The Blue Hour
Page 21
Beers were poured and drinks made and Angela and Korina started bringing everything out to fill the big center table—chili and cornbread and cinnamon rolls. Lillie helped herself first—she was hungry for a real meal, having not gone into town recently—and as she ate, she overheard the fragments:
“She’s seven, I heard,” Ollie said.
“First grade next year, because she’s a year behind,” Celeste said.
“Maybe she’s actually his child. You know, from some previous girlfriend,” Korina said. “A baby that probably wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” That was from Angela, who was bringing out two new pitchers, one lemonade, one beer. “I mean, wouldn’t that be nice, to have a plan?”
“No, it would not,” said Violet, who, Lillie noticed, had cut her gray hair short and spiky, and had let Korina double-pierce her ears. “Having a plan sets you up for disappointment.”
“We’re all settling.” This came from Ruben, who, Lillie knew, was referring to the fact that a new vet had expressed interest in buying the clinic, a woman ready to get away from the city and move with her partner to the mountain. This new vet had already said that Ruben was welcome to stay on as the vet tech, and everyone was relieved about this news, particularly Anya, who needed the sale of the clinic for financial reasons, and particularly everyone, who needed a vet and couldn’t imagine life without Ruben.
The door dinged. It was Zach, who announced, “Earlier today, through the snow, I saw two bald eagles and a golden eagle eating a dead goose! It was a sight to see, I tell you!”
There was the start of a cheer, since no one really knew what to do with that piece of information, but then the door dinged again, and it was Antoinette with her grandkids, a big whoosh of cold air and color, and right after came Gretchen and Anya with her kids, and there was the flurry and chattering and the children ran off to the new pinball machine that Sergio had bought and put in the back, all proceeds to benefit the fire department.
“I have a pit bull,” Lillie suddenly said. “I found him locked up. Anyone want him?”
Dandelion gasped, as Lillie knew she would. “Luce didn’t take BW when he left?”
“No, left him in a crate. Good thing I went over to check. To see what the barking and howling was all about. You want him?”
“No,” Dandelion said, but she was suddenly crying a bit, and Flannery went up and hugged her.
“Well, I don’t want him eating my chickens. Or bothering the cats. But perhaps he won’t. We’ll see.”
That’s when Gris took a quiet moment to announce that she was moving into the old trailer, the one that had been occupied by Dandelion and Luce. This was because she needed her own space to read and daydream—it was exactly what she wanted.
Then several spoke of the lazuli bunting, which had made even the national papers, and Audubon magazine would be running a little story.
That made them speak of the radio story about the bears, which ended in a segment of Wyn huffing and grunting and crawling, backward, out of the bear den and quoting a line of poetry about refusing to go smoke’s way, by which she meant never letting your life drift by, which caused Ollie to stand up, hold his beer, and quote T. S. Eliot, a poem about water out of sunlight, which caused Zach to stand and quote Elizabeth Bishop, the shooting stars in your black hair, which made Gretchen pause, and announce that next month there would be a blue moon, and that Walt Whitman used the moon to reflect on the inner lives of people, which are hard to get at. And did you know? Blue moons are created from the eleven extra days accumulated each calendar year, and it’s said that the blue moon offers particular assistance to those who need it and ask, which she was doing on behalf of everyone on the mountain.
That caused Wendell to speak up about a phenomena called the Rayleigh scattering, and how Lady Tennyson wondered about the color blue, and how Lord Rayleigh had studied that question in Australia, and how things at a distance will always appear some shade of blue, an optical phenomenon. While he was talking, Lillie rolled her eyes and muttered about his scattered junk turning red from rust and went to the memorial to read what else had been put up.
SY TAUGHT ME TO FISH
SY TAUGHT ME THE NOISE OF CRANES
SY MADE US LATE FOR A HOUSE CALL BECAUSE HE WAS
WATCHING BLUEBIRDS.
From there, Lillie turned around and spoke up suddenly and in a nervous rush. “Joe’s brother-in-law died! Of cancer! This happened soon after Sy died. This man, whose name was Tate, and who was a musician, was a single father, in Denver, because Joe’s sister had already died in a car crash years ago. This child is Joe’s niece. Joe, after much deliberation, adopted her. He didn’t talk about it much because, well, we all know Joe. More of a listener than a talker! And because he wasn’t sure it was gonna take, and why introduce something to this gossipy community if it wasn’t worth the trouble?” Lillie looked around the room at the startled faces, particularly at Gretchen, who knew all of this already. “They’ll be here soon. Her name is Honey, and she’s going to need us. We’re going to help her. We’re all going to help each other a little bit more.”
Everyone took a moment to absorb the fact that Lillie had spoken so much. Violet leaned over to steal Ollie’s bread, and he raised his eyebrow, pretending annoyance. Jess looked at Ruben and then down at the ring on her finger. Korina said, “Plans are best kept quiet, anyway. They always change.” Meanwhile, Flannery was looking out the window, and Dandelion went to touch her shoulder. Angela and Wyn had their heads ducked together, whispering something.
A blur of activity at the door meant that now the mountain would be complete. Joe and Honey. Everyone stood up to greet them, and Joe held Honey up in his arms. “I present Honey to you all!” and then there was the hubbub of hellos and introductions and someone’s water glass spilled and coats were taken off and snow stamped from feet. There was the surprise of seeing Honey hoisted in the air like that, and folks wondered if she’d be scared or burst out crying, but she was laughing, having just been tickled. She had red cheeks and red snow boots and two red barrettes that flew up, along with her blond hair, when she reached the top of Joe’s swing and started her descent. As soon as Joe set her down she shot toward Lillie, who gathered her up in her arms.
Lillie hugged Honey, whom she’d spent a lot of time with in the last week, as Joe worked on a back bedroom and installed a washing machine. Lillie had also started meeting with Anya, for therapy, at her own home, and Anya had explained about the chemistry of what might make Lillie so uncomfortable, about cortisol, about general anxiety disorder, which seemed so much worse after Sy, and about agoraphobia, which also seemed worse, and now she had a medication, which she’d only just started. But she felt now that she could be braver; she was going to engage.
Honey leaned backward into her. There would be a pattern to this, Lillie realized, just like there were two blue hours to every day, sunrise and sunset, an alpha and an omega, and the pattern held them all. Sometimes the pattern would weaken and loosen, but then it would be re-braided. She hugged the child and looked around. Noted the particular way in which Thayne rubbed Celeste’s neck with one hand, the manner in which Gretchen greeted Joe kindly and handed him a beer, how Violet took Ollie’s hand, how Jess hugged Ruben from behind, heard Honey shyly say hello and ask Zoë for the story of the bear. She saw Anya look at Sy’s photo on the wall, and all the scraps of paper tacked around it, and then out the window, at the moon. No gunshots would ring out tonight, the bears were sleeping, and the full moon was going to bathe them in light just tinged with blue.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my readers and guides and keepers of the light: My agent, Jody Kahn, a gracious and tenacious soul. Dan Smetanka, an editor with an eye for the story under the story and the ability to call it forth. To the best of readers and friends: Laura Resau, Karye Cattrell, Kevin Coldiron, Todd Mitchell, Rick Bass, Rachel Maizes, Laura Katers, Mary Lea Dodd, Barbara
Clark, Kurt Gutjahr, Mark Easter, Mary Dean, Jake Pritchett, and Eliana Pritchett. To Megan Fishmann and everyone at Counterpoint Press for doing beautiful work and caring about beautiful books. And to booksellers, librarians, and my readers: thank you.
Thank you to the following journals and magazines for printing versions of these chapters:
“County Road,” DoveTales, 2016
“This Imaginary Me,” Split Infinitive, 2014
“Recipe: I Am the Devil,” The Normal School, 2011
“Plan B,” High Desert Journal, 2011
“The Color of the Impression,” The Rocky Mountain News, reprinted in the book A Dozen on Denver, Johnson Books, 2010
“Under the Apple Tree,” The Sun, 2006, reprinted in the book The Mysterious Life of the Heart: Writing from The Sun about Passion, Longing, and Love, 2009
“Painting the Constellations,” The Normal School, 2008
“Last Bid,” The Sun, 2000
About the Author
Laura Pritchett began her writing journey with the short story collection Hell’s Bottom, Colorado, which won the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Milkweed National Fiction Prize. This was followed by the novels Sky Bridge, Stars Go Blue, and Red Lightning, which garnered numerous literary awards, including the High Plains Book Award and the WILLA. She’s also editor of three anthologies: Pulse of the River, Home Land, and Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers. She also has two nonfiction books: Great Colorado Bear Stories and Making Friends with Death, Kind Of. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, O Magazine, Salon, High Country News, The Sun, Orion, and many others. She holds a PhD from Purdue University and teaches around the country. Learn more at www.laurapritchett.com.