Her parents’ story was probably why Hannah had so fiercely believed she and Collin would have a lifetime together. Carrie and Daniel were proof that sometimes teenagers did fall in love forever.
“I guess I can forgive you and Mom for indulging my son,” Hannah said, taking a damaged piece of pipe from her father and giving him the replacement length.
Her dad could fix anything. He had the biggest contracting business in Mahalaton Lake, a business that he’d started at the same time he had set up shop as an architect. It had made sense in such a small town, and he liked being sure the best materials and workmanship were going into his building designs. Personally Hannah thought he’d done it out of self-preservation—being inside an office so many hours a day would have driven him crazy.
“Wait until you’re a grandmother,” he advised. “You’ll love it.”
“I love being a mom, too. I just hope I’m not making too many mistakes. After all, I’m the only one Danny can blame them on right now,” she tried to say lightly.
“Mistakes are normal. Refusing to fix them isn’t. I’ve had to replace a lot of floor joists and subflooring because people ignored a small leak in their toilet.”
“Yeah, but what if you don’t know there’s a leak?”
Her father finished tightening the pipe and sat up. “What’s bothering you, sweetheart?”
“Oh...I don’t know.” Hannah rubbed the back of her neck. She was worried about Danny hearing too many of Jake’s tales, yet going overboard trying to stop it could cause problems, too. “Jake’s exciting stories are causing sleep issues for Danny. They aren’t serious yet, but they’re also making him think more about his own father. He imagines that Steven is having the same kind of adventures and wants to go on them, too.”
“And you’re afraid that when Jake leaves, Danny will be upset, just like when Steven pops in and out.”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Have you heard from Steven lately?”
“Not since that visit last fall.” Her ex had buzzed in without warning, given Danny a video game and left before his son could get the box open. He hadn’t been in the house for ten minutes. If he wasn’t willing to be a father, even part-time, why couldn’t he simply stay away? It wasn’t fair to put Danny through such an emotional roller coaster.
Daniel wiped his hands and got up. “Your ex-husband is an ass, but we already knew that.”
Hannah nodded. “We know it, but Danny loves him. Then he starts thinking he’s done something wrong and that’s why Steven doesn’t come very often.”
“He just loves the idea of having a father like his friends,” Daniel said firmly. “How can you love someone you’ve only seen a few times in your entire life?”
“I don’t know, I just don’t want him getting hurt worse, and I don’t want him turning out like Steven.”
“Neither do we, sweetie. We’ll just have to keep doing our best. Come on, let’s go inside. I bet your mother has a cherry cobbler in the oven, and smelling cobbler while it’s baking is half the pleasure of eating it.”
Some of Hannah’s tension eased, and she followed her dad into the house. The days were gone when he could make her problems go away just by being her daddy, but it still made her feel better to talk to him.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Jake watched Hannah as she drove the connecting roads to Mount St. Helens. After dropping Danny and Badger at her parents’ home she’d grown silent and barely looked at him. Obviously she was still unhappy about his behavior the day before.
“All right,” he said finally. “I wasn’t in the best mood yesterday. I apologize.”
“Yeah, well, a sidewinder would have been more pleasant to deal with.”
“Uh...sidewinder?” Jake asked cautiously. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place the name. “I don’t know that particular term.”
She shook her head. “It isn’t a term, it’s a poisonous snake. You must not have watched very many old Westerns when you were growing up. No wonder you don’t know anything about the culture in your own country.”
“We’ve been over this before,” Jake protested. “My mother grew up in the U.S. She taught me.”
“Okay, let’s give you a quiz and see how you do. What if I say something like, ‘I’m releasing the flying monkeys.’ What do you think of?”
“Well, in the first place there are no flying monkeys. There are some that appear to—”
Hannah made an exasperated sound. “It’s a reference to The Wizard of Oz and the Wicked Witch of the West. Not an actual movie quote, but the flying monkeys are a big part of the movie.”
“Oh.” Jake had the feeling Hannah was going to beat him hands down in this game.
“Okay, next. ‘Rosebud,’” she said in a low, tortured voice.
“You want flowers?”
“Citizen Kane, with Orson Welles. It’s a movie supposedly based on William Randolph Hearst’s rise to power in the newspaper business.”
“Hey, I’ve heard of both movies.”
“But you don’t know them. Next one. ‘This is what I call a timely interruption.’ Uh...never mind, that’s from Captain Blood and might be too obscure for most people. I know it because my great-aunt loved Errol Flynn and pirate movies.”
Hannah was looking much more relaxed and Jake decided to sit back and enjoy himself. “Give me a quote that isn’t so hard.”
“‘We’ll always have Paris’?”
“Not a clue.”
“Casablanca. That one is full of classic dialogue like, ‘Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’” She was impersonating someone again, and while it sounded familiar, he was still clueless, until all at once it dawned on him.
“Humphrey Bogart,” Jake said triumphantly. “I saw Key Largo a long time ago. Bogie and Bacall, right? Lauren Bacall has the sexiest voice. Nobody will ever match her.”
“Thank you from all the women of the world,” Hannah returned drily. “We love having standards we can’t possibly live up to.”
He grinned. “You started this.”
“I suppose. There’s a huge movie collection at the lodge. You haven’t watched any of it?”
“Television isn’t my thing. I don’t even have one at my studio in Costa Rica. Before I go out on a location I download a stack of nonfiction books on my eReader. Along with my work, that keeps me pretty busy. And most of the places I’ve lived don’t have television or movie theaters anyway.”
“eReader? How do you recharge the battery?” Hannah asked curiously.
“With a handy little solar charger.”
“Oh. Well, I approve of reading, but movies are one way to educate yourself about U.S. culture. You should watch some of the old classics...starting with Casablanca. I can make a basic list if you want, and I’m sure you can find recommendations on the internet. It’s amazing how many things we say or read that have their roots in Hollywood.”
Jake wondered how Hannah would react if he suggested she come over for a movie night.
Hannah turned the Jeep into a service station. “We’d better fill up.”
“Sure.” He took out his credit card and was looking at the instructions on the electronic pay station when Hannah pointed.
“Swipe your card that way through the slot, then follow the instructions on the screen. It’ll probably ask for a billing zip code, so if you don’t know it, you’ll have to go inside and pay.”
As they filled the tank, Jake noticed a fresh lattes sign in the window of the small store attached to the service station.
“Now, there’s something I’ve noticed everywhere in this state...lattes and espresso. Washingtonians are obsessed with coffee, particularly in Seattle.”
Hannah’s eyes gleamed. “Yeah, let’s get a cup.”
> “Let’s say I watch the films you recommend,” Jake said when they’d gotten their coffee and were back on the road. Hannah was sipping a mocha latte and he’d gotten a plain-Jane espresso—so called because he hadn’t wanted sugar or special flavorings added. “Won’t I sound as stuffy as your boyfriend if I start quoting old movies?”
Hannah’s face looked strained again. “Uh...I wouldn’t start quoting anything unless you’re sure of the context, but wouldn’t it be nice to understand some of them? You’re right, though. We should add modern stuff—a few Pixar films, two or three kung fu flicks, the Harry Potter movies and Sex in the City.”
Jake grinned. “Sex in the city? If that’s the only place to have sex in this country, I’m going to be very disappointed.”
“Sex in the City was a cable television series. There are still pop references to it, though it ended years ago.”
“Good to know.” Jake had enjoyed the game, but his head was starting to reel.
It was dawning on him that while he’d enjoyed a uniquely varied education as a child, he might have missed one or two things. It wasn’t just movies or television programming—it was everything, such as fund-raisers and festivals. It was even gas pumps where you could pay your bill without talking to anyone.
All told, he probably hadn’t spent more than a day or two at a time in the States in his entire life. And those visits had been rare. How did you catch up on thirty-four years of subtle meanings and references? Not that he needed to, Jake reminded himself hastily. His body was going to heal, and he’d return to doing the work he loved, in places where he loved to do it. And he could have spent his convalescence in Costa Rica or someplace else—it was just because of Matt and Andy that he’d ended up in Washington.
Nevertheless, he did feel out of step. It had never seemed to matter anywhere else in the world—he’d traveled to dozens of countries and knew he couldn’t expect to understand that many places in depth. On the other hand, he hadn’t realized how little he understood the country he’d always claimed as his own.
* * *
HANNAH HADN’T EXPECTED to enjoy the drive, considering the mood Jake had been in the previous day, but at the moment it wasn’t turning out badly...even though his reminder about Brendan had dropped her stomach for a minute.
“Let’s talk about Mount St. Helens,” Jake suggested. “I’ve read about it in one of the books at the lodge. From what I understand, there was a minor eruption in 1980 that took off part of the peak and raised the level of the lake.”
“It wasn’t minor to the victims who died or their families,” Hannah told him, trying not to be offended—there wasn’t any point, Jake operated on a different plane than most people.
“Of course not,” he agreed hastily.
“The eruption was fairly small from a geologic perspective, which is what the book must have meant,” she acknowledged. “I mean, compared to the ancient self-destruction of Mazama that created Crater Lake in Oregon, Mount St. Helens was just a blip. But even so, it leveled thousands of acres of forest and took off more than thirteen hundred feet of the mountain.”
“That would have been something to see.”
“You mean photograph, don’t you?”
“That’s what I am—a photographer.”
“Yeah, but can’t you be more than that? I can’t imagine the heartache of watching the eruption and knowing people were dying. No offense, but it seems as if you only see the world through your camera lens.”
From the corner of her eye she saw Jake frown, though he didn’t respond.
Hannah turned onto forest road 99, explaining that 110,000 acres had been set aside as the Mount St. Helen’s National Monument; the land itself was the monument. There was only limited access by car—roads skirted the area without crossing it. They were going to Windy Ridge on the northeast side, but they could return another day if he wanted to see one of the visitor centers or the Johnston Ridge Observatory.
“Some of the downed trees outside the monument have been salvaged for lumber. Then the area was replanted with seedlings,” Hannah told him after they’d both been silent for a long while. “But inside the monument, nature is being allowed to take its course. Essentially the entire site is a laboratory where they’re studying how nature restores itself.”
“Uh-huh.” Jake was focused on one of his cameras and Hannah was glad he wasn’t watching as she swung around a curve she’d driven numerous times.
“Take a look.”
He looked up absently and his eyes widened. The scenery around them had gone from lush forest to the stark, gray-white skeletons of trees. And spreading beyond them to the south and west were tree trunks lying on the ground as if cut down by a scythe and combed straight in patterns mirroring the direction the blast had flowed over the hills.
“When the mountain went it started with a huge avalanche, followed by a lateral pyroclastic flow,” she explained, slowing the Jeep to a crawl. “Three hundred and fifty miles an hour, with molten rock and gases that pulverized everything in its path. Farther out, the flow slowed to around two hundred miles an hour, moving over the contours of the land, flattening trees, but not taking them with it.”
“What about these?” Jake gestured to the tree skeletons that stood upright.
“This is where the force of the flow lessened and the rocks fell out. The heated gases went up, killing the trees, but not knocking them over. Do you want to stop and take pictures?”
“When we come back. You mentioned having to return by the same road.”
“Yup. One way in, one way out. And just a reminder, there’s always the chance of another eruption. We’ve had multiple periods of activity since 1980.”
“Hmm.” Once again Jake’s face was unreadable. “But you brought me here anyway?”
“I checked the internet last night and there haven’t been any recent grumbles that concern the scientists, not that you can always predict that sort of thing. The 1980 eruption was far more violent than anyone thought it would be.”
* * *
JAKE LISTENED, LETTING the information Hannah was relaying run through his mind. She’d probably brought Danny and school groups here, telling them whatever she thought appropriate. Apparently the recovery of the devastated area was occurring more quickly than scientists had ever considered possible.
But life wasn’t just creeping in from the edges. Pockets of life had survived in places no one had expected, sometimes protected under heavy snow cover or by the roots of uprooted trees. Gophers, sleeping protected underground at the time of the eruption, had brought up soil and seeds when they’d awakened. Islands of new life were being created by lupine plants, germinating in a hostile environment. Life...persistent, demanding, irrepressible.
Gordon popped into Jake’s mind, and he wondered if the old bush pilot would ever stop lingering there. The possibility that he’d failed to recognize the pilot’s imminent health crisis was the most disturbing of all. It was bad enough that he’d hired the man, which was what had put him in the plane in the first place.
At the viewpoint Hannah called Windy Ridge, they got out and gazed at the changed landscape, shaped by the explosion and its aftermath.
“This is what it looked like before.” Hannah handed him an open book, and Jake stared at the image of a mountain and lake so pristine in their beauty, they hardly looked real.
“It doesn’t look like the same place.”
“It isn’t,” she said simply. “The bottom of this Spirit Lake is above the surface level of the old lake. A good deal of the missing mountain is down there. The eruption started with an avalanche. A three-hundred-foot wave was pushed ahead of it onto the surrounding mountains before washing back down with trees and debris into the new lake basin.”
Spirit Lake.
Great name, he thought, looking at the water, whe
re dead trees still floated on nearly a third of the surface. The shattered volcanic peak above looked as if it had been ripped open by giant, ruthless hands.
“Are you a park ranger, ma’am?” asked someone standing nearby in a group.
Hannah smiled pleasantly. “No, I’m a schoolteacher. Would you like to see some of the pictures I brought?”
They nodded and she passed the book around, telling them tidbits about the volcano as they compared the “before” picture to the changed vista they saw now.
“Hannah, how did it get the name of Spirit Lake?” Jake surprised himself by asking.
“I’m not sure, but there’s a legend that a group of Native American fishermen drowned when a storm capsized their canoe. Supposedly the local tribes wouldn’t come here after that because a strange moaning used to echo across the water.”
“Ooh,” one of the women said, shivering in horrified delight. “I never heard that story and I’ve lived down in Oregon my whole life.”
After they’d gone, Hannah tucked the book beneath her arm. “What are you thinking, Jake?”
“I’m wondering why you chose to bring me here.”
“You mean because the volcano isn’t as pretty as dogwood and rounded snowcapped summits?” She looked out at the slopes of the shattered peak. “This is part of what makes the Cascades. You can feel the mountains here, growing and changing. They’re alive, just in a different way than we are.”
His jaw tight, Jake prowled up and down the view point, trying to evaluate camera angles. “Can that part of volcano be climbed?” he asked, pointing to the area above the lake water.
“No, only the southern flank. I’ve done it. You can get to the top and back in a day. And they’ve opened a few other trails through the monument.”
He was glad she hadn’t pointed out that he wouldn’t be mountain climbing for a while, or attempting any strenuous hiking trails through a hazardous area.
As for the volcanic monument, he’d have to see more from the other access points before he could decide how to photograph it. Some of his more powerful lenses would be needed to shoot places that couldn’t be reached on foot. That was, if he included Mount St. Helens in his book. It would depend on whether he could get any photos that satisfied him.
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