-lance suddenly flows away into the undergrowth, disappearing so completely, it’s as if it never existed. I stop in the middle of the trail and let out a shaky breath. “It’s gone,” I gasp. “Mother of God, that was close.”
Kelsey rushes at me. “You’re okay? It didn’t bite you, right?”
