“Okay, okay, let’s just see what happens, shall we? Anyway, add those options to our boat brainstorm. Every idea, good or bad, needs to be added.”
“Mm-hmm,” she grumbles as she slides the binder out from a stack of papers. She flips it open and starts a list:
Mission islands for a boat.
Build a boat with *will take years next to it.
Look for good skeletons of boats to build back up.
She looks up, checking to see if her grandfather is watching. He is. She begrudgingly adds Northern Tribe work for barter.
“Good girl.” He slides his chair from the table. “Tea?”
“Sounds great.”
As he heads towards the wood burner, she aggressively scratches out the last option.
Life around the cabin completely changes. Maia’s grandfather, despite himself, accepts his new duty with unexpected vigor. As a retired university professor, he doesn’t waste any time before making up a rubric, lists, and topics for study. A new daily schedule is made. Mornings begin at the crack of dawn and are for intense study and brainstorming. Afternoons are for chores and boot camp.
“Boot camp?”
“Yes, ma’am! You’re going to be strong, Maia, and you’re going to learn self-defense as well.”
She is delighted. This is good for him. Not only has their plan and subsequent new schedule breathed life back into her days, but they’ve brought him a little more vigor as well.
Not only that, but her nightmares have stopped. It’s like a weight has been lifted. There are no more bad dreams, no more staring off into the horizon, no more feeling like she’s been left behind. Whatever has been nagging at her soul has been silenced. And what’s left is nothing short of a reprieve.
Running across the yard, Maia touches her grandfather’s toes, then runs back in the direction she came. She taps the edge of the fence and races back towards him. Huck sits on the sidelines, panting. He rolls onto his back with his feet in the air.
Maia starts to laugh and nearly trips over herself. “Okay, I’m done now,” she gasps.
“Whaddarya … gettin’ tired?” her grandfather yells.
She stops. Placing her hands on her knees, she looks up at him as sweat drips off her nose. “Is that an old American accent? Who are you?”
“I didn’t say you were done. Git! Git! No stopping! I didn’t raise no sissy!” He claps his hands.
“Oh my God.”
Morning sunlight peeks through the cabin’s closed window shutters, highlighting a brume of dust particles as they dance in and out of the beams of light. Birds chirp incessantly around their home. Huck’s paws click against the wooden porch steps outside. He stops to sniff under the front door before plopping down onto the rug.
The whole world seems to be awake and ready for the day. Four weeks have passed since Maia’s grandfather agreed to help her, and life has been really good.
But sleeping through the sunrise has never happened. Not once.
Maia pulls back her privacy curtains enough to see her grandfather’s bed in the other corner of the room. His curtain has been left open and he is still under the covers. This isn’t like him; he never leaves his curtains open.
She slides her feet into her wool slippers and climbs out of bed. “Grandpa?”
He doesn’t move.
She rushes to his bed, startling him awake. “Grandpa?”
“What, child?” His voice cracks.
She takes in the sight of her sickly grandfather, his face a pale green with dark circles under his eyes. “You’re sick again.”
“Yes, today is not a good day.”
Her heart sinks.
“Get my pipe, over by my chair.”
She grabs it and hands it to him. “I’ll get the fire started.”
“Quickly, darling.”
After getting the fire going, Maia excuses herself outside. Her grandfather has been smoking his pipe a lot more lately. The cannabis inside it makes him feel better—takes away his aches and nausea. He hasn’t let on that he wasn’t well, not until today. Or has she been too distracted to notice?
Huck waits for her on the porch.
“Come on, boy, let’s check the traps.”
A few more days pass and Grandpa still isn’t well. He sleeps all day, smokes his pipe, and makes frequent runs to the bathroom. Maia knows the routine when this occurs: lots of water, plain vegetable broth soup, and cannabis for his pipe.
She stays home and tries to work on the plan but can’t get too far without him. She escapes by re-reading the stolen books stacked in countless columns from the library out back. She has read every one at least a dozen times about the magical world that used to exist.
Her grandfather told her that as a child she would look at picture books of the Old World the way children used to look at picture books of dinosaurs. She’d flip through page after page of plants and animals now forever wiped off the face of the earth: elephants, pandas, orangutans … rain forests and coral reefs … What she wouldn’t give to see a living coral reef. She has swum across a few dead ones while searching for fish, desperate to find something to eat. Each time she would try to envision the vibrant colors they used to hold. Now they are only graveyards—frail skeletons covered in layers of black slime. Stubs speckling the ocean floor, they have been smashed into shreds of what once was.
She re-reads one of her favorite books about a young woman living in Hong Kong. It all sounds so unbelievable: the electricity, the endless food in shop aisles just for the picking, the lightning-fast transportation that could take you anywhere in the world.
But then there was the other stuff: terrorists and war; people divided over religion, skin color, sex, and oil. There was widespread disease and never enough food and water. A few people had more wealth than they knew what to do with, while billions slowly died from starvation. And the rich people, despite having everything, were still so sad.
Maia has always been obsessed with the past, trying to imagine what it must have been like with equal strokes of envy and anger, wonder and horror. The most anger she feels, though, an anger that wells up deep inside her, is from how quickly this earth and its living things were destroyed. Not because humans were evil, but because they were unstoppable. Like a virus. A force to be reckoned with.
She thinks about these things as she sits at the kitchen table, staring once again at the oil painting of her mother’s tiger. So sad she’ll never see one. They look magnificent.
Squeak, squeak, squeak!
Maia smiles. Turning towards the open windows, she looks for her little black fantail sitting on the railing, but he’s not there.
Squeak! The bird is sitting on the back of her grandfather’s chair.
He’s in the house.
“NO!”
Her grandfather screams from his bed. “What!?”
Maia runs to the corner of the kitchen. Grabbing a broom, she whips it across the room at the bird. “NO! Get out, get OUT!”
The fantail flies out of the window and swirls high into the sky, leaving both Maia and her grandfather gasping for air.
“What the hell was that?!” her grandfather yells from behind his privacy drapes.
Maia stands in the kitchen, lost for words.
“Well?” Her grandfather pulls back his curtain.
For a brief moment, Maia doesn’t recognize his pale face. He’s never looked so sick. Her heart sinks to the bottom of her chest as grief falls upon her. “Fantail.”
“A bird. Maia, what the hell?”
“Grandpa, it was a fantail.”
“Get me my pipe. How dare you scare an old man like that. I think my heart just stopped.”
Maia falls to her knees and drops her head to the ground.
“What on earth?”
“You’re dying, aren’t you?” she yells into the floor.
Her grandfather grabs his pipe and shuffles to his chair. “Come here.”
Maia climbs to her feet and swipes a blanke
t from her bed. She covers her grandfather before sitting on his ottoman. They stare at each other for a long while before she finally says, “You’re really sick, aren’t you?”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as his head tips back against his chair. He winces in pain as he repositions himself. Finally, when he opens his eyes, they are heavy and broken. “Yes, honey, I’m really sick.”
Her head falls into her hands. “You can’t leave me, Grandpa.”
His voice trembles. “I’m so sorry…”
“We just went hunting … it wasn’t that long ago. You’ve been sick a lot the past few years but you always get better again.”
“Yes, darling, I do.” He coughs into his hands—deep and desperate. He looks at them, then quickly wipes the blood away with his cloth.
Maia stares at him, horrified.
He looks at her apologetically and then shakes his head. “I’m not sure I have much time left.”
“NO, no please, stop.”
“The herbs I keep in my pipe have made life much easier on me, the symptoms less consuming. But they aren’t working as well as they used to.”
“Grandpa, please,” she sobs and drapes herself across him.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” He hugs her tight, holding his breath to stop himself from crying out in pain.
The fire crackles next to them, illuminating the room in an orange glow as the sun sets behind the trees. Maia pulls herself away from him and clutches his blanket. “I can’t do this without you.”
He wipes his eyes and forces a smile. “You can, sweet girl. You can and you must.”
She sits back on the ottoman in disbelief, glaring at a small black feather resting on the back of his chair. “That’s why you’ve been spending so much time in the woodshed, isn’t it? Sometimes in the middle of the night? I snuck in there. I can see that you’re building something.”
Her grandfather starts to cough. His entire body shakes as a deep rattling sounds from his broken lungs. After he composes himself, he lights his pipe, the flame illuminating his sunken cheeks.
“What is it?” she asks.
“A pyre.”
“A pyre?! No. For who?”
“Don’t make me answer that.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Maia.”
“You want me to burn your body?”
“Remember what we talked about? I’ll never leave you. I’ll always be right here beside you.”
“Stop saying that! No, you won’t. You’ll be dead and I’ll be alone.”
He looks wounded by her words. “Hopefully you won’t need to use it for a long time, but I’ve finished all the preparations, and I need you to go out there and take a look at it.”
“I won’t.”
“Maia, please. There is a cot with a rope attached.”
“Stop!”
“You can roll me onto the cot and use the rope and pulley from a tree branch.” He winces again and repositions himself in the chair. “The pyre is easy to pull out. This is the best way. It’s this or burial.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Honey, we’re just talking about it now. Maybe I’ll get better again. But there’ll come a time when I won’t. I’ve set aside a jar and have left it next to the photos on the fireplace mantel. I want you to collect my ashes with it and spread them everywhere you go.”
Maia holds her head in her hands and sobs. Her grandfather pulls her into him and wraps his arms around her. He holds her for a long time, softly humming as tears flow down his weathered cheeks. “I’ll be in the wildflowers covering the mountainsides. I’ll be in the wind, dancing through the trees. I’ll be in the twinkling starlight, lighting your path no matter where you go. I’ll always be with you.”
Maia crawls next to him in his chair, resting her head on his chest.
He pulls his blanket over them both. “My baby.” He holds her and she closes her eyes. “I’ll love you forever. Don’t ever forget that, my darling. And when forever is over, I’ll still keep loving you.”
Thirteen
The next day, Maia wakes before dawn and opens up the cabin on her own—just as she has every morning for the last week, and how she always has when her grandfather gets sick.
But this time feels different.
She gets the fire going again in the living room and below the stove in the kitchen for tea. Then she sits at their table and bites her nail, focusing on the drawn curtains around his bed. She knows he’s not getting up, but she waits anyway.
A low, raspy cough echoes from his dark corner, then crescendos into a violent, gasping attack. Cough. Gasp. Wheeze. Cough, cough.
Maia stands from the table, unsure of what to do. His coughing has increased in intensity and frequency, keeping her on high alert all hours of the day and night, ready to jump up and help him in some way if it sounds like he is suffering too much. Even if it’s just to distract him, or hold his hand, or grab the bucket when he coughs so hard that he vomits.
There is silence. She knows what’s happening behind that curtain. Hunched over with a red face, he has coughed so hard he can’t breathe. She holds her own breath. Finally, when it comes, his gasp is loud and desperate.
She takes a step forward. He doesn’t like to be bothered when he is ill. “Grandpa?”
“I’m fine, darling,” he says quickly before hacking into his handkerchief, clearing another mound of bloody mucus from his lungs.
She sits down again on the edge of her seat and resumes biting her nail. Staring at his curtain. He moans.
Cough. Gasp. Cough gasp. Gasp. Gasp. Cough.
She can’t just sit here.
Stepping out onto the front porch, she softly closes the front door behind her. The intense, early morning sun pours through the yard’s surrounding trees in beams. The air is crisp, cool. Refreshing, actually. She reminds herself to crack open the windows when she goes back in.
Huck is curled up on the rug next to their rocking chairs—the chairs she and her grandfather had made together when she was a child. Okay, it was mostly him, but she helped. They were so proud of them. She didn’t do anything but keep him company or tell him where to whittle another carving into the wood, but she was proud. When her grandfather placed the rockers on their empty front porch, they sat on them side-by-side for hours every night, just beaming at each other. It was the first thing they made together. They’ve sat on them almost every night since.
Maia gazes around the yard. Everything is the same, yet it all looks so different now. What would this place be like without him? Empty. A gaping void.
She sneaks down the creaking wooden steps and heads for the greenhouse. Pausing in the middle of the backyard, the grass is crisp below her feet. Frosts are a rare occasion now, which is shocking for an area of the mountain that used to be covered in snow most of the year. Shivering, she rubs the sides of her arms.
The bathhouse and outhouse are nestled alongside the cabin, while three large sheds line the far back border of the yard. There’s a small garden shed with nearly every tool one could ever wish for. Next to it, Grandpa’s woodshed, where he has built or repaired nearly everything they own. Next to that, the library, covered in vines and surrounded by forest. It looks like a fairytale. It has always been her space. Her escape.
Just inside the library’s front door, now hidden behind layers of musty, dust-laden books, lies a whole wall Grandpa allowed her to paint as a child. Layers upon layers. She had been using up all the paper, so he put her on to this. Whenever she had a new idea, she would paint the wall white again and start from scratch.
The library is where she hid to escape, just as her grandfather used the woodshed. When one was in his or her shed, they had an unspoken rule to leave that person alone—unless the door was left open. It was their only reprieve, especially during her early teenage years when they wanted to rip off each other’s heads.
At the farthest corner of the yard sits the glass greenhouse. The glass is covered
in so much moss the building nearly blends into the background. The metal is deeply rusted at the seams. She’s an old girl now but still sturdy. Maia always meant to give it a good clean—as a surprise. Her grandfather would have loved it.
Stepping inside, she breathes in the rich scent of dirt. Grandpa had taught Maia everything one could possibly know about food: growing it, foraging for it, hunting it, cooking it. He had found solace in the sense of control working in the greenhouse had given him. It was his mother who had taught him. Having grown up during the worst food shortage in the history of mankind, being able to forage, hunt, and grow your own food was what gave you a fighting chance to live when everyone around you was starving. Grandpa never let go of his tenacity for food. And he was good at growing it.
They’ve spent nearly every day of her life in this greenhouse. Even if it were just short spurts to pick a few things for dinner, or to snip cannabis buds to dry for his pipe. Most days it was longer. Rotating the crops, fertilizing, weeding, watering … this greenhouse has been their lifeline. When hunting proved fruitless, at the very least they knew they’d have food. Good food.
She pulls up her grandfather’s wobbly wooden stool and sits in front of the tomatoes. His “babies.” She absently taps one of the green leaves. The only thing in this world that had more pet names than her. She sighs and looks around. This place is her grandfather. This land, this home, this set-up in this safe and secluded area—he had created a kingdom, and just for her.
Now he is helping her leave it all behind. How it must be killing him.
He’s dying, and there is nothing she can do about it. She knew this day would come … of course she did. She just assumed it would be much farther down the road. He isn’t that old. This can’t be his time. Not yet. Oh, please, not yet.
Things were supposed to be different when he left her. She was supposed to be prepared. Older. And now? She gazes through the green spotted glass back to her library. That wasn’t her escape. No, she hasn’t been back to her real escape in years.
She slides back the stool and heads to the woodshed to grab her rusty bike. It’s practically useless with all the overgrown trails but will come in handy today. She drops it by the front porch and peeks her head inside. Her grandfather is snoring. Asleep at last. She grabs a bright red rock from a basket near the front door and places it in the middle of the kitchen table. Be back soon is painted across its face.
The Weight of a Thousand Oceans Page 8
