“Need a buffer?”
“Even two feet would make a lot of difference.”
“Sure,” he says. “Knight in shining armor, that’s me.”
“Thank you,” I say, exhaling a relieved breath.
“He tries to hump me though? Deal’s off.”
We hike for two more days with me breaking down almost every time we stop walking. I cry and fight the crying, and while I’m walking, somehow find a way to shore up the walls and bridges I put up and have been maintaining the past few months, only to have them washed out and overrun every time we stop.
Every damn night we arrive late and eat bugs. My clothing and sleeping bag—everything I own— reeks and feels damp and slimy.
I am still weeping on the morning of Day Ten when Pat pulls me aside, hands me the master map, and tells me I’m going to be leader for the day.
“Are you kidding?” I wipe at my face with the back of my hand. “I’m a basket case.”
“You’ll be great,” he says.
“Ha,” I say.
This is the first time the leader hasn’t been chosen via volunteering, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the psychology—put a person who feels powerless in a position of power.
“It’s going to be a looong day,” Peace says. “Keep in mind, we don’t have time for lunch at the Ritz. Or a stop at the therapist.”
“Want me to take him out for you?” Tavik asks, coming up beside me.
“Thanks, but I’m guessing parole officers take a dim view of murder.”
“You need help with the map?”
I look at it, tracing the route with my finger.
“I think I’m good.”
I may be in the midst of a total meltdown, but if I have to lead, I’m damn well going to get us to the next campsite while it’s still light out. For once.
“Okay, everybody!” I say, turning to the group, wiping at my face and tapping my watch. “I want to see you with packs on and ready to go in ten minutes sharp.”
Tavik chuckles, Peace mutters, the girls grin and get to work packing up their tent, and Bonnie watches me with a bemused look on her face.
“And you know what we’re not having for dinner?” I call out.
“What?” Jin calls back.
“Mosquitoes!”
Maybe no one thought I could lead. Maybe I didn’t think so. I certainly didn’t want the job. But once I have it? I’m all in.
Our route on the master map is mapped out with mileage and kilometers, and the estimated time each day’s hike should take. So far we’ve never made time. Not even close. This has caused the two things I’m hating more than almost anything—(1) eating bugs and (2) never ever having time to wash and dry my clothes, and therefore feeling like a walking cesspool.
Hence, even though I am still battling weepiness, I am suddenly filled with purpose.
We leave on time, I have no trouble finding the path or spotting the cairns, and I set a good pace. When someone has to stop to go to the bathroom, I give the group five minutes, time it, and get us moving again as soon as the time is up. Lunch is twenty-nine minutes and we’re on the move by the thirtieth.
I am not messing around, in other words. We are on the march and I will get us there. And once there, I’m going to get myself and my things clean and set out to dry, and I will regroup—patch up all the holes in my walls, fill the potholes on my psychological road, build some newer, stronger bridges, and finish with this ridiculous breakdown.
Needless to say, we get there. We don’t just get there; we burst onto a stunning white beach at 2:00 p.m., having beaten the map by 1.5 hours.
A cheer goes up from the group behind me, and for a few beautiful moments, staring at that beach, I feel awesome. I feel like a freaking rock star.
“What was that you said about not having leadership qualities?” Bonnie says, coming up beside me with a slightly smug grin. “Nice job.”
“Thanks.”
Unfortunately I am only the leader for the hiking portion of the day, and we’ve scarcely set our packs down when Pat summons us.
“Okay, everybody! Meet me down by the water. Don’t bother with the tents yet—there’s something I want to do.”
“What is it?” I look at Bonnie.
“Oh, you’ll see,” she says, and winks.
That wink makes me think it’s something good. Like on those reality shows where suddenly everyone is whisked off to have dinner in Hawaii, or whatever. Dinner in Hawaii would be awesome. Or maybe there’s a secret hot springs out here that also has showers and laundry facilities. With elves to do the laundry.
I saunter over, still feeling proud of myself, and willing to go along with whatever it is Pat has planned. Circle on the sand, maybe. Early circle. Fine.
Once we’re all there, Pat claps his hands enthusiastically and says, “All righty, guys, I want you to stand in a circle.”
I was right! We stand obediently in a circle, and then Bonnie passes out lengths of black fabric—one for each person—and instructs us to put them over our eyes. Next, we’re each handed a bit of rope to hold on to, and then another for the other hand.
“All right, group. I’ve wrapped a rope around you twice,” Pat says. “Your mission is to get yourselves out of the double circle and into a straight line. You may not let go of or slide along the rope. You may not take your blindfolds off. Go.”
Of course it’s not something good. Duh.
My brain wobbles and bends and hurts as I try to envision a solution to this puzzle, but I’ve got nothing.
No one else does either, but that doesn’t stop them.
“Everyone!” Peace shouts. “Just do what I say! Take the right hand—the one that’s holding the rope behind you, and step over it.”
“No, no, dude, you have to switch places with the person to your left!” Harvey (or Henry?) says.
“No, no, I already did it, and I’m partly free!” Peace insists, and I can hear that he’s on the move.
“You can’t just start before we all agree,” Tavik says, on my left.
“I don’t hear you coming up with any solutions,” Peace says.
“Dude, stop pulling me,” Henry (or Harvey?) says.
It goes downhill from there—sand flying everywhere, people shouting and going off half cocked to try their own thing. Before long we’re hopelessly tangled.
The sun bakes us from overhead, sweat rolls down my face and back, even my eyes are sweating, and eau d’inferno drifts up from my shoes, shirt, and pants.
I move when I have to, but I’m not playing.
Instead I am mourning my brief moment of happiness, of personal power. I’m realizing it was an illusion, and knowing, understanding deeply, fully, and for the first time, that I am stuck in a trap within a trap, here and in my life. I am trapped in this twisted circle, in this punishing sun, with these people, with no way out. I am trapped in a puzzle that there is no answer for. I am trapped in this wilderness hell, trapped in my own stinking body, even with a crystal-clear, glistening lake ten feet away. I am cut off from joy, unmoved by beauty, chased by grief, trapped under this sky, in this life, in my own head and heart, where everything, almost everything, has gone to hell.
Standing here in total darkness under the blazing sun, I see it:
I could set things on fire, take an ax to whatever edifice, inside me or out in the world, and it wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference.
I am totally, dazzlingly screwed.
And I am going to lose my mind for real, standing here on this beach.
Then . . .
It occurs to me there is one part of this trap, one small part, that I can escape from.
Bonnie and Pat are obviously doing their usual thing—standing around watching us fail, and not helping.
“I know the answer,
” I say, projecting my voice so it’s loud enough to cut through the chaos.
“You do?” Bonnie asks.
“Yeah.” I take my blindfold off. It’s soaked from sweat, and more tears because my eyes are leaking again, but I can’t bring myself to care. “The answer is, there’s no answer. It’s a trick. Or you two would probably prefer the word test. Like the tents. Like the riverbed. Like this whole trip, in my case. There’s no solution. It’s all just to see what we’ll do. To see who’s stubborn enough or stupid enough or sheep-like enough to stand here roasting in the sun all afternoon while we get skin cancer, and black flies and mosquitoes feast on us. I’m thinking, who is that stupid? To stay in this stupid trap just because you”—I point accusingly at Bonnie and Pat—“told us to? And the sad answer? All of us, I guess. But not me. Not anymore.”
By this time everyone’s mask is off, and the entire tangled rope is on the sand.
Pat smiles like he thinks he’s the freaking Dalai Lama.
I round on him. “You’re an asshole for smiling like that. You think this was fun? Capture the flag is fun. Volleyball is fun. This is hell. This is pure manipulation, day after day. This is Lord of the freaking Flies. You just wasted my afternoon with this garbage when all I ask for is a chance to sleep in a dry sleeping bag and have clean underwear that is not smoke scented, and a life where I can be my actual real self without thinking it’s going to break someone’s heart, or kill them.”
And with that, I throw down the ropes and blindfold, and stomp off across the beach, sand flying in my wake.
LONG SILENCE
(Age Fourteen)
It was nice having Andreas live with us, and I had been quite sincerely thrilled for him to move in, but I had a hard time with it too. Andreas couldn’t stop himself from going into coach mode sometimes, when all Mom or I wanted to do was vent about something. I tried to play along, but Mom couldn’t—she wasn’t used to people getting into her business, and it made her cranky. In addition, I was continually anxious about Mom hiding her past from Andreas, which was in fact not just her past, but mine. From the beginning, this caused me to feel we were not on solid ground, not in good faith.
Also, for a long time it had been just Mom and me, and I hadn’t realized how accustomed we were to each other’s habits and quirks until we had a new person in our midst.
A person who was cheerful in the mornings, and loudly so.
A person who might leave dirty dishes in the sink, or eat all the ice cream.
A person who liked to improve people, sometimes even before the person being improved had had their coffee.
A person who, quite simply, took up space in a way that I wasn’t used to.
Not to mention, I didn’t know much about his past either, besides the business part. He loved to talk about his move from being an unfulfilled corporate guy to running his own business, where he now coached and advised corporate guys, sometimes about how to become more fulfilled. He loved his job.
He loved my mom.
I thought he might love me, too.
I appreciated that he was a very in-the-present person, and he was good to my mom, and to me, and he didn’t try to parent me (I don’t count the unsolicited advice on how to more efficiently pack my backpack in the morning, or on dressing and eating mindfully), which was probably wise. But part of me worried we were all just playacting, and that any minute, everything would fall apart.
One Saturday morning about a year after he’d moved in, Mom was doing her usual weekend sleep-in, and he and I were both up.
“Ingrid, would you like to come on a secret mission with me?” he asked.
I said yes, and we took the subway to Yorkville, where he bought me a fancy brunch.
I ate my gourmet waffles with ice cream, and watched him carefully as he made small talk, wondering what was up, because this wasn’t standard procedure, and he was acting strange.
Finally, he clasped his hands under his chin, and said, “Ingrid, do you think your mother would marry me?”
My jaw dropped.
“You’re surprised,” he said.
“That’s just . . . not what I was expecting!” I had, from force of habit, I suppose, expected something bad.
“Maybe I should ask, first, if you would be happy about it,” he said, seeming to sense something off in my reaction.
“I . . . yes. I mean, of course you have to ask her, and . . . probably she would say yes. We’re all living together after all, and she’s happy.”
“But . . . ?”
“But nothing. Except . . .” I shrugged, looked away, then back at him. “Have you ever been married before? It feels like a weird thing for me not to know about you.”
“You never asked,” he said.
“No, I guess I didn’t,” I said, swallowing down my own guilt about my part in keeping Mom’s past from him. “I don’t mean to be interrogating you. . . .”
“I was married once,” he said. “When I was very young—in my late twenties. It did not work out.”
“Why not?”
“This is a very grown-up conversation we’re having,” he said.
“I’m a very grown-up teen.”
“All right,” he said, seeming to come to a decision. “She became pregnant. I was happy; she was not. Then she miscarried. . . .”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said, his expression solemn. “After, she told me the experience showed her she did not want to have children, and in fact did not want to be with me at all, and that was it. I understood something then—she did not need me. She had never needed me. Loved me, maybe, but . . . she was not a person who could be held on to, and all my plans for us—a home to settle into, children, long years together, and my plans to fix things between us . . . she didn’t want those things. She didn’t want things fixed. For a long time, I was heartbroken. But I worked, and traveled, and moved here to Canada, and eventually I healed.”
“Did you have girlfriends?”
He laughed. “Of course! I was not a monk. But until I met your mother, I had simply never met another woman I wanted to be with in a serious way. I have known her for years now, and still I feel I do not know everything. She is fascinating. And you . . . perhaps I should speak with your mother about this first but . . .”
“But what?”
“If I ask her, and if she says yes,” he said, suddenly looking a little nervous, “and if you would like the idea . . .”
“Yes . . . ?”
“I know you never knew your father,” he said. “Your mother told me the story . . . .”
I nodded.
“It seems perfect to me. I never had the child I wanted; you never have had a father . . .”
“Yes . . . ?”
“I would like to adopt you, officially, and be . . . not your stepfather, but your father. Only if you and your mother agree, of course. And you have time to think about this, obviously . . . but . . . maybe you have been a long time without one and this would be too much?”
“No, not too much,” I said. I could barely speak, and I’d been biting my lip to keep from crying. “No one has ever . . . I would like that.”
His smile held so much relief and so much warmth that it lit me up from the inside.
“Then perhaps when you are finished with your waffles, you would come along and help me choose a ring?”
The (hopefully) impending engagement thrilled me, but also filled me with even more worry and dread of things coming crashing down than I’d been filled with before. Andreas liking my mother for being mysterious was great, but I didn’t think he’d be very understanding of the two of us having hidden such an important part of our past, and I felt increasingly guilty about it. The stash of secret history in the back of my closet, I decided, had to go.
So, one night I crept out of bed, put
slippers on, and retrieved the two garbage bags of memorabilia. Out in the hallway I tiptoed past Mom and Andreas’s slightly open door and then down the stairs, wincing at every creak.
I continued through the house to the kitchen, where I quietly unlatched the side door, opened it, and stepped out into the darkness.
Even though it was the side of my own house in a mostly safe neighborhood, there were things to fear in the city besides burglars, drug addicts, and potential rapists. Like raccoons, mice, rats, feral cats in heat, skunks.
And so I stood for a few moments, listening and waiting for my eyes to adjust, before taking the twenty-odd steps to get to the recycling bin. Once there, I hugged the first bag to my chest before opening the lid and lowering it carefully into the bin.
I was starting to feel relieved and about to put the second bag in when a large shape rose up out of the darkness, flashed a light in my face, and spoke my name.
I screamed my head off for about two seconds, then stopped abruptly.
“Andreas!”
“Ingrid!”
“You scared the crap out of me! What are you doing out here?”
“Me?” he said, shifting the light of the flashlight upward so it no longer blinded me, but instead illuminated both our faces. “I am out here wondering what you are doing out here. I was thinking we had a thief!”
“Ha-ha . . .”
“Then I was thinking we might have a runaway. And so I came quietly from the front to see . . .”
“Oh.”
A moment of awkward silence followed as I floundered, nothing but the truth coming to mind, and the truth being the opposite of my late-night goal.
Andreas waited, solid and patient in the small pool of light.
“I . . . I decided to clean up my room a bit,” I said, and swallowed. “Get rid of some stuff. Clutter. You know the old stuff you never use . . . Those organizing experts on TV always say if you haven’t used it or worn it in a year, you should get rid of it, so that’s what I figured I’d do.” I was talking too much but I couldn’t seem to stop, and worse, the second bag was still at my feet, and any investigation would prove it wasn’t clothing.
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