The Possibilities

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

  I cross my arms over my chest and grin. I look around, as if for help. I feel like a trapped bird.

  She too had a son who was killed in an avalanche years ago. Cully was in eighth grade when it happened and her son was a senior in high school. His body was never found. Lorraine came over a few days after Cully died and tried to recruit me into grieving the way she had grieved, which was by wearing pins stamped with her son’s face and giving interviews to the local newspapers advertising her club, PAAD, Parents Against Avalanche Disaster, as if by not joining PAAD you were promoting avalanche disaster. While I seek common experience, at the same time I hate it, how it weakens my own pain, which I cherish. I cringed as Lorraine stood at my front door and said, “We need to stick together.” She kept walking, into my house, into the kitchen, lured by the glint of picture frames perched upon the shelf behind the wet bar.

  “Please help yourself,” I said, before realizing it was the pictures serving as the magnetic field, and not the booze. I was disappointed, because for a moment I was thinking drinking might get us through. We could do shots, cry, laugh, in that order. I reluctantly went over to the bar, looked at the pictures, at Cully’s lovely eyes. I touched the photographs, pressed my finger upon him. I said something—I forget what exactly, something false and poetic like, “Sometimes, I feel like he’s just in the other room.” I regretted it immediately, feeling the flashlight of the heartache police chastising me for doing heartbreak all wrong. I started to hate Lorraine Bartlett for making me feel I had to somehow prove my sorrow.

  “Our boys,” Lorraine said, looking at me, with a scary intensity. I forced myself not to look away, to furrow my brow and look at Lorraine’s small, milky-blue eyes, her stub nose. None of her features really went together. It was like she was designed by committee.

  “They loved the same things.” She laughed quickly. “They probably would have wanted to go this way. Doing what they loved.”

  I didn’t look away. I stared into Lorraine Bartlett’s eyes as if they were an oncoming truck. Come on, freak show, I thought. You gotta swerve after a comment like that, but she didn’t. Doing what they loved?

  Cully was at A-Basin, off the trails, with friends from work. It’s a place he’d go to all the time. Avalanches happen, yet he had the beacons, he had the poles, he had the experience and an ego that was intact. He was a mountain kid. He had outrun avalanches before. Lorraine’s son didn’t know shit about the back country. He took Basic Skills in fifth grade, which taught kids like him how to throw a ball. The point is, they were not alike.

  I saw my son dead. The medic told me not to look just yet, to wait until they got him down, but I felt I owed it to him. It was the very least I could do—look at him.

  It was like seeing an ancient artifact. He looked bloated, unnatural, some kind of special effect. The worst thing was that he looked afraid, and I couldn’t see how this expression could ever be thawed. This was the last feeling he had in the world, and to this day I imagine him as eternally terrified. He was not happy or thrilled. He was most definitely not doing what he loved, and I should have said to her, Look, loony. Imagine me strangling you with a Ski Breck! T-shirt, something you sell, something you apparently love. “Boy, she sure loved T-shirts. She would have wanted to die this way!” I mean, the fact that someone loves chicken doesn’t mean they want to choke to death on a bucket of wings. But I wouldn’t have said that then. I wasn’t angry then. I wouldn’t say it now because I don’t really feel that way—my thoughts just rumble and churn.

  I remember that day Lorraine had looked as if she knew an important secret that I would soon learn. I couldn’t escape her awful gaze because she was holding my hand between her own as if warming a waffle. I caught sight of the pin she was wearing advertising the death of Jackson, and couldn’t imagine doing that with the image of Cully—wearing him as an accessory as if his twenty-two years of life had become no more than a cufflink. Jackson would have been a twenty-six-year-old, not a high school boy, and I imagined he’d be embarrassed by this pin if he were alive.

  I thought to myself while looking at Lorraine, You grieve horribly. I am a classier griever than you, and then, Cully, I wish you were here to see this, a thought that still crosses my mind daily. I’m so used to storing things to tell him at the end of the day, collecting anecdotes to hand over. I was thrilled when I had something out of the ordinary. He was my sounding board. He was my sound.

  “I just wanted to say how proud I am of you,” Lorraine says to me now. She still has that look, I realize, as if she knows something that I’ll soon enjoy—like a surprise party. Tourists flow by and I feel like we’re a boulder in a stream. I wish I had a witness. I keep looking around for someone to side with me.

  “I’m proud of you too,” I say, lightly.

  “Your show,” she insists. “I saw you guys shooting this morning. I think it’s wonderful that you’re back at work. I know it really helped me. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of strength.”

  Is she complimenting me or herself? I hate the unearned kudos. People get shot in the head and are called brave when they recover. People lose a son in an avalanche and they’re suddenly admirable. I’ve done nothing. I have no courage. Courage is only possible when you choose to do something. I didn’t choose to lose him. And I’m working because I have a mortgage and pride and a father who eats out too much and shops from the couch. I’m here because I need to try to reassemble, to cross the bridge, outwit the trolls. God, Cully loved that book—The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

  “Do you want to grab some coffee?” she asks. “Now? Or whenever. I know it takes a while to fully heal, not that you ever do, but I’d love to tell you more about PAAD. I’m still very involved, and I think you’d get so much from it. And with your access to TV we could—”

  With death, if anything, comes freedom. I grab her shoulder and say, “Oh my God. I think I’m going to have diarrhea.”

  “Oh, God,” she says. “You better . . . the bathroom in the visitor center is the closest. I have a Pepto if you need—”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I gotta go!” And I run-walk back to my car.

  “Yes, go!” she calls, rooting for me to not shit my pants.

  It’s not until I’m in the car that I realize: her son is dead and I just lied to her. I ran from her. And she needlessly admitted to having Pepto.

  “Why?” I say out loud. I still don’t know how to grieve correctly. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to express sorrow, or to show people that beneath all this is someone kind. I’m mistaking the good people for trolls—they are not who or what I have to conquer. I flip down the shade to check myself in the mirror.

  “You again,” I say to my reflection. I look like someone superior, inferior, repulsed, misled.

  I can’t take myself anywhere.

  • • •

  I PULL INTO the parking lot behind Eric’s and see Billy parked, straddling a chopper, which amuses me. He looks like a teenager. I pull up beside him. He looks at me, then away, then back again, recognizing me this time. His cheeks move toward his eyes. He takes off his helmet. I wish I looked a little better. I feel self-conscious all of a sudden and about as sexy as a pioneer woman. I check my face in the mirror. I suck in my stomach.

  I get out of the car, then walk to his side.

  “Hey, babe,” he says.

  I don’t protest “babe.”

  “Interesting way to arrive,” I say. I look at him carefully and see Cully everywhere. The long legs, soft brown hair, the earlobes and stance. Large mouth, sharp ridge of nose, lean, friendly muscles. Those same dazzling blue eyes, that easy air and confidence that’s both alluring and intimidating. Billy’s eyes twinkle. It’s true—that’s what they’re doing, what Cully’s eyes used to do too.

  He gives me a hug and I remember how much I loved being hugged when he had on his hard leather jacket, the pockets pressing into my ribs, belt buckle into my stomach. He’s wearing what looks like that same belt. I’d sit on h
is lap and he’d absentmindedly tap my leg with the long end he always left wagging. It’s as though he hasn’t changed clothes since I was twenty-one.

  “How’s Durango?” I ask.

  “The same, but different,” he says.

  “Sophie?” I hope my voice sounds normal. I always ask about his fourteen-year-old daughter but never really want to hear about her. I don’t even think of her as Cully’s stepsister. I know Cully forgot most of the time too. He never wrote her name on forms when asked if he had a sibling.

  “She’s good,” he says. “Going through this grumpy stage though . . .” I can see him stop himself from saying more. I don’t ask about his ex-wife, Rachel. Even though marriage didn’t work out for him, I was always jealous of the way there was no consequence for having a baby with me. He continued on his way, whereas my life was rerouted entirely.

  “She’s with her mom in San Diego, visiting Rachel’s parents.”

  “Is that yours?” I ask, looking at the bike.

  “No,” he says. “I’m delivering it to some computer geek in Beaver Creek. He doesn’t even care about me riding it in winter. Idiot, but it works out that you wanted to see me.”

  I walk over to the chopper. “It’s not winter. Tomorrow’s spring. This is really nice.” I run my hand along the seat.

  “Thanks. I finally got him to scratch his ideas, then made him believe my ideas were his all along. I can’t see him riding this thing though. He’s more of a . . . scooter type.”

  We stare at his work, heads down, as if in prayer.

  Billy, like so many kids, came here after graduation to live and ski for the season. He stayed for almost two seasons, working as a dishwasher at Steak and Rib. I met him the summer after my junior year in college at a dive bar called Fajitas, which has since been replaced. He was nothing like the preppy boys I had dated. He was quietly wild and in no rush. He wanted to design motorcycles, something I thought quaint. At the end of the summer I was ready to go back to school for my senior year. We broke up as we knew we would. It took me until January to figure out I was pregnant. Five months along. I remember being in my dorm, hand on the telephone, in disbelief that I would forever be linked to this summer fling. Time and distance had made him embarrassing.

  I imagined going to live with him in some small town we could afford, saying things like, “Bring them groceries inside,” our kid begging to go to outlet malls and wearing his or her pants up to his or her navel. Billy would come home from the bike shop smelling like gasoline and I’d smell like mayonnaise-based salads. I’d later find I had him all wrong.

  When I reached him he had moved back home to Durango. He said he was working with his father, who owned an automotive group that operated franchises for about fifteen auto and motorcycle companies. Car salesmen, I had thought.

  I told him the news.

  “That’s unfortunate” was his first reaction.

  “I don’t expect anything from you,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know. I’m going to keep it.” I remember sitting on the bed in my apartment on campus, talking quietly so my roommate wouldn’t hear. She and some other girls were laughing outside the door, getting ready to go out.

  “I can do it on my own,” I told Billy.

  “I’ll help you,” he said.

  In my head, I dismissed him. I told him I would be in touch. I just thought he should know.

  The next day, he tracked down my father at his house, stood in the doorway, looked him in the eye, and told him he was the man who got his daughter pregnant.

  “I’m Lyle,” my dad had said. “And I didn’t realize my daughter was pregnant.”

  “Fuck,” Billy said. “That’s unfortunate.” My dad invited him in. They had a few beers and my dad made pulled pork sandwiches. They’ve been talking to each other ever since.

  “You okay?” Billy asks me now.

  “Of course not,” I say.

  “Want to get a bite?” He tilts his chin toward the shops at Riverwalk.

  “A small one,” I say.

  • • •

  AT THE CROWN, I sit at a front table, next to a couple playing chess. Billy orders the coffees. He’s flirting with the barista, I think. He makes chopping motions with his hands trying to describe something. She looks nervous, like she’s expecting a punch line she won’t understand. I decide I don’t want a coffee. I’ve noticed that being depressed is like being pregnant. I have weird cravings and food aversions. I walk up to the counter and tell Billy that I’ve changed my mind.

  “Could I get a cocoa instead, please?” I say to the girl. Her name tag says “Tammy, Michigan” and she’s chewing gum with such vigor it looks like she’s munching on cartilage.

  “A cocoa?” she asks. “Like, a hot chocolate?” She has an earring in her eyebrow. I almost say, Whoops. You’ve got an earring in your eyebrow.

  “Yes,” I say. “Like a hot chocolate.” Billy must have rolled his eyes or something because Tammy smiles, then turns to get my drink, making a show out of having to pour out the coffee.

  “Wait!” I say. She stops pouring and looks back over her shoulder.

  “I’ll take it if you’re just going to throw it out.”

  “Like, to buy?” Now she chews with her front teeth like she’s nibbling an ear of corn.

  “No, but if you’re going to throw it out anyway—what’s the difference?”

  “I have to throw it out.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  She winces her understanding. I notice her thin, muscular legs and her ass—it’s so round, a perfect cap to those legs, like a cherry at the top of a sundae. Cully would have loved to have sex with this girl. I don’t know why this thought doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but I want it all of a sudden—for him to have lots of sex with Tammy from Michigan and with other girls like Tammy and I feel so bad that he can’t, that he can’t feel desire ever again or do these things other boys get to do.

  Billy leaves a twenty on the counter. “I’m going to sit down,” he says.

  Tammy begins to talk to another employee, a boy with orange hair. They’re laughing about something and I’m a bit pissed off that they’re alive.

  “Is the machine broken?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, and goes back to the machine. She holds the cup under the spout and presses the button. “Oh,” she says. “Maybe it is broken. Oh my God,” she says, making it sound like one word: ahmagah. “You’re not doing a Fresh Visit, are you?”

  “No,” I say, surprised she knows who I am, considering she’s given me such attitude. I hate being recognized and bothered, yet am somewhat insulted when it doesn’t happen. It’s rare that someone like her would recognize me though, since our show is mainly watched by people in the hotels. Though I suppose kids like her watch the show to see the places they know, or more realistically, to make fun of it.

  “I’m just here as a regular person, though I could make a recommendation,” I say.

  “That would be so funny if we were on Fresh Tracks,” she says to the boy.

  “So rad,” he replies.

  Yes, the second reason, to make fun of it.

  “Where’s your name tag?” I ask the boy, attempting to ease up.

  “What?” he says, and presses his chin to his chest.

  “Like Tammy’s.”

  “Oh,” she says. “This is, like, vintage. It’s ironic.”

  Tammy, or whatever her real name is, opens the lid of the machine and peers in, then reads the directions on the side of the device. She takes out a tub of powder. “I’m not sure how this works,” she says.

  “Just give me a cup of hot water,” I say. She hesitates, then fills a cup with hot water. “Now put some of that powder into the water. Here. I’ll do it.” She gives me the cup; I put a scoop of powder into the water and feel absurdly satisfied.

  I walk back to the small round table, take off my coat, and settle myself like a bird.

  “Life is so difficult!” I say. I’m swea
ting.

  Billy looks at my chest and I wait for him to look me in the eye.

  “You look different,” he says.

  “For God’s sake, I know what you’re referring to. I’m wearing a push-up bra.”

  “You look amazing.”

  I scratch my neck. I don’t know what to say to that. “I hate that word,” I say. “Amazing.”

  “So how’s the show?” he asks.

  “Okay,” I say. “Fine. My first week back.” For the first time I understand that this is truly an accomplishment. I sip my hot water with powder, knowing Billy’s trying to figure out why he’s here. Without Cully we really have no reason to see each other again. The thought of this makes me sad: another person lost.

  “Yesterday was my first day on camera,” I say. “Earlier in the week, we just did some preinterviews.”

  “Good for you,” he says. “For working.”

  “There’s nothing good about it. It’s my show and I need to work, obviously.”

  “Yeah, but you could take more time, right?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. Sometimes I think I made a wrong choice. I hate being back already, everyone saying, ‘I’m so sorry about your son!’ like they’re talking about a robbery or a . . . I don’t know.”

  He nods slowly, repetitively, with a slight smile, something he always does during conversations. “I know,” he says.

  “I keep getting distracted.”

  I remember Katie laughing at the name of my lipstick when I presented it to the camera. “Love it,” she sang. “I’m definitely going to get that one. You hear that? I’m giving it lip service! And guess what I . . . ”

  I watched her mouth open and shut, a tiny ball of spit shooting to the side like a spark. I looked at her lip liner and the line of her actual lip, the pink space between the lines like a whole other lip. I stared at this extra lip, zoned out.

  “Sarah, you need to respond,” Holly said.