The Sweetness of Salt

by Cecilia Galante

  “The ones I imagined you’d have,” Milo interrupted. “I never really thought I had any kind of a chance with you. Cheryl and Melissa, well, they’re pretty, but that’s about it. But you…you’re such an amazing person. Smart. Beautiful. Kind. Smart. The valedictorian! I don’t know. I guess I just thought I’d never be enough next to you.” He coughed lightly. “It was stupid.”

  “No,” I whispered, struggling not to cry. “It wasn’t stupid. I know what you mean.” There was a long pause. I lifted my hand up in front of me and stared at it. Then I put it down again. “What about Cheryl?”

  Milo was quiet.

  “At the party,” I insisted. “I saw you there, sitting with her, letting her touch your shoulder and everything…”

  “I’m embarrassed to say this,” Milo answered. “But as long as we’re finally saying everything…” He cleared his throat. “The only reason I sat down next to her was because I knew she still liked me. I was betting on the fact that she would do something like that. I don’t know; I guess I wanted to make you jealous.”

  “Jealous?” I repeated. “Why?”

  “It was a crappy move,” Milo admitted. “I thought I needed to do something drastic, you know? Something that would tell me how you felt about me.”

  “Letting your ex-girlfriend manhandle you was your idea of getting me to pay attention?”

  “I know,” Milo’s voice was miserable. “It was dumb.” He paused. “But it worked a little. Didn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said reluctantly. “It did.”

  “This is so much easier, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “Just saying it like it is,” Milo answered. “Being straight with each other. It’s scary telling the truth.”

  “It is,” I said. “But it’s worth it, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I miss you, Milo.”

  “I miss you too. When I think about the fact that you’re so far away, it actually hurts—physically. I must sound like a total dork, but it’s true. I hate that you’re not here. I think about you all the time, Julia.”

  Neither of us said anything for a moment, basking instead in the warmth of the moment.

  “Julia?” Milo asked finally.

  “Yes?”

  “Come home soon.”

  part

  three

  chapter

  50

  I sat on the side of the road for a long time after Milo hung up. I might have been too stunned to stand. Or maybe I was afraid that if I did, the warm, safe feeling inside my chest would disappear.

  Milo.

  All along, he had felt something for me—something real!— and I hadn’t known.

  Me, the “most intelligent” girl in the senior class. The valedictorian, who got a 1680 on her SATs, but couldn’t read between the lines of all the silly, stupid gestures a boy who adored her had made.

  How was it that the truth about one thing could make you feel so good—and that the truth about something else threatened to destroy you?

  Something—a dog? a coyote?—howled in the distance. Above me, the sky split open as a half moon slid between the shadows. The howling sounded again, a low, mournful cry of someone waiting to be found. In front of me, the field grass rustled with movement. I stood up quickly. I didn’t know what kind of wildlife lived in Vermont, but I was not interested in finding out.

  Turning around, I headed back down the road, toward town. A breeze began to blow, rustling the grass on either side of me. The smell of wet asphalt and jasmine filled the air. And then I stopped, remembering the gorge. It was the only place Sophie had ever mentioned to me. Where she went when she needed to think. How would I find it, though, from here? In the dark? I had no idea how far along this road the gorge was. But there was someone—actually, two people—who would.

  WELCOME TO EAST POULTNEY.

  I peeked out of the side window of Jimmy’s truck as the sign—a wooden placket planted on the edge of a circular-shaped road—glowed under the headlights. In the middle of the circle was a beautiful white clapboard church. Its steeple cut through the darkness like a glowing needle, and its doors were bright red.

  “Park over there, Dad,” Aiden said. “By the bridge. Then we can just run down to the gorge.”

  Aiden had opened the door when I’d rung their doorbell, looking surprised and then frightened as I burst into tears. “Julia? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Jimmy had come up behind him, baseball cap off, his white hair comfortably mussed. He’d been the one to pull me inside as I began rambling about Sophie and the gorge, leading me into the kitchen with slow nods of his head and a soft, steadying hand along my back. It wasn’t until I sat down at the table—a roughly hewn slab of wood, complete with real tree branch legs—that I realized I was inside the little yellow house. It didn’t smell like apples or cedar. It smelled like guys’ deodorant and burned toast. There was no wide window in the kitchen or any jelly glass full of wildflowers on the table. The table was cluttered with tools: wrenches and screwdrivers, small drilling bits, and a hammer. It was a mess. And it was lovely too.

  Now Jimmy swung the truck around the wide gravelly arc and parked. I got out of the car and stared around at the houses skirting the edges, straining forward, as if Sophie might appear magically through the dark. But there was no sign of her. I stayed close to both men, grateful for their presence, as we passed the East Poultney General Store. Next to the general store was a smattering of clapboard houses with white picket fences and weather vanes, and beyond them, a stately brick home labeled the Horace Greeley House. I bit down on my tongue so I would not yell Sophie’s name. Despite my panic, I knew that breaking the silence in that tiny town would have been like standing up in the middle of SATs and screaming at the top of my lungs.

  Jimmy and Aiden turned abruptly past the Horace Greeley House, heading down another road, more of a path, really, heavily forested and pitch-black. I moved with them, my chest tightening like a fist. Loose gravel crunched under my feet and the wind blew through my hair. I shivered. In the dark, I could see part of the small makeshift bridge Aiden and I had stood on just a few days ago, and then the sound of rushing water. I ran to it, clutching the sides of the bridge as I looked over into the belly of the gorge. It was as dark as ink.

  I leaned over farther, squinting desperately for some sign of Sophie.

  “Sophie!” I called hoarsely, trying to keep my voice low. “Sophie! Are you down there?”

  A sound, small and faint, drifted up from a spot next to one of the birch trees. It was indecipherable, but there was no mistaking Sophie’s voice.

  “She’s hurt,” Jimmy said grimly. “Let’s go.” The three of us raced to the end of the bridge until we reached the tattered path that led down the side of the gorge.

  Aiden turned around then and grabbed my arm. “You stay here. It’s dangerous down there. We’ll get her.”

  I shoved him back. “No way.”

  He let go. Slipping and sliding, I half fell, half crawled my way down behind both of them, until I reached a level part of the ground.

  “Sophie!” I called again. “I can’t see where you are! Say something and I’ll move toward the sound of your voice!”

  “Uuunnnhhh…” The voice came again out the dark, pleading, desperate. I struggled toward it, pushing past the thick scrub and hanging branches, steadying myself carefully along moss-covered rocks. But Aiden and Jimmy had already found her. Through the dark, I could make out the shadow of two shapes hovering over a third.

  “Sophie!” I was next to her all at once, clutching her around the shoulders, pressing my face to her cheek. She was shivering violently, but her face was burning hot. Her braids, damp with mud, clung to the sides of her neck, and her bandanna was missing. “Sophie, what happened? What are you doing down here?”

  She pointed toward her foot, which was lodged in between two rocks. Jimmy and Aiden were already examining it. “I came down…” Her
voice, which was barely a whisper, slipped out between her chattering teeth. “Just to sit. And think.” She pointed to her foot again with a shaking hand. “I tripped and fell. My cell phone fell out of my pocket, and my foot…got stuck. I think it’s broken.” She tried to balance herself up on her elbows, but winced from the movement and sank back down again.

  “Hold on,” I said, looking up at Jimmy and Aiden. “They’re going to get you out, Sophie.”

  “We need a flashlight,” Aiden said. “I can’t see anything.”

  Jimmy nodded urgently. “And a blanket. In the trunk.”

  Aiden disappeared into the blackness, his shoes making heavy scraping sounds as he crawled back up the side of the gorge.

  I leaned over to get a better look at the rocks trapping Sophie’s foot. The one on the left was as large and wide as a mattress, but the other was only about half that size. Both of them, however, were half submerged in water. The space in between, where Sophie’s foot was caught, was frighteningly narrow. I moved directly into the water, gasping as the frigidness swirled around my knees. It could not have been over twenty degrees. My body had already started shivering. Sophie had been down here, her left leg submerged to the knee, for God knows how long. How was she still conscious? And talking?

  I stared down at my sister. For a split second, I wondered how much more of her I didn’t—and might not ever—know. And in the next second, I realized it didn’t matter. What mattered was how much I loved her. Right now.

  Wrapping my arms around her again, I leaned in and cradled her head in my arms. “Hold on, Sophie, okay? We’re going to get you out of here. I promise. Just hold on.”

  She reached up and grabbed my elbow and she did not let go.

  chapter

  51

  Once we had the flashlight, it took Jimmy less than ten seconds to assess the situation Sophie was in, grab Aiden’s cell phone, and call the fire department for help. They arrived minutes later, springing into action as Jimmy, Aiden, and I stood by. One of them added another blanket to the growing pile on top of Sophie, but her lips still trembled violently. A wide, glaring beam of light had been directed down from the top of the truck positioned at the edge of the bridge. Under this light, two firemen were busy tethering a rope to the smaller of the two boulders, while the other two attended to Sophie. An ambulance screamed its arrival, sidling in next to the fire truck with a screech of brakes. Two attendants jumped out and joined the firemen in the gorge. One of them began taking Sophie’s vital signs while the other covered her with heated blankets. Above us, the red siren lights flashed back and forth, in and out, in a dizzying display of urgency.

  I listened with one ear as an attendant began barking out Sophie’s statistics. “Heart rate is forty! BP is eighty over sixty and we got a temp of ninety-one! Any chance you guys can hurry up with that rock? This girl is in serious hypothermic shock.”

  I turned to Jimmy, my eyes wide with panic.

  “Let them work,” he said steadily.

  I turned back, straining to see Sophie behind the swirl of moving bodies. My whole body began to shiver again, weakened from the strain of the last few weeks, terrified at the thought of losing Sophie. Jimmy took off his jacket and draped it around my shoulders while Aiden patted me gently on the back. The three of us stood very close to one another for the next thirty-seven minutes, until at last, with a roar from the firemen, the earth released its hold and, with one enormous, groaning, sucking movement, set the rock free.

  We followed the ambulance to the Rutland Regional Medical Center, which was the closest hospital. The twenty-minute drive seemed interminable. I sat close to the window on the passenger side of Jimmy’s pickup truck, an ancient, rumbling vehicle that rattled whenever we hit a bump, and prayed that we would make it to the hospital without breaking down. The inside of the truck smelled like pipe tobacco and home fries. A thin coating of dust covered the dashboard and the floor mats were worn through with holes. We probably would’ve been better off taking the quad.

  We drove for a while in silence, following the deep glare of red ambulance lights as they cut through the fading night ahead of us. To the right, the sky was turning the faintest shade of pink, like morning glories wakening. Jimmy drove with just the inside of his right wrist resting on top of the steering wheel; next to him, Aiden sat quietly. He had taken his hat off and was rubbing the edge of his hairline with his fingers.

  “She’ll be okay,” Jimmy said finally, as we passed a sign that said RUTLAND—2 MILES.

  I turned to look at him. “You really think so? Even after everything that guy back there said about hypothermia?”

  He nodded. “They got her in time. She’s a little broken up is all. They’ll fix her.”

  Hot tears spilled down my cheeks suddenly, as if Jimmy had turned on a faucet with his words.

  Next to me, Aiden reached his arm across my shoulders and squeezed.

  The emergency waiting room was filled to capacity. I was surprised until I remembered that it was Saturday morning. I’d heard somewhere that Friday and Saturday nights were the busiest in every emergency room all over the country. Why should Vermont be any exception?

  Blue-cushioned chairs, shoved together to make one long couch, were pressed up against one side of the room, while the middle was taken up by three separate rows of backless seats. Nearly every seat was occupied, mostly by sleeping people, their coats bunched up in makeshift pillows, heads bent at unnatural angles. Two girls, who looked to be my age, were curled up in fetal positions at the feet of an older couple. With their hair splayed out behind them and their faces slack with sleep, they could have been at a slumber party, not in an emergency waiting room. Another woman, dressed in a pale green suit, nude pantyhose, and black heels, was slouched in a chair at the very end of the wall. Her hand covered her face, but her shoulders shook with sobs. The cuffs of her suit sleeves were covered with blood.

  “I’m going to go find some coffee,” Aiden said, nodding at me. “You want some?”

  I shook my head.

  “Dad?” he asked.

  Jimmy nodded. “Cream only.”

  “Back in a few,” Aiden said.

  Jimmy pointed to a small space in the middle row between two sleeping people. I followed as he settled himself down, crossed his legs at the ankle, and stared at the TV. It was 5:20 a.m. An early morning show blared out a series of morbid headlines. Inflation was up, the stock market was down. The whole world as we knew it was burning, and none of it mattered because the only thing that was important was in the next room, a wall away.

  “You knew about Goober?” I heard myself say. “With the custody and everything?”

  Jimmy nodded. He did not take his eyes off the television.

  “Why?” I asked softly. “Why would she do something like that?”

  “She didn’t tell me.” Jimmy shrugged lightly. “And I didn’t ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “Some things aren’t ours to ask.”

  I stared down at my feet.

  “I don’t think she’ll go through with it, though,” Jimmy said.

  “You don’t?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “They haven’t signed the papers yet. I think this is a temporary thing while she’s been trying to figure some other things out.”

  My heart pounded. I’d already leapt to the conclusion that it was a done deal. That I’d only get to see Goober on one of Sophie’s weekends. Which would probably be close to never. “Oh God, I hope so.”

  On the television, a woman was crying. Her hair stuck up straight off her head and she was dressed in a pink housecoat. Behind her, the scene was a slate of water, punctuated with small, bobbing houses.

  “God,” I said, looking away. “There’s just so much…awfulness in the world. Nobody gets a break, do they?”

  “Nope.” Jimmy stared straight ahead, watching the woman as she continued to wail.

  We both stared at the television screen as the camera panned to another view
of destruction. The whole side of a house was gone, gutted like a fish. Inside, a large family portrait still hung on one of the remaining walls, and a living room lamp was upright in a corner. “People get through,” Jimmy said. “You don’t got much choice, really. You either get through or you get stuck. That’s about it.”

  I looked over at him for a moment. Little white hairs stuck out from inside his ears, and the lobes were wide and fleshy. “Jimmy?”

  “Huh?”

  “What were you doing in church that day? With the rocks, I mean?”

  He squinted, as if there was a glare on the TV. Then he said, “I put them out in front of the Blessed Virgin. It’s just a thing I do.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  He paused. “Did Aiden tell you about his mother?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “It’s for her. Mostly. She liked them. Rocks and things. Whenever I see one, I pick it up. Usually, I make things out of them. It keeps me busy, now that I’m retired. But sometimes when I feel the need, I go into the church and sit down and try to listen for her.”

  “For your wife?” I asked softly.

  He shook his head. “For the Blessed Virgin.” He turned his head finally, and looked at me. “Don’t worry, I’m not some crazy old guy who hears voices.” I smiled. “But sometimes, when I wait, she comes. She does. I can feel her. And when that happens, I know Theresa is close by too. And that’s when I leave the stones.” He shrugged. “They’re sort of a thank you, I guess. And a hello too.”

  I wasn’t sure if I understood.

  But I knew that it was true.

  I knew that it was good.

  I slipped my hand inside his big rough one, and left it there.

  chapter

  52

  Sophie’s injuries included a fractured femur, a shattered ankle, and extreme hypothermia. When a nurse finally came to retrieve us hours later, Sophie had already been moved to a room upstairs. Her leg, which had been set and cast, was propped up in a sling, and two IVs were dripping warm liquid into her arms. Someone thankfully had cleaned the mud out of her hair and wiped her face so she looked almost normal, even healthy, when we finally got a chance to see her.