“No,” Ethan said. “I was disappointed when they called off the search. Who wouldn’t be? But I know exactly why they did what they did. And once we found him, we totally understood why the searchers didn’t. He was really hidden well. It would have been almost impossible to find him.”
“Then how did you?”
“Yeah, good question,” Ethan said. “We asked ourselves that a lot. And we asked each other. It was a weird stroke of luck. One of the mules started acting up and drove my mule off into the weeds, and she got her hoof caught on my dad’s fleece jacket. It was one of those things you couldn’t repeat in a million years no matter how hard you tried. And then that was like an arrow pointing to where he went off the trail.”
“But you didn’t call the searchers and ask them to go out on that ledge.”
“No. You can’t get cell reception up there. And Sam’s sat phone wouldn’t get a signal. We were a couple hours from a phone. We didn’t figure we had that kind of time.”
“How did you feel when you saw your dad again?”
Ethan instinctively took a step backward.
“No,” he said. “This is the part I don’t want. I don’t want to tell a bunch of strangers how I feel. It won’t be what they’re expecting anyway. I have to go.”
Ethan signaled to Sam and then headed for the parking lot. At a good clip, considering his legs still felt welded on and mostly immobile.
He purposely didn’t look back to see how the reporter felt about his abrupt departure.
Chapter Eighteen: I Give Up
Eleven days after his father was found
“Thanks for bringing us home,” Ethan said, more or less to both Jone and Sam at the same time.
His father had no comment. On anything. He just stared out the window of Jone’s SUV as the A-frame came into view. He hadn’t said a word since checking out of the hospital.
“Of course,” Jone said.
“We’re not about to leave you on your own with a thing like this,” Sam added.
“It’s just that . . . you’ve both put so much time into this,” Ethan said. “I’ll bet you never guessed what you were getting yourself into when this thing started.”
“We’ve come this far together,” Sam said. “Might as well finish the job right.”
Jone swung the SUV into the A-frame’s driveway and pulled up close to the front door.
“Sam, go get the wheelchair from the back,” she said. “Okay?” She met Ethan’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “When are you and your dad headed back to New York again, Ethan?”
“Monday. We think. But my mom got refundable tickets. Because he has one more medical appointment before then. On Friday. And the doctor has to clear him to make the trip.”
Ethan glanced over at his father, to see how Noah felt about being discussed as if he weren’t in the vehicle at all. Ethan wasn’t doing it on purpose. But Noah seemed distant, and would not engage, and Ethan had no idea how to solve that.
“What time should I pick you two up on Friday?” Jone asked.
“No, you’ve done enough, Jone. I’ll call a cab.”
“Out here? It’ll cost a fortune.”
“You’ve already done so much.”
“Oh, hush. What time?”
“We have to be there at eleven.”
Then there was no more time to talk, because Sam had the door beside Noah open and the wheelchair in position with the brakes on. And it was time for the difficult—and, at least to Ethan, nerve-racking—task of getting Noah from the car into the chair.
Jone took one of Noah’s arms and Sam took the other, and they got him turned around with his back to the open door. Which was a little scary in itself. Ethan hoped his dad knew enough not to move or lean back. But it was impossible to know, because Noah still wasn’t talking.
They did the big transfer, and it was fast. Sam and Jone did the heavy lifting. Ethan just steadied his father’s right leg.
Then it was over, and all they heard from Noah was a pained grunt.
“I can take it from here,” Ethan said when they had helped him get the wheelchair up the front steps.
“You’re sure, now?” Jone asked.
“Yeah. I think so. I mean, I can wheel him into the house. That’s nothing. I might need help getting him into bed tonight.”
“You should let us come in,” Sam said, “and get him into bed right now. I think he’ll be more comfortable there.”
“No,” Noah said.
It was flat, and loud. And sudden. It created its own curtain of silence. Ethan was the one to break through it.
“Why don’t you want to be in bed, Dad?”
“I’m sick of lying in bed. Besides. I might have to go to the bathroom.”
“We have a bedpan.”
“Right. That’s exactly why. That’s just what I don’t want. I don’t want you bringing me a bedpan and emptying it for me. Cleaning up after me like I’m a baby who doesn’t know how to use the potty yet. I’ve been housebroken for forty years, thank you very much.”
Ethan looked into his father’s face, but couldn’t engage his eyes. Noah saw to it that he couldn’t. Ethan looked up at Sam and Jone instead.
Sam shrugged slightly. Jone kept her reactions to herself.
“That doesn’t quite work, Dad. I mean, I can wheel you into the bathroom, or you can wheel yourself in. But I’m not sure how you’re supposed to get from the wheelchair to . . . you know.”
“Can we discuss this in private, Ethan? You know. The two of us?”
“We’ll drop in once or twice later today,” Jone said. “See how you’re doing.”
“Thanks. We’ve got a ton of groceries. Thanks to you guys.”
Ethan watched them pile into the vehicle and turn it around, and drive off down the driveway to the road, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them.
He looked down at his father, who pointedly did not look back. It was just the two of them now.
“If I can wheel myself into the bathroom,” Noah said, “at least I can dump my own bedpan.”
“Okay,” Ethan said. “We can give that a try, anyway. If you’re sure it’s what you want.”
“Quite sure,” Noah said.
Ethan undid the brake on the chair and wheeled his dad into the house. Rufus reared and danced to see Noah, or to see that Ethan was home, or both.
Ethan realized the moment had arrived, the one he and his father had both been dreading. The one Noah had been willing to withdraw five hundred dollars in cash from the bank to solve. They were stuck in this tiny house together. There was absolutely no way out.
But Noah wheeled himself into his bedroom, swinging the door mostly closed behind his wheelchair, and Ethan barely saw him after that.
A good two hours later Ethan heard a big sound from his father’s bedroom. It sounded like a huge, explosive expression of pain.
He ran in to see his father positioning himself on his back on the bed.
Noah looked up into Ethan’s face with exaggerated pride.
“See? I can get from the wheelchair to the bed and back again. By myself. So tell your friends they’re no longer needed.”
“They’ll still be stopping by.”
“Whatever. You can keep them out there with you.”
Ethan shook his head. More of a comment on his father’s behavior than he should have let show. Than he would have let show if he’d been thinking better. He turned to leave.
“Ethan. Wait. I need more of those painkillers.”
Ethan looked at his cheap watch. As always, the gesture was punctuated by a pang of loss and old, stale fear.
“You’re not due again for another two and a half hours.”
“But I need them now.”
“But the doctor was very specific. This is a scary-high dosage he has you on. He told me to hold on to the pills and be careful how I dispensed them.”
A silence. Ethan could feel his father’s mood crackle. In the past, it would have frightened h
im. Now all he had to do was walk away if things got too bad. And even if he didn’t walk away, well . . . he just wasn’t afraid of the man anymore. Things between Ethan and his father weren’t anything like they had ever been. Ethan wasn’t quite sure what they were. Just that they were new.
“You’re dispensing my medication now?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Because this wasn’t demoralizing and emasculating enough for me?”
“Because the doctor suspects you’ve been taking a lot of painkillers for a long time. And that you might take a harmful dose . . . maybe even a fatal one . . . you know . . . because of having such a high tolerance.”
Another silence. Ethan glanced at his father, who pointedly did not glance back.
“Are you asking me if that’s true?” Noah said after a time.
“Sure,” Ethan said. “Why not?”
“Nobody my age does what I do—what I did, I mean—without painkillers.”
“I’m not sure that’s right,” Ethan said. “But either way, you’ve got yourself in a bind where no safe amount is enough. There’s not much I can do about that. Why did you take so many pills? You weren’t already injured, were you?”
“Depends on what you call injured. I had shin splints and a pulled hamstring. And anything over twelve miles, my knees would swell up.”
“I can think of a way to solve that. Only run eleven miles.”
“Not how I solve things,” Noah said. “But I sure solved it now, didn’t I? Because I’m fresh out of knees.”
“Give me a yell if you need anything,” Ethan said, pulling the door closed behind himself.
“I need another of those pills,” Noah yelled through the door.
“Two and a half hours,” Ethan called back.
Ethan wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed between that unpleasant exchange and the knock on the A-frame’s door. Maybe an hour. Maybe less.
He assumed it was Sam, or Jone. Or both. So he moved to open the door with a lightness in his heart and gut. Because seeing them would be just what he needed. Their calm, helpful energy would erase the bad taste left over from dealing with his dad. Or so Ethan hoped.
He threw the door wide.
Standing on his stoop was Ranger Dave.
The ranger had his hat in his hands, in more ways than one. He literally held his wide-brimmed ranger hat in front of his belly. But he also carried his head slightly down, his eyes averted, like a man forced into a conciliatory, hat-in-hands gesture.
“Oh,” Ethan said. “It’s you.”
“If I shouldn’t be here, I’ll go. I mean . . . I shouldn’t be here. In an official sense I probably shouldn’t be. I guess I came here more as me and less as a ranger. But if you don’t want me here, I’ll turn and walk away right now. It’s not my intention to intrude.”
“No, it’s okay. You want to come in?”
“This won’t take that long. I just wanted to apologize. Unofficially.”
“I understand why things happened the way they did,” Ethan said.
“It was very generous of you, the way you said in the paper that you didn’t blame us. I wanted to thank you for that. Unofficially.”
“No problem.”
“It’s a hard thing to deal with. For us, I mean. For me. Having been so wrong.”
Ethan didn’t answer. Because he had no idea what he could say to alleviate that feeling. Or even if it was his job to do so.
“You sure you don’t want to come in?”
“No. I’m almost done here. I just want to say I’m glad your father is okay. And, yeah, he was hidden. He would have been really hard to find. Even if we had stayed out there, I’m not sure if we ever would have found him, given where it turned out he was. But I see now we should have kept trying. I think what I feel worst about is how I misjudged him.”
“Misjudged him?”
“Yes. I think you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do,” Ethan said.
Behind Ranger Dave, Ethan saw the tiny dot of Sam’s pickup moving up the road in his direction. It made his gut feel lighter and less pinched.
“I thought he was this rotten guy who just took off on you. I guess I formed a mental picture of him based on a few facts we uncovered. I’m sorry for thinking your dad was a rotten guy.”
“My dad is a rotten guy,” Ethan said.
That sat clumsily in the air for a time, stopping the conversation.
Ethan glanced over his shoulder into the house. He wasn’t even sure why. Had there been a small sound? Maybe.
His father was there, in his wheelchair, not three steps behind where Ethan stood—off to one side, where the open door had blocked the ranger’s view of him. Close enough to hear everything. Ethan didn’t know how long he’d been back there. But in another way, by the look on Noah’s face, he knew.
Sam’s truck turned into the A-frame’s driveway, and Ethan was pleased to see that it was both of them coming to check in. Both Sam and Jone.
Ranger Dave glanced over his shoulder at the truck, then set his hat back on his head. He nodded a quick good-bye to Ethan and hurried to his big white SUV.
Ethan looked around at his dad again.
“Sorry,” he said. “But . . . this is Sam and Jone, so if you really don’t want to see them . . .”
Noah wheeled his chair backward, turned it fairly skillfully, and disappeared back into his bedroom. Without comment.
The next word Ethan heard from his father came more than ten hours later. It woke Ethan from a filmy and confused sleep.
“Ethan?”
Ethan sat up in bed. The moon was just a light crescent through his window, and he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimness.
“I’ll be right there, Dad.”
Rubbing his eyes, hopping slightly on the cold floorboards, Ethan made his way to his father’s bedroom, Rufus trotting faithfully behind.
As he opened his father’s bedroom door, he half expected to find Noah on the floor, or in some other disastrous position or situation. But his dad was only sitting up in bed. Noah had turned on the soft light of a bedside lamp. His face looked much more conciliatory than Ethan remembered having seen it. Maybe even ashamed or afraid.
“I give up,” Noah said. “I need the bedpan.”
A thin layer of the ice around Ethan’s heart melted. Because his dad looked and sounded so helpless. And because it was so rare for Noah to drop his big-man act.
“Sure,” Ethan said. “Good decision.”
He padded away to fetch it from the one small bathroom.
“Thanks,” Noah said, as Ethan carried it back into the room. “It just hurts too much when I try to move around.”
“I never suggested you try to move around.”
“I know,” his dad said. “I get it. I know whose idea that was.”
“I’ll just leave you alone with this for a minute. And, look. I’m sorry for what I said today.”
Ethan watched his father’s face for any sign of emotion. But Noah had a flawless poker face. Always had.
“To the ranger, you mean.”
“Right.”
“No, you’re not. You’re not sorry.” He didn’t seem angry. Ethan waited for a flare of anger. But it seemed there was nothing there. “You’re sorry I heard it.”
“Yes. I’m sorry you heard it.”
“But you’re not sorry you said it. And you don’t have to be. It’s not required. If you’d made a statement that was malicious or . . . well, let’s face it, false . . . then it would be appropriate to apologize. But if it’s only the damn truth . . .”
“I’m just going to leave you alone to—”
“Wait. Before you go.”
Ethan waited. But nothing seemed to happen.
“What is it, Dad?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what, exactly?”
“All of it. Everything. Specifically . . . you know. I don’t want to say her name, but you know where I’m going with
this. But all the other stuff, too. Including the stuff you don’t know about.”
“Let’s just leave it that way, okay? I don’t need to know.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Ethan turned to leave again.
“Wait,” his father said. “Also thank you. You know. For the fact that I’m still here to say thank you.”
Ethan stared at his dad for a long time. Probably too long. Part of him was wanting to believe what had just happened. Another part was waiting for a catch. But there didn’t seem to be one. The apology seemed sincere.
“You’re welcome,” he said. He probably should have said more. But that was all he could manage.
“Boy, this whole thing sure didn’t turn out the way I pictured it.”
“What whole thing?”
“My life. My adventures. The whole extreme sports thing. I figured I’d do it for another two years, or ten years. Or maybe twenty. And then one day I’d slip off a trail and that would be that. I remember when I was falling. Just in that split second. I thought, well, I was hoping for later, but I knew this was how it would turn out. And then I was lying there for days wondering why that wasn’t the end. Why things didn’t work out the way I planned.”
“Life never turns out the way anybody plans,” Ethan said. “It almost doesn’t pay to plan.”
“See, it’s depressing that you know that and I don’t.”
“I’ll just get that bedpan in the morning.”
Ethan let himself out, leaving the door open in case his father needed anything else in the night, and made his way back to his own room.
“You didn’t say anything,” Noah called just as Ethan was tucking back under the covers.
“About what?” Ethan called back.
“I said I was sorry. And you didn’t say anything.”
Ah, Ethan thought. Here’s the moment.
It’s hard, he realized, when someone asks you straight-out for forgiveness. Truthfully, he thought, it’s not a fair request. It’s not fair to repeatedly hurt someone and then pressure them to let you off the hook.
And Ethan felt disinclined to lie.
“Thank you for being sorry,” Ethan called. “It feels like progress. And I’m really happy that you’re glad to be saved. That means a lot to me. Will that do for now?”
Leaving Blythe River: A Novel Page 28