by Amy Waeschle
“But it could get me fired,” she added, stooping down to pluck a cloudy-white piece of beach glass from a slush of colorful pebbles. She rolled the oval piece in her palm before depositing it in her pocket.
“I’m not trying to get you fired,” Zach said in a careful voice.
Skye walked on. “All the things that are never supposed to happen on a trek happened. We ran into a bear. We got yelled at by the ranger. A couple of boys cut up their feet in the river even though I warned them not to go barefoot. Then there was the pass and the snow and the flooding river.”
“Evan talked about a river crossing,” Zach said.
Skye looked his way, her face grim. “I probably would have turned back then if I could have, but it was too late, we were low on food, and I wasn’t going to go back over that pass . . . ” She pulled a wisp of hair from her lips.
Zach listened to the waves’ soft crush against the beach and his own gritty footsteps. The icy sea breeze was making his earlobes ache.
“He almost went down. The current was really swift, it was up to his waist. He stumbled.” Skye hugged herself. “I still have nightmares about it.” Her eyes had a pained look of regret that he recognized.
“He was different after that. I mean, he should have trusted me even less. I fucked up. It was totally my fault. I should have known those guys weren’t cut out for a river like that. They think they’re all strong and manly but they are not.” Skye shook her head for emphasis. “They are scared little boys who don’t know anything about nature, about how it can overpower you . . . ” She snapped her fingers. “ . . . like that.”
“But Evan used to do a lot of stuff outside. He liked sailing, he went to camp every summer.”
Skye nodded. “I figured that out. Most of the boys don’t know how to lace up their own boots, let alone put up a tent or cook for themselves.”
“Trey was with you on that trek, right? What did he say about the river crossing?”
“He didn’t seem that worried.”
“Weren’t you afraid he’d blame you?”
“He was all for it. I mean, it was ultimately my decision but he was gung-ho. He loves to push them.” She tugged at her braids. “And like I said, it brought on this change. Trey was all fired-up after that. I think he turned it into some kind of faith-believing exercise.” Her voice sounded tight behind her teeth. “Like they’d all been saved, or some bullshit like that.”
Zach had never been able to embrace the God side of recovery either, but he had been willing to give it a try for Evan.
So what had happened out there between her and Evan? Sure, two people sharing an intense experience would naturally develop a bond. But Evan was a recovering addict. Skye kayaked and hiked for a living and had probably never bought her own drink. “So you got together?” He didn’t realize how judgmental he sounded until it was too late.
Skye’s lips quivered. “It’s never happened before. I mean, I stay in touch with some of them, at least until . . . ”
“Until they relapse?” Zach prompted.
Skye’s shoulders dropped. “One day they’re texting me, and the next they’re gone.” She glanced at him. “Just like that.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to Evan?”
She wiped her eyes with the side of her hand. “He had graduated from Timberline. He had his job at the boatyard.”
“But you were leading treks, and then you were leaving.” He pictured her in a bright red kayak, a wide-brimmed sunhat shading her face.
“He could have come. I could have found him a job down there.” A look of anguish passed over her face.
“Did Evan ever talk about his mom?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. Did she give a huff or had he imagined it? “But I got enough family drama of my own to take on anyone else’s,” she said.
Zach changed tracks. “Do you know Garrett?”
“Yeah. He disappeared a few months ago. Relapsed. Evan took it really hard.” She hugged herself.
Zach blinked. “Do you know where he is? I can’t find him.” Zach had stopped by the boatyard and the skate park. Garrett’s boss had shrugged, said that one day Garrett didn’t show. The kids at the skate park didn’t know his name.
“Evan wanted to go after him.” Skye faced the water and inhaled a deep, fast breath. Her pale cheeks were puffy. “But it was too risky. He would have relapsed.”
The words bounced around in Zach’s head: relapse, risky. But it wasn’t coming together. “I don’t understand. Go after him?”
Skye’s icy blue eyes gave him razor-sharp focus. “Evan wanted to bring him back.”
“To Port Townsend?”
“To being sober.”
Zach got an image of Evan returning to the underworld of drugs and street life. “Do you think that’s what happened?”
Skye blinked and a tear escaped her delicate lid. “They’d been through a lot together.”
A series of waves broke against the shore, the result of a passing ocean liner that they could neither see nor hear.
Zach reeled in the rest of his questions because Skye was discreetly wiping her eyes with the side of her hands. He cursed Evan for shredding yet another person’s dreams. Now he knew the look she was wearing when he first asked about Evan: grief.
“I told him to forget it, he didn’t need to be some hero—staying sober was enough.” She turned to him with glassy eyes. “At least, it was enough for me.”
Zach pulled into the Co-Op parking lot to get a bite to eat before his drive back to the house where the rest of the siding waited. He strolled the aisles, dropping items into his cart: cold-pressed orange juice, an apple, a hoagie-style sandwich packed fat with all kinds of goodness. On his way to the checkout, he spotted the pickles. Without thinking, he reached for the biggest jar. They were Dana’s favorite—a brand not found in many stores.
The longing to be with her again tightened the knot inside him. He closed his eyes, gripping the jar. If only we can make it through this, he thought. He had even shared pieces of his life with Travis, hoping that it might help her see things differently.
“You make it sound so easy,” she had said, hugging herself while the tears streaked her puffy cheeks.
Zach shook his head hard. “The hell I do,” he replied, practically huffing with frustration. “You know I don’t talk about Travis.”
“Why? Are you afraid it makes you sound weak?”
Zach remembered the growl that had rumbled from his chest. “No, Dana, fuck! It’s because it’s hard, okay? It took me a long time to stop blaming myself for what happened. I had to work hard, really hard.”
“But it wasn’t your fault. Travis was sick.”
“Exactly!” Zach said, sending all of his energy into her. Come on, he wanted to scream. Wake up!
“We were both drowning. I had to let him go or we both would have gone down.”
“I can’t let him go, Zach,” she’d sobbed softly, her cheeks stained with tears.
After paying for his groceries, Zach walked to his truck and put the bag in the passenger seat. Then he leaned against his door and tapped Dana’s number.
“Hi,” she breathed into the phone.
Zach could tell by her voice that she wasn’t distracted by one of her Internet searches. He checked his watch and wondered what she was doing. Had she remembered to eat dinner? What about Jessie—what was she up to?
“I went to Timberline,” he said, shuffling his feet.
“Oh,” she said, surprised.
“I was surfing at Ipse, and I just thought, what if they know something? Something that’s been overlooked?”
“But he hasn’t been there for ten months, Zach,” she said.
“I know,” he replied, “but I thought it was worth a shot.” A blue sedan coasted into the spot next to his truck. Zach nodded politely at the man who stepped out. “Trey wouldn’t let me look at his journal,” he said after the man had squeezed by him. “But I found out that Evan h
ad a girlfriend.”
“What?”
“Her name is Skye.”
“The trip leader?”
“Yep. I talked to her.” Zach had decided to tread carefully. There was no need to tell Dana everything, not until he knew more. “She made it sound like Evan may have moved away with a friend. Garrett.” The guilt that he was lying tightened his throat.
“I remember Evan being upset about him leaving,” Dana said.
Enough that he dove back into street life to save him? Zach wondered.
“He and Evan were roommates. They were close.” Dana took a long time to add, “Did she know where Garret went? I tried to reach him, but everything led to a dead end.”
Zach shook his head. “No.” He could almost hear Dana’s hopes deflate.
A silence stretched between them. Zach realized that he had somehow failed her. Again.
“Will I see you tonight?” she asked, and the hope in her voice put a hole right through his heart.
“I don’t know,” he heard himself say, remembering his line in the sand. He pictured the ring in his console but didn’t ask, Will you say yes?
“Okay,” Dana replied, her voice tight. “I’ll tell Jessie you called.”
Zach ended the call and leaned back against his truck, banging his clenched fists against the door.
Chapter 11
Jessie
Boudreaux gave the tiniest head nod when she entered two minutes late. “Row A, send a parent up for an egg, please.”
Cam returned with their egg. He made a big show of pretending to drop it.
Jessie clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from busting up. She wondered what Boudreaux would do if they got broken shell and yellow yolk all over his carpet.
“Row B, please.”
Jessie watched other kids walking back to their desks with white eggs tucked into plain brown boxes.
Jessie scanned the instructions written on the white board. Choose a name. Answer questions 1-7. Read article: The Parenting Path.
“What should we name her?” Jessie said, turning her desk around to face Cam’s like the other “parents.” The box was lined with pink tissue paper. Cam had also brought their packet of papers.
“How about Loretta?” Jessie asked.
“Why is it a her?” said Cam. “It could be a he.”
“A boy in a pink blanket?” she asked, sliding her fingers under the egg. The shell felt cold in her hand.
Cam sighed like a punctured tire. He was writing his name on the top of his packet but paused at the blank space where it asked for their baby’s name. Then he said: “Gloria Jane Hanson.”
“How come she gets your last name?” Jessie said. “And why Gloria?”
Cam tossed his head to clear the bangs from his eyes. “My grandma’s name. And because I’m the dad. Kids always get their dad’s last name.”
“I didn’t,” Jessie replied.
“You don’t even know your dad.”
“Yeah.” Sometimes when she doodled, she wrote her name Jessica Nichole Healy.
But that wish would never come true now.
Cam re-read the card Mr. Boudreaux had placed on their desk. “A 105 degree fever?” he said, glaring at Boudreaux. “What are we supposed to do about it?”
Mr. Boudreaux raised his eyebrows.
“Take her to the doctor, you moron,” Jessie said to Cam. She looked at their egg baby, on which Cam had drawn a smiley face and eyes with long eyelashes. Cam was good at art, a subject Jessie had grown to hate. She had once been forced to see a family therapist who suggested she “draw her feelings” about Evan, then after, spilled to her mom that she was showing signs of “anger issues.” Jessie had been suspicious of art ever since.
“My mom doesn’t take May to the doctor every time she gets a fever. Just give her a cool bath and some Tylenol.”
“But what if it’s an infection?” Jessie said.
Cam groaned.
Zach had cared for sick babies in his job as a paramedic—stories she wasn’t supposed to have overheard. “What if she gets worse?” Jessie imagined Cam’s baby sister May in an ambulance, feverish and still. “We’re taking her in.”
By the end of class they had drawn five cards, all forcing them to make decisions that affected their savings balance, their points, and what Boudreaux called “their parenting path.”
“The fever’s gone but we owe the doctor six hundred and fifty-three dollars and seven cents,” Cam said gloomily.
Jessie scowled, knowing she probably looked like the grouchy kitty Cam liked to accuse her of. “How much do we have left?” She scanned their assets sheet. Their current savings totaled $1,267.50.
“But we still have to buy diapers and bottles and groceries plus put away a hundred for the college fund.”
“Or we can blow off the college fund and buy a new crib and bedding.” Jessie wanted the egg to at least have a blanket, something soft.
“This one works fine.”
“We can save for college tomorrow,” Jessie said. “Let’s get the crib. Shelter is a basic need, Boudreaux even said.”
Cam looked out the window. He seemed to be thinking about something. “We need to make the right choice, Jess. Or tomorrow there will be consequences.”
Jessie had lived a whole life of consequences from other people’s choices. “So what?”
“I could lose my job. Or the baby could get sick again.”
Jessie shrugged. “I’ll work. It’s what my mom did.”
Cam’s face was getting blotchy. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
Jessie sighed in a loud huff. “It’s just an egg.”
“It’s fifty percent of our quarter grade, Jess.” He held her gaze and she knew he was thinking about what his mom had told him. Straight As or no skating. “Bad choices bring consequences. We should save for college.”
Jessie scribbled a hard line in pencil on her desk. “Why save for college when she might not even live that long?”
The bell was about to ring, and kids were packing up.
“You take her,” Cam said.
“No,” Jessie replied. “You take her.” She stuffed her folder into her backpack.
“Take the stupid egg.” Cam pushed the egg across the desk.
“I have a month’s worth of equations to learn before tomorrow,” Jessie hissed, stepping back.
“So?” Cam’s eyes shot lasers at her. “I’m going to auto shop at lunch. You want her running loose in there?”
“Fine,” she said, and scooped up the egg and the crappy crib. She tucked them both into the front pocket of her hoodie and hurried to the door.
Chapter 12
Jessie
Jessie met Cam at their locker after school; they grabbed their boards and skated to Jessie’s house. Jessie unlocked her front door and Cam followed her inside.
“I still don’t get it.” Cam dropped his backpack next to hers on the floor. He placed their egg baby in the middle of her dining room table. “You can do high school math but you can’t draw?”
“Please will you do it?” Jessie grabbed the bowl of egg salad from the fridge. She needed Cam to help finish a project for art. “I’ll help you with math,” she sang.
Cam huffed. “Fine.”
Jessie grabbed a fork and closed the drawer with her hip while Cam’s head disappeared inside the refrigerator. “Why don’t we ever go to your house?” She hadn’t held May-May since last Sunday and missed the feel of her baby chub.
“Um, do you enjoy getting pounded by my brothers?” Cam reappeared with the peanut butter and a block of cheddar cheese.
“Besides, my mom’s perma-cranky, like, twenty-four-seven.”
“It doesn’t help that you’re flunking math. And with May teething . . . ”
“I’m not flunking.”
Jessie gave him a flat tire. “Won’t be long with quiz scores like sixty-eight.”
“Shut up,” Cam groaned.
Jessie wondered why
Evan hadn’t turned out like Cam’s brothers: loud, gross, and mean. Before he changed, he was sweet and though sometimes moody, always seemed to make an effort around her. She hadn’t understood why he acted so different once he started going to high school—pissed off all the time, practically living in his room. Then, one day she had smelled the alcohol. During his junior year, he got kicked out of school for drinking in his car at lunchtime and by the time Jessie came home that day, her world had changed forever. The brother she loved had changed. He yelled, he put his fist through a wall, he stole her money. It was easier just to spend time at Cam’s. It was better after he went to Timberline, but she couldn’t erase the things he’d screamed at her, Zach, her mom.
If only he had stayed in Port Townsend. So what if he repaired boats for the rest of his life? Port Townsend was cool. They had a sweet skate park, and a coffee shop with the best hot chocolate in the universe, and a cool bookstore with creaky floors and a huge collection of Rin Tin Tin comics.
Cam smeared peanut butter on a slice of cheddar.
Jessie wrinkled her nose. “Not that again.” She slumped onto a stool at the breakfast bar and dug into the egg salad.
“It’s good,” Cam insisted, cramming half the slice into his mouth. “You should try it,” he said but with his mouth full sounded like, “Woo fwod twy it.”
Jessie started laughing as Cam tried to un-stick the roof of his mouth. He began laughing, too, making a kind of desperate-sounding snort.
Soon, faces red, they were both howling. Jessie pushed back from the table, bent over, flapping her arms. “Air,” she wheezed, laughing all over again when she spotted Cam’s red face. “I need air.”
Later, they took a break from playing Fortnite to rummage for more food. Cam found the mini bite-sized cookies and tried tossing them into his mouth. The first one missed and it shattered into a hundred crumbs on the kitchen floor.
“Catch!” he said to Jessie, tossing another cookie.
Jessie shrieked and tried to move into the right position but it bounced off her lip and hit Cam, who had moved closer.
Cam tried to grab it but it slipped through his fingers.