Sunday morning. A news report. A family discovered along a secluded hiking trail. One of those national parks known for its vistas. A mother, a father, a baby, and a dog. It’s peak summer, one of the hottest on record, and I sweat under the air conditioning—an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel at the nape of my neck. The family had a single one-litre water bottle between them. Empty. Instinctively, I reach for the water jug on the kitchen worktop. The news anchor says the trail used to be shady, a small river nearby. Recent wildfires have changed the landscape. Perhaps the family didn’t know. They add that the mother was found further along the trail from the rest of the family. Alone. The dog seems to have tried to follow her before succumbing to the heat. A relative reported them missing after they failed to attend a family lunch.

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I pace the kitchen, my own baby clinging to me. I’m torn between wanting to know more and forgetting the entire story. My baby’s skin is soft against my clammy chest. His cheeks ruddy. I cradle his warm head, his tiny body inflating with each sleepy breath. I watch him with tired eyes, envious of his slumber. The question arrives before I can stop it.

 

Would I have left him too? 

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Like the good mother I am, I immediately shake it away. No. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

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But the question prompts the threat of something dark that’s been lurking in the back of my mind. Fed by sleepless nights, the way my baby screech’s unthread my nerves, and this relentless, goddamn heat. It connects me to this other mother, her desperation, in unsettling ways. Despite a longing to forget, I linger on her final decision to walk away. I become abrupt with my husband, more so than usual. We argue. In calmer moments he tells me it’s normal to be tired. That all mothers feel this way. 

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All mothers. All mothers. All mothers. 

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I say it like a mantra, the syllables reverberating around my mouth.

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On one or two occasions in the days that follow, I find myself standing outside in the midday sun while my son cries somewhere inside. I just stand there.

Burning.

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Then life shifts, as it so often does, despite the unsettling things we discover. My husband, finally taking my fatigue seriously, makes an effort to help out more around the house. The temperature slides into something akin to comfortable. My baby settles more readily in the night. I almost forget about the other mother until a few weeks later—a rare stretch of uninterrupted sleep littered with fragmented dreams.

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In them, it’s the dead dog that finds me. Panting in the heat, pointed canines exposed. The panicked whites of its eyes engulf me until I’m swimming in them but dry as bone. I lick my lips and taste dirt. I try to call out but wheeze red dust. The dog steps closer.

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So, I run. 

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I wake slick with a different kind of sweat. My heart thunders in my chest. My husband snores into his pillow. My baby whimpers in his bassinet, reaching the critical point between sleep, wake, and hunger. As I sit up and reach for him, something moves in the dark.

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The dead dog watches me from the corner of the room, its knowing yellow eyes flashing in the dim light, gleaming with questions I keep trying to ignore.