Looking for Eagles

by Savannah Swan

  Jena had no idea what she was going to do about college. Maggie had convinced her to put some east coast schools on her shortlist, but she wasn’t sure her parents would help pay for them if she applied. They’d actually shared their opinions about where she should go, and they thought she should stay in Texas.

  There were plenty of good schools in Texas, but none of them were going to bring her closer to Maggie.

  Instead, her best bet was probably to do a couple of years of community college and then try to transfer to a four-year institution outside the state. It hurt her head just thinking about it. And she didn’t want to think about it, but time was inexorably moving forward, indifferent to the lives of people like her. She had to get her shit together before she was swept forward in a tide she couldn’t control.

  At least there was one more year of high school left. But this was the last summer she had with Maggie, unless they managed to get to the same college. But she hadn’t told Maggie that the chances of that happening were slim. There was no reason, in her parents’ opinion, that they should pay to send her so far away when she could get a great education at a state school or community college right in Texas.

  There was nothing inherently wrong with going to community college, but if she went, she’d be stuck at home with parents, instead of getting the dorm experience. That would take even more of a toll on her mental health. If she spent another day in that loveless house than she had to already, she didn’t know what she’d do. She already had the distinct impression that she was unhappier than some of her school friends because of it.

  Maybe she could try to get into UT Austin or some school her parents would approve of. Then, at least, she’d be away from them. Maybe she could even try to seek out other students like her—queer students, atheist students. She could try to figure out who she really was when she wasn’t under their roof.

  Jena shook her head. There was no point thinking about all of that now. Her time with Maggie was ticking away with every second. A deeply-rooted anxiety in her heart told her that she would never see Maggie again—the one person who truly loved her and cared for her. Correction: the one person alive. Jena couldn’t let go of this anxiety, but she’d instead carried it in her heart for the past few months, and it became more acute the closer they got to this day.

  It was lunch time now, and after that, there were just a few hours of free time for the older kids—with the end of camp ceremony thrown in. Jena and Maggie planned to spend all of it together, as soon as they could peel away from their cabin groups.

  As soon as she finished her sandwich, Jena got the hell out of there and spotted Maggie chatting with some other kids outside.

  “Hey, there you are,” said Maggie, her face shining with a smile that Jena knew was covering up her inner sadness. They were both profoundly depressed. It was like this every year, but now they knew there wasn’t going to be another summer like this.

  Jena could hardly handle it. They’d gone back and seen the eagles, who’d been there reliably every summer since they’d discovered them, they’d spent time at the flat rocks and the secret beach, and they’d immersed themselves in the woods, knowing they were never coming back.

  Jena wanted to cry, but she knew she had to hold it together.

  “So, we have each other’s email addresses and phone numbers and everything, right?” asked Maggie.

  “Right,” said Jena. “I’ve got all your information in my notebook in my backpack. I know exactly where it is.”

  “Good. I know we’re not great at keeping in touch through the school year, but you’ve gotta keep in touch with me about college applications. We might be able to swing something that works for both of us,” said Maggie, her eyes glimmering with hope.

  Jena didn’t want to quash that hope. “Sure,” she said, unwilling to come clean about what her parents had said about remaining in Texas. She didn’t want to sour their last hours together.

  “Good. And even if we don’t end up in the same school, or same area, we’ll keep in touch until we can be in the same place,” said Maggie. “It’s a plan.”

  “It’s a plan,” agreed Jena, though deep down, she felt sick with fear. Her heart pounded, and her hands felt clammy. When Maggie’s parents came to pick her up, would that be the last time? She couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was overwhelming.

  “What do you wanna do now?” asked Maggie. “There’s only a couple more hours until the ceremony and we have to make them count.”

  “We could go see the eagles again,” said Jena. “I’d like to do that. Since, you know, we’re never going to come back here.”

  Hold it together, she told herself. Come on. She couldn’t let a single tear spill now. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She didn’t want to spend her last moments with Maggie a bawling mess. How pathetic would that be?

  They made their way down the trail to the secret beach, but Jena was silent the whole time, listening to Maggie chatter about all her plans for senior year. Jena could only half-listen; she was thinking about how her life was never going to be the same again. There was no way her life was ever going to be this good, not if Maggie wasn’t in it. At all costs, she had to keep in touch with Maggie.

  But it seemed like such a tenuous connection. How good was email and the phone? It just didn’t seem reliable. And on top of having to lose Maggie, she had to deal with this whole growing up business. She’d go to college, and she’d be on her own. Of course, she was itching to get out from under her parents’ roof, and she thrilled at the thought of all that independence, but she couldn’t imagine that it would actually happen. That any of it would happen. These sorts of things came true for people like Maggie, who had loving, tightly-knit families. Jena was, and always had been, on her own.

  “Look, there they are,” said Maggie, as they came up to the clearing and stepped out toward the beach. The beer bottles and cigarette butts, Jena was glad to see, had been cleaned up, though the ashes of a makeshift campfire remained.

  She looked up in the direction Maggie was pointing. As usual, the eagles were out hunting. It was so easy to find them that Jena found it absurd that the counselors hadn’t believed them. Surely, if they came out here, they’d spot them just as easily.

  They had a seat on the circle of logs, sitting closely together, holding hands, pressing their bodies up against each other.

  Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, Jena told herself. Big girls didn’t cry. That was what her dad had said, anyway, that one time she’d fallen off her bike when she was a kid. She’d tried not to cry in her parents’ presence ever since, and she’d done a pretty good job.

  Maggie must have noticed that she was trying to hold her tears in, because she turned toward her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just sad, you know. I mean, I hope we keep in touch, but… I’m scared. I’m scared of the future,” said Jena, sighing.

  “Me too. But isn’t it going to be great to go to college? You’ll get to be free!”

  “That’s true. But it’s going to be so different.”

  “Different isn’t bad. Different can be good, especially when it means you don’t have to live with parents who don’t treat you well,” said Maggie. “I mean, my parents are actually nice to me and I still can’t wait to be on my own.”

  Jena chuckled, though the sound came out weird, like a half-stifled sob.

  “You’ll be all right,” continued Maggie. “You’ll find your way. It’ll happen, somehow.”

  “Somehow.” Jena sighed again.

  They continued watching the eagles until the birds managed to find fish and sit on their perches. One of the eagles went back for another fish, and they watched it dive again and again.

  Jena couldn’t at all understand how people felt God’s love when they sat out in nature. This was all the creation of nature itself—hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, all the science and knowledge humans had gathered… It couldn’t all be explained away by God, even if not al
l Christians believed in the creation story. It just didn’t seem plausible at all.

  But right now, Jena had a niggling doubt in the back of her mind. What if there was a chance God was real? A tiny, tiny, off chance? Over the past few years, she’d cemented her atheism, but atheism didn’t have any answers for a girl who was scared and alone and lost. Her parents weren’t there for her, and nor was God, who she couldn’t bring herself to believe in. Atheism had a lot of answers for other things, but when she felt scared about her future, who could she turn to? Not science. Science didn’t have answers for questions about how she felt.

  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if she said a little prayer, just in case, to hedge her bets. Please God, she thought, if you are real, please send Maggie to me again. Please let me find her again. I don’t want to be alone.

  That was it—she didn’t want to be alone. Maybe that was partially why people believed in God—they wanted to feel connected to something. It would be nice, she thought, to feel like you were connected to something greater.

  But she didn’t need God to feel like she was connected to nature. She was an animal, after all, even if people generally pretended they weren’t animals. She knew she was a part of the greater natural world. That was why she loved spending time by herself in the forest, and why she enjoyed sitting out on the back porch of her grandfather’s ranch—she felt connected to the natural world—its complexity, its stillness, the vibrant life she could feel around her.

  But that didn’t help her feel any less alone in this moment.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Maggie.

  “I’m fine. I’ll be fine, anyway,” said Jena. “I just have to get through this day… this year…”

  This life, she thought to herself.

  “Come on, it’s not so bad. The older you get, the more in charge of your life you’ll be. Imagine having your own apartment in college, where you can do whatever you want. Eat ice cream for breakfast, and all that.” Maggie laughed and playfully pulled her close.

  Jena sniffed and smiled. Maggie was sweet, trying to cheer her up, but no one was going to be able to cheer her up from this.

  Jena looked up into the parted clouds, which revealed the strong afternoon sun. The light glittered off the surface of the water.

  If God did hear her prayer, and if He did answer it… That’d be something. Maybe it’d even be enough for Jena to revise her opinion.

  Please, she prayed. Please bring Maggie back to me again.

  She rested her head on Maggie’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

  26

  Jena

  “You did it?” asked Maggie, eyes wide. “You actually did it?”

  “Yep.” Jena grinned. “I told them they have me for two more weeks after I return to Austin, because I liked Philly so much I wanted to come back.”

  “How’d they take it?”

  “It’s a corporate job.” Jena shrugged. “They were just like, okay, whatever. I’m going to have to work hard when I get back to make sure everything is set up for the next person they hire, but it was a lot easier than I’d anticipated.”

  “Awesome. What about the house?” Maggie came over and sat down next to her on the couch.

  “I can’t decide if I want to sell it or rent it out. It could be a good investment property because of the location and its condition… Either way, I’ve already contacted one of my coworker’s wives, who’s a realtor, so I’m going to meet with her when I get back so I can move forward.”

  “I can’t believe you’re really doing it,” said Maggie.

  Jena was silent for a moment—should she tell Maggie her little secret? Yes. It was a good time.

  “Maggie, I’ve said only one prayer in my life. One prayer that I really meant, anyway.”

  “What’s that?” Maggie raised an eyebrow. Of course, she hadn’t been expecting Jena to say this.

  “That final summer at River Rocks, when we were sitting and watching the eagles for the last time, I felt absolutely awful. I thought I’d never see you again, and I almost didn’t, so I wasn’t wrong… But I said a prayer, just one prayer to hedge my bets. I asked God to bring you back to me again.”

  Jena looked away, a little embarrassed by her confession. It seemed kind of dumb in retrospect, but then, she was a kid—a pretty miserable kid—and Maggie had been one of the few people to show her true intimacy and kindness. Of course she’d been scared to let her go, and of course she’d been desperate enough to say a prayer.

  Saying a prayer was harmless, though. There was nothing wrong, no shame, in making a wish. That was what it had been.

  And miraculously, it had come true.

  “That’s… that’s beautiful, honey,” said Maggie, putting an arm around Jena. “I can’t believe the one prayer you ever made got answered.”

  Jena laughed. “Exactly! That’s the funniest part. It happened. Years later, it happened.”

  “It really is a miracle.”

  “Yep. I got one miracle in my life, and this was it.”

  Jena leaned over and kissed Maggie sweetly on the lips. “Now that I’m going to be living here, we’re going to have to make some changes.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened in fake surprise. “What? What kind of changes?”

  “For one thing, we’re going to have cuddles every day. Twice a day, in fact. Morning and evening. And night, too, so that’s three. Cuddles before work, cuddles after work, and cuddles before bed.”

  Maggie laughed. “You are too adorable. No one would ever expect someone like you to be so cuddly.”

  “I am the cuddliest,” said Jena, leaning back in her seat and into Maggie’s embrace. “I say it’s a house rule.”

  “It’s a good rule. What about the other changes?”

  “We make dinner for each other twice a week. One night is yours, and one night is mine. So we can treat each other.”

  Maggie looked at her like her heart was melting. “That is also incredibly adorable.”

  Jena shrugged. “That one time I cooked for you… I loved it. I think I’ve discovered that I love cooking for people.”

  “No complaints here. I can only hope my cooking will be half as good as yours,” said Maggie.

  “That’s it for house rules for now,” said Jena, smiling. “I’m sure that when I finally move in here in April or May or whenever I leave Austin for good, we’ll come up with more.”

  “I approve of these rules which you’ve instituted, even though it’s my house,” said Maggie.

  “Good. I’ve also been thinking that I’m going to apply to jobs at nonprofits,” continued Jena.

  “I’m glad to hear that. Any kind of nonprofits in particular?”

  “I don’t know.” Jena shrugged again. “I just want to do good in the world, you know? Something to help LGBT youth would be awesome, or some kind of LGBT charity in general, but I’ll go wherever they’ll take me. There’s a lot that’s wrong with the world and there’s a lot of organizations that need someone who’s good with finances.”

  “Exactly. That’s perfect. It’s like being a graphic designer or administrative assistant or accountant—pretty much every organization is going to need you at some point,” said Maggie.

  “Mmhm. I’ve started looking at listings and I’ve sent out a few emails, telling people I’ll be available in the spring. My boss is willing to give me a good recommendation.”

  “What about the money, though? Nonprofits don’t pay as well.”

  “What did I ever accomplish by earning a lot of money?” said Jena. “I have healthy investments, and the house, and that’s it. I never traveled, I never bought myself a fancy car, I never had kids… I never used my money for anything except to make more money.”

  “True,” said Maggie.

  “Maybe I can help you pay off this house. Maybe it’ll be ours, together,” said Jena.

  “Yeah, that’d be lovely. I’ll tell my friends to keep their eyes open for job listings, too.”

  “Thank
s. I’m confident I can find something eventually, since I actually have good experience,” said Jena. “Things are looking up for this year.”

  “I’m confident, too, not just because I’m sure you have a killer résumé, but also because you’re you.” Maggie threw her arms around Jena and squeezed tightly.

  Jena was never going to get tired of that feeling, and now she was going to be able to feel it every day. She relished it and returned the hug. The two women just held each other tightly.

  The best part of this hug was knowing there were many more like it in Jena’s future. She was never going to be starved for touch, starved for affection, or starved for love ever again—not as long as she had Maggie.

  “I’m still stuck on the story you told me about saying a prayer,” said Maggie.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s so unlike you. I always thought you were like, the ultimate skeptic.”

  “I mean, I am still an atheist. I can’t bring myself to believe in God,” said Jena, “but a prayer is like a wish, isn’t it? Some people believe there’s another entity out there, a deity, who will fulfill that wish, and some people don’t.”

  “Kind of,” said Maggie. “Anyway, there’s something I’ve been praying for recently… I didn’t want to mention it, but I figured it was about time.”

  “What?” Jena hadn’t the slightest clue what Maggie could mean. It seemed like they had everything already.

  “I kind of… I was thinking it’d be nice if we could have kids. Not now, of course, since you know, we’re still getting settled. But I’ve been praying for a baby. A baby I could raise with you.”

  Jena’s eyes widened. She’d never even considered having kids, not because she didn’t want them—she did—but because she never thought she’d be lucky enough to find someone who’d have them with her.

  “What? Did I say something wrong? Do you actually not want kids at all?” asked Maggie, who actually seemed somewhat worried.

  “No, it’s not that. I just never even allowed myself to want kids,” said Jena. “I mean, it wasn’t like I’d ever been with a partner with whom it seemed like it could happen.”