Her mother spies an agate. “Oh, have you ever seen one so pretty?” She touches it lovingly, fawns over it, and pockets it. She finds another rock, this one large and blood red from the iron ore in the water and removes an end of chalk from her pocket.
“Mom?”
“You don’t mind I borrowed from your supply do you?”
Tessa shakes her head no and watches her mother curiously.
Her mom initials the rock with BW + TW. She places it, letters up, in the midst of other lettered rocks. People in every region have a different way of commemorating relationship. In Oregon, against the high sand walls of an undercut incline. In Arizona, the petroglyphs, in The Upper Peninsula on red rocks at the shores of Lake Superior. All along the way, Tessa recalls initials over a large boulder in New Mexico, carved in trees along the Mississippi near the Indian Marker trees. The Piasa and Thunderbird in the limestone cliffs. Whether present day or past, humans have made their scrawl, their mark—petroglyphs above pools of water outside Apache Junction, on train trestles and overpasses, on city walls, in caves in France.
“Now we are here forever.” Her mom smiles.
Together they do the ceremony. Her mom uses the eagle feather they were given in Idaho, cleanses them both, and then indicates Tessa to take over.
“You’re the Elder.”
“You were given the ashes.”
So Tessa acknowledges the four directions. She gives thanks to the five elements and silently closes her eyes and asks for her Great Aunt Sadie to come in, and anyone else, any guides to come. Doing ceremony with her mom amps up the intensity of the moment. She senses Great Aunt Sadie is standing right behind her as she pours the ashes from the beautiful vase into the waters of Lake Superior, burning the remnants of her hair and letting it go also.
She looks over her shoulder from her crouched position and sees her mom, her eyes closed, a smile around the corners of her mouth. In this light, Tessa swears she is seeing herself.
Her mother is so beautiful.
Tears spring to Tessa’s eyes.
And so are you.
“And so am I,” Tessa whispers. Some part of her is healing.
LATER THAT NIGHT, in the raucousness of a nearly full campground, Tessa and her mom enjoy s’mores over their campfire. They share a beer. Light banjo music comes from a few camp sites away. Long after they retire, the young men that were ingesting Jell-O shots in the site next door are yelling and banging.
They left their food out in bear country.
They’re running around with iPhones and cameras, trying to chase the cubs.
Tessa flies out of the rig in an instant.
“Stop it!” she shouts, running in front of them and giving the cubs time to scramble away.
The three boys square off in front of her.
One of them sneers. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m camping next to you.”
“So what?” One of them brushes aside her and she grips his arm with unyielding strength. Not letting go.
He tries to rip his arm away. “What the fuck?”
She releases him. She’s trembling with barely controlled rage.
She sees the boy’s fists ball up.
He rushes his face too close to hers, attempting to bully her backward, and she stays rooted to the earth. His alcohol breath circles them both like smoke from a fire.
“Are you even a girl?” He attempts a guttural and growling tone, but he’s sloppy, weak, and drunk.
Suddenly he’s yanked backward, feet off the ground, as if he’s hit a live, electric line. An older guy with greying long hair and tattoos, has uprooted him unapologetically.
“Do what she says. Leave those cubs alone. Are you guys fucking idiots?”
A crowd has gathered. Moms and Dads and little kids, and Harley dudes and dudettes.
Everyone is intently looking at the three young men. Silently the crowd moves forward as one, like a wave, toward the now sheepish-looking boys. The three shrink back to their camp site.
“Fuck, we were just trying to get some pictures. They wrecked our food.”
“You wrecked your food,” a clean cut father says. His two kids, with big saucer eyes, watch him. “Put it up on a line between two trees, or stow it like the rest of us do. Where the cubs are, the mom is, and you’re endangering all of us by your stupidity.”
“Geez, quit acting like it’s a federal crime.”
“As a matter of fact it is.” A woman steps forward. “I’m a National Park Service law enforcement officer and what you’re doing violates a federal protection act. Would you like to push your luck?”
The boys, now quiet and out of F words, retreat to their camp.
“Didn’t think so.” The Harley guy grins. “And don’t bother these young ladies either.”
Tessa turns, her mom, in a robe, arms folded, is standing near her.
“Ladies.” The man tips his cap to them both. The crowd slowly disperses.
“Let us know if you have any trouble again,” someone calls to Tessa and her mom.
“Wow, baby.” Her mom encircles Tessa’s shoulders with her arm. “You are one powerful protector.”
Tessa smiles. Another piece of her is returning home.
Chapter 29
AS THEY DRIVE south over the Mackinaw Bridge, some parts of Tessa still tingle and rage over Dina’s, “You could have kept . . .”
Angrily, Tessa tears the ring off her finger and tosses it out the open passenger window. The sun reflects a gleaming flash as the ring arcs over the green rail on its long journey to the bottom of Lake Michigan.
“Did you just do what I think you did?” Her mom, looking ahead as she drives, has a smile tipping the corner of her mouth.
“You’re damn right I did.”
They high five.
THEY MAKE CAMP in Lake Ann. Tessa wakes in the middle of the night, in the midst of nightmares. She wakes fearful and crying and in physical pain and nausea.
Her mom is a rock, awake and holding her. Murphy with both of them.
If this is her heart breaking wide open, why can’t it just do it all at once?
What sense is grief?
Why is she being haunted?
What else is inside her, clawing for release?
Like a deer that has been shot but doesn’t know its wound is mortal, it continues running, sometimes for miles. Tessa tapes her ankle snugly. She tries to run, not knowing if her internal wound will ever heal.
“Honey.”
“Mom, I have to. I have to. It’s the only thing, besides you being with me, keeping me sane.”
She purposely chooses the hillier trail, by St. Mary’s Lake. She gets as far as the curve all the way around the lake and she has to turn back. She limps, and it takes her twice as long to return as it did to run.
She nears the rig and sees Josh leaning against the pick-up truck, his one foot crossed over at the ankle.
He breaks into that beautiful smile of his as she half runs to him and sobs. She’s never cried so much in her life.
“Now you and I do ceremony,” he whispers into her hair.
“I have no more ashes . . .”
Tessa tries to block out the fight with Dina, she keeps her cheek against his chest and gazes down. He lifts her face up, thumbing her cheek. “Your eyes. We need to fix those.”
Tessa changes into some long slacks and they drink tea with her mother.
They start for Josh’s truck.
Tessa looks back. “C’mon, Murph.”
But Murphy remains lying beside her mother and looks up.
“This is for you and me,” Josh says.
At Pearl Lake he drives to the north side and pulls out the canoe.
Tessa follows his lead, and he holds the stern, while she slips up to the front, paddle in hand.
They cross beyond poison ivy point, past the eagles’ nest. A loon calls from one of the other outlets—not an alarm cry, but the mournful evening song. Silently two sandhil
l cranes cross low and directly in front of them, red hues entering the light cirrus clouds above.
They’re heading to the DNR primitive campsites. No official sites anywhere. No outhouses or drinking water, but the lake. A huge line of boulders prevents any traffic, save foot or horseback. One tent, a wisp of smoke rising from a cook campfire, sits in somber isolation. Two tall pine trees rise in silhouette against the darkening sunset sky.
Tessa wonders if this is their destination, why not just take the Rayle Road?
“You’re always taking me the long way, Josh,” she says.
Only his paddle stroke responds, slow, methodical, sure.
They pull up short of the lone camp.
A man crouches by the water. He stands and turns as they approach.
It’s the monster.
His face is no longer half blood and he has no knife in his hands. In real life, he is not so tall anymore, and his eyes are filled with tears, though his head is mostly tilted down.
“Dad?”
Tessa is in disbelief.
He stands frozen, unable to move. He crosses his hands in front of him and his head barely nods.
“Wha—?”
Tessa turns to look for Josh, but he has receded, and she cannot spot him.
“What are you doing here?” She sinks down to one of the large boulders.
“I thought I killed you. I thought . . .” His voice is hoarse, as if he hasn’t spoken in a very long time.
“I thought I killed you,” Tessa says through her tears.
“You don’t know how sorry I am.” He looks away.
She’s never seen her dad cry. But now his tears are falling just as fast as hers and still he doesn’t approach.
Tessa holds out her hand. Some part of her is mortified she is doing this and the other part is just doing it.
He’s there in an instant, a man child sobbing fully into her lap, muffled muted howling, “Please, forgive me.”
She strokes his curly-topped head, like a mother to a child.
I will not hide my love as I do not hide my grief.
At some point, her father shifts and moves over to the water’s edge, just a few feet away. He cups some of Pearl Lake in his hands.
The twilight is coming on rapidly now. A Michigan’s autumn night quickening twilight. Tessa watches the now lavender light on the silhouette of his face, the curve of his cheeks, and his sanguine nose.
He pours the water over his face and offers her some.
She rises, takes a few steps, and crouches next to him. She reaches into the lake and washes her face.
“In the islands, in the Pacific, you have to ask permission for the water to let you in. There are four sets of waves and on the fourth, you follow her in. And when you leave, you always face her, asking permission to leave.”
She doesn’t know this father. What led to this? She has a million questions and yet she waits.
“You don’t talk very much.”
She shakes her head no.
She wishes Murphy was here. Her touchstone. His reactions would tell her everything.
“I took from you and Eli.”
“Yourself.” Her voice is soft. “You only took from you.”
She doesn’t say it harshly and she doesn’t mean it that way. It simply is.
He accepts this with a nod.
“I learned that thou shalt not kill can also mean thou shalt not kill yourself. You never killed yourself for anyone. You never killed part of your soul. But I tried to make you do it. I killed part of my soul for others. For what they would think. I was so proud to have two boys. I was so proud to have you, who could climb anything, fearless, and fast and could see everything . . . and then, when you said you were really a girl . . . I didn’t know what to do with that. What do I say, what do I feel when I tell all the guys? I felt God played a joke on me, for being so proud I had two sons.”
They stand and she touches his scar, the deep groove she can’t quite remember seeing herself create, yet remembers the heft of the ax in her hands and the sound it made when she connected. She remembers how it felt to stop the monster from killing her brother. She remembers how good it felt to know she saved her brother.
She moves her fingers gently over the partial ear, mostly hidden by his curly hair. “I did this to you. I remember it.”
“You did this for Eli.” He puts his hand over hers as she explores the healed wounds. “And I remember too.”
“Uncle Chuck.” Tessa suddenly freezes, fear rising.
Her father holds her hand calmly and together they count to four.
Her eyes widen. It is he who taught her to count to four, to be safe, to breathe, to wait.
“Chuck has his own demons.” His voice allays her fear. “He has no business between you and me.”
He touches his forehead to hers. Then, for the first time, they hug as equals.
In the dwindling light, over her father’s shoulder, Tessa catches movement. She glimpses something pacing stealthily among the saplings.
A young doe is tiptoeing from the water’s edge, her ears back, eyes avoiding contact. She walks silently, picking her way among the shore saplings and into the deeper woods, disappearing between the dusk of night and the forever.
Tessa closes her eyes and breathes, without counting.
Chris Convissor wants to live in a world where swimming like an otter, eating dark chocolate, laughing with loved ones and adventuring are respectable, self-funded activities. As a writer, she’s been spotlighted in Grand Traverse Woman and Northern Express. She’s also been featured in Labyris, A Room of One’s Own (Vancouver, Canada) and her photography has appeared in St. Anthony’s Press. When she’s not inside writing about her imaginary friends, you can find her outside, working with her hands and adventuring.
The Urn Carrier Page 20