Doc continued. “But after menopause, you break out of the fog and start to feel more independent again. Some say you return to the person you were before puberty, and that person is more true to who you really are.”
Karen felt that way herself lately, as if she were getting in touch with her inner eleven-year-old.
“I’ve been the same from Day One,” said the Cougar. “No man is safe around me.” She scrunched up her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut in a girlish grin.
“That’s just too much trouble,” Fern said. “Comes a time in life you should kick back and stop worrying so much. Some things I just don’t care about any more. You’ve heard of the Bucket List? I made a Fuck It List, of all the shit I can stop caring if I ever do.”
“Fern, we have guests. Watch your language,” said Belle.
Fern grinned at Karen. “Fuck it.”
“So, what’s on your list?” asked Karen.
“Well, I figure I’m never gonna bungee jump, or run for President.”
“Or win the Miss America Pageant,” said Frieda.
“You don’t know that.” The Cougar scowled. “They have older categories all the time.”
“What about you, Karen? What’s on your Eff It List?” asked Belle.
“I don’t have one.”
“How old are you?”
“I just turned fifty.”
“Fifty’s the minimum. You are now officially old enough for a Fuck It List,” said Fern. “Pour me some more wine, and let’s make her one. Anybody got a pen?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“KAREN.”
The hoarse cry scratched through the darkness, reaching into Karen’s dreams. She sat straight up, listening and wondering if the horrible sound was real, but in the next second she bolted to her feet, flailed at the light switch, and threw open the flimsy dividers.
Frieda lay twisted in bedding. Her mouth drooped and one eye remained closed. The other roved the room, the white showing. She struggled to speak but could manage only garbled sounds, more painful than any cry for help.
“Shh.” Karen grabbed for her phone and knelt down on the floor next to the bed. Hands shaking, she punched the keypad. “It’s okay, Frieda, I’m getting help.”
“This is the operator. What is your emergency?”
Karen blurted out the van’s location twice. Then she hung up and covered Frieda with a heavy blanket, putting a pillow behind her shoulders and raising her up so she could breathe more easily.
“They’re sending somebody. You’ll be okay. We’re going to get you to the hospital.” She turned on the heater and sat on the edge of the bed, gently pulling socks onto Frieda’s small feet.
“You’ll be okay,” Karen repeated, slipping her arms around Frieda, warming her. “We’re only ten minutes from Moab. I’ll call Sandy as soon as we get to the hospital.”
Frieda shook her head. “Home.”
“We’ll go home later. First we’re going to get you to a hospital. Hang on.”
A few minutes later, Karen saw headlights bouncing down the dirt road toward the van. She eased away from Frieda, yanked open the door, and ran outside.
“Over here!” She waved her arms over her head as the lights hit her in the face. The ambulance braked in a cloud of dust, and men in dark shirts and heavy boots piled out. She felt the hot breath of the ambulance’s motor as the paramedics stomped past, piling into the van with their equipment. As soon as she could edge herself in, she peered over their shoulders, straining for information.
Minutes later, the men carried Frieda out of the van and onto a gurney, her face nearly swallowed up by an oxygen mask. They collapsed the legs of the gurney and slid it into the back of the ambulance with a great clatter. Karen tried to climb inside, but an EMT blocked the door, his face sympathetic.
“Can’t do it, ma’am. I apologize.”
The camp host, a thick woman in a plaid jacket, watched from sidelines. Karen hurried over. “I need a ride.”
The woman ground a cigarette butt under her heel and gestured toward her truck. According to the clock on the dashboard, it was almost two when they pulled out of the campground entrance and began chasing after the ambulance. The flashing red lights ricocheted off the canyon walls as they raced toward Moab, the frieze-like etchings ghostly in the darkness.
At the hospital, Karen jogged alongside the gurney, pawing through Frieda’s wallet for her medical card and answering questions as best she could, but when they arrived at triage, the nurses booted her out and pulled the drapes closed.
She returned to the waiting room and slumped in a chair. Then she thought of Sandy. Whatever was going on with Frieda, Sandy would need to know immediately. Swiping at her wet cheeks, Karen searched Frieda’s purse for the address book. The phone rang twice, three times before being picked up, and as soon as Karen said hello, Sandy dropped the phone and began screaming. Seconds later, Karen heard the phone being jostled, and then a man’s voice. Richard listened quietly, asking only for logistical clarifications while she explained.
“I have a plane,” he said, his voice calm. “We’ll be there in three hours.” He gave her his cell number before hanging up. Karen stared at the phone. She didn’t even know these people and now she found herself shepherding their mother in her last moments.
Sandy had been right in predicting disaster. Karen tried to console herself with the knowledge that Frieda, ever independent, had chosen to make this trip. It was her decision, and the decision had made her happy.
Karen hugged the purse. The cold air in the waiting room smelled like dirty sneakers and pesticide, and the chair was all hard angles, its arms sticky. She leaned her head against the wall and watched the images on a muted CNN. The stories jumped from the latest setback in the Middle East to anorexic supermodels to a commercial about steak knives.
Nothing changes, Karen thought. People you love go through all this suffering, they fall out of love and hurt each other and fight for life in a hospital room. Life and death. Nothing changes and an oblivious world keeps rolling along.
Rolling. She grimaced, remembering the Bronco cartwheeling through the sagebrush.
She would never know exactly what had happened, and told herself for the hundredth time there was nothing else she could have done, but the memory wouldn’t go away. Alone in the waiting room, she couldn’t find the easy wisdom that had seemed so accessible on the open road, and now the only other person who could help her deal with it was dying.
She closed her eyes.
After dinner last night, she and Frieda had talked for hours, of men and children and love and work.
“Don’t be afraid to live your life,” Frieda had said, staring into the flames, “because if you don’t, someone else will.”
Someone else had. A whole trainload of somebodies, from her family to her teachers, to her husband, her job, her coworkers–all in the interest of being good. Thinking of herself as doing the right thing.
“Ms. Grace?”
Karen opened her eyes. A nurse stood before her. “You can join Mrs. Richter now.”
Karen gathered her things and followed the nurse into the land behind the door of the ER, where the ill or maimed lay in un-private rooms and moans emanated from behind thin curtains. She found Frieda in a green-draped bed, around which various machines chirped and sighed. Lines and tubes connected the old woman to the machines, but her chin nestled on her chest, and her eyes remained closed. Karen pulled a hard chair over next to the bed and put her hand over Frieda’s.
When a doctor looked in, Karen demanded information, but when the young man rubbed his face, she tempered her voice, wondering how many shifts he’d worked.
“Mrs. Richter has had multiple strokes since they brought her in,” he said, consulting a chart. “The last was about an hour ago. It was a pretty strong one. We’re keeping her comfortable. Beyond that? We’ll have to see.” He apologized with his eyes and hurried away.
Karen studied Frieda’s face fo
r a creased brow or a flicker of anguish, but she saw no movement to indicate whether the old woman remained in this room or if her spirit had already moved on, unburdened. Loneliness swamped Karen, and her forehead dropped to Frieda’s arm. It felt cool, but a pulse still fluttered under her papery white skin.
An hour later, she heard footsteps and crying, and the drapes flew back and Sandy rushed in, followed by a tall man in a windbreaker. Karen stood up, offering her chair.
“Oh, Mom,” Sandy wailed, but the monitor registered no change as she threw herself across her mother’s body. Richard put his hand on his wife’s back, making small, useless circles while she sobbed.
Sandy straightened up and dug in her pocket for a tissue. “What did the doctors say?” she asked, her eyes still on her mother.
“All they can do is confirm that she’s had strokes.”
“Strokes plural? Oh, my God. How bad is she?” When Karen didn’t answer, Sandy glared at her, her face slick with tears. “Are you happy now?”
Karen took a step back. “I’m sorry.”
“How sorry can you be? You got what you wanted. You got somebody to keep you company while you went gallivanting across the desert.”
“I am so sorry, Sandra. Please know this. Your mom was happy at the end. Last night, at dinner, she talked about you. She really loves you, and she wants you to be happy.”
“Happy! Get the fuck out of this room. Now. NOW.” Richard pulled his screaming wife into his arms and nodded at Karen.
“I am sorry,” Karen said again. She parted the drapes and let them fall shut behind her while Sandra sobbed. The ER staff barely noticed as Karen left, pushing through the door to the waiting area and disappearing into the waiting room.
In the hours since she arrived, the room had filled with wailing children, hikers with swollen ankles, and trail bikers who tried to fly. She waded close-mouthed through the crush of coughing, drippy-nosed humanity, cutting a path to the door and bursting outside. In the light of late morning, she sucked in a cleansing lungful of fresh air. Past the entrance she found a sun-baked cement bench, and sat against the warm back rest, letting the heat soak into her muscles.
Alone outside the ER, Karen felt the great weight of impending grief, but both of them had known what might happen. Frieda had died the same way she had lived, on her own terms, trying to gentle her family along but in the end, making her own decisions. To Karen, it seemed a great privilege to have been with Frieda at the last, and she thought again of her mother and said a prayer of thanks to Aunt Marie for filling in when she couldn’t be there.
Karen wondered where her mom and Frieda were now in their cosmic journey. After so many years spent mastering life on this planet, a body would rejoin the earth, but what about the mind and soul? All the wisdom gained, the thoughtful maturity–was it simply gone? The memories of family and farm, dissipated into nothing?
That wouldn’t make sense. In high school science, Karen had been taught the earth is a closed system, that nothing is ever lost. Elements change into other forms and recirculate. Water evaporates into the sky, turns into clouds and returns to the earth in the form of rain. If a physical body returns to the soil, then where does the rest of the energy go?
A shuttle van pulled up on the opposite corner, towing a colorful load of kayaks, headed upriver for a day of fun. Today was just like any other for the boaters who would paddle with the current, unaware of Karen’s great loss or any other. The world just kept rolling.
She pushed up off the bench. Maybe the driver would give her a ride to camp. Time was passing and she needed to get back to the RV park and figure out what to do next. She started across the driveway toward the shuttle, her feet moving more quickly, her muscles loosening. Overhead, a jet streaked through the cloudless blue sky, spinning gossamer contrails in its wake. Karen looked up, watching it disappeared, envious of the pilot high overhead who, from his perspective, could see the curvature of the earth.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
KAREN THANKED THE SHUTTLE driver at the campground office and set off on foot down the unpaved lane, her footsteps silent in the powdery dirt. When she rounded a row of oleander bushes, the van loomed into view, waiting for her in the parking space like a tired old horse. Karen unlocked the double doors and pulled them both open wide, leaving them agape to offset her sudden sense of isolation.
She went inside, opened all the windows, and began the process of organizing and cleaning. First she broke down the bed, returning the dinette table to its pedestal and the cushions to their function as bench seats on either side. Then she rolled up the bedding, stuffed it in a cabinet, and hung up Frieda’s clothing. In the tiny restroom, she found an overnight kit with toothbrush, hair brush, and assorted pill containers. These items, along with Frieda’s clothes, would eventually be packed in a cardboard box and marked for shipment to Denver.
When the back end of the van no longer spoke of the woman whose journey ended there, Karen sat down at the dinette to rest. She noticed a string of amber beads on the floor and leaned down to pick up the rosary. It could only have fallen to that precise spot if Frieda had dropped it from the bed last night, no doubt clutching the beads as her nervous system faltered. How long had she suffered in darkness, alone in her terror, until she had gathered up enough strength to somehow call for help?
Karen lay down on the bench seat and cried, her grief ballooning to embrace the totality of her losses, of Frieda and her parents, her marriage and her work, and mortal life from which she could not regain a single misspent minute. When her head was so congested that she could no longer breathe, she choked off the last of the tears, and standing, felt her way to the towel rack where she mopped her face and neck. She looked in the mirror and saw swollen slits where her eyes used to be. She picked up the rosary, went outside, and dropped into a chair. With the beads laced between her fingers, Karen leaned back and simply listened. The wind rustled through the soaring cottonwood trees and ravens squawked in the distance. The river rushed by, its currents rippling against the rocks. She could smell the damp mud along the shore, and the rich sweetness of decomposing vegetation. Eyes closed, she could be anywhere. Where would she want to be?
She felt the beads of the rosary. The last time she saw it, Frieda was clutching it in one hand and the armrest in the other, praying they could outrun the dangerous men on the highway outside of Cheyenne. Karen wondered what Father Engel would say if he knew about their flight to freedom. Would he blame or absolve her?
It didn’t matter. Life had unfolded and caught her up in its danger, and she had reacted in a fiercely logical manner. She and Frieda had traveled many miles together, unlikely compatriots as one of them journeyed toward her end and the other, toward her beginning.
Her eyes opened, and she blinked in the sudden brightness. With no job, no husband, and no reason to hurry back to California, or anywhere at all, she had only to decide her next destination and point the van in that direction.
Duty pulled her home to California where she could make a contribution. The job market would be friendly to her, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she secured another high-paying, powerful position. All she had to do was climb into the driver’s seat, turn the key, and return to that which was familiar.
She heard Frieda’s voice again, from just two nights ago, sitting by the campfire, talking of the future.
Decide how to live your life, she said, or somebody else will.
To hear Frieda tell it, Karen was a youngster with the world at her feet.
“If you were ninety, you’d know what I mean,” said Frieda, “but right now, you can’t see it. That’s human nature. We don’t know what we have until we lose it. That’s why I’m warning you.”
They had sat quietly, listening to the snap of the flames.
“What do you think I would do if one morning I woke up and I was your age, forty years younger than I am right now?” said Frieda. “Let me tell you, girlie, if that happened, nothing would stop me. No
thing.”
Now Karen watched a trio of kayakers paddling down the middle of the river, and she marveled at their courage or, depending on how you looked at it, stupidity. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the river was placid, because it was so wide and deep you couldn’t see that it flowed dangerously fast. You had to look. If you watched carefully, you would notice objects racing by, here a duck resting on the current, there a log as big as a car, and both of them gone in an instant.
She had lived her life so carefully preparing for the worst that she had failed to notice the years passing. At least she could see clearly now. No more sleepwalking. She stood up, dusted herself off, and started loading the chairs back into the van.
Chapter Forty
THE PALM TREES SWAYED in the morning breeze, their fronds waving to welcome Karen home. Sunlight reflected like diamonds off the iron-blue Pacific, and the smell of salt in the air filled her lungs. Even the traffic couldn’t put a dent in her happiness. It was good to be back in sun-drenched Southern California, relishing the familiar. A wide grin broke across her face.
She parked next to a row of shiny new cars and went up in the elevator. When the doors opened, many arms reached out to hug her, the associates and colleagues she thought she might never see again, and her throat tightened. She broke away from them and walked down the hall to Peggy’s office.
“What the hell?” Peggy looked up from her keyboard. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I could say the same about you.”
The women embraced, and Karen took a seat. The drapes were drawn against the sunlight, leaving fluorescents as the only illumination in the smoky office. “What happened to the cruise?”
Peggy shrugged. “Boring. Nothing but fat people eating. I got off in Barcelona and flew home.”
“And Wes let you come back.”
“I know where the bodies are buried.”
“But you hate him.”
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