by K. L. Kreig
“Why don’t you lie down while I get things settled,” I suggest once we make it back to the Songbird. She’s getting steamy inside already. I need to get her hooked up so we can get some air.
“No. I’m helping.”
“Laurel…” I guide her to one of the leather rocking chairs and gently help her sit. I practically have to smack the backs of her knees to get her to go down. “You need to rest.”
I snag a cold bottle of water from the fridge and pop open the cap, handing it to her, but that woman…she is so stubborn that she just holds the water in her hand and glowers at me, although I know for a fact she’s thirsty. She said so only two minutes ago.
“I don’t want to rest. I want to help. I can do something.”
I bend down, hovering in front of her. I grab one hand of hers in mine. “You can do something.” That surly look she has going evens a little, but it won’t last long. “It would make me happy if you went to lie down.”
She snaps her gaze away from mine, staring out the window. “That’s not fair, Roth.” She sounds defeated. She knows I only go there when I’m adamant about something.
“We need to make a deal, right now,” I tell her.
“What?” she replies brusquely.
I tip her face toward me. My legs are tingling from the restricted blood flow. “We need to trust each other.”
“I do trust you.”
“Good. I need to be able to trust you too, Laurel. I need to trust that you’ll tell me when you’re tired. When you need to sit. Or eat or sleep or if you’re in so much pain you need an early dose of pain medication. This doesn’t work unless we trust each other to be truthful. I’m already worried out of my fucking mind this is the wrong thing to do.”
She averts her eyes again and I feel like a prick. I don’t want this trip to be about cancer or last days or making up for lost time we won’t have. I want it to be about us. Just us. But it is about all of those things, regardless. It would be irresponsible to ignore it.
“I want this time, these memories as much as you do, but I won’t sacrifice you in the process. Understand?”
She purses her lips and nods reluctantly.
“I guess I could lie down for a few minutes. If it would make you happy,” she tacks on. I refrain from sighing. It’s a start.
“It would.”
I help her up and back to the massive king-sized bed. She moans when she sinks into the soft mattress, her eyelids already droopy. Not tired, my ass.
“I could probably use a pain pill too.”
I figured as much.
“Of course, my love.”
I grab her mix of pain medication, a hydrocodone and a steroid, along with a glass of water. She washes them down, then snuggles into a mountain of pillows and closes her eyes.
“Roth,” she calls as I reach the door.
I turn. She’s watching me. And when she says, “I love you today,” I know she intended to say something else, but I don’t press it.
“I’ll love you tomorrow,” I reply, smiling even though I don’t much feel like it.
It doesn’t take me long to get electric and water set up, and by the time I make it back inside the RV, Laurel is out cold. I quietly shut the door to the bedroom and get to work.
I text my parents that we made it. I adjust the thermostat to a comfortable sixty-eight degrees. I confirm with my contact that we’re a go for the end of the week.
weather looks nearly perfect. be here by 7 sharp.
we’ll be there, I reply.
Then I hop into the Jeep I unhitched before I backed in and head into town to pick up groceries and supplies.
“This is so cool,” Laurel marvels as we stroll the gravel streets of Elkmont’s ghost town, unhurried. Well, Laurel is in no hurry. I keep glancing at my watch on the sly to ensure we won’t be late. We need to leave in about thirty minutes to make it to the meeting place on time for my surprise tonight. “I didn’t even know this was here.” She turns to me. “How did you?”
“I have mad research skills of my own too, you know.”
Actually, Travis, our guide for this evening, is the one who told me to arrive early if we wanted to tour the most historic ghost town in all of Tennessee. I didn’t know it existed but knew it would be right up Laurel’s alley, and I have to admit…it is very cool. Brick fireplaces are all that remain of some homes that were built in the 1840s in an old town that is now owned by the national park. Only nineteen of the original seventy-plus buildings stand today.
We’ve had a fabulous week here, eating at the Old Mill and visiting the Salt and Pepper Museum. We bought donuts at the best place in Gatlinburg, the Donut Friar, and ate them as we drove around Cades Cove. We spent a fabulous afternoon in some of the spots we took wedding photos but found some new ones too. We took our lawn chairs and saw that outdoor movie, the live-action version of The Jungle Book. Laurel had so much fun she didn’t even mind watching it on that crappy little screen.
And she has been true to her word. She’s told me when she needs a break, even if that means cutting our day short. Overall, she appears as if she’s doing okay, but I don’t exactly know what to expect or when to expect it.
“Look.” Laurel points to a crude wood sign hanging between two tall craggy wooden posts tall enough we can walk underneath. “The old Elkmont cemetery. Do you want to go in?”
Do I want to go in?
Fuck no. I don’t want to go in. I’ll be spending a lifetime at a cemetery near me sooner than I’d like to think about.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, trying to find any excuse possible to turn and hightail it.
“I’m fine, Roth. Please. I want to go.”
Cemeteries. Another weird thing Laurel is fascinated with. I’ve never known someone who loves to walk around the dead the way she does. I don’t get it. To me, the air is steeped in torment, the grass muddy with sorrow. There is nothing serene or welcoming about them.
“Please.”
She bats her lids coyly and cocks her head just so. She is irresistible, as usual.
I breathe in and blow it out, even and slow. Guess I’m not talking my way out of this one. If she wants to go, we’re going. I glance at my watch again. Twenty minutes before go time.
“If you’re sure you’re fine.”
“I am. I promise.”
I search her face for pretense, the lilt of her stance for deceit. I see none. She seems to be holding up okay.
“If the walk is too long, we’re turning around, okay?”
Please let it be too long. I’ll give it three minutes, tops, then I’m calling it.
“Yes, sir.”
I roll my eyes and lead us down the dirt path toward the cemetery, twigs and pebbles crunching underfoot. My heart beats faster and aches more with every inch closer. Unfortunately, it isn’t far before we come to an opening in a grove of trees where I’d estimate fifty or so battered and crumbling headstones mark those gone.
It’s quiet here.
Not peaceful, mind you. Simply silent.
While the ghost town is fairly busy, we are the only ones in this place in this time. It’s a bit eerie, if I’m being honest.
“Wow,” Laurel breathes.
Her hand slips from mine as she starts to wander and gape. I follow her. Many of the headstones lean to one side and have been wind and rain whipped for so many years they are unreadable.
I stop and take it all in. And what I notice is…nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
There are no flowers. No knickknacks sitting on top of gravestones. No visible knee prints in the dirt. No signs of family coming to grieve their deaths or celebrate their lives or commemorate their accomplishments.
It’s as if the villagers of Elkmont have been forgotten along the way. As though their lives were unimportant, fading into nothingness after everyone was long gone. And that hits me like a motherfucking blow straight to the chest, knocking the wind from me.
Who will visit Laur
el when I no longer can?
Who will stories be passed down to?
Who will I gush over pictures and replay memories with?
Will Laurel simply be forgotten like these people of Elkmont?
I can hardly bear that thought.
I find myself stooping in front of a marker flush with the ground. I reach out to trace the faint markings.
Margaret Townsend, June 1, 1825 - July 3, 1863.
“Are you okay?”
I hear Laurel’s faint voice in the background but don’t register it. I’m too busy wondering if the imprints of my knees fit where Margaret Townsend’s husband’s used to. Did his tears saturate the ground? Did his cries pierce the silence? Was someone here in his stead after he couldn’t be?
By the thick dirt coating my finger, it doesn’t appear that way.
“Roth, what’s wrong?” Laurel shakes me.
What’s wrong? Jesus Christ, what isn’t?
“She was your age,” I mumble, outlining the date of her death over and over. “So young, so much life ahead of her.”
“Who?” she asks, perplexed.
“Margaret.”
“Who is…oh, Roth.” Then, she’s thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder with me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, wrapping an arm around me. “I wasn’t thinking. This was a bad idea. I am so sorry.”
Water races down my cheeks.
This isn’t how today was supposed to go.
I am the rock. I need to be the rock.
But even rocks have microscopic fissures, don’t they?
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, her voice cracking.
So am I.
I sit back on my haunches. Laurel mirrors me.
We stay quiet, both of us staring at Margaret Townsend’s grave.
“I don’t know how to do this, Laurel,” I quietly confess. “To be without you. It almost paralyzes me some days, the thought.”
As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I regret it, wishing the breeze would have carried off my profession before it reached her ears.
She’s scared. Though she rarely speaks of it, I know it. And I’ve put all of my focus into quelling that fear the best I know how, though there isn’t a playbook on it, that’s for damn sure.
But I am equally as terrified. We’re both facing an unknown without the other by our side and though each of them is markedly different, I can’t saddle her with my burdens too. She has enough of her own.
“I want you to be comfortable telling me how you feel, Roth,” she pleads quietly. She slides her arm from my shoulder and grips my hand in solidarity. We’re both going through our own shit but we’re doing it together.
“I know.” And I am, in everything else but this. This is so raw even I can’t touch it.
I hear voices coming down the path toward us. Time’s up. We need to go anyway.
I push myself to stand, then help Laurel up. She keeps her hand in mine. We start back the way we came, passing a family of four. And as we pass them, I hear the father tell his teenage children, “This is where your great-great-great-grandmother is buried,” and for some reason, that takes away part of the sting of the last few minutes.
I don’t know what possesses me to pry, because it’s none of my damn business, but I do anyway, lobbing it like a shot in the dark. “Your great-great-great-grandmother wouldn’t happen to be Margaret Townsend, would she?”
The family comes to a halt and spins back toward us. The man’s eyes are wide and confused.
Well, holy shit. What are the chances?
“Why, yes,” the woman replies. It’s more of a question. She grips one of the kids by the shirt collar and pulls him into to her. Her eyes narrow. “Do you know her?”
“No,” I say with a tad of wistfulness. Good for you, Margaret. “But I’m quite sure she would love a visitor.”
And without waiting for their response, I turn, with Laurel in tow, and head out of the park to meet Travis before we’re too late.
I’ve never heard of a synchronous firefly before my mother mentioned it to me a few weeks ago. Fireflies are fireflies, right?
No.
They’re not.
Synchronous fireflies are the only fireflies that synchronize their flashing patterns. No one is sure why they do it, but for about a two-week period every year in early to midsummer, Elkmont houses the largest population of synchronous fireflies in the Western Hemisphere. And we happen to be lucky this year, because the timing of the synchronization is later in June than usual. People flock from all over the country by the thousands to see it. It’s so popular, in fact, that getting a seat works on a lottery system.
And I didn’t win the lottery, because you have to have the foresight to apply for that in April, but my mother knew someone who knew someone who knew someone and when they heard why we were taking this trip and how much Laurel loves fireflies, we were lucky enough to get hooked up with a personal guide who takes small groups into the viewing. They even provide the chairs and heavy hors d’oeuvres.
Laurel has no clue.
Well… “Oh my God, Roth, I can’t believe this!” She does now.
She’s bouncing up and down in her chair, she’s so excited.
Me? I was worried about how late it would be. I was worried about how worn out she might be. I was worried about the walk. I was worried about the weather. I was worried about her pain threshold. I was worried about her being around so many others. And after we left the cemetery, I was worried she was worried and wouldn’t enjoy it.
But she is fine. She is more than fine.
“You excited?” I ask, just because I want to hear her say it.
“Excited?” she quips. “I haven’t been this excited since I was eight and I knew I was getting a Barbie Dream House for Christmas after I saw it in my mother’s closet. It had an elevator and everything.”
“An elevator? Jump back.”
“Yes. It was amazing. But this is so much better.”
I chuckle. Synchronous fireflies for the win.
The moon is bright tonight, which they said could delay the show. But to me, it’s a gift. It highlights the wrinkles along the edges of her nose when she smiles. Her skin is radiant. Her eyes glow. And for a few moments you could almost believe this death sentence we’re facing is a bunch of made-up bullshit.
“I’m glad I’m sharing this with you,” I tell her.
“It’s about the best thing we’ve ever done.”
“Even better than Moab?”
She does that snort thing I love. “You’re not going to wander off by yourself now, are you?”
That’s a story for later.
“I wasn’t planning on it, no.”
“Then my answer is yes. This is better. Look,” she whispers and points with such animation my cheeks hurt. “It’s begun.”
I stare into the wilderness and the thicket before me twinkles. It’s almost psychedelic. As if the stars have descended into the trees themselves and are shining all at once. Then not. Then deciding to give us a show once again. The synchronization comes and goes, mere seconds in between each. The forest breathes and pulses to its own heartbeat.
“Amazing,” I hum.
The light show is nothing short of bizarre and spectacular. Unlike anything I’ve seen before. It’s something I will never forget. A memorable stamp in our book.
It’s dark now. Almost pitch black, save the moonlight. But when Laurel turns my way and tells me with tears in her voice, “Thank you, Roth. I…thank you,” her smile is absolute. Not to be missed.
I did that. I did good.
The show lasts for another hour, maybe a bit more, and then we’re trekking toward the parking lot. Laurel falls asleep in seconds when we get into the Jeep, and when we arrive back at the campground, I gingerly carry her inside. I undress her. I slip on her nightgown. I give her her medication.
And then I tuck her into bed next to me, trying hard to only concentrate on the positive instead of the fact yet another day has s
lipped through our fingers.
22
The Pina Colada Song
Roth
Present
June 30, 6:13 a.m.
* * *
“You’re going the wrong way,” Laurel tells me as I merge onto I-81 North. The sun has barely peaked over the horizon, casting a rainbow of pastels as far as the eye can see. Looks to be another beautiful day in store for us.
“No, I’m not.”
I push the gas pedal down, slowly picking up speed. It’s roughly fifteen hours to our next destination, and I haven’t had nearly enough coffee yet. But it’s my second surprise, so I’m stoked.
“Charlotte is that way.” She points out her window to the south.
“Very good.” I wink. “You’re usually directionally challenged.”
“Hey! That’s not true.” It is. I dodge her tiny fist coming at me. It wouldn’t hurt anyway. “Where are we going, then?” She scootches in her seat until she’s facing me.
“It’s a surprise.”
“A surprise?” I love the high rise of her voice. She leans her cheek against the headrest. She seems tired already. Or not fully awake. I told her to stay in bed, but, well, I think we’ve discussed her less desirable personality trait by now.
“Yes, a surprise.”
“We’re not going to Charlotte?”
“We’re going to Charlotte, love.” I reach over to take her hand. “We’ll just be a little delayed.”
“How delayed?”
“Does it matter?” I counter. We both know we’re simultaneously racing time yet have no time line at all.
She contemplates that, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing.
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” she answers.
“Are you tired?” I ask when she holds her hand to her mouth to hide a yawn. She starts to respond, but I can tell by the twist of her upper lip the truth isn’t what’s coming out. “We’ll be driving all day, Laurel. No reason to push yourself.”