Meet Me at the River (31 page)

Mr. Tynan nods. “They certainly are.”

“At first I thought I would hate Assia, because of the little girl. But somehow I can’t hate her. I just feel sad for her. I just want to run back in time, into that room. I want to turn off the oven and open up the windows.”

Mr. Tynan nods gravely. “Do you think she’d thank you for that?”

“She might not,” I admit. “She might never appreciate it, and there’d be all that shame from trying. But still I’d know I’d done the right thing, saving them both.” I lean down and open my backpack. I take out my copy of
Birthday Letters
and slide it across the table to Mr. Tynan. “It’s a good book,” I say. “I can’t say whether he was a good man, because I didn’t know him. But he’s a good poet.”

Mr. Tynan tilts his head to one side. He furrows his brow, more fond than consternated. “What’s wrong, Tressa?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “Nothing’s wrong. But I can’t write this paper. I can’t think about all this anymore. So instead of handing in the paper, I’d like to give you this book. As a present.”

He leaves the book sitting in the middle of the table. Then he opens his grade book. He leafs through it till he comes to my class. Of course he hasn’t entered any
final grades yet. Those spaces are blank. But he runs his finger down the column, and it doesn’t take him long to get to my name. In permanent red ink he writes a large, capital
A
. Then he pushes the Ted Hughes book back to me.

“I hate to return a present,” he says, “but I think maybe you should keep this. It was written by the survivor, after all.”

I hesitate, then nod. “Thanks,” I say. “For everything. For that especially.”

“You’re welcome,” he says.

I leave the lounge with a light step, testing that new word—“survivor”—in my head, and realizing, among other things, that I don’t have to go to high school English ever again. I’m not sure why this makes me happy, since it was always the class I enjoyed most. But it does.

I am moving forward. I am leaving things behind. When I pass Kelly Boynton in the hallway, we both stop. We stand there a moment, examining each other’s faces, until finally Kelly says, “Hey, Tressa.”

“Hey, Kelly,” I say. When she walks away, I turn and head in the other direction. Her footsteps click behind me, calm and even. The sight of me will never make her cry again.

May looms, bright and shimmering, just around the corner.

*   *   *

Evie has avoided me since the storm, and since this has turned into a day for putting things in order, I go searching for her. I find her in the library, sitting on a couch by a western-facing window. She has an American Civil War textbook open on her lap, but she’s staring out at the mountains and doesn’t notice me until I perch on the table right in front of her.

“Tressa,” she says, not startled, just a little dreamy.

I decide to channel H. J. and get straight to the point. “I miss you,” I say.

She sighs, and then nods. “Sure,” she says. “I miss you, too. H. J. says your mother took off.”

“Yes,” I say. “She moved to California.”

Evie nods. “Did H. J. tell you he decided not to sell the house?”

“No.” For no good reason this information makes me light-headed. Something that won’t change—the Burdicks staying in their family home. “Does that make you happy?” I ask.

“It really does,” she says. “I feel relieved. I feel like I need that house for a couple more years, you know? A place to come home to.” We both nod. Evie says, “You should call H. J.” Something in her voice makes me feel guilty. At the same time I recognize her granting me permission.

“Did you hear about college yet?” Evie asks.

“Not yet,” I say. I can tell she’s about to tell me to check online, then changes her mind. She understands I
have my reasons for waiting. She doesn’t need me to be any different than I am.

“I bet you will today,” Evie says. She smiles, her eyes lit from within, reflecting sadness but also an unflinching optimism—the tenacity of her commitment, to forgiveness and continuing, despite the curveballs life has thrown her. I decide to put her permission to use.

*   *   *

H. J. answers on the first ring. “Tressa,” he says, not one of those people who pretends the cell phone hasn’t already told him. “Let me come get you,” he says. “I want to talk.”

“Okay,” I agree. “But I’ll get you. I want to check the mail anyway.”

When I pick up H. J., there are two letters on the passenger seat—a rejection from Stanford and an acceptance from Colorado College. H. J. picks them up before sitting down, then pretends to weigh them with his hands.

“This one’s hefty,” he says. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you know what you’re going to do? CC or Boulder?”

“No,” I say. We drive about five minutes to Silver Lake, then walk silently over the damp ground—the snow in patches, dirty and gray. Although that sun has been increasing over the past several days, I am not prepared for the sight of the lake itself—completely thawed,
reflecting the blue sky, not a single chunk of ice floating on its placid water.

“Wow,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

H. J. kneels beside the lake and dips in his hand. “Still too chilly for swimming,” he says, then flicks the water at me. I duck away, but not before a few freezing droplets connect with my cheek and dribble down my neck, inside my shirt.

I resist the urge to retaliate, and walk over to the log. H. J. sits next to me. “Evie tells me you decided not to sell the house,” I say.

“Not for a couple years, anyway. I figure we can swing in-state tuition that long.”

“So you’ll stay here?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe some traveling. I was thinking about buying an open-ended ticket to London. I could fly over there, spend a year going through Europe. A backpack, hostels, the whole thing. And just make my way back here whenever. Maybe in a year. Maybe two. Maybe I’ll come back to Rabbitbrush, maybe I’ll go to New York City. Maybe I’ll enroll in culinary school. Mostly I won’t make any plans for a while.”

“That sounds nice,” I say.

“Yeah?” he says. “You want to come with me?”

I close my eyes, wondering why the invitation doesn’t surprise me. Then I breathe in deeply. Like any place a person calls home, Rabbitbrush has a very particular
smell. Sage and pine, of course. Wildflowers in summer, and the chilly, elusive, persistent scent of snow in winter, also infused by pine. The damp moon fragrance of red dirt. And something more, something far less identifiable lying beneath it all, so personal it might come from someplace inside, my own reaction, my own senses.

The truth is, in addition to Rabbitbrush I have another home, and it’s called the world. Before I ever set foot in Colorado, the first place I lived was nowhere in particular—wheels traveling over asphalt, the sky in motion above my head. For the first time in ages, maybe ever, returning to that known uncertainty, to travels, feels very appealing.

But I can’t answer, not just yet. So I say, “Maybe. I don’t know. Let me think awhile. Okay?”

“Okay,” H. J. says. He reaches out his hand and closes it over mine. Inadvertently, I am sure, his thumb brushes over my wrist. And I can feel it, the slightly calloused skin, its warmth, its good intentions. We don’t turn toward each other, or say anything else. We just sit there, holding hands. We stare out together, across the lake. Beneath that small and local body of water, a thousand frozen creatures stir their way back to life.

May offers no guarantees. Sometimes in Rabbitbrush it snows as late as June. But for now we enjoy a stretch of extremely warm weather. In the early nineteenth century tuberculosis patients traveled to Colorado hoping that the dry, high air would open their lungs. Rabbitbrush never boasted a sanatorium, which was another tourist boat missed, because it would have been perfect—the air here carries oxygen so clean and painless, the sun beats down so insistently, so lovingly. It could cure any illness at all.

I decide to let Grandpa teach me a few chords on the ukulele. What harm could it do? After dinner we sit in the living room and play old Doc Watson songs. Then Grandpa puts his guitar aside and stands up. He walks over and places his large hand on my head.

“Tressa,” he says. “I have something to show you.”

It’s early, not quite six thirty, and through the open windows light evokes summer evenings. I follow Grandpa out of the house and across the wide eastern field, Sturm and Drang following us with huge, lazy footsteps. Grandpa walks a few paces ahead of me. He has only become a shade wider or thinner, or grayer, a little at a time, in all the years of my life. He wears the same Carhartts and flannel shirts. He turns to me with the same expression of kindness and love, intent on concealing the worry that always accompanies those first two emotions in this uncertain world.

“Close your eyes,” he says, and then—not quite trusting me—he places his wide, rough hand over my eyes. Once when I trip over a root he catches me by the elbow. When he takes away his hand, we stand on top of the hill overlooking town. Since Paul has cleared trees for his theater, we now have an unobstructed view of Main Street, and the high school, and the Rabbitbrush Café. The movie screen hasn’t been installed yet, but I can see the marquee, the snack shack, the flat grass where everyone will park, and the rows of speakers.

Grandpa and I stand beside an alien apparatus that I don’t quite recognize, a tall metal pole with a funny black box on top. I stare at it, confused, long enough to realize that it’s another speaker.

“You see?” Grandpa says. “This was part of the deal. On summer nights you can pop a bowl of popcorn and
walk out to this hill and watch the movie. You can invite your friends if you want to.”

Friends.
I know he means H. J. and Evie. If Grandma and Grandpa suspect that H. J. is anything more than a friend, they haven’t said a word. Maybe this is their way of apologizing for ever going along with the anti-Luke campaign. I haven’t told them yet that I wrote to Colorado College deferring for a year, which doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be traveling with H. J. I also wrote to my father, telling him that I might visit Wales. For all I know I will apply to Swansea, too. Maybe I’ll stay in Rabbitbrush. Maybe I’ll go to Boulder and live with Katie. All I know for certain is, I’m not ready to decide.

But before all that, no matter what, I’ll have the summer here. On hot nights it will be kind of magical, walking up to this hill with a bowlful of popcorn and staring through the wilderness at a big, flickering screen. I can’t wait to tell H. J. and Evie, and then I feel surprised—that my first thought wasn’t sadness that Luke would miss it.

“How great, Grandpa,” I tell him, and he puts his arm around me and squeezes me close.

*   *   *

Finally it arrives. The anniversary, one year exactly since that day by the river. I never thought I’d do it—wake up on this day, to the first slow rays of dawn. Outside my window a magpie’s complaints are at war with the gentler mourning dove. The sleeping kitten has
grown heavier on my chest—a well-fed adolescent—and I push her off gently before dressing in layers, jeans and T-shirt and fleece vest and heavy Windbreaker. I lace up my hiking boots and put on a baseball cap. Downstairs I stuff a backpack with Nutri-Grain bars, water, a book, my iPod, and sunscreen. The wait may be long, the day will move in cycles, and I mustn’t risk missing this most necessary ambush.

It’s not what you’re thinking. I don’t go down to the river.

*   *   *

I park my truck on Aspen Street and head to the trailhead, wishing I could open the passenger door of my car to let Carlo out with a jingle. Words will never do it justice, how acutely I miss my dog while hiking. Heading up through the conifers, he should be beside me. He should be running ahead to chase squirrels. He should stop to wallow in Butcher Creek, spraying me when he shakes off the freezing mountain water.

It’s not even three miles to the top. It doesn’t take me long to find myself alone at ten thousand feet, staring out at town, at the ski area, at Bridal Veil Falls. I sit down in a grassy spot, the sun heating up to midmorning. Despite the warmth I put on the hat she gave me. Instead of pulling out my book or iPod, I just sit quietly. Francine is an early riser. She’ll be here before too long.

I sit there in the gathering sunlight—the gathering day—through two or three false alarms, hikers who
stop awhile to share the view. One couple has a black Lab. He jingles over to me and licks my face in greeting, still showering runoff from Butcher Creek. But when Francine finally arrives, nobody else is here. She wears shorts, her legs as brown and strong as a teenager’s. She wears her hair in a long braid, and I see she looks more like herself, less puffy, less red-eyed. This purpose—one last thing to do for him—has energized her.

She carries a backpack over her shoulders. I know its contents, and my heart constricts. For her part Francine does not look surprised or dismayed to see me. She looks resigned, like she knew all along I would be here waiting. She walks over to where I sit and takes off her pack. Noticing the hat, she touches the top of my head briefly, then lowers herself onto the ground beside me. In biology I learned that mothers keep their children’s living cells inside them even after they’re born. So I don’t think about that urn filled with half of Luke’s remains. What’s more important is that I’m sitting next to the only living piece of Luke left on earth, his own cells floating around inside his mother.

“Hi,” I finally say. She doesn’t answer.

We sit there for a while, not saying anything. Another group of hikers appears, taking a few minutes to look out over town, and then disappears down the other side of the trail.

“You’d think they’d want to look out there longer,” Francine says. I nod in agreement. Now that she has
found her voice, Francine goes on. “So your mother left town,” she says.

I nod but don’t say anything. The reason we’re both here has nothing to do with my mother. After a while Francine says, “I thought that he would be here. Paul. All the way up this trail, I knew someone would be waiting for me, wanting to be here. But I felt sure it would be Paul. Now I feel like I should have known, of course it would be you.”