The Summer of No Regrets (4 page)

When I’d finished, Officer Mark reached into his truck and retrieved a rifle-looking thing. Mom let out a long breath.

Where would they release the cougar once she’d been tranquilized? It would have to be remote—where she wouldn’t encounter more humans. It seemed unfair. Weren’t we in
her
forest?

“We contacted almost everyone on the surrounding properties,” Officer Mark was saying to Dad.

Natalie leaned in on full alert. Most of our neighbors were already here: Tarah and Rainbow, Buck, Clyde. “How about the Hansen mansion, over that way?” She pointed.

“We’ve tried several times,” said Officer Mark. “No one seems to be home.”

Not home? Where was he?

Officer Mark whistled for Mack, and they disappeared into the woods. Mom went back to the Shivat Eiden group and her bean rows, which always calmed her nerves. Dad began drumming again. Rainbow smiled wanly and motioned Tarah back to the car.

“Trent’s probably off on a press tour,” sighed Natalie.

“That must be it,” I said. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for swarming paparazzi.” I browsed the huckleberry bushes as Rainbow and Tarah puled out. That morning after I’d blurted out the Trent Yves line, Luke had let out a little groan. Maybe people had said that to him before. I wished
I
hadn’t.

But then he’d winked and shot back, “And you look exactly like a dryad.”

It occurred to me now that dryads are usualy naked.

I imagined him realy
being
Trent. Now that I’d saved his life, he’d invite me into his private plane and take me to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre where I’d put my hand right into his handprint.

We’d shoot a movie together—some epic adventure where we’d swing from a scaffolding onto the back of a galoping horse. I’d look into his blue, blue eyes and—

“Brigitta?”

I shook myself. I’d falen headlong into Natalieland, like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Natalie scooped a few huckleberries out of my hand and popped them into her mouth. “Wake up, huh?”

A turquoise Toyota puled up, and Felicity Bowen jumped out. Felicity was a friend of Malory’s who was doing a journalism internship at the
Kwahnesum
Chronicle
. She had already transformed the paper from a haphazard ad flyer with a few articles into a weekly journal with interviews, a history of Kwahnesum column, and an event listing (mostly for events in Woodinvile and Redmond—but Felicity tried). She made a beeline for me.

“Brigitta! What a story, hey?” Felicity’s blond-red hair never needed combing because she kept it short as a boy’s. She had a pencil stuck behind her ear—part of her reporter uniform. “You are something else, girl.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.” Felicity made me nervous.

“Wel,” she said. “I caught Malory on her cell after she caled the wildlife people. But I want you to tell me the story from the beginning, starting with when you saw the cougar.” I told the story as briefly as I could. Just the cougar and the branches and rocks. No blue-eyed Luke holding me. The more I told it this way, the more the real story became mine.

There was a shot. We all sucked in our breath. I hadn’t expected a tranquilizer gun to sound like that. Felicity hurried out to the trail. Buck Harper was ahead of her, amazingly spry for an eighty-year-old. Dad set his drum down quietly but didn’t start down the trail. We waited. Nobody talked. I’m not sure how much time went by, but finaly Officer Mark appeared, lugging a black duffel bag on a rope. The dog Mack padded behind him.

“There she is!” chortled Buck. “Let’s have a look!” Before Mark could stop him, he had unbound the bag to Before Mark could stop him, he had unbound the bag to reveal the face of the cougar. I faltered. Blood matted her neck and her eyes stared out, unseeing. Her fur was stiff and stood up strangely. She was dead.

Felicity began snapping pictures. Mom started to cry. Buck tried to comfort her by saying, “Now, Clare, that’s one less man-eater we all have to worry about.”

Dad stared soberly at me and didn’t say anything.

I fingered the tears in my Nonni coat. I felt responsible.

Natalie’s eyes widened. “You kiled her!”

“And he’s a good shot, too.” Buck nodded at Officer Mark approvingly. “Just like your daddy.”

Mark gave Mack a treat and didn’t answer.

Natalie persisted. “But I thought…On Animal Planet there were these wolves. And they just took them somewhere with no people.”

“They die,” Officer Mark said finaly. “When cougars are relocated, they usualy die. A cougar needs a wide range—ninety to a hundred forty square miles can support maybe three of them. When we’ve relocated them in the past, we’ve radio-colared them. Invariably we find their carcasses within two years.”

“Isn’t that two more years she’d have gotten to live?” Clyde Redd jammed his fists into his coat pockets.

Officer Mark shook his head. “She threatened a human. We can’t chance it.”

“Why don’t we lift her up?” said Buck. “I’ll pose with her.” Clyde strode to his truck and slammed the door.

“Why is everyone so touchy?” said Buck. “I’ll never understand you people. It was those damned sixties. All that marijuana ruined your minds.” He shook his head. “Now is someone going to take a picture of me with this beast?” Officer Mark puled the bag back over the cougar’s head.

“With all due respect, Mr. Harper,” he said grimly, “you didn’t shoot her.” He heaved the bag into the back of his truck.

shoot her.” He heaved the bag into the back of his truck.

“Let me know if you have any more problems,” he said to Dad before he drove away.

Dad gave a brief nod and headed into the woods.

I had some woods of my own once, but I lost them. The trees were different from our Kwahnesum evergreens. Instead they were oaks and dogwoods and sycamores. I had a house, but I lost that, too.

Nonni had named their place in Westfield, Indiana, Cherrywood—a gingerbread kind of house with a big kitchen and screened-in porch. In the back, the lawn roled down to Nonni’s garden, a rail fence, woods, and a meadow where Opa rode his riding mower round and round every evening. Opa was a builder and Cherrywood was his creation. Nonni was its queen

—a librarian in a floppy hat.

Every summer since I was nine, I’d been alowed to fly out to Cherrywood by myself to visit Nonni and Opa. Malory wanted to stay in Kwahnesum most of her summers. But Cherrywood seemed more like home to me than our cramped single-wide, even though it was probably an eco-monstrosity.

And since I’ve been gone from it, I’ve felt lost.

•••

The Malory Invasion was well underway. My Hindu statues were gone from the bookshelf, replaced by a copy of the
Diagnostic
and
Statistical
Manual
of
Mental
Disorders
.

Clothes covered the second bed. Malory had disappeared shortly after the cougar party ended with its guest of honor’s execution.

I couldn’t blog about the cougar; the thought of her was jagged and cold in my gut.

Absently, I typed NationalEnquirer.com into my browser.

“Whitley’s Prayer with Dying Child” was the top article and, I had to admit, it was for this I’d disgraced myself in the Burger Arcade. Whitley and his prayer beads were at the bedside of a cancer-stricken nine-year-old from Fresno. I considered blogging about it but couldn’t admit to my source material.

I scroled down the page and noticed another headline:

“Trent’s Mom Hurls Chair at Daytime Emmys.” (Had the Emmys been injured?) Trent grinned cockily at the camera, apparently unconcerned about his chair-wielding mother. Did he look like Luke? Not exactly. Did I expect him to?

Malory chose this moment to barge into “our” room. I switched to Word fast and grabbed yesterday’s poetry book purchase.

“It’s freezing.” She cranked the skylight closed. “You know, Mom could use some help downstairs.” As if
Mallory
had been helping run The Center all year. Evidently I’d made a full recovery from this morning’s near-death experience.

“Where’s Dad?”

Malory gazed at the ceiling. “He’s still in the woods banging on his drum. Clearly in ful-blown midlife crisis.” Three quarters of psych and Malory’s diagnostic skils were at the level of fine of psych and Malory’s diagnostic skils were at the level of fine art. “Whatever happened to him walking around the woods with his flute?”

I sidestepped the question. When I’d asked Dad about replacing his lost flute, he’d said it would be a waste of money because he was no longer interested in playing “Eurocentric music.” “Dad’s been drumming for years,” I reminded her.

Malory knew this. Dad’s master’s thesis was on northwest native drum art.

“Not so he can talk to spirit guides.” Malory stashed her suitcase, knocking a chunk of adobe off a corner of the closet.

Dad had never completed the finish work on the upstairs, and you could still see the even rows of tires that made up the wals.

Mom said they looked like modern art. But realy they looked like tires. And the adobe, made from straw, clay, and dirt we’d mixed in our driveway, had a habit of faling off if you hit it wrong.

“The least our father can do is to pay attention to his primary relationships,” Malory said. “Mom’s down there by herself taking care of a dozen people. This is realy dysfunctional, Brigitta.” She threw the chunk into the trash.
She
could mix more adobe.

“Mom and Dad are fine.” My head hurt.

She puled off her T-shirt and chucked it into the hamper.

Light filtered through the glass bottles embedded in the wal, turning her skin pink and green. She wore a shiny silver bra over her perfect size B breasts. (I’m a double D, and all my underwear is boring.) She peered at my screen. “What are you doing, anyway?”

“Paper for Mom.”

“A paper? It’s summer, little sister. What are you doing a paper on?”

“Donne.”

“Wel, I’m glad it’s done.” She leaned into the mirror and examined something on her chin. “Good God, Gita, relax a little.” examined something on her chin. “Good God, Gita, relax a little.”

“Not ‘done,’ Donne. The poet. Sixteenth century.” I couldn’t help feeling a little smug.

“Oh. Him. Troubled, troubled man. Probably bipolar.” She yanked a blue silk tank top over her head. An answer for everything. It must be comforting.

•••

Malory pressed her lips together when she saw him. She yanked the vegetables and goat cheese out of the oven while I cut greens from the indoor garden. (We grow most of our food.

It’s an Earthship thing.)

Mom ran her hands up Dad’s arms, and he half smiled, hugging her close. Mom likes this new spiritual version of Dad better than the skeptical one we grew up with.

“You smell like cedar,” she said.

Malory cleared her throat. “If we’re done sniffing each other, we can eat.”

Dad tied his hair back and washed his hands. He hung his drum in the window distractedly before sitting down.

Mom stroked his arm. “How was it?”

“Disturbed.” He salted his potatoes. “Bear spoke to me yesterday, but now…a lot of confusion. Kiling cougar like that…” Dad shook his head. “The energy field is contaminated.” He didn’t look at me. Did he think this “contamination” was
my
fault?

Malory got one of her “indulgent” looks. She used to save them for me, but now Dad was fair game.

Mom divided a piece of bread. “Could you do a mourning ritual?”

Dad gazed out at the bench by Mom’s garden. “I could.” He nodded slowly. “Near the western edge…”

nodded slowly. “Near the western edge…”

Mom dipped her bread in olive oil. “What’s there?”

“I don’t know. Something forceful. Strong, strong magic.” Dad swirled the wine in his glass as if he was reading tea leaves.

My mouth went dry. A pair of golden eyes flashed into my thoughts. An open maw. Teeth like knives. The cougar’s ghost?

Was she angry?

Malory propped her elbows on the table. “I find this fascinating,” she said.

Mom sighed. “I’ll bet you do.”

Malory straightened. “Wel, no offense, Dad, but animal spirits? This isn’t reality.”

Dad used to talk a lot about “reality.” Especialy to explain how far out of it Nonni and Opa were—they’d gone to one of those churches where people spoke in tongues and fell on the floor. I used to go with them, and it wasn’t so bad. No stranger than the people who channeled Mamda, Warrior Spirit.

Dad sipped his wine and didn’t reply, but Malory was just warming up.

“This is what we call magical thinking,” she pronounced.

Mom pressed her lips together. “Your father, also, has taken Psychology 101.”

“Actualy,” said Malory, “we discussed this in abnormal psych. I wrote an entire paper on why primitive thought appeals to certain personalities. It’s a kind of escape, a stress reducer.

The problem is it can be debilitating.” She looked at Dad significantly.

Primitive thought. Certain personalities. Exactly what Dad used to say. It was as if he’d come back to haunt himself.

My shoulders and head hurt. Couldn’t Malory leave it alone?

Couldn’t she see how much better Dad was doing now that he had his shaman thing? He was calmer, more relaxed.

After Nonni died, he’d been dangerously quiet. He’d paced a lot. When he did speak, his words were short and sharp. I’d lot. When he did speak, his words were short and sharp. I’d learned to stay out of his way. Shamanism had centered him, connected him with the land—“bound him to it,” he said.

And yet part of me wanted to bite back the way Malory did.

The cougar had come to me—or at least to Luke. If she had a message for anybody, it wasn’t Dad. And now Dad was all grief stricken about an animal that had nearly kiled me? Why did I feel as if I was disappearing? Probably because that’s the way it’s been since Dad started wearing feathers in the first place.

Dad put his hand on Malory’s cheek. “My love, there are worse things than primitive thought.”

She glared at him and stabbed her lettuce. “By the way, Mom, I don’t think Brigitta should be expected to write papers this late in the summer. It’s July first, for God’s sake.” July first. The date surged through me like an electric charge.

“It’s Nonni’s birthday,” I blurted without thinking. “She’d be seventy-five.”

Dad looked away from me. He took another swalow of wine and resalted his potatoes. Even Malory had nothing to say. It was as if I’d dropped a dead cat on the table.

Mom put her hand on mine. “That’s right, she would, Gita.” Nobody said anything for the rest of dinner.

•••

I sat on the indoor garden wal, wiggling my toes in the dirt.

Faint wisps of Jewish music drifted up from the meditation room.

Nonni might have liked that. She’d always said Judaism was the

“roots” of Christianity. She’d have loved for me to become a Christian, but I couldn’t do it, not even for her. I guess I do need to “choose my own path.”

Someone downstairs had a violin. It made me want to get out mine, but what would I do with it? Walk into their service like a mine, but what would I do with it? Walk into their service like a stroling minstrel?

Mom and Dad wanted us to give the retreatants space when they were doing their rituals. We weren’t supposed to go barging in.

I brushed off my feet and put the kitchen shears away. Maybe I could just stand outside the door.

Our meditation room faces east, and the back wall is completely glass. Outside, the trees were silhouettes in the darkness. A woman in a prayer shawl was up front. Two candles iluminated her face. A bearded biker-looking guy in a leather skulcap played the violin.

I’ve only been to a synagogue once: Natalie’s bat mitzvah.

She read the Torah in this gorgeous river of Hebrew, and it made me cry (surreptitiously).

The singing was sad and slow.
Baruch
Atah, Adonai,
Eloheynu Vaylohey avoteynu v’emoteynu.
One of the men brought me a booklet. He motioned me to join them, but I shook my head.

I squinted to read the translation:
Blessed
are
You, Eternal
One, our god and God of our Fathers and Mothers. God of
Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob. God of Sarah,
God of Rebecca, God of Leah, and God of Rachel.

God of Brigitta? Who could say?

In front of me, the group joined hands, their prayer shawls draping together like a wall of wings. The melody spiraled out like smoke:
Eileh
chamda
libi: chusa na v’all na titalem.

This
is
my
heart’s desire: have pity; do not hide yourself
.

My throat tightened. “You’re hungry, Brigitta,” Nonni used to say. “You’re hungry for God.”

I slid into the halway and set the booklet on the floor. Why did I want to hurl it at something? Mom and Malory were laughing in the kitchen. At least my room would be mine for a while.

Upstairs I wrapped myself in my Nonni coat. Nonni had Upstairs I wrapped myself in my Nonni coat. Nonni had caled it my “coat of many colors,” like Joseph’s in the Bible story, she said. I stroked a frayed corduroy patch. Being mad was ridiculous, but I was—furious: at Dad for talking to spirits when he’d always said religion was unreasonable, at Malory for making everything mysterious into a psychological problem, and at Mom and Dad for making us choose.

Why couldn’t we be Baptist like Tarah’s family? Or Jewish like Natalie’s? We’d be together in a religion, not at this potluck Mom and Dad caled “spirituality,” where everyone floated around in an individual bubble.

At Cherrywood Nonni and Opa would pull me into a group hug and pray with their heads bowed and touching. I’d felt linked to them. Now I couldn’t mention their names
or
their prayers in front of Dad. He had his own, far superior world.

Eileh
chamda
libi.
What was my heart’s desire? And why did God love to hide?