by Spencer Hyde
“We’ll let you two go,” said Wyatt.
They all stood, and we hugged before they stepped into the light pooling in the hospital’s overly-large white hallway. I watched them leave, then turned to Grandpa. He handed me a bag, and I went to the bathroom to change. Of course, the clothes he brought turned out to be about five years past their wearable date.
As we walked out into the arms of a quiet, open sky, I joked, “You couldn’t bring me some sweats or something?”
“I was in a hurry. Just sit back and calm down,” he said, followed by a laugh through his nostrils.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“What?”
“You just survived a flash flood, and you’re complaining about your clothing. It’s such a small, silly worry in light of what you’ve been through. Reminds me of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, is all.”
“Huh. I guess you were at about the right age to be working on that boat,” I said.
“Should’ve left you in that hospital.”
“Missed opportunities, right?”
Bury ran to the black car reflecting the afternoon light.
“You brought the hearse? Also, can I note that no normal teenager should have to ever speak that sentence in their life? And I just did.”
“Everyone wants to ride in it. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.”
“Everyone gets that ride—eventually. But I wouldn’t call it a gift,” I said.
“That’s not what I was saying,” said Grandpa.
“Ah, but it’s what I was saying. I said it, therefore I was saying it.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Only if you believe I am,” I said.
“You’re also crazy.”
“All the best people are.”
“Right. Get into the hearse. It’s a good car—it has proper heating and good shocks and struts. Just don’t complain.”
“No complaints here.”
I sat back and listened to the snicker-snack of the shocks and struts as they jounced in rhythm with the pocked road as we worked our way through the large valleys at the base of the Teton range.
Old ranches sat heavy with dilapidated silos. Tractors taking their last breath of summer sat next to rusted washing machines and worn saddles ripped by the seasons into tattered memories of summer days. Cattle slouched in the fields. Short-shadowed horses stood still in a wind that carried dandelion seeds for miles.
I rested my head against the window and watched the land scroll by. I admired the purple shadows hitting the vast expanse of the Teton Mountains as we turned down the road leading to Victor. I looked to the white clouds settling over our small town. We passed the Victor Post, Barbecue Hole, the Knotty Pine Bar, and the Fin and Feather Inn. Beyond those establishments sat the cemetery, and in that cemetery was a grave with my mother’s name on it. I reached to my chest again, force of habit, and remembered what was not there anymore, and thought of what had taken its place.
Grandpa said he would have been at the hospital sooner, but he had been working with the backhoe to keep the cemetery half-in-place after the thunderbumpers made their way through Victor. I knew the next few weeks, even months, would be spent with Grandpa, working a skid-steer and backhoe, trying to repair stretches of the cemetery and the crumbling asphalt paths that had been completely washed away. I also knew half the town would help, bringing their own winches and tractors and shovels, and getting things back to normal—whatever that meant.
“Uncomely as a drove of pigs,” said Grandpa.
“But it pays the bills, right?” The cemetery looked like a set of teeth with canines missing.
“My poker pays the bills. That gets me a tax write-off on the hearse. I guess it’s worth it, though. It may be as big as a boardinghouse dumpling, but it works. Can’t argue with that. Well.”
And that single word—Well—summed up all of his frustration coupled with his relief that I was still there to talk to him instead of needing my own plot of ground.
I stared at Grandpa’s stoic profile. He was my rock, my boulder, and even with all the storms and rain and hail beating down upon him, all the currents circling and pushing and pulling, I knew he’d never move. He’d remain that rock in my life until the world stopped turning.
As we turned just beyond Victor, a drift boat happened by in the distance, lines swirling over heads, flies hopping near the water.
Catch and release. It was written into my blood.
Grandpa would often speak to the rainbows wimpling in the river ten yards from the shore, twisting in the cool current. He’d talk to the fish and tell it all about the fly sitting on the seam and how he’d spent a long time making it look just right, and that he was only after a closer look at the patterns on its sides, of its colorful scales winking in the water, and that then he’d return it back to the water. I would laugh, but Grandpa would just continue talking to the fish. He would say, “Sorry, fella” to the fish, and release it back into that river full of sky. It was that easy.
I watched those rods move in the evening light and thought of Wyatt. And Shelby. And Skye. I watched the river run through our little town, over the words written into the boulders with their ancient raindrops winking in the water. I reached for the ring on my chest and came up with nothing, again, and thought about what I might drop onto another silver chain to remember the weight of this summer, the weight of that canyon, the weight of my grief—all as a way to remind myself just how light I now was.
Grandpa also looked to the river, as if the answer to all our questions was out there, cutting through the seams. And maybe he was right. Maybe all rivers have the answer. Maybe all rivers have a sense of what it means to split, to catch and release, to blame and forgive, to live a life elsewhere, only to realize that all currents must eventually come back together—that all rivers must eventually meet.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I’d like to thank the landscape of the West, the rivers that run through it, and every writer who has attempted to characterize it, from Norman Maclean to Annie Proulx. I am haunted by waters, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A warm thank you to Carol J. Decker for teaching me about prosthetics and her own experience as an amputee, but most importantly for teaching me what it looks like when someone courageous faces each day unbroken, unshattered.
Thanks to Brittany, my wife, for laughing at my backcast and the way I can’t seem to hold a fish long enough to get a good picture of the thing. It wouldn’t be an adventure without you, B. Also, thanks to Milan and T.C. for teaching me where the good holes are, even though giving away such information is equal to blasphemy and treason.
Lisa Mangum, a miracle editor, has an eye for each line, both poetic and literal. I am indebted to her for such keen insight and attention to each sentence. Chris Schoebinger and Heidi Taylor continue to rally my spirits and remind me what a good story looks like, and what good stories can do to change the world. Thank you to Troy Butcher, Callie Hansen, and the entire team at Shadow Mountain.
Many thanks to Julie Gwinn, the best agent a writer could hope for. She really is the best.
Thanks also to Lance and Steve for helping me find the right word.
And many thanks to you for giving this story a chance.
Lastly, I’d like to thank all those who struggle each day to balance who they are with who they are expected to be—by culture, by friends, by family, by religion. Please don’t think you have to be only one thing. How boring is that? Be both.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photographer: Wesley Johnson
Spencer Hyde spent three years during high school at Johns Hopkins for severe OCD. He is the author of the YA novel Waiting for Fitz. Spencer worked at a therapeutic boarding school before earning his MFA and his PhD, specializing in fiction, short
humor pieces, and essays. Spencer and his wife, Brittany, are the parents of four children.
Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Landmarks
Cover