Take Me With You

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

The phone rang again.

  “Is that Seth’s cell?” August asked.

  “Must be. Unless you have one. I don’t have one.”

  “I have one along,” August said. “But that’s not it.”

  Another ring.

  “Crap,” Henry said. “I’m going to do this myself. So Seth doesn’t have to.”

  He dug the phone out of the glove compartment. “Hello . . . oh, yeah. Hi, Dad. Look, I’m sorry. I would have asked you, but it came up last minute. And you weren’t home. I didn’t want to miss the whole summer just because you weren’t home.”

  A pause. August would have given anything to hear the other side of the conversation.

  “No, just the two of us,” Henry said.

  But at that exact moment two other campers walked by their site, close behind the back door of the rig, and Woody barked sharply. August put a hand over his muzzle. But of course by then it was too late.

  “No,” Henry said. “Just the dog. We took his dog because he can’t really much walk him anymore.” A pause. “No, I am telling you the truth. Look, I have to go. I have breakfast on the stove . . . Yes. I promise. Bye.”

  Henry clicked off the phone and ran to the stove, turning off the burner under the eggs.

  “Oh good,” he said. “They’re perfect.”

  “Think he believed you?”

  “Not sure,” Henry said, with an exaggerated frown. “I’m not even sure he knows if he believes me.”

  August sat up on the couch fully dressed, watching Henry. Henry was washing the breakfast dishes with almost obsessive concentration. August wasn’t quite sure why he found the boy’s simple but intense approach to dishes so fascinating. Maybe because it held clues to who he had become.

  Henry looked up suddenly and caught August’s eyes. His hands froze in place in the sudsy water.

  “I’m sorry if I messed everything up,” he said.

  August shrugged. “I don’t know what you should have done. What you could have done.”

  “What would you have done?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.” August paused to consider the situation for long enough that Henry returned his attention to the dishes. “Maybe try to let him see how important it was to me. How much it meant to me to go. See if I could convince him.”

  Henry shook his head hard. “The more I tell him how much it means to me to do it, the more he’ll never let me go. That’s exactly the problem. Don’t you get that?”

  “No,” August said. “I guess I don’t.”

  “If you didn’t mean so much to us, he wouldn’t be so jealous of you.”

  “Oh,” August said.

  Then he felt himself weighted with self-consciousness and didn’t know if he could speak to Henry’s statement any further. It seemed at odds with their track record of keeping in touch, but to say so might come out badly. So August just watched the boy dry the dishes and put them back in the cupboard.

  Finally August said, “I didn’t know I meant that much to you guys.”

  He regretted the words the moment they made their appearance.

  Henry set down the cup and bowl he was holding and turned to face August, hands on his hips, mouth gaping open.

  “Are you serious with that? You’re our hero, August. You were like Superman. The guy who saved the day. We idolized you. How could you not know that? Why would you not know?”

  August looked down at his hands, resting on Woody’s fur. He felt his face redden. He didn’t want to say what he had to say next, because he knew it would sound like a complaint. An ignoble complaint. But he was in too deep to back out.

  “I guess because you didn’t really keep in touch,” he said, eyes still cast down. “You just seemed to kind of get on with your life. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, really, but . . .”

  Henry’s mouth was still open. “You trying to tell me you wanted us to keep bugging you?”

  “You weren’t bugging me. You were never bugging me. I loved hearing from you. I wanted to know how you were. I thought about you guys all the time.”

  Henry stood in silence for a moment, then closed his mouth. He plunked down onto the couch beside August, jostling his hip. Reaching over to scratch behind Woody’s ear, he said, “Damn it. Why do we ever believe him, anyway?”

  Henry placed his face in his hands. August waited for him to speak again, but he didn’t seem inclined to.

  “Your dad?”

  “Yeah,” Henry said through his hands.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That we shouldn’t make you sorry you ever agreed to take us. He said, how would you feel? You know. If you agreed to take some little strangers for the summer, and then at the end of the summer it turned out you were never getting rid of them for the whole rest of your life. Who would want that?”

  “I would,” August said. “You weren’t strangers by then.”

  A long pause.

  Then Henry said, “It was actually one of the few things he told us that made sense.”

  He sighed, rose to his feet, and resumed putting away the dishes.

  “Do you know where Seth is?” August asked. “I mean, where exactly he planned to climb?”

  “I could probably find him. He said he was going to walk a mile back down the road. Back near the trailhead for the Boy Scout Trail. Why?”

  “I just thought I’d like to watch him climb. I didn’t get to see him yesterday.”

  “No, you wouldn’t like it,” Henry said.

  “I wouldn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “It would scare you.”

  “He’s not careful? I can’t picture Seth not being careful. He’s so responsible and methodical about things.”

  “Oh, he’s all of that all right. But it’s still free solo.”

  “Do I even want to know what that is?”

  “Probably not. But we can go out and watch him if you really think that’s what you want.”

  “I don’t know that I’m up for walking a mile up the road and back.”

  “I can drive us. I have my learner’s permit. I just need an adult with me. That’s you.”

  “You never drove the rig before, though.”

  “So? My dad taught us both to drive on the big tow truck. You know, the one that towed this rig into the shop. He said if we could drive that monster, we could drive anything.”

  “Fine,” August said. “Let’s give it a try. A careful try.”

  As he was struggling his way into the passenger seat, self-conscious about his motor skills, August said, “I guess I’m not like Superman now.”

  Henry plunked into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. Staring straight through the windshield at nothing but rock, as if he were embarrassed by his next words, Henry said, “August. Don’t say stuff like that. Your superpowers never had anything to do with your legs.”

  “Ha!” Henry cried when he spotted his brother, and Woody jumped up onto his lap behind the wheel to see what the boy was so excited about.

  “Oh good,” August said. “He’s pretty close to the road.”

  Henry eased the motor home onto the narrow, sandy dirt shoulder. He had driven well for as long as he had driven, which wasn’t far. He had taken it slow, watched his clearance carefully, and hadn’t made August wince once.

  Henry cut the engine. They sat a moment in the silence. August wondered if everybody else in this section of the park was still asleep or at least still in camp. He sure didn’t see them out here.

  “And there’s some shade,” Henry said, pointing to a spot where a stand of rocks cast a long shadow.

  August got out carefully while Henry ran two of the three camp chairs out to the shady seating area and set them up. Then he ran back and guided August by one elbow. August almost told him it wasn’t necessary but thought better of it. It might not have been necessary, but it was nice on this rocky, shrub-covered ground. It would be so easy to take a tumble
.

  When August was properly eased into a camp chair in the shade, Henry said, “I’ll go get Woody. And some bottled water.”

  “Will you bring my camera, too, Henry? I want to take some pictures of him. It’s in the map pocket on the passenger side.”

  Henry set off at a trot.

  August peered at Seth’s back as he climbed. He was close enough to be clearly identified as Seth, but too far away for August’s liking. He was wearing only shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and some kind of minimal shoes. A helmet, August was happy to note. He looked forward to the zoom on the camera to help him make out more of what he was seeing. Seth did not appear to know he was being watched.

  Woody leapt into his lap and kissed his face, and his camera appeared at his left shoulder in Henry’s hand.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m putting a bottle of water right here.”

  He indicated the mesh cup holder in the fabric arm of August’s chair.

  “Thanks.”

  August powered up the camera and zoomed in close, looking to confirm a few details. He was sure his unaided eyes were not seeing correctly. He turned his head to look at Henry, who looked back.

  “What?”

  “Why am I not seeing ropes?” August asked.

  “That would be the free solo thing we talked about. Well, Seth would say it’s just bouldering, and that’s different. But it’s still solo. And free.”

  “Well, I know what solo means. But . . . are you trying to tell me free means free of ropes? Carabiners? Pitons? Harnesses? All the stuff climbers use so they don’t kill themselves? That’s what it means to be free in climbing lingo?”

  “He uses that stuff on the big walls. You know. When he goes high. Like when he’s climbing Angels Landing at Zion, he’ll rope up. Of course. And Yosemite. If he goes up The Nose on El Cap, he’ll rope. He totally idolizes the climbers who do the big walls free, but he doesn’t do it himself. But this is little stuff to him. Bouldering. Rock scrambling. This is barely a warm-up.”

  “He’s up about . . . what is that? By the time he gets to the top? Forty feet?”

  “Thirty, maybe. Maybe thirty-five.”

  “He could break his back falling from that height. He could fall on his head and kill himself.”

  “Seth never falls, though.”

  “That doesn’t mean he never will.”

  “August,” Henry said, a model of applied patience. “Two things. First, notice I’m on the ground at all times. I’m not the one thirty feet up. Second, I told you this was something you don’t want to see. You really can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  August sighed and peered through the camera again. Snapped off a few shots.

  “What exactly is he holding on to? It just looks like smooth rock.”

  “Tiny cracks, if he can get them. Sometimes just big enough to wedge the tips of his fingers into. Or these little tiny nubs of rock that you can barely see, but it’s just enough for him to grip.”

  “This is terrifying.”

  “Not for Seth it’s not. To repeat: don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  A moment later Seth topped out on the huge rock formation, stretching and turning around 360 degrees. He spotted them and waved in a big overhead arc. August waved back, a bit more reserved.

  “Thank God he got up okay.”

  “Seth always gets up okay,” Henry said.

  August was anxious to see how Seth would get down. But watching him didn’t answer many questions. He just disappeared over the top of the rocks. A few minutes later he came walking around the front of them, feet back on the ground.

  August expected Seth to make a straight line for the shady spot where he and Henry were sitting, so he racked his brain for something positive to say about the climbing. Nothing emerged. It didn’t really matter, though. Because Seth didn’t come back. He just found another rock formation and started up its vertical face, seemingly hanging on to nothing.

  “Oh,” August said, partly to Henry and partly to himself. He glanced down at the camera sitting in his lap. “I guess I should take some more pictures of him.”

  “Seth would like that. He doesn’t have good pictures of himself climbing. Because the guys he climbs with don’t want to bother with carrying a camera. Once he took me with him to Pinnacles, and I was supposed to work the camera from the ground. But I’m not a natural photographer like Seth is. The pictures were just okay. Not up to his standards.”

  August zoomed in on Seth, nearly halfway up now. But it allowed him to see how little there was to hold, and it made August sweat. Yes, it was getting hotter, but this was a different kind of sweat. He forced himself to snap off a few good shots anyway. Then he put the camera down so he wouldn’t have to see the climb in such horrifying detail.

  “I still feel like I’m about to watch him break every bone in his body.”

  “You get over that after a while,” Henry said, scratching Woody briskly behind both ears at once.

  But August had a feeling that, even though Henry had gotten over it, maybe he never would.

  By the time Seth arrived back at the camp chairs, holding his helmet under one arm and sweating profusely, it was nearly ten thirty. The shade patch had shrunk, forcing August and Henry to huddle close to the rocks, and August had taken to mopping his forehead obsessively with one sleeve.

  “August is freaked out,” Henry said.

  “About what?” Seth asked. As though August was not sitting right there, able to say for himself.

  “Your climbing.”

  “I thought I went pretty well today.”

  “He thought you’d be roped up.”

  “Oh,” Seth said. “Well, this is small stuff, August. Bouldering.”

  “But . . . no equipment at all—” August began.

  “I have equipment!” He held up his helmet proudly. “And . . .” He slid a belt around, bringing a small open bag to the front, where August could see it. “I have chalk. For my fingers. That’s enough for stuff like this where I don’t even go high.”

  Again Henry answered for him. “He thinks it’s high enough to break your back or something. Dad called. I talked to him. I lied to him so you wouldn’t have to. But he heard Woody bark. So when you talk to him, remember. Woody is on the trip with us. August is not.”

  “Well, I wasn’t about to forget that last part,” Seth said. “Think he believed you?”

  “No idea.”

  “Think he has any way to check?”

  “No idea.”

  Seth looked to August, and Henry followed suit.

  “Think he’s going to make trouble for us, August?”

  “No idea,” August said.

  The campfire snapped and crackled, its smoke and light reaching up toward the brilliant desert night sky. August could hear people in the neighboring campsites, but their presence seemed muted, as though a soft invisible wall hemmed them in, making everything outside their own little world seem less relevant, less connected.

  Memorize every detail, he told himself. Last summer of campfires.

  August suddenly had a sharp memory of another campfire, the one he and the boys had built on their first night in Yellowstone. The fire into which they placed the first handful of Phillip’s ashes. August wondered why they weren’t sprinkling any of the ashes Seth had insisted on bringing. And if not here, where?

  “I’m tired of sitting,” Henry said. “I’m taking Woody for a walk. Now that it’s finally not hot.”

  “How will you see where you’re going?” August asked.

  “I’ll wear Seth’s headlamp.”

  He stood up and brushed sandy dirt off the seat of his shorts.

  “Watch out for coyotes,” Seth said.

  “Funny,” Henry shot back.

  “It wasn’t a joke.”

  Henry shook his head and left the circle. Left Seth and August alone with all the words that had been sitting, so conspicuously unsaid, since earlier that morning.

  “
How long have you been doing this climbing?” August asked.

  “Pretty much since you dropped me back home. You know. That September. When I was twelve. I built a climbing wall on the back of the shop. I was on it five hours a day. Then after I could drive, I hit it for real. You know. Real walls.”

  “You never mentioned it.”

  “I was trying to avoid what we’re doing right now.”

  They stared at the fire in silence for a while. It was burning hotter now, and August could feel the heat on his cheeks. In his eyes.

  “I feel responsible for this,” August said.

  “Now why is that?”

  “Because I took you to Zion. And put you on that shuttle bus and took you off again to see the climbers going up Angels Landing.”

  “Jeez, August. I thought I was the over-responsible one. You think sooner or later I wouldn’t have seen something climbable? With somebody climbing it?”

  August never answered that. The conversation stalled, and they stared into the fire in silence.

  “It’s my livelihood, August.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “How can you say that? You think I don’t know my own livelihood?”

  “Obviously you don’t. Your livelihood is your job.”

  “I don’t have a job right now.”

  “You’re not following me, Seth. You don’t know what the word ‘livelihood’ means. It doesn’t mean the thing that keeps you lively. It means the way you earn your living. The thing that feeds you. Keeps you alive.”

  “That doesn’t sound like what it should mean.”

  “English is a quirky language.”

  “I guess.”

  “It’s your raison d’être.”

  “Wow. English really is a quirky language.”

  “That’s French, actually.”

  “I knew that. I was kidding.”

  “Oh. Do you also know what it means?”

  “I’m guessing it means like what I thought livelihood meant.”

  “It means reason for existence. But I still don’t think a physical activity should be the reason for your whole existence.”

  More silence.

  Then Seth said, “All I know is, it’s what makes me . . . you know . . . me. You know how when you’re working, or going to school, and you just keep repeating the same days? Go to work, come home, eat. Do the laundry. Go to sleep. And then you notice the days are going by really fast. And they’re all starting to look alike. And then you start to feel like this can’t be it. This can’t be all. This can’t be . . . you know . . . a whole life. There has to be more. That’s what the climbing is to me. It’s the more. That’s the thing that makes me feel like life is enough. Come on. You know what I mean, August. What makes your life feel like enough?”