“You’re lacking communication again,” she said, turning back toward the window.
Though Bella had him dead to rights, Dave couldn’t help but swell with pride a little bit. Surely, he must have done something right to produce such a perceptive kid?
The fact was, Dave used to be good at a lot of things. He was good with his hands, good at solving problems, good at staying calm in a crisis; he was clutch, when you got right down to it. Above all, he was good at belonging: belonging to his mother, belonging to Coach Prentice and the team, belonging to his platoon, belonging to Nadene. Hell, there was a day when it felt like he belonged to all of Vigilante Falls. So, who turned their back on whom? An honest accounting always yielded the same conclusion: Dave, Dave had turned his back. Though as freely as he could admit this state of affairs, as clearly as he could see it, he still could not begin to understand it.
So, how was he supposed to talk about it?
After two hours of alternately sitting on the front porch and pacing the driveway, after an entire pot of coffee, Nadene still had not returned. Dave managed to get his truck started on the third attempt, and drove to his mom’s to pick up Bella. Where would he be without his mom? His mom was the definition of clutch, always pulling through in a pinch. How could he ever be anything but a mama’s boy, when his dad left him, still wetting the bed at three years old? His baby brother Travers had no memory of their father at all. Dave mostly remembered what he’d seen in the handful of pictures his mother had kept in a shoebox in the laundry room, so they didn’t even feel like real memories. Funny how the memories he wanted to summon were so elusive, but the unwelcome ones were relentless. Anyway, he doubted his mom even had the pictures of his dad anymore. Why should she preserve her husband’s memory, when he left her with an infant and a toddler, and disappeared somewhere east of the mountains? Still, in the thirty-six years since his dad ran out, Judy had never spoken ill of the man, despite the fact he never paid child support, never called on birthdays, and never even looked back, let alone apologized. Whatever happened between Dave and Nadene, Dave hoped he could expect the same from her, in spite of everything.
Dave skirted the center of town as usual, but couldn’t avoid the high school. Vigilante Falls High School was long overdue for a facelift. The old brick building looked all but abandoned, empty as it was on a Saturday afternoon. The purple-and-gold VFHS insignia emblazoned on the side of the gym—Home of the Fighting Vigilantes—while still legible, had faded in recent years. The adjacent grandstand was riddled with graffiti: “Lundgren blows,” “Itchy Boy ’16,” and Dave’s favorite, “Satin Lives.”
The old gridiron was still patchy from winter, the goal posts a little worse for wear over the decades since the Vigilantes’ glory days, a run of three consecutive 1A state titles in the late nineties. If Dave let himself, he could remember the thrill of Friday nights under the sodium lights like they were yesterday; the cagey, heart-pounding promise of the locker room, as Coach Prentice delivered his gruff, pre-game address, invariably ending with the crux of Coach’s personal philosophy, in football, if not in life: play for each other.
If Dave allowed himself, he knew he could still recall, and quite palpably, the readiness and rowdiness of the crowd: the friends, and neighbors, and family. If he let himself, he could still recollect the dizzying adrenaline of charging onto the field just as the band started blaring the Vigilantes’ fight song, the kettledrum and the tuba rattling in his chest, stirring virtually every emotion he’d ever felt all at once. If only Dave would give himself a break, he could live it all again, at least in his mind. But these were comforts that Dave had not allowed himself in years. Maybe if he got the help he needed, if he could make amends, make peace with himself, straighten out his marriage, his career track, and his emotional health, he would once again allow himself to dwell for a time in that cocoon of nostalgia.
But first things first.
Dave pulled in behind his mom’s LeSabre in the driveway, hopped out of the cab, and strode up the walkway and the front steps, wishing he’d taken time to shave. After a cursory knock, he let himself in before his mom could answer. She was busying herself in the kitchen, dressed in an oversized gray sweatshirt and baggy jeans.
“Hey, Ma,” he said.
“Davey,” she said. “I was wondering when you’re were coming. You hungry?”
“Nah.”
“Can I get you some coffee?”
“Already drank a whole damn pot. Thanks, though.”
“How about a razor?”
“Leave it alone, will you? It keeps my face warm.”
“Your brother was by,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Wanted to borrow my chainsaw.”
“Ah,” said Dave. “Does he even know how to use it?”
“Apparently.”
“Mm,” said Dave, mildly impressed. “How’s your back?”
“Better today,” she said. “What about your hip?”
“Sleeping on the sofa sure isn’t helping,” said Dave.
“Aw, Davey, honey,” she said. “Sooner or later you two will straighten things out. Be consistent, that’s the important thing. Consistency is everything.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m trying, I really am.”
His mom clasped his hand.
“I know it will all work out,” she said. “I keep praying.”
“I appreciate that, Ma. I know it will.”
“I wish you’d go to service with me once in awhile. Everybody is always asking about you. It’s like you’re a ghost.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I can see that. Maybe one of these days.”
“Reverend Hardy used a football analogy this week. You would have liked it. He said the modern world was looking at third and long.”
“At least,” said Dave.
“You are loved, Davey.”
“I know that, Ma, thanks. Where’s Bella?”
“She’s in the back room.”
Dave was about to call for her when his jean pocket began to vibrate. Maybe it was Nadene, ready to lay down her ground rules going forward, ready to assign her conditions. Maybe it was her brother Jerry wanting to take him fishing, so they could talk. Hopefully it wasn’t Jasper at Terminix trying to trade out his Monday shift again.
Whoever it was, Dave didn’t recognize the number.
“You gonna take that?” said his mom.
Dave sighed. “Hello?” he said.
“David Cartwright?”
“Take me off your list, please,” said Dave.
“Not a solicitor, sir. Harlan Dale, here, Whatcom County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Oh?”
“You sitting down, Mr. Cartwright?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe you ought to.”
The rest of the call was a blur, as Dave stared stupidly at a six-inch strip of yellow linoleum curling up near the foot of the fridge, while the information washed over him. Tanner Creek Road. Big bend at mile marker two. Must have been doing sixty-five.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cartwright,” said the sheriff.
“Thank you,” said Dave.
His ears were ringing when he pocketed his phone.
“What is it?” said his mom, fishing her reheated coffee out of the microwave.
“It’s Nadene,” said Dave.
Just the way he said it was enough for his mom to catch his meaning.
“Oh, Davey,” she said, setting her coffee aside, and clutching him tightly.
When Everything Changed
Not five minutes after Dave got the call, still numb with disbelief, he was tasked with breaking the news to Bella. They perched side by side on the foot of his mom’s guest bed, Bella clutching her pack, feet dangling a half-foot above the carpeted floor, a seven-and-a-half-year-old vision of her mother: the long black hair, the green eyes, the placid face, and the native complexion.
“What’s wrong?” she wanted to know. “Am I in trouble?”
“Did you quit your job again?”
“No, baby, it’s not that. It’s . . . well, baby, it’s Mommy.”
“Is she sad again?”
“No, she’s not sad,” he said.
Dave held his breath momentarily, and clenched his fists as though he might squeeze an answer out of them.
“Mommy had an accident,” he said at last.
“Is she okay?”
“Mommy was hurt very badly, baby.”
“Is she at the hospital? Can we go see her?”
“She’s not okay, baby,” he said, his voice catching. “I wish she was.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s didn’t make it, honey.”
“Make it where?” she said.
“Mommy . . . she died in the accident, baby.”
The silence of Bella’s incomprehension filled the room like a vacuum.
“But Mommy’s not old enough to die,” she said finally.
“Baby, not everybody dies of old age. Accidents can happen to anyone.”
“She can’t be dead,” said Bella. “You’re just saying it!”
When Dave tried to wrap her up in his arms, she fended him off angrily at first, pounding at his shoulders and chest. But after a moment, her body went limp, as she allowed Dave to absorb her, and began sobbing into his armpit.
“It’s gonna be okay, baby, I promise,” he said, stroking her head.
But Dave couldn’t see how. He could hardly remember the last time anything was okay. Bella must have been in diapers.
For two days afterward, Bella refused to say a word, no matter how Dave and his mom tried to draw the child out. Though uncommunicative, her bewilderment was written clearly enough in her silence. She clung to Dave’s side virtually every moment of the day and night, as though permanently fixed there. Meanwhile, Dave moved about in a fog of disbelief, while Travers graciously handled most of the arrangements.
The seven grand it cost for the preparations, the plot, the casket, the marker, the memorial, and the reception nearly cleaned out what was left of Dave and Nadene’s savings. They had no equity in the house after the last re-fi. Neither one of them had life insurance. There was no nest egg anywhere, no safety net beyond his mom, and how, at thirty-eight-years-old, could he ask any more of his mom? As it was she cared for Bella at least three nights a week. Not to mention all the Red Apple gift cards, and the meals she sometimes left in the refrigerator. Of course, Travers would never refuse Dave a loan, but Dave could never take his little brother’s money on pride alone.
In spite of the cost, Nadene’s memorial was a drab affair at Saint Barnabus. Dave sat up front in his musty black suit with the unfashionably wide lapel, as Reverend Hardy delivered a brief message to the half-empty church about redemption, and salvation, and earthly grief, all of which beaded up like water off of Dave, who could feel twenty sets of eyes boring holes in his back.
Bella sat at Dave’s side in the darkest blue dress Dave could find for the occasion, silent and befuddled, and like Dave, unable to summon tears.
The reception was held in the fluorescent-lit environs of the basement, generally reserved for Bible study and charity bingo. Thirty or forty people were in attendance, more than half of them belonging to the Charles clan. Travers hired a caterer from Mount Vernon for the affair, though nobody but Travers and Coach Prentice exhibited much of an appetite.
Despite the countless handshakes and hugs he dispensed, Dave may as well have been somewhere in orbit around Neptune for how present he felt at the proceedings. The gravity of the occasion could not hold him there. The only thing that kept him tethered to the world at all was the perpetual presence of Bella stationed at his side, fiercely clutching his hand.
Holding On
If Bella had to explain it, it was like the dull, heavy feeling of being half asleep. Like when her dad carried her into the house from the truck late at night. The heavy feeling settled in her bones like a numbness. When she was not clinging to her dad, Bella moved about the house in a state of slow-witted confusion; eating and drinking mechanically, sometimes pausing in one spot to stare into space, as though she’d forgotten her way to wherever she was going. Wherever she was going didn’t seem to matter anymore. She felt disconnected from the world and everything in it, like she was haunting it. She looked for comfort in the everyday things that once gave her life shape: her stuffies, her pearler beads, her little ponies. But she couldn’t stay engaged for long. She turned to her books, but even her favorites, The Curious Cat Spy Club, Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, Flora & Ulysses, failed to hold her attention for more than a few pages at a time.
Her dad, meanwhile, slumped on the sofa much of the time, half-dressed in front of the television, though he never seemed to really be paying attention to it. On the fifth morning after the funeral, Bella found him there, sleeping with his eyes open, or so it seemed. Bella must have stood between him and the TV for a good five seconds before he registered her.
“Hey, baby,” he said, finally.
“Since you’re not working, can we go somewhere?” she said.
“You want to go to Nana’s? Go to the park?”
“I want to go on vacation,” she said.
Picking up the TV remote, he muted the sound.
“Baby, it’s not a good time to go on vacation. You’ve got school.”
“I hate school,” she said.
“Aw, baby, don’t hate school,” he said.
“Well, you hate your job.”
“That’s different,” he said.
“Hate is hate,” she said. “Nana said so. I don’t like it here without Mommy. I wanna go somewhere different.”
“I don’t like it either, baby,” he said. “But we’re stuck here. At least for now we are.”
“I don’t want to be stuck here, Daddy.”
“Neither do I, baby.”
He set the remote aside and opened his arms to her.
“How about a hug?” he said.
Bella plopped down on the couch and fell into his arms.
He ran his fingers through her hair and held her close.
“Right now, we just gotta do what we gotta do, okay, honey? We gotta keep on doing the things we’ve always done. Otherwise, we might get lost.”
“I’d rather be lost,” she said, fighting back tears.
And in the days to come, Bella managed to lose herself. Actually, if she had to explain it, it was more like she emptied herself, and filled herself back up with other people. Like on the bus to school, where she sat silently, faced pressed to the cold window, as she let the squabbling and chattering of the other kids wash over her. Watching the houses and trees blur past through the rain-streaked glass, Bella exhaled herself like a breath, and almost instantly she began to absorb the other kids. It was like they entered her through her ear holes all at once. Soon, she could hear their thoughts, and feel their anxieties, and know what it was to be somebody else. It was at once frightening and comforting, this lack of self, this otherness. And every day it seemed to get stronger.
Fortifications
Though Terminix had been damn generous in offering Dave a month’s paid leave, he had no intention of going back to his job. He no longer had the stomach to kill anything he didn’t intend to eat. Not even cockroaches. That, and he was done wearing uniforms. He was done with affiliation in any guise. As friends and neighbors reached out with meal trains and condolences, Dave yearned only to escape their pity and concern, tinged, as it seemed, by morbid curiosity.
Once Bella had broken her silence and returned to school, Dave escaped into the backwoods almost daily, hiking fifteen and twenty miles at a go, in spite of his lousy hip, up the canyon, and over the rock-studded ridge, into the sprawling high country of the North Cascades, their precipitous peaks and cornices buttressed by glacial ice, white and windswept against the late winter sky.
As long as Dave was moving, putting distance betwee
n himself and the world, he could endure living in the moment.
One afternoon, while taking refuge on a small plateau high above the canyon, he paused in the clear, cool, afternoon to eat a heel of bread and a tin of sardines, taking in the remarkable panorama through the cloud of his breath; the great, yawning jaw of the canyon, and the ruffled blanket of spruce and fir sprawling clear to the bottom of the basin and beyond. Behind him, the peaks of the Picket Range reared up like spires: Ghost, and Phantom, and Fury. To the west, beyond the frozen silence, lay the inland Pacific, with its labyrinthine waterways.
Here, in this spot above it all, he lingered as long as the day would allow, basking in isolation. When he finally hefted his daypack, and turned to resume his progress, his eyes lighted on a narrow cleft in the side of the mountain.
In a world that seemed all out of mysteries, the gash in the hillside demanded his attention. Tentatively, he poked his head in, sniffing the chalky air, wary of bear, or cougar. Sensing no danger, Dave entered what amounted to a stone chamber, the size of which was difficult to ascertain at first. By the paltry light of his phone, he eased his way along the near wall for four or five steps, until the rock began to close in on him from above. After a few more steps, he arrived at the rear of the cavern. Stooping, he doubled back along the opposite wall, feeling his way along the cold rock, before stationing himself in the very center of the space, which he estimated to be roughly four hundred square feet. The stillness of the place was overwhelming.
Dimming his phone, Dave sat down upon the cold, hard earth in the darkness, only a narrow blade of sunlight slicing the foreground diagonally in front of him. For the first time in weeks he drew a deep breath, and clutched it in his chest, and stared at the back of his eyelids for a good fifteen seconds. Rather than exhale the breath deeply, he absorbed what he could of it, letting it pass slowly through every pore of his body, his shoulders slackening, as he released it gradually.
He spent the next twenty minutes repeating this exercise until finally, he let go a deep sigh. While the experience did nothing to buffer him from the future, he found comfort in the stillness, and in the tomb-like depths of the cavern, which immediately took on an almost holy significance. Here was sanctuary, and shelter in the realest sense; a divine cathedral of rock to soothe the aches and pains of the temporal world.
Legends of the North Cascades Page 2