The Source of All Things (24 page)

Matt tried to help relax me. “There's no one watching but me,” he said. He grinned and raised his eyebrows, jutting his chin toward the lake. I stood there stupidly for several minutes and then made myself slip off my T-shirt and step out of my shorts.

When I was naked, I felt two things: a flicker of fear, reminiscent of every time I'd ever been naked with a man, and the electricity of the moment. I fought again to stay in one place, and when I couldn't stand it any longer, I jumped into the glacier-encased lake.

After our swim,
we walked up the glacier, jumping across the tiny blue rivers etched into the ice. At an arbitrary point we turned around and started walking back, hot, sticky, and ready for something to eat. We talked about our families and how we felt separate from them. And when we got back to our campsite, we both knew that something had changed.

It was the lake. Or rather, the surface of the lake.

It was not where we had left it. It had dropped two feet.

Later, we would discover that scientists have an explanation
for this disappearing act. Something about equilibrium and water pressure causing the glacier to lift. At a given point all the water rushes from its icy prison, flooding the river plain and tearing out bridges downstream.

We watched the lake recede for what felt like several hours, then made ourselves go to bed. In the morning, a giant bowl remained where the lake had been, and we slid into the basin, turning up dirt and inhaling the last thousand years. A wall of ice rose before us, fifty feet high and an entire valley wide. We crawled on our hands and knees, digging our fingers into the rich black ground and throwing the silt-heavy mud toward the sun. Matt found a shaft of bamboo, the remnants of an ageless ski pole. For the moment we were like children, called into the gleaming blue hallways of the glacier and its haunting, frozen vaults.

M
att and I saw each other just a few more times that summer. He was still in love with Thea, and I had gotten restless. A friend talked me into doing a wilderness EMT course in Crested Butte, Colorado. It sounded perfect; I felt like I could spend the rest of my life exploring Alaska, but the whole town of McCarthy shuts down at the end of summer. Since my friend's job ended later than mine, we'd get to Seattle each on our own and then drive the rest of the way to Colorado together.

Our arrangement meant that I would have to drive all 1,400 miles of the Alcan alone, something that sounded as enticing as eating nails. I made a flyer requesting a travel partner and pinned it to the McCarthy Lodge, the old warehouse, and the hangar where St. Elias Alpine Guides outfitted tourists to ice climb on the glacier. When, after two weeks, no one had responded, I once again found myself in need of my family. I called my mom, who promptly passed me to my dad. “Heck, yeah,” he said. “I'd love to
drive the Alcan. Give me a few weeks to find a cheap flight, and I'll meet you at the airport in Anchorage.”

Dad and I departed Anchorage in late August 1993. I met him at the airport and loaded his gear into my Subaru Justy. I didn't say it, but Dad seemed tired beyond his years. It had been months since we'd seen each other and, for some reason, as I reconnected with nature, I projected that he was doing the same. Maybe it was irrational, but I expected some version of my old dad to roll into Anchorage, stirred to life by the freedom of the road, the cool air, and the bright white glaciers, visible from the window seat of the airplane, in the Chugach Mountains. The man in front of me looked like he was carrying twenty-pound rocks in both of his pockets. We climbed into my Justy and started driving.

A soft breeze blew through the windows, smelling of rocks and minerals. Dad kept his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, even though it must have been seventy degrees. I took off my sandals, and drove in bare feet.

You have to go north to go south when you're leaving Alaska, so Dad and I drove the Glenn Highway, heading back toward the McCarthy cutoff. We passed moose in swamps, with algae hanging off their racks, and bald eagles sitting on nests perched atop telephone poles. In Glenallen, Dad was hungry, so we stopped at a gas station and stuffed ourselves on Slim Jims and Hostess Chocodiles before pressing on to Tok Junction. To the east, we could see the Wrangell Mountains, and to the west, 20,320 foot Mount McKinley. It looked so dense and massive, I thought it created an indentation on the horizon.

I could tell my dad was loving the adventure. He chatted up the waitresses at every roadhouse where we stopped. He loitered
around guys with big, bushy beards and stared at the cuts—from fishing knives and motorcycle wrenches—on their blackened, gnarled hands. In another lifetime, or under different circumstances, my dad would have thrived in Alaska, where your outdoor skill set—from how accurately you can fire a pistol to how quickly you can change a carburetor—mattered more than things like reading and writing. A part of me wished we could go to McCarthy, so I could show him the glacier, the frothing Copper River, and, near Kennicott, the old angle station, where a friend once fired his rifle over my head to warn me that a black bear was following me. But I hadn't suggested turning when we came to the cutoff, because I didn't want to jeopardize the magic I'd felt living there. Yet even without my personal discoveries, my dad could barely contain his excitement. He
ooohed
and
aaahed
over every mountain that appeared in our windshield, and screamed “Stop the car!” when we saw a black bear or moose. In British Columbia, we followed two gangly caribou down the center of the road for what must have been fifteen minutes. Dad couldn't decide if he wanted to shoot them or take their picture. When I reminded him that he didn't have a gun, he settled on a photo. The road lurched up and down, aggravated by frostheaves, and the needles on the million-strong spruce trees smelled wholly different than the spruce-scented car freshener dangling from my rearview mirror.

On it went for hours. Wild animals materializing out of the brush as if put there purely for the sake of making our drive more entertaining. In one thirty-mile stretch we counted four black bears, three more caribou, a moose, and a golden eagle. Dad stared at the miles of wilderness surrounding us and said, “There's just no end to it, is there?”

“No end and no beginning,” I answered.

Mostly what we did on that long drive, though, was sit together in silence. And during those times I'd start to get antsy, despite the arresting power of the landscape. I still wanted my dad to tell me the truth about what he'd done to me during my adolescence, but, at the same time, I didn't want to be the one to bring it up. When I got cranky from sitting in the car, I'd scootch against the window, glare out at a million acres of black spruce, and conjure up imaginary conversations.

I realize now just how much of my life I'd spent bringing enjoyment to my family. And how sick I was of shouldering the burden of making us whole and healthy. I constantly had to remind myself that
I
was the victim.
I
was the one who needed saving. After so many wrongs, it was up to my family to make things right for me.

Looking back, I know I felt too conflicted to tell my dad how I truly felt. At twenty-two, some deep, dependent need made me continue accommodating my dad. Why didn't I call someone else when it was time to drive the Alcan, or wait a few extra weeks until the summer officially ended? I
knew
college kids who needed rides back to schools in the Lower 48. But instead of waiting, or searching broader or wider, I defaulted to what was familiar, to what I wanted so desperately to be innocent.

We spent most nights on the drive down the Alcan sleeping in gravel by the side of the road. Clouds of mosquitoes drained us of blood, and the rain came down in heavy brown sheets. Anyone else—my mom, Chris, and every friend except maybe Ladan—would have wanted to rip my head off if I put them through such
a “vacation.” But every time I looked at my dad, he was smiling. I couldn't help but smile back.

In the end,
Dad and I never found the words to say what we were feeling. Not on that whole drive from Alaska to Seattle. We sat in our separate worlds, staring out our separate windows. Knowing my dad had once—maybe still—craved me made me want to reach across the car seats and punch him. But the moment would pass, and I'd feel sorry for him again. I even thought that maybe I was just as sick as he was. But the soft part of my heart felt that he deserved another chance. I knew the day would come when I'd be strong—and hard-hearted—enough to finally force him to fess up to every last one of his abuses. That knowledge—and the fact that I still wanted easy, palatable answers—is what allowed me to sit next to him for twenty-five hundred miles and say next to nothing.

One hundred and seventeen hours after we left Alaska, Dad and I pulled into the parking lot of a cheap hotel in downtown Seattle. Dad went into the office, while I did some pushups on the sidewalk. A few minutes later, Dad came out of the office. “I got us a double,” he said. “I hope that's okay.”

It wasn't okay, not really. But I didn't say so at the time. I told myself it would be easier if I shut up and went along with Dad's plan. We sat at the opposite ends of the two queen beds and gorged
our senses on television. When it was time to eat, we walked to Pike Place Market, where Dad found some greasy fish and chips and I chose a big bunch of grapes. We ate as we walked, looking at shops, coffee drinkers, and the ocean. I felt proud and happy, as well as sad and confused.

Because I knew, sooner or later, that I'd want to take a shower. I didn't know how other dads and daughters felt about showering in each other's presence, but I didn't want my dad to be anywhere near me when I took off my clothes and stepped under the steaming water. I waited as long as possible before digging my tiny bottle of Clairol shampoo out of my stuffsack and unfolding my purple pack towel. When I couldn't stand the stench of my own armpits any longer, I got up and stood against the door of the bathroom.

Dad, of course, didn't notice. He was too busy propping his eyelids open so he could watch TV.

When I'd hedged as long as possible and dad's eyes kept drooping, I went into the bathroom anyway. But as soon as I'd slipped out of my bra and Carhartts I put them back on. It creeped me out to think of myself naked in a hotel room with my father, even if there was a wall between us. Sliding into my Teva sandals, I stepped back into the main room and woke up Dad.

“Um, Dad?”

His eyes clicked open. He grabbed his glasses from a table and put them on. When he saw me standing next to the bathroom, pack towel in hand, he said, “Oh, sorry, Trace. You need to take a shower. Let me grab my wallet and I'll head out for a walk.”

Because I was uncomfortable with the words “you” and “shower” coming out of my dad's mouth in the same sentence,
I looked down at the carpet. “Yeah,” I muttered. “I guess I do. But … is that cool? I mean, I'm sorry, Dad. It's just that …”

“Don't say it,” he said. “I'm going. Out the door. This minute.”

When enough time had passed and I was sure he wouldn't be returning, I went into the bathroom, took off my clothes, and placed them on the counter. Before I stepped into the steaming water, I draped my towel over the door handle even though it didn't have a keyhole.

L
ess than a year later, I was back living in Alaska. I knew my wounds weren't healed and that my destructive impulses still roiled under my surface. But I also knew that the vast, unpeopled wilderness of Alaska had the power to inspire and soothe me. So in January of 1994, I moved back and lived for a brief stint with a man named Mark, in McCarthy.

To Mark's chagrin, we lived more like roommates than lovers. I didn't love him, because he reminded me too much of a grandmother: he was stout in build, with long red hair and a beard that brushed against his collarbones. His pantry held pounds of Copper River salmon he'd dip-netted under a full moon and put up in jars. Acres of dried vegetables—exotic mushrooms, leafy kale, turnips, carrots, spinach—all harvested from his garden, lined his plywood cupboards. If I'd met him ten years later, I would have loved his subsistence lifestyle and the fact that, to support himself, he wove gorgeous, intricate murals made from
the hair of his huskies, which he spun into thread. He also built giant moose sculptures out of willow wands, the mooses' main forage. But at the time, looks mattered more to me than a man's creativity or clarity of spirit. When I wanted male attention, I'd ski to town and hole up with one local or another for an hour … or a couple of days. I knew I was taking advantage of Mark. I wanted to have it both ways. Someday I'll beg him to forgive me, because those days in McCarthy remain some of the best days of my life.

Throughout the winter I met people who didn't care where I came from, how long I was staying, or when I planned to move on. My neighbors shared homemade bread, store-bought cheese, and other prized possessions. We sat in wood-fired saunas drinking green, nearly brewed beer, planning adventures, and watching the northern lights furling and unfurling in bright greens, reds, and blues from one edge of the sky to the other. I stared into the strangers' winter-rough faces and thought I saw something I could trust.