“I told you,” Tommy said, “I’m clean. I was never going to touch the junk in that case, it—”
“I don’t believe you!” yelled Kim, wiping her bleeding finger across the front of her T-shirt. “I’m done believing you. I’m done believing in you! You’ve used it all up, Tommy—my money, my trust. I’m done paying and praying for your sad little life! You deserved to get your ass kicked by Robert.” She turned back to me and barked a bitter laugh. “It’s so funny, Paul. The one time you actually stepped in and took a stand with your family is the one time you should have done what you do best and ignored us.”
She was crying now. She took a moment to palm the tears from her cheeks, but when she turned back to me, her angry eyes were full again.
“But instead,” she said, taking a step toward me and jamming her bloody finger into my chest, “you beat him up and have your little campground-cop kick him out of the park! Well, I got news for you, big brother. Robert’s the guy who’s been paying your debts to this family—the doctors for your mother, the rehab for your brother. He works his ass off taking care of everyone else! He’s probably working right now, while you sit up here and play Ranger Rick in these woods. And you pay him back by—”
“Daddy never wanted to be here in the first place!”
Kim froze, then wheeled to face her daughter. “Don’t you dare—”
“Wake up!” Aida screamed. “Daddy’s not working! He’s fucking Mrs. Capatello!”
52
Small Talk
Kim blinked. For the next few seconds, no one in that cramped little room did a single thing more.
One of the reasons Kim’s calling remained a mystery to me was because I couldn’t reconcile it with her keen sense of deduction. How can a person who’s able to discern the intricate chain of cause and effect that plays out in daily life simply surrender reason for faith when it comes to life’s biggest questions? Aaron’s ability to make the quick calculations of motivations and mechanics that ruled the planets came from his mother, not his dad.
Now I watched that cold logic flash behind my sister’s eyes in the long, charged moment following Aida’s revelation. Kim reviewed everything: the late work nights, the business trips, and all of the other private signs that only she and Robert would ever know—the small spaces that appear between a drifting couple, distances that, if not breached, push them so far apart that one day they no longer recognize one another. I knew all too well about those.
I watched Kim’s eyes return from the private place where she’d tallied it all up. I looked at the floor but could still feel her eyes burning straight through me when she whispered, “You knew.”
Aida stood on the other side of the room from us. Kim slowly turned to face her. Unlike me, Aida didn’t hide her eyes from her mother. I wished she had, or that at least tears would have spilled from those brilliant emerald depths to give the pain they held some small measure of release. But only Aida’s mouth moved, to fall slightly open, her eyes staring back like the face of the damned.
I read the weight of her double betrayal in that look. Keeping her father’s secret would have been forgivable, even understandable, if it had stayed between the two of them. But to share it with anyone other than her mother was simply a sin.
Kim turned away from her daughter and walked slowly across the room. The soft crunch of broken glass sounded under her steps as she disappeared behind the curtain that screened the cabin’s bedroom. She left the rest of us looking at one another like a bunch of scared children lost in the woods.
“Come on,” said my mother, standing up quickly. “Let’s sweep this mess up.” Tommy found the broom and Aaron got the dustpan while Mara pulled her chair back from the glass. Aida stood frozen against the wall, staring at the space where her mother had disappeared.
I turned and went into the bedroom. Kim was lying on the bed, curled on her side with her face to the wall. I sat down on its edge and rested my hand on her leg. There wasn’t a single thing I could say to make her feel better about the hard truths she’d shared. She was right about Robert. Despite all his bluster and ego, his stupid, selfish affair, it was his strength that centered the family I’d wandered back into. I’d misread that just as I’d misread everything—everyone—else.
Soft sounds began to float in from the other side of the cabin. I heard Mara ask Tommy and Aaron about the fishing. Then she asked Aida to light the camp stove to boil water for dinner, giving the girl something to do to break the spell of her guilt. Aida’s footsteps tapped briskly before I heard the screen door’s soft bang. I could feel the vacuum of her quick exit charge the space she’d left. But Mara turned the conversation quickly back to Aaron, urging descriptions of his targets, his casts, and the ones that got away. The more I listened to my mother direct the things taking place on the other side of the curtain, the more I appreciated the wisdom of her words. She coaxed the conversation back to the small talk and tasks needed to put the people she loved through the familiar paces of family again.
I sat there and listened with Kim, hoping those waves of conversation might wash away the distance between us as well. I could offer my sister nothing more than my presence in the dark room and the hope that—just maybe—that was enough.
It took a while for Mara, Tommy, and Aaron to put things back in order. I listened to them move boxes and tables as they searched for the glass showered across the cabin floor. I moved to get up. When Kim caught my hand in hers, I stopped and gave it a squeeze. Her face was lost in the room’s shadows, but I dared to hope it might mirror the small smile on my own.
I shared that look with Aaron as I pushed the curtain aside and crossed the cabin to help Aida with dinner on the back porch. When I opened the door, I saw only the pond.
53
Second Wind
The first rule every wilderness first responder is trained to remember in an emergency is: Assess the scene. But after clashes with three family members, two bull moose, one ex-girlfriend, and a lethal deadfall, I forgot it.
I wasn’t worried when I stepped off the porch to look for Aida. I’d started the day with a long walk to clear my head of our family’s drama, and I thought she’d done the same. But as I passed an opening in the trees and glanced at the water, I saw that Aida wasn’t walking.
I was lucky I spotted her; she was paddling away from the canoe landing and was already halfway to Colt’s Point. When I saw her red head bobbing far forward with each stroke, I knew she was in trouble.
I sprinted to the library porch for a paddle. On my way back to the canoe, Tommy raced toward me. He threw his unlit cigarette on the ground before he passed me, shouting, “I’m coming with you!” By the time I dragged the canoe off the rack and flipped it over, he was back, paddle in hand.
I jumped in the stern while Tommy crashed through the water to hop into the bow. It didn’t take me more than a dozen strokes before I began to regain the situational awareness the crisis required.
There were more than a few problems with our rescue plan. The muscles in my chest that had absorbed the Broken Bull’s final blow ached with every stretch of my paddle. Though I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the pain, I wondered how many strokes I had in me before my body finally failed. Then there was my crew.
Tommy’s recovery had put his physical condition on a roller coaster. He’d been down lately, and he had another big strike that made him a poor first mate. With every third or fourth paddle, he stopped to cough and spit. Each time he did, I silently cursed every one of the goddamned cigarettes I’d watched him smoke over the past few days.
When we were a couple hundred yards offshore, I began to assess the problems outside our little boat. The steady breeze we’d left at the landing was gusting stronger here, rippling the water with a chop that grew even rougher up ahead. When I looked up to get a bead on Aida, I could just make out the gleam of white caps in the failing light.
Tommy yelled something, but I heard only the wind. I yelled back. It took us a
few exchanges before I caught one of his words. When I heard it, I realized what was at stake: “—inhaler—”
I reached and dug harder, throwing my body into each stroke, feeling the butterfly bandages underneath my shirt pop open one by one. I never even thought of turning around to go back for the inhaler. Something much stronger than reason was firing my brain to ignite my burning chest and arms. The instinct to race across that pond had been smoldering inside me for twenty-six years, every one of them haunted by a score of dark dreams that sent me thrashing in my bed as I struggled to carry out a mission I never had the chance to fulfill. Now I paddled through that nightmare, driven by the blind desire to finally save the girl battling the wind and the waves.
I kept my eyes on Aida as I paddled. Tommy and I were closing on her—but slowly. I saw that she was paddling only on the port side of her canoe now. “Good girl,” I whispered as I bent and pulled at the water again. She was trying for Colt’s Point.
She almost made it. I watched her double her efforts as she came abreast of the point of land, and if she’d been a hundred feet closer she might have jumped and swum to shore. I saw her turn her head when the stern slipped past the tip of land, watching it trail behind her as the wind whipped fiercely to drive her toward the far end of the pond.
Tommy must have been watching too. He yelled something and pointed, but the path to our target had shifted, and I had to put my blade behind me to steer him away from the view he blocked. Then I saw: Aida had stopped paddling.
Tommy turned to yell something more but stopped, eyes wide, and pointed to my chest. I’d thrown my life jacket into the bottom of the boat, so my T-shirt was exposed. I looked down to see its left side tattooed with crimson spots.
“Keep paddling!” I yelled. He gave my chest another quick glance before turning to lunge at a wave. I shifted my blade again to adjust our course. Then I put everything I had left into those last few strokes, my chest screaming each time I twisted to dig at the water again.
We caught up with her just before she reached the far shore. I steered our canoe alongside hers until Tommy could reach out and catch Aida’s stern in his hand. I was behind her, so I couldn’t see her face, but the position of her body told me plenty. She was sitting straight up, her hands stretched behind her with a hand on each gunwale, her head tipped back and pointed at the sky.
As we approached the bushy shoreline, Tommy jumped into the water. When he grabbed Aida’s bow I paddled around to get a look at her. Her head bobbed as her chest heaved with every labored breath. The squeak of her wheezing grated against the sound of water lapping the sides of our hulls.
Her mouth was a dark, round “O” struggling to suck in each thin stream of air. I looked from it to the wide green eyes that locked with mine. I gaped back in shock, disoriented by the familiarity of that look. An instant later I realized where I’d seen it, only hours before. It was the same desperate gaze that had stared at me from the face of the Broken Bull.
54
Distant Light
I saw the inhaler lying in the bottom of the canoe at the same time Tommy did. But as he splashed to retrieve it, Aida’s head shook back and forth—and I knew why it was lying there.
Tommy shook the inhaler a couple of times and pushed its button with his thumb. “Empty!” he shouted.
I turned toward the water. The first stars shone above its blue-black plane, but its surface was still scalloped with white crescents from the gusts buffeting us on shore. My arms were almost numb with exhaustion, and the dull ache in my chest sharpened into a stabbing pain every time I moved them. There was no way we would overcome the wind. Though it was twice the distance by foot, we were going to have to hike the mile around the rocky pond trail in the dark to make it home.
About the only thing I did right that evening was to grab my headlamp when I left the cabin. I put it on now as I paddled along the shore to lead Tommy and Aida to a space between the bushes wide enough to beach the two canoes. It was a messy landing, but Tommy managed to help Aida up the bank while I braced her boat. A minute later I tied the bowlines to a branch and followed him onshore.
“You’ll be all right,” Tommy was saying to Aida. I wasn’t so sure.
“Just—” she gasped, “can’t catch—”
“Don’t try to talk, Aida,” I said, grasping her wrist. I turned it over to check her pulse. It was steady, but fast. Too fast.
“Just nod or shake your head.” I told her. “Were you able to get any medication from your inhaler before it ran out?” She nodded and held up two fingers.
“Two puffs?” She nodded again. “That’s good. Do you think you can walk?” This time, the nod was smaller. “Good girl. Just wait here for a sec.” I motioned to Tommy and led him up the bank a few feet to the trail. I kept my voice low as I slipped my headlamp off and handed it to him.
“Those puffs bought us some time, but it may not be enough. Get to Tyler’s cabin and tell him Aida’s at risk of going into asthmaticus. He needs to get here with his Woofer first aid kit as fast as he can. If he’s not there and the office is open, it’s the red pack hanging by the door. There’s stuff in there to help her if her normal meds aren’t enough. If he’s gone and the door’s locked, go to Sentinel and grab at least a couple of inhalers, and make sure they’re full. Even if he is there, get them. Don’t have him wait for you. And, Tommy . . .”
“Yeah?”
“You gotta fly.”
He was off the next instant. I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears as I turned to Aida. Every instinct in me wanted to run her down the trail as fast as I could, but though her life depended on the medication waiting at the path’s end, pushing her too fast could kill her before she ever reached it.
I forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths. Then I kept my voice calm and level as I lied to my niece.
“I know you’re uncomfortable, Aida, but the medicine you got into your lungs will be enough to keep you going. Just tap me twice if you need to rest. We have plenty of time.”
“I’m sor— I’m—”
“Don’t talk. Everything will be okay. I’m going to pick out the trail, and you try to keep a hand on me as you follow. There’s a half moon tonight, but it won’t be up for a while, so we’ll have to go slow. Don’t worry. I’ve hiked this trail a hundred times.”
I took her hand and led her slowly up the bank to the trail. There was no way to walk beside her on the narrow, twisting path, but I was happy to feel her hand lightly touch the back of my shirt.
“That’s it, Aida, nice and slow, nice and slow . . .”
I listened to the sound of her wheezing as we made our way. When the spaces between the wheezes got shorter, I slowed until we were barely walking at all. The pattern of her thin breaths quieted a bit, her hand reaching out to brush the back of my shirt on every third or fourth step. But no matter how slowly we went, we had to work our bodies to move. I held my breath to hear Aida’s over the steady sound of the wind. Each time we wound around another a rock or tree, I wondered how much those steps cost her—and how many she had left.
A bough brushed my face. The trail was wandering away from the water, and it was getting harder to see. I pushed the branch back and reached for Aida’s hand in the dark, guiding her toward me.
We walked for a while, but not nearly long enough for me to begin to hope that Tommy might return in time. Then we came to a steeper rise over the rocks. It was only nine or ten steps, but that was at least one step too far. As soon as we were over, I felt Aida’s hand bat my back twice. When I turned to face her, she seized my hand, her fingernails digging in so sharply I had to force myself not to yank it away.
“Let’s sit,” I said, guiding her to the ground. “It’ll be okay.” But it wasn’t.
She was in distress. My hand found her face. It was cold and wet. I felt her wrist for a pulse. It hammered. When she started hunching her shoulders to force in breaths, I knew we were almost out of time.
My mind went back to
my training, running through my options if Aida collapsed. It was a short list. I could give her mouth-to-mouth, but it would only buy her seconds, maybe minutes. At the stage of distress she was in, even in a hospital stocked with every medication that could help her, an emergency endotracheal intubation might be the only thing that could save her. There was no way my niece would survive if I attempted to cut an airway into her throat in the middle of the dark woods. Still, as I held her in my arms on the hard ground while she bucked for her last breaths, my fingertips found the handle of the knife at my hip.
Aida’s shaking grew more violent, and I steeled myself for what was to come. “I’m here, Aida, I’m here,” I said, moving closer, trying to offer whatever consolation I could as she slowly suffocated. Her hand flew up and out, but when I tried to grab her shoulder to quiet her, she smacked my hand away, raising her arm again stiffly as the rest of her body shook. It took me a moment to realize that she was pointing.
I turned to see a fallen star caught low among the tangle of black trees. When it moved, I knew what it was. I cursed my brother before I saw him.
I watched the tip of Tommy’s nose, cheeks, and chin appear under his headlamp in the dark. I was too stunned to speak. I could fathom no reason for his decision to turn back on the trail and return to us. But I was certain that it had killed Aida.
Tommy knelt down to push me aside, and I fell back without a word. I watched him gently cup the back of Aida’s shaking head. I couldn’t see what he held to her face, but I heard the sound it made. It was short and soft, but that small puff had all the power of the wild wind that had pushed us to this place. In the instant I heard it, I found myself believing. I didn’t care if God, or science, or nature was behind it, but I knew that moment for what it was: a miracle.
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