by Kaya McLaren
* * *
Paul picked up his cell phone and dialed. Amy’s phone rang, but she did not answer. He figured she was out of range. “Hey, Amy, due to a situation at work, I’m going to be in Chama for the next month working on the house there. Uh … I just wanted you to know. I hope you’re having a good time. Say hi to the big trees for me. I … uh…” He considered saying he missed her, but he didn’t want to sound desperate. “I went to OSU yesterday and walked around our old stomping grounds. Good memories. Okay. Love you. Bye.”
Bye. Bye could mean so many things. He hoped it was a normal bye and not a really big one.
Amy
All around her, fir trees had the bright green tips of new growth at the end of every little branch, and vine maples glowed in an even brighter shade of chartreuse. A slight breeze shook some needles loose, and when they landed on her backpack, they made a sound she had completely forgotten—not a remarkable sound by any means, but one that made her feel home.
She started off on the trail that went past the hot springs where she had sat a few days ago and continued on to Silver Falls. It was a loop that she and Alicia had often taken once they were old enough to be allowed to venture that far. In an opening in the forest, hot springs water trickled out of a large brown formation uphill on her right, leaving green streaks as it ran down the sides. There, the trail turned to a boardwalk under which the hot water flowed through a trench someone had dug. Beyond that, a statuesque grove of maples grew, neither young nor ancient, moss covering their crooked trunks.
Walking on, she came to a pool of the clearest water she had seen in decades just a couple of steps downhill. Crouching down, she ran her fingers across the top of the surface, watching the little waves they made. Then, she wiped the water on her forehead as she prayed to be cleared of all suffering, all despair, all fear, all hopelessness, all pain, and of the intensity of fresh bad memories. She dipped her cupped hand in the water, lifted it above her head, and poured it on herself, praying that she be cleared of all attachments to how her body used to be and accept deeply how it was now. She prayed she would come to find beauty in it. Instead of feeling better, she felt a surge of grief for her body as it had been back when it was whole, back when it felt pleasure instead of pain. Staring into the pool, she fixated on the reflection of her face, her sad, sad eyes as tears dropped into the pool, sending concentric ripples that distorted the image of herself. Sadness did that. This time she cupped both hands, dipped and raised them, and splashed the water all over her face, praying to be washed clean of all negativity and to be returned to her true essence. She prayed to see it clearly.
Visitors walked by on the trail above her, disturbing her. Normally, she would have looked up and smiled, but she kept her back turned and waited for them to pass. After allowing a few minutes for some space between them on the trail, she walked on.
She came to a bridge over a cascading creek where fungus grew on nearby trees like shelves. One tree had a huge knob growing out of its trunk. She vaguely recalled hearing that was caused by a fungal infection but couldn’t be sure.
Sometimes as she walked, she caught herself simply thinking, Cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer. She had caught herself doing that throughout the winter and at that time simply told herself to stop it. But now, she replaced the thought with, I am healthy. I am strong. I am full of vitality. This she repeated to herself over and over as she walked the next mile. The trail led past the big rock, over a log bridge, and past another creek, this one with moss-covered boulders and big fallen logs, past the Oregon grape, the kinnikinnick, the one tiny wild rose, past the tiny pine cones that littered the trail. All the while, she repeated her affirmations over and over and over.
After crossing the tall bridge over Laughingwater Creek, she followed a path under it, sitting along the river’s edge, midway on the steep hill that it tumbled down. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t hear the laughter. She used to hear it. There was a time when she and Denny used to stand on the bridge and shout their best jokes to the water, cracking each other up and laughing with the stream after each one. What did the train conductor say to the pumpkin? All a-gourd! But now, all she heard was a force of nature, a force so much stronger than her, a force that could knock her down and pin her down if she happened to be unlucky. She stood and walked away from all the tumult and back into the peace of the forest, noticing lichen and the prolonged two-tone note of the varied thrush singing like a Mongolian throat singer.
Alongside the trail, she noticed a tree that grew out of the ground at an angle and then had righted itself to grow up straight and tall. If she were a tree, would she look like that one day, or could trees correct themselves like that only if they nearly fell over when they were young? Suddenly she noticed all the trees that didn’t make it, the ones that fell and lay dead or dying on the forest floor, where they would become part of the earth again, nourishment for plants, then part of the animals that ate those plants. Other dead trees still stood, full of holes from woodpeckers and other birds that ate insects. Everything died and became part of everything else. Rationally, she knew this and had known it for a long time. But it was different now … now that she knew about suffering, now that she’d had a little taste of the in-between, the space between life and death that was kind to no one. It was all just so much more real than it had ever been before, so acutely real. One day it would actually happen. She would likely suffer in her physical body far more than she already had, and then she would actually leave her daughter behind, leave this beautiful earth behind, leave her body behind. And unlike the trees, her body would not become part of everything. This disturbed her every bit as much as the idea of decomposing disturbed other people. She wanted her body to become part of everything, to go back to the elements that had made it. Even if she did live to be elderly, which she might not because recurrence happened … it happened all the time … but even if it didn’t happen and she had another thirty or forty years in her, she still felt the clock ticking, running out of time. Life was finite. It was hard to accept at the depth that she now knew it to be true. It terrified her. How was she supposed to enjoy the rest of her life with this knowledge? She looked at the mossy forest floor and wanted to lie on it, to sink right into it, to let it swallow her and make her part of everything. She wanted to just get it over with, because she had no idea how to live with this level of terror over an ultimate outcome that could not be avoided. Religion couldn’t help her. It wasn’t the fear of the afterlife. It was the fear of her transition there.
I am alive now. I am alive now. I am alive now, she repeated over and over as she walked on, and she listened to the songs of birds, of robins and hermit thrushes, and this combination made each second more tolerable, even though it didn’t solve the problem of her mortality.
Eventually she passed a fork in the trail, rounded a corner, and saw Silver Falls. It was bigger than she remembered. In front of her stood a young, lean kayaker in a dry suit. His brown hair was wet, and a spray skirt hung around his waist. His camera sat on a tripod, and he stood behind it, waiting. Something about his mannerisms and expression struck her as cocky, which made more sense when, to her horror, his friend came down the roiling upper part of the river, which was riddled with boulders, and soared over the cliff, plunging forty feet into the base of the waterfall below. Anxiously, Amy waited for him to resurface, and he did. On a large boulder on the other side of the Ohanapecosh River, his two other friends who had waited for him cheered, and they all went on thinking they were immortal and that nothing bad would ever happen to them, or that if it did, they could handle it. She simultaneously envied this operating paradigm, resentful that they had it and she didn’t, and felt deep gratitude not to be any of their mothers. She wanted to ask them what their secret was, but since she didn’t see any kayakers her age going over the falls, she figured their secret was surely the ignorance of youth. God, she missed that … missed believing she would live forever.
Carly
&nbs
p; Carly’s second week on the job was so much easier in some ways and so much more difficult in other ways. It felt good to know what to expect and to have more confidence driving Frank and Drake, but this time, their guests were a family of four from Washington, D.C., and she could tell right away that they lacked harmony.
It appeared this trip had been the mother’s idea. Carly guessed she was in her late thirties. She was thin and fit, as if she did nothing but yoga and Pilates all day. With her blond-highlighted hair swept back in a ponytail, Carly could read more of her face, and her face meant business. This was a woman determined to have some family fun. She turned to her little girl and asked, “Which horse do you want, Bella?”
There were two things wrong with that question, as Carly saw it. One, that she thought it was going to be a little girl’s choice, as if there were nothing more to matching a person and a horse than determining which horse a girl thought was prettiest. Two, that the girl was given a term of endearment as a name, as if she were destined to be an incorrigible princess from the moment she was born.
“I want that one!” she said, pointing to T. Rex.
No, Carly thought, dreading the mere possibility that Great-Aunt Rae would placate the obnoxious girl.
“This is going to be your horse,” Great-Aunt Rae said firmly but with enthusiasm. Then she bent down and whispered, “I saved the best one for you.” She introduced Bella to Tea for Two.
“That’s a weird name,” Bella said, unimpressed.
“Yeah, horse names are weird. All of these horses came out of a black sire with white feathers—the fluffy fur on his legs—and a white spot on his chest. He looked like he was wearing a tuxedo, so someone had named him ‘Dressed to a T.’ It’s customary for horse names to have something in common with their parents’ names, so all of these horses have ‘T’ in their name somewhere—Mister T, Tee Time, Black Tea, T. Rex.”
The girl laughed at the last name. “I like that name. I want that one.”
“Well, fortunately for you, you’ve got me to make a better choice for you. I know these horses really well and I know which one you will have the best time on. Trust me.”
About that time, the sullen boy, about twelve years old, slinked over near Carly and said with disgust, “She always gets what she wants. Just watch.” He rolled his eyes under his long blue bangs that hung in his face. Every few seconds, he shook his head as if to try to get his hair out of his face, but it never worked. Whatever horse he rode was going to hate that.
Great-Aunt Rae looked up at the mom to solicit her backup, but the mom only looked scared of the reaction the little girl was about to have, and then sure enough, the little girl began to howl.
“It’s okay to be disappointed,” said Great-Aunt Rae, “or even scared to let go of some of the control that you usually have when it comes to calling the shots. But crying that loudly right here is upsetting the horses, so go over to that tree over there and have a good cry if that’s what you need to do, and then come back and apologize to your horse because you hurt his feelings.”
The girl looked at the mom, and the mom walked her to the tree and then bent down to comfort the little brat.
While all of that was going on, the dad walked all over the perimeter of the area where they had gathered, frantically trying to get cell reception, clearly as stressed out as he was well manicured.
It was going to be a long week.
* * *
On the second morning, while they prepared breakfast, Great-Aunt Rae said, “If you had been at this long enough to know where to go, I’d let you lead, and I’d be the distractor, but sadly, I’m the only one who can lead. That means today your job is to ride along in the back and keep asking the kids questions—especially the girl.”
Carly nodded begrudgingly.
“Hey, Carly? I want you to know that this is really important. These are the kind of people who write online reviews. A lot is at stake. This week can be good advertising or bad advertising, but it’s going to be advertising, so stay professional no matter what. It doesn’t appear possible to please them, but we can try our best to preserve my reputation. As long as business is good, I can feed all the horses for the year. If reservations drop next year, I might have to sell one or two.”
That was as unthinkable as selling a member of her own family. They were Great-Aunt Rae’s family. Carly looked right at her and nodded. “Understood.”
“Thanks.”
So, later that day, Carly asked Bella about all the things she did—ballet and hip-hop dance, yoga for kids, and children’s theater. Then she made herself listen to all of the seemingly endless details about how much better Bella was than the other kids in those activities.
Carly didn’t think it could get more painful than that until Bella began to question her about the activities she did or, rather, didn’t do. No, she did not go to dance classes or act in stage productions—Bella actually used that term instead of plays. No, she wasn’t in student government. She wasn’t an athlete or a cheerleader. She did not say that she took care of her very sick mother last winter. Instead, she offered, “I was a lifeguard last summer.”
“That’s cool,” Bella said, but not in a way that reflected she was very impressed at all.
“I don’t do anything either,” said Jon without an “h”—Jon, not John. He had been clear about that earlier.
Then Bella asked, “Where are you going to college?”
“I was given a scholarship to Oklahoma State. That’s where my parents went.” She did not say that the scholarship would probably be revoked after the school saw that her grades had dropped fourth quarter and that Carly no longer intended to attend college at all. She did not say that everything about the future terrified her.
“I’m going to go to an Ivy League college,” said Bella.
“Good for you,” Carly said, hiding all of the sarcasm. This was torture.
“I’m not going to go to college,” said Jon.
“Yes, you are!” shouted his mom from the front of the line.
From his place third in line, he looked back at Carly, smiled, and shook his head, as if to say, No, I most definitely am not. He was going to make all the wrong choices just to piss his parents off, just to make them pay attention to him, just to have some control.
And then it hit her and her stomach sank. She knew all of that about him because she was more or less just the same.
* * *
On the fourth morning, the mother woke early and joined Great-Aunt Rae for a cup of coffee while Carly started cracking eggs and grating potatoes. Carly was far enough away to appear as if she couldn’t hear but close enough to hear most words and piece together what was being said when she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” the mom said. “I thought this trip was a good idea. I thought it would save my family.”
“Oh?”
“My husband doesn’t know that I know that he’s sleeping with his secretary. I’ve been trying to hold it together most of the last year for the kids, hoping it would change … thinking that if I just worked out more or was a good enough mom, maybe he’d look up and appreciate me. I thought if I got him out here away from his phone, he’d have to pay attention to us, but he’s still in another world. All he can think about is her. He doesn’t say so. He doesn’t say anything at all.” She looked up at the sky and shook her head. “No one else is into it. Bella maybe. I’d like for us to go back one day early.”
Great-Aunt Rae looked to the sky. “The sky is full of moisture this morning. It’s possible we’re going to have wicked thunderstorms by one. Let’s wake the others and hurry to get on the trail. If it storms before we get back, the horses will spook and the chuck wagon may get stuck. It will be very bad. So, if you want to do this, you have my full support. I think it would be wise to opt out of the storms today has in store for us. But we need to hustle.”
“Thank you,” the mom said. “I’m grateful for one last day of riding together as a family before I blow thi
s family apart.”
Great-Aunt Rae nodded solemnly and silently, and then she stood and called over to Carly, “Let’s kick it into high gear, kiddo!”
Carly put down the food and helped Great-Aunt Rae saddle the horses while the guests woke and packed. Then, together, she and Great-Aunt Rae whipped up oatmeal and eggs and washed the dishes.
The bratty kids were about to have a bomb dropped on them. Carly wondered whether they would even care, whether they would even notice the absence of their dad.
The family rode mostly in silence that day—everyone out of things to say to each other, everyone just waiting for the trip to be over. Everyone except the mom, who was feeling, Carly knew. Feeling the others around her. Feeling the landscape of her life. She was drinking in the last little bit of normal the way Carly would have the day before her mom was diagnosed, if she had just known. The kids had no clue that they should be drinking it in too. Even though they were not likable, she still felt sorry for them.
When they stopped for a very quick lunch, she wanted to sit next to Jon and tell him not to waste his energy and burn his bridges trying to piss everyone off … to use that energy to create the future he wanted instead, or at least try things he was curious about if he didn’t yet know what he wanted to do. She wanted to give him all of that advice, but realizing she was a hypocrite, she remained silent.
As she stepped back up into the chuck wagon, she wondered how it was that she felt so much more emphatic about trying to save that sullen kid than she did about saving herself.
Paul
Last Monday, Paul’s goal was to have the new fuse box in and the bathroom replumbed by the end of the week so that he could sleep upstairs in his bedroom at his own house when Rae and Carly returned.