The Urn Carrier

by Chris Convissor

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll be gone two hours, tops. By the way, the light over the bed went out again.”

  “It has to be a loose wire. Maybe it’s that mouse I saw crawling around . . .”

  “Mouse? Ewwww.”

  Tessa investigates the light, first changing the bulb to make sure it isn’t blown. She checks the circuit by flipping the other light that’s on the same line with it. Paul had done a quick run through the first time she met him on how to trace the lights. He said rodents seemed to like these best.

  She pops the trim over the wiring and examines the insulation on the wire, then she pops the second piece of trim. A baggie and an old-fashioned silver teaspoon handle fall out. The teaspoon has a roach clip soldered on the end where the spoon part should be. Tessa unrolls the skinny baggie. A pot stash!

  “Auntie! I crossed the border with this!” Tessa’s heart is beating really fast. She decides to put this away, unsure if she’ll tell Dina about it, just yet.

  Tessa returns to the wire. Where the silver tool and baggie have been riding, a small fray on the insulation exposes copper wire, just enough to make contact intermittently.

  “Auntie, auntie, auntie,” Tessa says, as she takes black electrical tape and wraps the broken insulation. Would this old soul ever quit surprising her? What other secrets did the rig hold?

  Chapter 23

  TESSA WATCHES DINA pour a second drink. Dina is oblivious. She is consumed with the idea that she is being replaced while on vacation. That the lead professor has found someone else more reliable. She is fretting she is losing status at college.

  “Why did I take so much time?”

  “Do you need to return?”

  Dina looks at her with new hope. “I knew you’d understand.”

  “But I don’t understand. It’s only five more days.”

  “But this is my life. This is my whole life. People are counting on me and I’m not there.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to change everything for just a few days.”

  “This is cutthroat academic level. If I’m not there when the need arises . . . poof . . . I’m out. Just like that. Do you really want me just inputting data on some archaic program for my Masters and Ph.D.? I’ll be relegated to the outside. I won’t be on the cutting edge. There’s so much pressure. But you don’t get it.”

  “Why do you do it, if there’s so much pressure?”

  “Because, I love the competition. I love being on top.” Dina’s eyes are blazing.

  Tessa is unsure if it’s Dina talking or the alcohol. No matter what Tessa says, it’s not right.

  “Oh, sweet pea. It’s not that I don’t love you. Of course I do. I’m sorry. It’s just that I can’t help thinking if I had a better Internet connection, I could know for sure if Dr. Lynch is trying to reach me.”

  “Maybe we should drive down to Jasper.”

  “Can we?”

  “Sure.”

  “And then we can have dinner there, okay? I’ll buy. My treat.”

  Tessa opens the door of the truck, letting Murphy jump into his day bed.

  “Does Murphy have to come?” Dina asks. “It’s an awful long ride for the dog.”

  “That’s just it. If it’s too long, he might need to go out and we’re a couple of hours away.”

  “Well, you have a point.”

  On the way down, Dina is effusive with her love and affection. “Once I know Dr. Lynch doesn’t really need me, then I can focus on just us.” She’s returned to being jovial Dina, full of laughter and energized.

  TESSA DRIVES TO Jasper because it makes Dina happy and Dina talks about everything else but school. She talks about when they will be living together and they’ll have gardens and rocking chairs on the front porch. They laugh about growing old together, and maybe one day having kids.

  At dinner, as they wait for a call back from Dina’s professor, Dina leans across the table, her eyes smoky and full of love. “You know, it’s too bad you didn’t keep what you were born with. We could have had the whole package.”

  Stunned, Tessa says nothing. Sure, Dina had two drinks before the ride down here. And yes she’s had two glasses of wine, but she’s not slurring her words, nor does she seem drunk. But she has just said the absolute worst thing she could have ever possibly said to Tessa.

  A little bit of Tessa dies.

  Dina puts her hand over Tessa’s, right there in public. Dina, the one so afraid of being out. She seems to suddenly realize what she’s said. “I mean we could have kept . . .”

  “No,” Tessa says flatly and pulls her hands away.

  She shakes her head. No.

  No!

  She can’t talk. She can’t make a sound. A gurgle comes out but says nothing. She pushes her chair back and rushes out of the restaurant and blindly walks down the street, looking for the truck. Tears flood her eyes so quickly, she looks the way she hears traffic is coming and sees round, ocular, lights through the distorted lens of her tears, headlights far away, and runs for the cement median in the center of the four lanes, runs for the parking lot she thinks the truck is in, runs from everything Dina has just broken . . .

  “Tessa!” She hears Dina in the far off distance and steps off the median curb, very nearly being hit by a car. Horns honk and people stop and Tessa runs runs runs, crying, sobbing, fleeing.

  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO screaming inside her.

  She fumbles with the keys at the truck and it’s just enough time for Dina to catch her.

  Murphy is nosing the driver’s window, his tail up, alert . . .

  Dina grabs her from behind, her arms locked around her.

  “No.” Tessa is sobbing and falling against the door. “No.” She is falling to her knees, crying sobbing melting unmoving, her gut shot through.

  No

  No

  No

  Dina is on the wet pavement with her. “Baby, baby, baby. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Baby, please.”

  Tessa howls like her soul has been ripped out.

  Her heart breaking into a million pieces of glass, shredding anything left whole in her chest.

  THEY ARE TRAVELING back to the rig in silence. Dina is driving.

  Tessa is numb, Murphy’s head lies in her lap and she is petting him without stopping. Petting him so she’s grounded.

  To her credit Dina says nothing more. That night.

  In the morning, Dina slides wordlessly from her self-imposed exile on the couch into Tessa’s arms. Tessa holds her as the small of Dina’s back pushes gently into her tummy. They spoon.

  In her head Tessa is hearing, “It’soverit’soverit’sover.” But she keeps her heart steady by counting one, two, three, four

  Over

  And over

  And over.

  When the sun has risen high enough, and it’s time to let Murphy out, Tessa shifts and Dina moves to a seated position. Tessa is acutely aware of Dina’s eyes on her back as she slides on her cold damp Levi’s.

  Tessa does not look up when she says, “I’ll be back.” And closes the door.

  She walks Murphy to the back part, beyond where the elk were sleeping the afternoon before and stops short of the pine trees where bears have scratched the pine bark off with long swipe marks, exposing naked yellow flesh of pine and bubbled sap. The deep grooves of sharpened bear claws shredding the fat of the pine tree, belly split wide open.

  She returns to the campsite, and Dina is at the picnic table, smoking a cigarette.

  Dina doesn’t smoke cigarettes.

  Her eyes are red rimmed and she looks the way Tessa’s insides feel.

  Tessa sits at the picnic table as Murphy laps water from his bowl. He comes and rests under the picnic table with a soft “Hummpph.”

  It’s the most anyone’s said all morning.

  “I can’t take it back.” Pragmatic. That’s Dina.

  “An
d I can’t change who I am.”

  But you have.

  The unspoken.

  “I’m finally who I’ve always been and my body matches me.”

  “I know.” Dina nods. “It was a stupid, selfish thing to say.”

  It was much more than that.

  But Tessa remains silent. She’s afraid whatever little bit is holding her together will dissolve if she tries to understand any more than she can bear right now.

  In some form, without words, the rest of their morning is spent readying Dina, and her laptop and the career she so desperately wants, to leave.

  TESSA RETURNS FROM the hotel in Jasper. From there an airport shuttle will deliver Dina to Edmonton for her flight home. As soon as Tessa enters the rig, Murphy begins eating. She looks at him with hollow eyes and attempts some humor. “Well, at least one of us can eat.”

  Chapter 24

  MADELINE WALKS BY the camper that night, hoping to catch the girls outside. Instead she hears muffled sobs. She hesitates knocking, but she hears a small sigh escape, like the last little bit of air, from a balloon.

  “Just a minute.”

  Tessa’s eyes are bloodshot and her hair is pushed in all different directions from having her face buried in her pillow. She has very dark circles around her eyes.

  “Maddy. I look awful. I know.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Yes.” Tessa snuffles.

  Murphy lies by the bed and looks at Madeline. Madeline sits at the table, struck by Murphy’s almost human eyes. They look like they are saying, “Help! Please.”

  It’s obvious to Madeline that what was once two is now one.

  Tessa looks raw. She suddenly jumps up. “I need to offer you tea.”

  “Sit, please. I take it this has something to do with that young woman I met earlier this week?”

  Tessa nods.

  Madeline resists saying anything right away. She gives Tessa time to absorb her presence.

  “I had my heart broken like that once,” she said softly.

  “Y-you?” Tessa glances at Madeline’s silver engagement and wedding rings.

  Madeline thumbs the rings. “Oh, yes. I’ve loved and lost. You can’t live this long and not.”

  “How do you get through it? I thought this was it. I thought . . .” Tessa looks at the ring on her second finger and twists it, but not removing it yet.

  Madeline recognizes her struggling with not wanting to admit it’s all over. “Everyone selects their own path. But I can tell you it gets better.”

  “With time.” Tessa says it by rote.

  “No. It gets better, because there is someone better for you. Someone who will respect you and lift you. Someone who will accept you just as you are and not want to change you.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes. I know you didn’t ask for my advice, but I’m giving it. Go through this grief. Feel it. Don’t numb it or push it down or,” Madeline hesitates, “be with the last person who made a pass at you and settle for them. That won’t work. It never does. It’s predicated on bad ground. Trust me. One day it won’t be so intense. It won’t be every hour. And one week, it won’t be every day.”

  Tessa looks like she’s absorbing this. “I’m thinking about the surgeries I went through,” she whispers. “Sometimes the pain was so intense, but the less painkillers I took, the faster I healed.”

  Madeline nods. “The healing is in the mountains and water around you now.”

  “And some people.” Tessa looks at Madeline.

  “Why thank you.”

  “And Murphy.” Murphy sits up and goes to Tessa.

  “And Murphy,” Madeline agrees.

  THE NIGHT DINA left, and the next night, Tessa cries herself to sleep. When she finally sleeps she has disturbing dreams.

  Most of them are about wet, slimy ground, or surfaces she can’t run on, Jell-O-like ground, unstable. Being in an earthquake. She tries to run and things grab her. A stick leaps out of nowhere and she trips and falls, thorny bushes tug her clothes and scratch her legs. Holes open on what used to be reliable ground. Nothing is certain or stable.

  Sometimes she can’t move and she’s caught, like a rabbit in a snare, like a coyote in one of her father’s traps.

  Her head snaps up.

  The coyote traps and a memory spills out of the wide open crack in her head and her heart.

  Trudging through the snow that day, the wet, sloppy, yucky snow with her dad and Eli.

  Her dad saying, “C’mon, T, pick up your feet. You act like you’re in a tar pit. You too, Eli.”

  “I don’t want to be doing this,” Tessa says.

  “Tough shit. It’s time you become the man you’re meant to be, Teddy.”

  Tessa throws down the coyote traps. “I’m not Teddy! I never was.”

  “Dad, let it go,” Eli says.

  “Shut up, Eli. Stay out of it.” Their father swings and the slap to Eli’s face explodes and echoes up the long valley they are climbing.

  Horrified, Tessa sits up.

  She’s remembering. She can’t remember. Not now.

  She shoves it away. Instead, she starts thinking, “When was the last time I ran?”

  She throws on her shorts and shirt and laces up her shoes. She leashes Murphy to her waist, she begins to run. It must be after midnight, because it’s the darkest she’s ever seen it. Even so, a perimeter of light rims around the portion of sky between the mountains and the trees. As she runs she wonders, “Does it ever really get dark here?”

  And when she sees the entire circumference of the rim of light she knows it’s a light that won’t stop coming in until she remembers everything in every minute detail.

  And then it happens.

  About as far away from the rig as she can be.

  She twists her ankle.

  “TESSA?” MADELINE APPROACHES her.

  Tessa looks up from wrapping her ankle and ducks her head.

  “What happened?”

  “I went for a run last night.”

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  Tessa shakes her head, fighting back tears. “And then this fucking happens. About as far away as I could get.”

  “Oh no. You must have felt so all alone.”

  “It took me a long time to return. I found a stick and used it, but . . .”

  “Honey, you should have called me.”

  “I didn’t have my phone with me. Anyway, it’s not your responsibility . . .”

  “I know, but we all need someone, sometimes. What about calling your mother?”

  “You mean for her to come here?”

  Madeline nods.

  “She can’t afford to take time off work.”

  Because of me. Because of selfish me. Uncle Chuck the fuck is right.

  Madeline doesn’t argue. She just sits with her.

  “I have to drive back to the Saskatchewan River.”

  “Do you want company?”

  Tessa considers this a moment.

  “No.” After the argument with Dina she only scraped together enough ashes for two, maybe three, more ash drops, tops. “Thank you. I’d just as soon go alone.”

  AFTER MADELINE LEAVES, Tessa looks at herself in the mirror. Suddenly, without thinking, she opens the drawer. She removes a pair of scissors. She looks at her image again. Taking a thick lock of her hair in her left hand, she caresses it. She suddenly clenches it. She takes the scissors and cuts, just below her ear lobe.

  She lets the dark, chestnut tress fall, as she methodically cuts, all the way around. Some length of the pink and blond hair join the mass that looks like a small animal at her feet.

  She finishes, gathers all the hair up, and ties a band at each end. She holds the length of hair in each hand, her palms a good six inches apart. She is surprised by the weight of it. The heft of this.

  It is the first time she’s had short hair since . . .

  She shoves that memory away.

  For a moment she holds what was just h
er.

  That Tessa is gone.

  TESSA DRESSES SLOWLY like she is drenched in molasses for the last of the big three hikes in Canada to disperse the ashes. Lethargic, slow, methodical. She opts leaving the iPhone in the rig. She texts Mr. Forsythe and tells him what she’s doing, that she missed the ash drop. That she only has enough ashes for the next two drops. She doesn’t explain how it happened.

  Just this once, she wants to be unfettered and free. Untangled. Unreachable. She breaks down in tears, collapsing to a sitting position on the floor, her ankle throbbing. Murphy is licking her tears. Special abilities.

  Who is she crying for? The family that would be disappointed she missed all those east stops because of Chuck? Herself because of Dina? She almost calls her mom, but her mom is focused on making sure Eli’s freedom is secured. She doesn’t want to burden her about Dina, about the fight, about anything.

  Murphy, at least, can still go with her. She rereads Forsythe’s river explanation. “The Columbia River takes the ashes to the Pacific Ocean, the Saskatchewan to the Atlantic, the Athabasca River to the Arctic Ocean. This one section of drops alone is your Aunt Sadie’s greatest wish fulfilled.”

  Good, because there isn’t much left for any other drops.

  She’d check in with Mr. Forsythe later. She’s blown her college tuition. The family will be pissed. Something will be worked out. Her mom, Eli, and she will undoubtedly be cut out of everything. She’s failed Eli and her mom. Again.

  “So easy a task and you managed to fuck that up too.”

  She hears Chuck’s voice in her head.

  She won’t be able to defend herself. She can’t tell the truth about the ashes to the rest of the family, maybe to her mom one day. But not now. Her mom never trusted Dina to begin with. She’s unsure what she can do anymore. Now she can only hobble with the cane that Madeline had provided her.

  She remembers the athletic man she met on Stone Mountain, and she takes a moment to find the lime green bike cap he gave her. She pulls her pink forelock out, still long enough to show under the backside brim that she wears in front. She moves forward. Determined.