“Was that your dad you were talking to?”
Seth answered with a sniffle. Then a nod against August’s shoulder.
“Want to tell me what the bad news is?”
At first Seth didn’t. Then a minute later August could feel him gear up to begin. A straightening of his shoulders. A big deep breath.
“I’m okay now, August,” he said.
It was clearly a lie. But August released him.
Seth looked around as though a tissue would magically appear. Then he wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“He says they’re trying to pin another charge on him. He could be in for another ninety days. So when you go back through at the end of the summer, maybe his jail sentence’ll only be half over.”
August sat a minute, consciously breathing. The news settled in as a long fall. Like something falling into a long well of a space, so deep as to be nearly bottomless. But it did have a bottom. And when the news reached it, August realized that part of him had known this all along. This or something quite like it.
“When will we find out?”
“I don’t know,” Seth said, “but one thing I can tell you for sure. We don’t have to ask him anymore. Because he lies. I always try to think maybe he just made a mistake, but I really think he lies, August. So, anyway, I made him tell the guard right while we were on the phone that he wanted to talk to somebody and give permission for the jail to tell things straight to you.”
“Oh,” August said. A bit surprised at Seth’s careful thinking. “That was good. Think he’ll do it?”
“He better. Anyway, once he told the guard, I think probably he’ll have to. Don’t tell Henry,” he added on a sharp outrush of breath. “It’ll kill him.”
August indicated with a flip of his head where Henry knelt on the couch inside the rig, overlooking the scene.
“I think you better tell him something,” August said. “I think what he’s imagining might be even worse.”
“What do we do, August? What are we supposed to do if he has to stay in jail until December?” Seth spat out the word “December” as if giving a date decades into the future, when he and his brother Henry would be old and gray.
“Um. I don’t know, buddy. I need to think. Let me call the jail and see what’s what before we do anything else.”
Seth sat without comment for a moment, then sniffled once and rose to his feet.
“And when you’re done talking to Henry, start putting everything away so we can go. I want to get on the road early today. Because we’ll be at Yellowstone by nightfall.”
The woman August talked to had a high, thin voice. A voice like a little girl. August briefly wondered if her office was literally on site at the prison. She sounded so defenseless. But that was not a useful observation, he realized, and it was probably way off base.
He pushed such thoughts away again.
“I don’t know what you mean about this ‘extra’ charge you keep referring to,” she said. “There’s no extra charge. The inmate in question was charged and convicted on one count. Driving while under the influence.”
“Oh,” August said, his head swimming with confusion. “So you’re not in the process of charging him with anything else.”
“We’re not,” she said. “No.”
August looked up at the window of the rig to see if the boys were staring at him. Woody was sitting in the passenger seat of the cab, but he was apparently watching for squirrels. The boys crossed back and forth by the window, scurrying to get everything cleaned up and put away.
It struck August strange that Wes would present the worst possible news if it wasn’t true. It just didn’t add up right.
“Hey, wait,” he said suddenly. “Driving under the influence? I thought this time he was charged with kiting checks.”
“No, sir. Driving under the influence.”
“Oh. Well. I guess that doesn’t matter. At least not right now. The main thing is that I get his release date straight.”
“The third of December,” she said.
News of the date sent a ringing numbness through August’s body. He held still and felt it echo around, touching one part of his insides at a time.
“You said there were no additional charges.”
“Correct.”
“But he was supposed to get out in September.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, sir. He was never scheduled for release in September.”
“So he was originally sentenced to . . .”
“Six months.”
Another ringing silence. Though it was a thought out of place, it struck August that the woman must be having trouble understanding his inability to grasp simple information. And that she must have been looking forward to the call being over.
“Right from the beginning he was sentenced to six months?”
“Correct.”
“For DUI?”
“It was his fourth offense.”
“Understood.”
Another long silence.
Then the woman said, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
August noticed that her voice had deepened just slightly and become a trace more adult-sounding. As if she needed to be big and strong to push August off the phone.
“Um, I don’t think so. So, that’s . . . I mean, that’s nonnegotiable, right? That’s definite? December third? That’s not going to change? No time off for good behavior or anything?”
“On his fourth offense, I think you can trust that he’ll serve every day of that sentence.”
“Okay,” August said. It wasn’t okay at all, but there was nothing this woman could do about that. “Thanks.”
He clicked the phone closed and walked to the back door of the rig. Woody met him with wags, and, as August opened the door, he was careful to keep looking at Woody. In his peripheral vision he could see that all bustling had stopped. The boys were holding still. Waiting.
When he finally looked up at their faces, August didn’t have to say that the news was bad. They already knew. Apparently it was right there in his eyes. Just sitting right there for them to gather for themselves.
“Just . . .” August said, then stalled, unsure where he was headed. “Just . . . I don’t know. Give me time to think. I just need to think about this.”
“Whoa, look at those mountains,” Seth cried, startling Woody. “I never saw anything like that in my life! They look like the Alps! Is this Yellowstone?”
It broke the stunned silence that had haunted them all day.
“Not quite,” August said. “We came up from the south end so we could go through Grand Teton National Park. I wanted to see it, and I thought you guys would, too.”
“So those are the Grand Teton mountains?”
“They are.”
“I never even heard of them.”
“Never studied them in school or saw a picture?”
“I don’t think so. They’re so . . .”
He was never able to finish the thought. But August thought he knew. They were so sheer in their height, great narrow caps that pointed straight up or even seemed to bend over a bit. They were genuine mountain peaks. The kind it would be hard to imagine trying to climb. They harbored veins of old snow, even in the summer. They did look a bit the way August pictured the Alps.
“Let’s stop and have lunch, and we can really take them in,” he said.
August parked in a turnout near the shore of a lake and made tuna sandwiches. Seth stood outside, staring at those mountains. August had to call him to come in and get his sandwich.
“Can I take it back outside to eat it, August?”
“Sure,” August said.
And he and Henry settled on opposite sides of the dinette table. August watched the Grand Tetons out the window. Henry stared as well, but August couldn’t tell if he was watching the mountains or watching his brother watch the mountains. Or both.
A few minutes later, his mouth still full of tun
a fish, Henry said, “He’s thinking about climbing.”
It surprised August to hear so many words from the boy.
“How do you know?” August asked.
Henry only shrugged.
“No, really,” August said. “I’m curious. How can you tell?”
Henry shrugged again. “Just know,” he said.
August finished the last of his sandwich, then stepped out the back door, leaving Woody inside with Henry. So he could continue to stare while the boy finished eating.
August stood next to Seth, nearly shoulder to shoulder. Seth’s sandwich drooped in his hand, barely touched. He showed no special sign that he knew August had joined him.
“Thinking of climbing?” August asked.
A brief silence.
Then Seth said, “Oh yeah.”
They looked on in silence for a few minutes more.
“Don’t let your lunch go to waste,” August said.
“I’ve been trying to think of words to tell you how all this makes me feel.”
“The Tetons?”
“Yeah, but not just them. All of this. All this . . . you know. These places. Nature. It makes me feel different. But I just can’t figure out what words to use.”
“Most people say it makes them feel smaller. Like the world is so big, it makes them feel insignificant.”
“No,” Seth said. But then he didn’t immediately elaborate. “Bigger,” he said after a time.
“Really?”
“Just on the inside, though,” Seth said. “Like in my chest. Like I breathe air into my chest, and there’s more space in my lungs than before. But not my lungs really. I just feel like there’s more room inside me than there used to be.”
August briefly tried that on for size. Wondered if he longed for summer because summer made it so much easier to breathe.
“Is that how it feels to you, August?”
“I’m not sure,” August said. “But I guess that’s as good a way to describe the feeling as any.”
“We’re in Yellowstone,” Seth said weakly as they pulled into their campsite. It was the first thing he’d said in many hours.
It was a thing everybody already knew. But nobody had said it. Because nobody had said anything since passing through the park entrance.
“Yes we are,” August replied.
Then he turned off the engine of the rig and the headlights. And the campground was thrown into darkness. The trees disappeared, and the tents and motor homes that surrounded them. Then, as they sat a minute, it all came back into soft focus, aided by lights on in the windows of other rigs and an occasional campfire.
“You wanted to get here real bad, didn’t you, August?”
“Yes,” August said, disliking where this was headed but unsure why.
“So . . . that’s good. Right? I mean . . . you’re here. That’s good.”
They sat still, August in the driver’s seat, Seth in the passenger seat beside him. Henry and Woody on the couch in the back. For some reason none of them had even taken off his seat belt. As if the inertia was something contagious.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking, Seth.”
“I think I mean . . . do you feel better now?”
August pulled in a big breath. Forced it out again.
“No. And I really thought I would.”
“Can I ask you a question, August?”
August squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Gripped the steering wheel more tightly. “I still need more time to think about that, Seth.”
“No, it wasn’t about that. It was about the iced-tea bottle. I just wondered . . . I mean . . . we’re here. So is that all we have to be? Here? Are you going to leave those ashes anywhere just so long as it’s Yellowstone? Or do they have to go someplace really special in Yellowstone?”
“I’m not sure. I think it might be a lot of different places. But I didn’t really think it out all that well. Yet.”
Much the same way I didn’t think out why just arriving here was supposed to solve anything, he thought. He did not say it.
“Do you want to think of places all on your own, August, or do you want us to help you?”
They all three sat cross-legged on a blanket in front of their campfire, the glow of the flames illuminating the boys’ faces. And his own, August realized but he didn’t care to think about that. He wanted to feel invisible.
August got the distinct impression that Seth desperately wanted to talk about what they would do during the second half of his father’s sentence. And, since he couldn’t, his only option was to desperately talk. In general.
“You can make suggestions if you want. I figured when I saw a good place, I’d just know it. It would feel right, you know?”
“But you haven’t seen anything yet? Oh, never mind. I’m sorry. That’s a stupid question. We just drove in. And it was dark. How could you have seen anything yet? I’m sorry, August. I know I’m talking too much, but I can’t make myself stop.”
“It’s okay,” August said. “We’re all a little off balance.”
“Thanks, August. Can I go inside and get the marshmallows?”
“You can if you want, but this fire will have to burn way down before we can toast them properly. All it’s going to do now is set them on fire.”
“I could sharpen some sticks while we’re waiting.”
“Fine,” August said.
Seth sprang to his feet and disappeared. Woody ran after him. Just in case there was trouble. Or fun.
August looked over—and down—at Henry. Henry looked up to August, completely unguarded, the boy’s face like a door thrown open to invite visitors into his house. He smiled a tiny smile that August could only characterize as excruciating. The look in his eyes reminded August of the last day the boys spent home. The way their father instructed them to steer clear of him. So they wouldn’t unfairly burden him with looks like this one.
August smiled, against odds, and quickly looked away again.
Seth squatted beside Henry at the edge of the fire, sharpening the end of a long stick with August’s Swiss army knife. Cutting away from himself and his own hand, just the way August had taught him.
August could hear a light rustling of wind in the trees and some kind of insect noise. And distant voices of their fellow campers.
“The fire!” August said suddenly.
He surprised even himself by saying it. Seth was so startled that he fell forward and had to brace himself with one hand to keep from tumbling into the fire pit.
“Sorry,” August said.
“It’s okay. You just surprised me.”
“You cut yourself?”
“No. I’m fine. What about the fire?”
“That’s where I should put the first little bit of Phillip’s ashes. In our campfire.”
Seth said nothing for a time, and August could see and feel his stare in the fire glow.
“In the fire?” he asked after a time. Sounding opposed.
“Yes. Why not? If he were here with us, he’d be sitting here enjoying this campfire. It’s our first night here, and he’d be thrilled to be here. But it’s too late and too dark to go exploring. So he’d just be sitting here enjoying the campfire. Enjoying the fact that we’re here. So the first place we should put some of his ashes is in the fire.”
“But . . . August . . .”
“What?”
“He wouldn’t be in the fire. If he was here. He’d be sitting beside it.”
“Well . . . that’s true. But I don’t want to just dump his ashes on the ground next to the fire pit. Because then we’ll be scuffing through them for the next week or two. Getting them on the bottom of our shoes. That’s not good enough. This way he’ll actually be the fire. He’ll be part of it.”
“But . . . August . . .”
“What, Seth?”
“It’s a fire. Nobody wants to be in a fire.”
“Seth, he’s already been cremated.”
“Oh. Well, that’s true. But st
ill . . .”
August looked down at Henry again, who returned his gaze immediately.
“What do you think, Henry? Should we sprinkle a little of Phillip’s ashes on the fire?”
Henry nodded once. Immediately and decisively.
“We should?” Seth asked. “Why?”
Henry shrugged. “I dunno,” he said in his little cartoon mouse voice. “Just seems good.”
August squatted on the balls of his feet, one knee braced against a stone of the fire pit, and held his two hands out together, palms up.
“How much?” Seth asked.
His role in the proceedings clearly made Seth nervous.
“Go slow. I’ll say when.”
The ashes felt gritty hitting August’s palms. Like the tiniest pebbles imaginable. Sharp, even. When a mound of about a quarter of a cup had been poured into his hands, he said, “That’s good. That’s enough.”
Then he just remained there, squatting, uncomfortable, watching Seth put the cap back on the bottle. Henry extended his neck comically and stared at the ashes in August’s hands as if expecting some kind of sudden movement from them.
“Should we say something?” Seth asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t really think about that.”
“If we say something, it should be you. You were his father. I didn’t even know him.”
“You would have liked him.”
“I bet I would’ve. I wish he was here.”
“Yeah,” August said. “Me too.”
“So . . . you gonna say something?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. I don’t know what to say.”
He’d been feeling around inside himself ever since the bottle came out of the glove compartment. He’d found nothing at all so far.
“Can I say something, then?”
“Sure.”
“Phillip his name was?”
“Yes. Phillip.”
“Phillip, we wish you were here for this trip. I know you don’t know me, but I know I would’ve liked you, because I like your dad so much. And this would be a much nicer trip with you here, because then he wouldn’t be so sad. But I hope when we put a little bit of you in the fire, he’ll feel better. I’m still not so sure about that fire thing, but . . . well . . . never mind.”
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