“It’s out the door to your right, two doors down, Doc.” John did not seem concerned that they had suddenly checked in to the nineteenth century. Doc was too tired to argue and headed out the door and down the hall. Within the hour Doc was under the warm blankets being guarded by the nightlight of the moon.
“What do you want to do today?” John asked as if he didn’t already have a full agenda on tap. He was already dressed in his best faded jeans and lumberjack long-sleeved shirt sporting a lean and hungry look.
“What time is it?” Doc peeked out from under the covers.
“It’s daytime!” was the unholy retort from John, “Time to get hustling. The day’s wasting.” For Doc, no day was wasted simply by putting off getting up until a decent hour. His stepfather was a terminal morning person, but a terrific stepdad none-the-less in spite of this horrendous fault. Since people like that were beyond the grasp of friendly negotiation, Doc reluctantly got up and tossed on his jeans, t-shirt and hiking boots. John was already out the door and headed to the dining room of the lodge.
“What would you like to eat, Doc?” John was promptly seating himself at the table next to the multi-paned bay window looking out on an overgrown yard and creek with the mountainside looming on the other bank.
“Food.”
John ordered for both of them, then sat back to enjoy the morning sun on the landscape. There was no use talking to the young man before his brain jump-started, but John’s optimistic outlook for the day was unscathed.
After breakfast they walked down to the trailhead at Blackhorse Bay campground and began the five-mile walk along the switchbacks to the summit of Mount Coeur d’Alene. The air was clear and the dark green firs lent a fresh scent to the morning air. The dew from last night kept the trail dust down. Doc could not help but feel alive as the blood started coursing his veins from the exertion of the increasingly steep climb and John Scott’s fast pace. Periodically the trees would clear to frame the rich blue water of the long, deep lake below.
After a couple hours the summit was in the crosshairs. John chose a large, flat rock as a theater seat for the natural exhibits below. Doc held down the other end of the flat rock with the tail of his jeans and leaned back with his palms bracing him.
“Beautiful up here, isn’t it? My dad used to bring me and my friends up here in the summer time. Sometimes it was just the two of us.” John was testing opening lines in the setting he had chosen long before the trip. Doc did not answer, so John gave himself a few more minutes to regroup for the charge.
“You’re awfully quiet, kiddo. What are you thinking about?” John hoped that Rachel’s name would top the list and set the stage for the father-son talk.
“Nothing.” The conversation was as agile and free as a heavy rock thrown into the lake far below. At least John’s end of the conversation was simply ignored rather than rejected.
“I was about your age when we were cutting across the woods toward the ranch house instead of following the trail. There were three, or was it four, of us that afternoon. I can’t remember if Quince’s kid brother was with us or not. I think he was. We were cutting straight downhill and tripping over rocks and tumbling most of the way down, but we were having a great old time.”
John glanced over quickly to see if any interest was registering on Doc’s face. Any trace of interest was well hidden on the other side of the rock.
“Anyway, we got down toward the barbed wire fence just this side of the corral and Quince is holding the top wire up and the middle wire down for the other guys to step through, but I decided to climb over the top strand and jump down on the other side. I got my left foot on the second strand near the post and my right foot on the top strand. As I put more pressure on the right foot, the top strand pulled away and I grabbed for the wire as I fell.”
John slid over toward Doc with his outstretched right hand facing upward. Doc scowled in the sunlight as he focused on the empty hand and then returned to his gaze at the mountains across the lake.
“That barbed wire cut deep for about two inches and blood was gushing out and dripping on my shirt and jeans. We were scared. Boy, we were panicked. It was a jagged cut and it hurt like crazy and wouldn’t stop bleeding. Quince grabbed the neck of my t-shirt and ripped it down the back. I was thinking what the heck does he think he’s doing? But he rolled it so the dry edge along the bottom seam was facing out and wound it around my hand. Then he picked up a rounded rock, put it in my palm against the wound up t-shirt and made me hold it as tight as I could while we hustled over to the ranch house for help.”
John noticed Doc looking over his outstretched palm once again. “My dad came barreling up in his pickup and we must have hit ninety miles an hour on the way to the emergency clinic. They cleaned it up, and oh man, it stung when they put that reddish orange disinfectant on it. Then the doctor came in and stitched it up with this really thin nylon thread and a little curved needle that looked like the business end of a fishhook. I asked him, ‘Will I ever play the violin again’ and he says, ‘Did you ever play the violin before’ and I said, ‘Nope’ and he says, ‘Probably not then.’”
The joke was so lame that even Doc smiled. “If you look real close you can see a jagged white scar about maybe an eighth of an inch thick and a couple inches long starting from just where the end of my fourth finger meets the palm.”
John Scott stroked the jagged line gently with the thumb of his other hand. The skin on either side of the line drained of color as the pressure of the thumb passed over, then the area on either side of the line flushed as the blood came flooding back to his palm leaving the clear outline of the scar for a fraction of a moment before blending back to contiguous pink flesh.
“Pretty neat,” Doc inspected with mediocre interest.
“It’s got to be almost thirty years ago. I can still almost feel that searing pain if I close my eyes and concentrate. It took a good, long while to heal. I was pretty worried that it was going to split back open after the stitches dried and started decomposing, so I was doubly careful with that hand. Didn’t play softball the rest of the summer, didn’t go swimming, mostly stayed on the couch watching television. That cut-up hand took over my summer and I missed out on some really good times, I figure.”
John paused for dramatic effect. Doc knew the routine. John would bore him to tears with a long drawn out story, but Doc always got caught up wondering what the real point of the story was, no matter how hard he tried to remain aloof. Then John would pause about a quarter inch from the point he was trying to make and step back into the story just before Doc felt he would be forced to scream, ‘just tell me the point and get it over!’
“After a while the hurting stopped and the scar started fading. Although it never went away, I could go days and finally weeks and months without giving the scar a second thought. Now it’s just a part of my life that healed a long time. It’s a bad memory with no power in it anymore. I couldn’t change what happened, but I could revoke any control it had on my thoughts and emotions, and accept what happened as a done deal encased in the past. The scar will never be forgotten or fade away completely – I don’t really want to forget. It’s a badge of experience that proves that pain can be healed if you allow yourself to let it go.”
Rachel was the topic all along. She had been the jagged tear on Doc’s palm for many years, constantly splitting open and bleeding unexpectedly, never fading, with pain that never subsided. John Scott had set himself up as the surgeon this weekend, the surgeon who would join the ragged edges and stitch them together for all time.
Doc felt moist, salty tears welling up in the corners of his eyes as he started to let go of the accumulated pain of the passing years. John reached around Doc’s shoulders and pulled him close. Just for the moment Doc was six and a half years old again.
“You don’t believe that Rachel is ever coming back,” Doc accused wiping back burning tears with his shirtsleeve.
“And you don’t believe it either, son.”
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“None of us have held out any hope all these years. Not even your Mom believes anymore. It’s just too hard for any of us to say the words out loud.” John had committed blasphemy in admitting that Rachel was dead, yet Doc convicted himself of confessing the same inevitable conclusion that Rachel was no longer alive. John had just caused the house of cards to crumble.
“Yeah, I know,” Doc winced. “It’s been so much easier to keep hoping that someday everything would go back to being OK again. Sometimes I wonder if I even really remember her that well. When I think of her now I only visualize the missing posters and flyers. In a strange way she’s not even real anymore.”
“It’s healing, Doc. It’s the process of healing so we can handle it without getting our fingers burned, figuratively speaking. It’s a good thing, son.” John took a long swig of water. “Do you want to charge on to the top of the trail or turn back?”
“Charge on,” Doc decided.
“That’s the only choice,” John agreed.
Back in Spokane Anna was staring at the two unopened cardboard boxes John pulled from the back of the closet before he left. She didn’t need to peel back the clear packing tape for she knew the contents by heart. The clothes would not fit a teenage girl on her quinceanera. The toys and children’s books held no interest for a fifteen year old girl. The boxes held the contents of one almost perfect young life from beginning to end.
Anna decided that she could not leave that chapter open any longer. She double-sealed the boxes with fresh packing tape and set them on the floor by the closet door. Then she lay down to rest her weary eyes and allowed herself to dream of the past.
In her dreams Rachel was still a beautiful kindergartener dancing with her older sisters, Patty and Rose. In her dreams Anna held Rachel and Doc close reading them bedtime stories, one after another, never letting them loose until Anna would wake up without her precious daughter.
When sadness overtook her, Anna could share her dreams with John, but she never dared to risk upsetting Doc by mentioning Rachel’s name. Rachel looked down from photographs on the wall, but the family only looked back if no one else was watching.
Anna awoke to the sound of a key in the lock of the front door, and the cheerful voices of Rose and Patty.
“Mom, are you home?” Rose called out.
“I’m in the den, sweetie,” she answered lowering her sore, swollen feet from the couch to the hardwood floor as she sat up.
Rose carried in a flat, festively wrapped package about eighteen inches wide, twenty-four inches long and six inches deep. Patty trailed in her footsteps. “We brought you something. We hope you like it.”
“I’m sure I will. What is it?”
“If you really want to know, you can open it, I guess. Otherwise, we can all just sit down and admire the beautiful wrapping paper all afternoon,” Rose kidded her.
Anna carefully unwrapped the package. Inside a dark mahogany frame was Anna’s favorite photograph of Rachel digitally enhanced as an oil-on-canvas painting. It was taken on kindergarten graduation day. Although Rachel was held back, the principal at Meriwether Lewis Elementary School allowed her to dress up and participate in the ceremony and festivities that day. It was one of the few days of her first school year that she enjoyed.
Rachel chose her favorite lilac colored dress and carried her best stuffed bear for her photograph. It was the photograph that Detective Knox used in the missing child posters, but the swirls and richness of the faux oil texture and canvas rehabilitated the aversion Anna had accumulated after so many years of seeing the poster.
“Patty and I were down at the mall a couple months ago and ran across a photo shop that has a machine that electronically converts photographs into canvas. We wanted to do something special and unique for you.”
Anna nodded her approval and hugged them both. Rose and Patty began to realize that they didn’t have to grovel for the atonement they were granted long ago. Later that night Anna hung the picture in the bedroom she shared with John and eventually fell asleep studying every detail. When she awoke from her dreams, she went to the back of the master closet, got out the double sealed boxes and gently sliced through the packing tape with her nail file to try to keep her illusions alive.
CHAPTER THREE
Doc presumed that entering high school would be a ticket to the adult world of freedom and responsibility, but it turned out to be much the same as junior high with the exception of higher expectations by the teachers and a wealth of homework. He defaulted into plans of going into pre-law after graduation with a sketchy outline of a future in politics, although he hadn’t colored inside the lines yet.
Since the guidance counselors were determined that every student have a scholastic plan for college down the road, Doc selected one that he felt was important and that would pay a handsome salary. The guidance counselor was happy, Anna and John were happy, and Doc was happy because he knew that nothing was really carved in stone until half-way through the undergraduate years of college.
The most important difference between junior high and high school was that Beth Jackson was in both his history class and his English class at George Clark High School. For the next three years they were the best of friends. Each filled a void in the other’s social life, so neither had to miss high school events by simply being unattached. Beth would even toss in cash when the tank on the old Honda Civic ran low or spring for movie tickets and fast food when cash ran low. Beth assumed that the relationship would eventually be permanent and Doc had not considered interviewing any other possibilities.
During the summers Beth worked in a mothers’ day out program at the Presbyterian church while Doc labored as an assistant to the groundskeeper. Cutting grass was a mindless proposition far below his accumulated skills, but the money spent as easily as the paycheck his buddy received from working in a fast food joint. Day after day he hit the yards and foliage before the heat came up, cutting the same blades of Saint Augustine and trimming the same bushes, weeding the same flower beds in a never ending summer cycle.
Afternoons were spent cleaning and painting, painting and cleaning. ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ was not in the Bible - Doc looked it up. He didn’t mind painting as much as the other tasks. It felt good to watch the scuffed and faded walls being covered over with a fresh coat of paint. The new coat always went on lighter and shinier, completely rejuvenating the past coats. If only one could apply a fresh coat on one’s life as easily, covering up mistakes and imperfections with new vestments when an old life became unpalatable.
“I’m thinking the church should spring for more parking,” Doc mused to Beth over lunch. He envisioned nothing but asphalt and cement from the street to the foundation of the building.
Beth was amused but distracted as she had a working lunch watching the increasingly tanned bundles of energy slurping, chewing, kicking and yelling. “Terrific idea. Then you can go work frying hamburgers all summer.”
“I’m not saying that there isn’t a down side. Grass seems so pointless. You cut it, it grows, you cut it, it grows.”
“Then it dies and comes back next spring. It’s called a life cycle,” Beth tossed out to keep Doc’s rant moving along.
“We could be doing so many more important things like solving world hunger and creating new technologies. Cutting grass is so beneath us. I spend all week mowing and weeding and trimming and painting and nobody notices. They show up on Sunday, genuflect, and go home to watch TV all afternoon.”
“Not many teenagers have the power to create world peace, Doc. And everybody cuts the grass. Dad cuts the grass. Our neighbors cut the grass. Maybe even the Mayor cuts the grass, who knows? It’s one of those crazy tasks that have to be done every week. Besides, I noticed how every blade is perfectly cut and every bush is exquisitely shaped.”
“No you didn’t,” Doc countered.
“Hey, I was trying to make you feel needed. Of course I didn’t notice. It’s grass - you’re only going to notice if so
meone doesn’t do it. Lucy, get you finger out of your nose and eat your lunch. Tell you what, Doc. With these great jobs on our resumes we’ll get hired on to solve world hunger next summer.”
“You don’t take me seriously, Beth.”
“Why should I be different from everybody else?”
Doc sulked over the last few bites of his peanut butter sandwich. Beth got up to wipe little faces and clear away paper plates and cups, but paused for a moment, “I think you are Gandhi, Alexander the Great, and Woodrow Wilson rolled into one good-looking guy, Doc.”
“You just want me for my money,” he replied.
“Do you have any for the movie tonight?” she asked.
“I’m a little short.”
“Pick me up after dinner and I’ll buy,” was the well-worn line she repeated. Billy, keep your hands to yourself or you’ll end up in time out.”
By their senior year Doc and Beth firmed up plans to attend Gonzaga University in Spokane. Gonzaga was a top-rated college, and was home to one of the three law schools in the state of Washington. They had the best-laid plans of mice and men.
The only problem came up just before graduation when Doc met Amelia Donelson through his summer job at her father’s equipment rental company after rejecting the summer grounds keeping job at the church. He started working weekends for Mr. Donelson after spring break followed by full-time shifts after graduation. Amelia worked the counter while Doc lugged equipment from the yard to the customers’ vehicles. She had a great smile that she used on every male customer even though they would have given her father their business anyway.
Amelia had no advantage over Beth except that she was someone new – not new and different or new and exotic, but simply new. His relationship with Beth had slipped into a drowning current of routine which was safe, but not adventurous. When Doc tried to explain to Beth that their friendship was the most important thing in his life, Beth realized that he had no idea what their relationship really meant to her. She was savvy enough to realize that she was being replaced. Doc had not made the full eight seconds on her scale of dependability; she allowed him to be bucked off to take his chances elsewhere.
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