by DM Sharp
Gabriel clears his throat before looking up and trying to make eye contact with one of us, but we’re all too fast and look down into the fire, anything to avoid our campfire group therapy session.
“You guys did so great today. Shirley and I are really proud of all of you.”
I try and concentrate on the sweet smell of roasted marshmallows so I can fade away somewhere.
“I hope that none of you felt alone today?” Gabriel asks, his concerned eyes flicking around all of us.
Gillian starts to rock before saying, “You really don’t know what it is to be alone until it’s 4 a.m. and all you want to do is cut.”
“Interesting, Gillian. Why don’t you talk some more?”
“For every reason that I can think of not to cut, a thousand to do it come to mind.”
Aaron looks utterly baffled. “Why do you cut? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“I have no explanation for why I cut myself, I just do.”
My muscles let me know that they’re still there from the four-hour hike earlier today. I shift, disturbing the conversation and Gillian looks right at me, and asks, “Why do you steal food, Olivia? Aren’t you like one of the richest kids ever?”
My cheeks burn and it’s not from the heat of the fire.
“Do you think you could answer Gillian’s question?” I can’t believe that Gabriel of all people has dropped me in it.
Gillian is on a roll now and obviously relishing that the focus is away from her.
“I’ve seen you stealing ever since you got here, Olivia.”
The whispering hisses, sizzling pops, and thick, intoxicating smell of musky smoke and pine needles make me want to just fall into the fire, but I know that Gabriel will just pull me right out so I take a huge deep breath instead.
“I’ve never told anyone that I know what it feels like to be hungry. Not the kind of hunger that comes from missing a meal or being late for dinner. No, I mean the gnawing hunger that comes from not having eaten for days on end.”
Gabriel slowly looks up from the fire that he’s stopped poking at. “Keep going, you’re doing great.”
I clear my throat again. “After my mother passed away, Dad and I did manage for a short while, but his repertoire of black, burnt hamburgers that leaked blood when you bit through them and powdered mashed potatoes from a packet didn’t quite match up to her culinary skills. She used to cook every night, after working all day long, and yes, I would be hungry because we would have to wait because she liked to make everything from scratch, but I didn’t mind that hunger. I miss it. I miss her.”
I become aware of an ache, a deep ache that erupts from the inside of my chest, but it’s like the fire is soothing and hypnotizing me into just carrying on talking.
“It wasn’t long before my dad’s drinking got out of hand and he would binge, disappearing for a few days at a time. The worst of it was during the school holidays because when school was in, at least I could depend on having one meal a day.”
Each time I blink I get a reprieve from the pain in my chest for my mother. “This one time when we were on a break from school, and he had been gone for a day and a half, I really had tried everything to block any thought of food from my mind and rumbling belly. But the more I tried not to think about it the stronger the smell of my mother’s roast chicken dinner was. It was like a splinter from the Snow Queen’s mirror making all the world seem ugly and miserable because this smell meant safety, warmth and that she was alive. It meant that I had belonged at a certain time and that I had been part of a proper family. The reality was the gas had been cut off because I wasn’t allowed to answer the door when my dad was out, so I was cold, alone, and that there was nothing in the fridge apart from a jar of peanut butter.
“Sitting on the cold kitchen floor, scraping stale peanut butter out with a knife and licking the rim of the jar until my mouth hurt was the last straw. Unable to live with my shaking hands, cramping belly and dizzy head, I hatched a plan.
“Waiting until the sky was black and I was safe to move around outside like a faceless shadow, I would venture out to the neighbors’ bins. Crouching down, shining my flashlight, it was amazing to see what good food people threw away. To this day I am thankful for the leftovers. This became my daily ritual and guessing game. I would wake up looking forward to what I could find to eat that day and it gave me hope. I was twelve.
“In the end, I was saved because I was caught scavenging around the bins and someone called the authorities.”
Miguel is staring at me and it’s making me really uncomfortable so I continue.
“Until this point we were estranged from my dad’s family, the ‘Gunpowder’ Carters. Uncle Preston swooped in, rescued me and became my legal guardian and that’s how I ended up on the Upper East Side.”
Aaron asks, “What about your dad?”
I just shrug my shoulders and indicate that I don’t know where he is. I don’t think I can tell them that he never calls, not even on my birthday.
“Is that why you steal food?” asks Gillian, who is picking at the bandaging on her left wrist.
“Well, like they say, old habits die hard, and sometimes I find myself sneaking into our kitchen or any kitchen, anywhere for that matter. When no one is looking, I stick my fingers into food in pots and pans and taste it, holding it in my mouth like it’s the last thing I’ll ever eat.”
“Man, that’s deep,” acknowledges Miguel.
I close my eyes, letting my eyelids paint yellow and orange kaleidoscopes as the heat washes over me, rosying up my cheeks and giving me that nice, warm hotface effect while Aaron starts to talk about why he started abusing Ritalin.
*
I hear footsteps walking towards my tent, “Hey you. You’re very restless, can’t you sleep?” asks Gabriel, as he crouches down beside me and moves my hair out of my eyes.
I shake my head indicating that I can’t, rubbing at my chest over where my heart lies.
He sits down beside me. “The best thing for a broken heart is to be patient and allow time to settle all unresolved feelings. Talking about your feelings like you did tonight helps to smooth the passage of the loss, as will allowing yourself time to reflect on all feelings and answer questions you may have for yourself.”
I swallow hard and say in a broken voice, “But I feel empty and flat and terrible and alone.”
I hear him tut.
“You’re definitely not alone. I think that yes, it’s normal to feel worse for a time after a session like this because you have just faced issues that are painful and uncomfortable, which you’ve probably been avoiding. Eventually it all pays off, but at first it can be depressing and overwhelming. Any time we challenge ourselves, stepping out of our comfort zone, it’s natural to experience unpleasant feelings for a time.” He casts a quick eye over the others, who seem to have settled. We’re all sleeping under a giant blue tarpaulin, strung between some juniper trees and held securely by rocks. We’ve all built our own makeshift individual shelters under it, that give us space from the demons that haunt our dreams.
For the first time in my life, I know what it’s like to not feel judged. It feels like a warm, heavy blanket has surrounded me and my eyes start to feel heavy.
Gabriel shifts around trying to get comfortable on the hard ground. “I’ll sit here until you fall asleep.”
The last thing I hear before I fall asleep is the cool breeze rustling the juniper trees.
Chapter Twenty-two
Olivia Carter
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thum … It’s the sound of the air rushing into the turbine engine of a helicopter. Angry, panicked voices disturb my coma-like sleep. I can tell there’s a load of activity going on before I even open my eyes.
My ears feel warm and there’s a strange ache all over my body. It’s sort of like when I was detoxing when I first got here. My mouth is all dry. I struggle but manage to sit upright, the sunlight making my eyes wince.
&n
bsp; Shirley spots me and comes over, screwing her eyes up at me as she gets close, “Missy, that’s one good sleep you had. You okay? You look a bit flushed to me.” She sticks her hand on my forehead. “Shit, you’re hot.”
The whirring above us makes us both look upwards towards the sky.
“What’s going on?”
“Kiddo, our friend Miguel decided to take off sometime in the early morning so a major search-and-rescue effort’s been launched to find him. But let me get you some medicine to help cool you down.”
I watch as she takes off towards her tent but is stopped as a police dog and handler and take off in another direction. I wait, but she doesn’t come back. Guess she must have forgotten about me, so I stand up and start rolling up my sleeping bag.
Gabriel’s voice is describing Miguel to someone on a walkie-talkie, “He’s about six-feet tall and weighs about 150 pounds.” I watch him ruffling the front of his hair the way I’ve seen Dr. Nate Carmichael do. Then he catches me looking at him, his eyes blazing a cobalt blue. The softness of them from last night is gone as he walks towards me. “Listen, Shirley is taking Gillian back with her, we’re going to send Aaron with the chopper back to basecamp so I need you to hike back with me. Do you think you can do that?”
I nod because he’s not really asking me and besides I don’t really want to piss him off anymore than he already appears to be.
“A simple yes would suffice so I know that you’ve heard me.”
Wow, his cage really is rattled. “Sure, Gabriel,” I say, hoping that the throbbing in my ears and head will go away. My hands are warm now, too, but I just don’t want to cause more of a problem.
I learn while we all pack up that there’s a helicopter, two all-terrain vehicles operated by police officers, two police boats and five teams of two officers each on foot looking for Miguel.
Gabriel and I leave all the activity behind us and set off for basecamp, walking beside each other in silence. He looks at me from time to time. I keep thinking he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead he just puts his earplugs in and whacks his music up full blast like some surly teenager. The thought makes me smile and I wish I knew what song he was listening too. He catches me smiling and looks at me, puzzled, but we still don’t say anything and keep walking.
A wave of nausea overwhelms me and I vomit up bile, my throat and nose stinging from the burn.
“Hey Olivia, did you eat breakfast?”
I can’t tell if he’s irritated. “Uh-huh, I had some dry toast. I didn’t really have much of an appetite.”
“Too much excitement huh? Never mind, have some water and I’ve got some mints in here somewhere,” he says, as his arm disappears down into his giant backpack.
Perhaps because I’m feeling feverish, I blindly trudge on without saying anything to Gabriel about how I’m feeling. As we walk down a path nearly completely covered with overhanging trees, in my delirium I imagine I’m Little Red Riding Hood on my way to Grandma’s … However, the only Big Bad Wolf I’m running from is my own sickness and exhaustion. Lucien has started to fade away.
I’m finding it hard to concentrate on the path, and the air feels thin. My feet are stumbling and black spots start to dance in front of my eyes.
“Olivia, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
I try and move my mouth but I feel paralyzed. I feel myself falling into Gabriel’s arms, holding onto him. My knee is in agony. Someone switches the lights out.
Chapter Twenty-three
Gabriel Carmichael
Fuck. How didn’t I see that she wasn’t herself? She’s burning hot and I’ve made her hike with a 40 pound backpack. She never complained, not even once. Way to go, Gabriel.
She’s out cold. As I look at her, wiping her forehead, there’s a poignant vulnerability about her that catches in my throat.
I dribble water into her mouth and she starts to blink.
“My knee …” she groans, the slight crookedness of her teeth as endearing as the faded orange hair dye.
I look down and it all starts to fall into place. It’s where she cut herself on the hike the day before. It looks infected.
“I can see a Navajo hogan in the distance. We’ll head there and get some rest.”
“A what?”
“Never mind, just lean on me and let me take your weight. We’ll leave our backpacks here. Just sip the water slowly.” I really try, but I can’t stop myself from stroking the side of her face.
We slowly make our way down the path, but I can feel Olivia start to shiver. Damn, I’ve left the backpacks and they’ve got my first aid kit in them, “Not long to go now, Olivia.” I don’t like how pale she looks.
As we get closer, there’s two elderly women sitting outside the hogan, one who looks like she’s weaving a rug. A bunch of small boys are playing nearby. The boys reach me just in time for Olivia to start rigoring, before she collapses.
I’m sitting on a humble metal chair inside a traditional eight-sided Native American hogan made with wood planks and packed dirt, trying to work up the courage to ask an intimidating Navajo medicine man if he has the power to help me with Olivia. Jesus, the sun must have got to me, too.
The rich, deep red clay floor reminds me of a tennis court. A wooly sheepskin rug lies before us, a small American flag is hung on the wall, and there’s a loom with a colorful Navajo rug in the corner.
Over by the door, which faces to the east, the direction of the morning light, where Navajos believe that all good things come from, is a wood-burning stove. The smell of burning cedar fills the crisp winter air and the crackling of the fire punctuates the gaps in our conversation. Even I admit there is an almost mystical aura to the place.
Olivia’s in bad shape. She’s got an out of control skin infection in her left knee and I’m really worried that the infection has seeped into her blood. Miguel going missing is the least of my dad’s problems.
So here I am, surgeon on gardening leave because I went beserk in the operating theatre when I couldn’t save a road traffic accident victim. Delayed grief they all called it after my fiancée Sophie died in a car accident. I was put on enforced bereavement leave and Dad stepped in, telling me his freaking wilderness therapy would help me, too. I admit that helping all these drug-addicted, self-harming, lost adolescents has helped. Being out here, doing all the hikes, seeing reality and nature for what they are have put everything back into perspective for me. But shit, really? Is this what has happened to me? I’m now so desperate that I need to ask a medicine man for his help. I’m scared. I’ll do anything this time.
Sitting in front of me is a seventy-two year old Navajo medicine man, and his grandson, who serves as an interpreter. He speaks some English, but is more comfortable speaking Navajo, an oddly melodic tongue. The baby-faced young man, who I would put at about fourteen years old, is wearing a beanie hat, reminding me of Eminem. He smiles easily when I ask his grandfather questions.
Medicine man is a serious-faced man wearing a blue bandana, a long turquoise necklace and elaborate bracelets. His bulky medicine bag is on the floor between us and it looks like the sort of briefcase a pharmaceutical rep would schlep around hospitals and office parks. Each time I ask a question, he closes his eyes, grimaces and turns his head skyward before relaying his answer in Navajo, often using hand gestures to reinforce his points. It isn’t clear if my questions are annoying him or if he’s channeling some sort of spiritual guidance.
“The girl was hit by lightning, which disturbed her spirit,” he says, when asked about Olivia. “She must not see a dead body. We Navajo are very superstitious, so when we go to a funeral, that interferes with our spirit.”
“So how would you treat someone who is struck by lightning?” I ask.
Medicine man grimaces, tightens his jaw, exhales deeply and is silent for several moments. I can hear the crackling of the fire and a bird squawking in the distance as the anticipation builds.
I ask him if he refers very sick patients to medi
cal doctors and he shakes his head dismissively.
“Most of the time I don’t,” he says. “I can remove and fight witchcraft and illness. I’m a crystal gazer and a hand trembler. I help a lot of patients, even people with cancer. I’m so positive about my ceremonies that I don’t usually recommend doctors.”
Great. I’d better not tell him what I do for a living then.
“There is a ceremony that can be done for this,” he says. “I will go to the Sacred Mountain and ask the elements, all the different gods how to treat the girl. And I will get all those herbs and plants, bring them home and I will give you the medicine bundle. And I will build a fire and talk to the different gods to invite them to the hogan. I will look in my crystal and X-ray the girl with my crystal, from the bottom of her feet to the top of the girl’s head and that’s where these elements and different gods will talk to me and tell me how to treat her.”
I blink incredulously, not at them but at my own self. I have clearly lost my sanity. I need to get back to Olivia who is lying in some sweat hut with a bunch of women she doesn’t know. I know she’ll be terrified if she wakes up and I’m not there.
“After the ceremony, she will have four days where she cannot shower,” he says, after a long pause. “The girl will be covered in herbs and medicines and given some prayers and songs. They will put her back together in one piece. No more broken sheep. All the evil, the taboo will be left behind. It’s helped a lot of people.”
“Sheep?”
“The Navajo way of describing body parts is to use sheep, the main meat source on the reservation,” the kid says.
I’m a skeptic by nature and I’m really not the ‘sit in a circle and bang a tribal drum with people wearing tie-dye and taking peyote’ type of guy. I believe in science and drugs, not spiritualism and native healing. Fuck injectable medications, I’m in the Navajo Nation now.