by Karis Walsh
She put the books on the kitchen counter and snagged a couple of cookies from a jar shaped like a killer whale. Mel always kept it full of something sweet for her guests, and Maggie couldn’t resist a snickerdoodle. She took another for the road and was about to leave when the real reason she had come to the inn walked down the main staircase.
Tam was wearing cargo pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt with the Oregon State beaver mascot emblazoned across the chest. Her blond hair was clipped off her face and she had an army-green backpack slung over one shoulder. As one of Maggie’s attempts at bravery, she had come here to casually prod Mel and Pam for information about their houseguest. She knew little about Tam except that she had a job here in town but no place to live yet. Maggie wasn’t sure her fledgling courage was ready for a direct conversation outside the comfort zone of her hospital, but she didn’t have a choice. Tam saw her and changed course, coming into the kitchen instead of continuing on toward the front door.
“Hi, Maggie. What brings you here? Oh no…”
Maggie’s smile faded as she watched Tam move one step ahead of her to the wrong conclusion. “Your dad is fine, Tam,” she hastened to assure her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Tam brushed off Maggie’s concern with a sound of dismissal, but Maggie had seen Tam’s expression change from a friendly smile of greeting to a pale look of concern in a heartbeat. “You didn’t. I just didn’t expect to see you here.”
Maggie held up a cookie. Tam was obviously disconcerted by her own concern about her father. She kept emphasizing the distance between them, but she had been visibly shaken when she thought Maggie was here with bad news. Maggie knew her best option was to change the subject and let Tam deal with her emotions in her own time. “I’m here to deliver books and to swipe a snack. You look ready for a trek.”
“I’m checking some inland ponds today. Counting birds, collecting blood samples, checking for oil residue. That sort of thing. My favorite part of my job.”
Maggie leaned her hip against the counter. “I don’t even know where you work.”
“That’s funny,” Tam said with a wry grin. “Since you’ve learned more about my personal life and past than most people know. I’m in charge of the new Department of Fish and Wildlife field office in Cannon Beach.”
“Ah,” Maggie said. She wasn’t sure how to keep Tam here and talking when she had work to do. Next best thing? “Can I come with you?”
Tam raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure? It involves a lot of slogging through marshy areas and the occasional dunking if you slip and fall.”
“I don’t mind a little pond water,” Maggie said, trying to keep her mind off all the water- and mosquito-borne diseases she’d learned about in medical school. “There aren’t leeches, though, are there? I’ll have to draw the line at leeches.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll pluck them off you if we encounter any.”
“Comforting,” Maggie said. “I’d offer to reciprocate, but no way am I touching one.”
Tam laughed. “Okay. I’ll be in charge of leech removal.” She fished through her backpack and got out a plastic bag with a spiral-bound notebook and pen inside. “You can be the record keeper.”
Tam held out the bag, but Maggie didn’t take it. “You want me to be your secretary?”
“No? Well, how about you be in charge of counting lice eggs on the birds we capture.” She started to return the notebook to her backpack, but Maggie reached for it.
“I have really neat penmanship,” she said. “You can add lice to your list of duties.”
“Cool. Come on. I have an extra pair of waders in the car.”
Maggie got in Tam’s white SUV and buckled her seat belt. Such normal actions, but she felt more alive than she had during her skydiving adventure. This was the feeling she had been looking for. She’d done things she thought of as brave or foolhardy or exciting, hoping to feel a rush of pride in conquering her fears. Instead, she had felt let down, as if the accomplishments meant little or nothing in her life. Somehow sitting here with Tam, about to spend some of her day off traipsing through swamps, had more meaning than anything else she’d done lately.
“Any news on my test results?” Tam asked with a seemingly feigned air of indifference. She glanced over her shoulder and backed onto the road.
“Too soon to say,” Maggie said. She’d seen the preliminary results, of course, and the likelihood was good that Tam would be a suitable donor. She didn’t like to speculate, though. Her instincts were usually right, but she couldn’t offer them as a medical opinion. She also thought Tam might be better off with a little more time to think about the role she was willing to play in her dad’s treatment.
“We’ve sent the packet to the surgeon in Portland who would perform the transplant. He’ll either give us an answer soon, or ask for more tests to be performed.”
“More needles. Great.”
“Oh, do they bother you?” Maggie asked. She gently poked Tam in the ribs. “We can always use leeches to suck out your blood instead.”
“Let’s stick with needles.” Tam laughed and grabbed Maggie’s hand, holding it for a long moment before she let go. She sighed then, and her smile vanished. “You said you see people with relationship issues all the time. How do they forgive and move on? I thought my father had taken everything he could from me. My childhood, my mother, the relationships I have now. He took those from me and changed them forever. And now he wants more. What if he takes my liver and disappears from my life again? Or worse, what if he wants to barge in to my life?”
Maggie looked out at the passing scenery while she gathered her thoughts. Dark fir trees were interspersed with lighter green deciduous growth. Spring was filling in the spaces left by winter. She stared at the thick vegetation, parting now and again to give glimpses of the gray, wintery Pacific Ocean, and considered different philosophical arguments for forgiving and letting go, case studies or personal stories to help guide Tam to a decision she would be able to live with. Maggie rejected them all. She couldn’t guarantee Tam’s father would stick around, or that Tam would even want him back in her life.
“What if there was a person on the side of the road, wounded and bleeding,” she said, condensing her philosophy to its simplest form. “Would you drive by and ignore him, or stop to help? And if you stop, would you interrogate him before you stopped the bleeding? Maybe ask him what he’s done wrong in his life, or demand to know if he’ll stick around and be your friend after you help him? Or do you save his life, just because it’s…”
“The right thing to do.” Tam finished the sentence.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Maggie said. “No right or wrong, just what is most aligned with who you are. Not who he is, what he’s done, or what he’ll do in the future.”
Tam turned off the main highway onto a rutted, barely paved road. She rubbed her forehead with her left hand. “You make everything seem so clear when you’re talking to me. But when I’m alone, I have questions and doubts. Yes, I’d stop to help anybody who’s hurt, but this is personal, not general.”
Tam parked on the shoulder at a wide spot on the road, but she didn’t make any move to get out of the car.
“I understand,” Maggie said. “It’s not like you’re handing your dad a pill to take and he’ll get better. You’re going through an invasive procedure and giving him something that is part of your body. Your essence. Or”—she shrugged—“just think of it like you’re giving him a pill that will make him better. After a short time, you won’t even notice it’s gone.”
Tam put her hand on her belly in a gesture Maggie had seen her make several times, as if reassuring herself that she was still intact. After a moment, Tam sighed and raised her hand, brushing Maggie’s cheek with her fingers. Maggie felt the roughness of outdoor work in Tam’s touch and she craved more. Too soon, though, Tam moved away and opened her car door.
Maggie got out, too, and climbed into the rubber waders Tam found in the back of her
car. The loose fit and unyielding material took time to get used to as she followed Tam along what must have been a deer trail. The spring day was chilly, but whenever the sun found strength to break through the clouds, the temperature inside the rubber boots rose uncomfortably high. First the baggy jumpsuit and now the too-large waders. Maggie decided she needed to find an adventurous hobby with a better-fitting wardrobe.
She imitated Tam and dropped to a crouching walk as the trees thinned. Maggie was looking ahead, trying to figure out how a pond could possibly be hidden among all these trees, when Tam reached out and grabbed her around the waist.
“Careful,” she whispered, pointing at the ground. The solid dirt changed to wet muck right in front of Maggie. Tam kept her hand and led her past the thick mud and up a small incline. Once they reached the base of a huge cottonwood, the forest seemed to expand and create space for the wide, still body of water.
“Oh.” Maggie exhaled softly as she looked around. Glistening red and blue dragonflies zipped past, occasionally settling on the surface of the water. Birds flitted overhead, tiny silhouettes of dark among the bright leaves. Shadows from the canopy of trees speckled the entire area. Tam sat with her back to the tree and patted the ground next to her. Maggie squeezed close beside her, awed by the small circle of magic she’d never realized existed so close to her home.
Tam gestured at the notebook, and Maggie gingerly opened the plastic bag and took it out as quietly as she could. Tam handed Maggie a pair of binoculars before she raised her own to her eyes and began to whisper types and numbers of birds. At first, Maggie merely transcribed what Tam was saying, but she soon caught on to the methodical way Tam identified and estimated bird species. Before long, Maggie was adding her own notes to the margin of the page and pointing out birds she recognized to Tam.
“Look! A heron.” Maggie kept her voice low, but she pinched Tam’s arm in her excitement. “They’re my favorite. And there’s another one, under that low-hanging branch.”
“Ouch,” Tam hissed. She panned across the clearing with her binoculars. “Good sighting. Watch, Maggie, he’s about to catch a fish.”
Maggie saw the heron make a quick lunge and come up with a thin silvery fish in its mouth. If she had blinked, she would have missed the moment. She sighed and leaned back, reveling in the sensation of having the entire length of Tam’s body pressed against her own. Just like life, she thought. Blink, and it’s gone. She’d missed so much by being cautious and afraid, but even when she pushed out of her comfort zone, she didn’t feel like she was living better or larger than usual.
This moment, right here with Tam and the heron and the dappled shadows, was something to be treasured. This was Tam’s world, though, and Maggie was only visiting. She saw lives cut short every day at her job. Relationships left unhealed and dreams left unfulfilled. She had taken her job because she believed life was precious and she wanted to help prolong and enrich it for her patients. She, of all people, should be out living her life to the fullest every day, every moment because she knew how fragile health and the future really were. Instead, she went home alone night after night and eased the tension from her day by watching TV.
Maggie reached for Tam’s hand and gave it a squeeze as the heron’s sharp bill flashed out of the water with another fish.
*
Tam leaned over Maggie’s shoulder and added a note about a lone cedar waxwing. Being this close to Maggie and inhaling her delicate citrusy scent with every breath was intoxicating. Tam had been cautious at first when Maggie had offered to come with her today. She barely knew Maggie outside of the realm of the hospital’s oncology ward. She was attracted to her, without a doubt, but that didn’t necessarily translate into an easy few hours in someone’s company. Besides, Tam preferred to work alone whenever possible.
Tam usually started her field excursions with quiet observation, like they had today, watching undisturbed life in the pond or ocean take place in front of her eyes before she had to step in and disrupt it. She’d waited longer than usual today before starting actual fieldwork because she’d loved the peaceful feeling of sitting close to Maggie. The contact with Maggie’s thighs and hips was arousing, but the companionable way they’d communicated through whisper and touch had been more intimate than anything Tam had experienced before. They’d shared the thrill of the heron’s fishing and had laughed quietly together at the antics of a tiny nuthatch. Tam hadn’t wanted the closeness to end.
Of course, closeness and intimacy always ended. Tam might be angry with her father and reluctant to assume this new role in his life, but she was definitely his daughter. She’d inherited his need to roam and his inability to stay in a relationship. She’d tried hard but had never been able to form a tight enough bond to keep her in place. She was lonely sometimes, but it was her choice and her personality.
Maggie was probably someone who forged deep and lasting connections. She and her sister sounded very close, and she seemed to have good friends within the community. Already, Tam could feel a web spreading over her and Maggie as they expanded the sphere of their relationship from a professional one at the hospital to a friendlier one out here in the woods.
Tam shouldn’t lead Maggie on. She liked her, yes. Was attracted to her and interested in her life and thoughts. But she was destined to wander. To leave. Maggie deserved better. She was a nurturer, giving her attention and energy to her patients and guiding people through traumatic times with empathy and compassion. She needed someone who would be there for her forever, no matter what. Tam was reluctant to break the still and quiet sphere they’d created under the cottonwood tree, but she needed to separate from Maggie for both their sakes.
Tam pulled her backpack between her knees and gathered her supplies, stuffing the pockets of her vest and pants with vials, sample kits, and leg bands. She usually had to balance her notebook and equipment on her own, often dropping something vital in the water, and she was glad to have an extra set of hands. She wasn’t sure what to expect from Maggie, though. She’d been funny when she acted squeamish about the leeches back at the inn, but once it came time to get dirty and do fieldwork, how would she react?
Maggie, of course, surprised her. She didn’t hesitate or hold back no matter what Tam asked her to do. She waded through the opaque water of the pond without a peep of concern, and held whatever bird or frog or bug Tam managed to catch.
“You’re great with birds,” Tam said as she ruffled the feathers of a small wood duck she’d captured, checking for any sign of oil. Maggie cradled the duck against her stomach while Tam took a blood sample and attached a band to its leg. She had the right balance between handling the fragile creatures gently and being firm enough to keep the birds from flailing and hurting themselves. “Did you work at the rescue center after the spill?”
“A few times,” Maggie said. “I had a lot of patients and not much time, so I did more beach cleanup than work at the center. I could be out there at sunrise and shovel dirty sand for a few hours before I had to be at the hospital. I don’t think our paths crossed at all. I’d certainly have remembered you.”
“Same here,” Tam said, not meeting Maggie’s eyes. “You can let her go. She’s clean.”
Maggie lowered the duck onto the surface of the pond and stepped back with a laugh as the bird skittered away with a spray of water.
“You do great work at the hospital,” Tam said as she scribbled notes about the wood duck. “I admire you for volunteering on top of all you do.”
Maggie shrugged. “I wish I’d done more.”
Tam bent down to collect water samples from varying depths. She capped the first one and handed it to Maggie. “How do you handle it? All the emotions and loss you face every day, I mean. I’m having a hard enough time dealing with the intensity of having my father there and reliving our past relationship, but you have an entire ward full of patients. You seem to truly care about them, too.”
Maggie wrapped her hands around the small stack of vials filled with m
urky pond water. “I do care, but I have to set limits. Even though I chose this field for emotional reasons, the only way to survive it is to remain as unemotional as possible and to support my patients by searching for solutions and evaluating options with a clear head.” She hesitated. “When I was young, I felt helpless to cure Joss, and I decided really early that I wanted to become a doctor, so I’d be able to help people like her and have some control over the threat of death. Her illness frightened me to my core, but I’ve been able to keep that fear separate from my work. Until lately, when it’s been sort of…leaking through. The suffering and sorrow I’m exposed to have been taking something out of me, piece by piece. I shouldn’t let it happen.”
Tam stood still, her samples and notes forgotten as she watched Maggie’s expression change. Tam remembered her gorgeous smile when they’d first met. She’d seen it again today, several times during their observation session. She knew the light in Maggie was genuine, but she hadn’t realized what she was going through inside and she was surprised and honored that Maggie had shared this internal struggle with her. Maggie looked as surprised by her revelations as Tam felt. Tam stuck her notebook and the vials in her pants pocket and moved closer to Maggie. She cradled Maggie’s face in her hands and kissed her.
She meant it as an expression of sympathy and of gratitude. Tam and her father were two of the people who were stealing part of Maggie’s soul. Her father’s cancer was advanced, and they brought plenty of family drama into the hospital ward. Tam wanted to thank Maggie in some way and apologize in another. She thought a tender kiss would convey what she was feeling more than words could do.
Tam didn’t expect the reaction she had to the kiss. She was giving it away, offering it to Maggie, but she was the one who received an infusion of energy and heat. Standing thigh deep in pond water, wearing rubber waders that left her feet chilled and her legs sweaty, Tam was too uncomfortable to feel desire. Or so she thought. She opened her mouth at the gentle pressure from Maggie’s tongue, and suddenly her world exploded. Her discomfort, the setting, and the reality of the hospital ward faded away as Maggie wrapped her arms around Tam’s neck and pressed her body close. Tam gripped Maggie’s hips and groaned at the sweet onslaught of Maggie’s tongue. She broke away long enough to kiss Maggie’s neck from her shoulder to a spot just behind Maggie’s ear that seemed to drive her crazy.