The Forever Bridge by T. Greenwood

Davidson. She’s going to have to do this one alone. The bridge she wants to build is one that’s never been made before. At least she doesn’t think it has. Izzy says there’s no way of knowing. With all the bodies of water and all the bridges in the world, there’s bound to be one like the one in her dreams. But she doesn’t think so. Because it feels like it belongs to her. Like it’s hers alone. There aren’t many things she can say that about, but this is one of them. She doesn’t have a brother anymore. She doesn’t really have her mother. Now she doesn’t even have Izzy. But she does have this. This magical bridge, a bridge that will traverse any body of water. That combines the strength of the best suspension bridges with the beauty of the wind and rain bridges. That will seem to break the laws of physics, even as it depends on them. It will be a structural miracle.
    By the time Christine comes down the stairs to the children’s room, Ruby knows swimming lessons are over, and she has printed out three new bridges to consider as she finalizes her designs.
    “You leaving already?” Christine asks as Ruby makes her way toward the stairs.
    “Yeah,” she says. “I’m staying at my mom’s, and she needs me home.”
    “Oh,” Christine says, and Ruby wonders how much she knows about her mom. It seems like the whole town knows about the accident. About what happened. But not everybody knows about all the stuff that happened afterwards. That’s a secret that they’ve managed to keep.
    “Well, have a nice day. Looks like that hurricane, Irene, is going to bring some rain. Hopefully it’ll hold off until after the fair,” Christine says. “Are you going this year?”
    Ruby nods, but remembering Izzy and Marcy and thinking about going with them to the fair brings back all those bad feelings and so she just nods and says, “See ya.”
     
    Bridges, like ladders and cats and cemeteries, have their own set of superstitions. Hold your breath as you cross a bridge and make a wish. The only way to reverse the bad luck of a broken mirror is to throw the shards into rushing water beneath a bridge. Never say good-bye to a friend on a bridge, or you will never see them again.
    There are only two bridges in Quimby: the wide concrete bridge and the covered bridge out by the old mill. The quickest way back to her mom’s house from town is across the covered bridge. And that was the route she used to take, they all used to take. She didn’t used to think about it at all. She hardly even noticed it back then, other than remembering that she should always stop and listen to make sure there wasn’t a car coming from the other direction. The bridge can only hold one car at a time, so you’re supposed to honk to let pedestrians and bicyclists and other cars know you’re coming. She would fly across that bridge coming and going without noticing the trusses or portals, the wing walls or decks. Without understanding the physics of a bridge, how a bridge’s design depends on the laws of motion: on the irrefutable concepts of compression and tension and load. She didn’t think. She didn’t have to. She just crossed the bridge.
    She is so angry with Izzy. She wishes she could rewind the last twenty-four hours. Rewind the entire last two years as a matter of fact. If she could do that then she’d just hit pause at the place before everything changed. She wants the feeling of the boards of the bridge deck beneath her tires again, feel the cool shade the roof makes. She wants to hear the river rushing beneath her. She wants to pause back at a time when her mom didn’t live like this, back when everything was normal. Maybe she’d pause at a night when she was cooking something good for dinner in the kitchen. The homemade mac ‘n’ cheese she used to make with the buttery cracker top or the pot roast that would cook all day in the slow cooker, making the house smell like a holiday. Back when Jess would use her Legos