patting my face cool with a damp paper towel,
stuffing my pockets with stiff airplane tissues,
staring at the new zit on my nose,
thanking god for handing me
a desolate heart that needed my
icicle chest to thaw,
to ache, to love,
and beat with it for a season.
I thank Him for the glory of the joy
and the revelations in the pain
of this exquisite test.
Pass or fail?
god only knows.
I cannot fathom why
He set my faith
this examination,
gifted me with a love
I’ll cherish long after
the wheels touch down,
the bags roll out,
and I’m tucked safe under
my grandmother’s hand-patched quilt,
crying my self awake,
night after long,
lonely
night.
chapter 44
NEW PROJECTS
LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 03/12 10:18 P.M.
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM #47, SPRING CLEANUP
the third saturday I sacrifice
to gram’s backyard jungle—
hacking, pulling, trimming—
the lines of her old garden begin to reappear.
Pleasing progress trickles down
my neck with the sweat I grow
from tackling a colossal
chrysanthemum needing division.
I dig and dig and dig,
deep around the root-ball.
I get my shovel under, strain,
and lift it all by myself.
I chop it up with care, replant,
confident the flowers will bloom
for gram this fall.
I’ll be gone, but maybe michael
will be here, too, enjoying
the love I left behind.
I’m a muddy mess.
my eyes blur again.
I slip into their silent house,
wash the muck off in the basement sink,
search upstairs for a towel—
get stuck—
outside his bedroom.
His bed needs making.
the pillow lies on the floor.
I cross the threshold of this forbidden territory,
gather up the pillow, plump it, place it gently—
pick it back up,
smother my face in it.
It’s him, trapped in the fibers,
the sweet taste of michael.
I totally forget myself,
lie right on his bed, curl
around his pillow. I pull
his quilt up over my head
so he can permeate
my senses. I breathe deep,
like he taught me,
hold it in my head—
then try—
with all my soul—
to let
it
go.
chapter 45
BEGINNINGS
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10
Mid-August. Hurricane season. Gram wants to go home, and I have to get myself out of the Keys. We stop in Phoenix, pack up my parents’ personal stuff, and ship it to Gram’s. My junk’s going, too. No room at the condo. I meet with the real estate agent and the woman who’ll handle the estate sale. Then we get a direct flight to Spokane.
As soon as I unload the Jeep I rented for the weekend, I drive out to Leesie’s farm. When I get there, I park the Jeep, have to nerve myself up to knock on the front door. Probably stupid to stir the embers, but I need to tell Leesie about my new job in Thailand face-to-face. Emails just don’t cut it. And I have something for her that I wouldn’t trust to the mail.
Her mom answers, surprises me with a hug. “Leesie’s driving truck. They’ll knock off for dinner in about an hour. Do you want me to get her on the two-way?”
I beg off, say I’ll be back, return to the Jeep but don’t leave. I recline in the sunshine, catch a whiff of dried pig stink as the breeze blows, and doze.
The sound of a truck engine, idling, sputtering off, wakes me. I get out of the Jeep, pull the gift I brought out from under the seat, and watch Leesie jump down from the driver’s side. Tanned gold face. Hair hidden under my old black Eagle Ray Divers cap. My T-shirt, streaked with dust and sweat, hangs loose on her slight frame.
Her dad gets out of the passenger’s side. They meet at the front. He says something to her. She laughs, shucks off her gloves, and whacks them against her leg. A puff of dust rises up. She pushes my cap back from her forehead and catches sight of me.
Her dad does, too. He meets me at the gate, shakes my hand. “Welcome back, son.” He glances over his shoulder at Leesie, still standing in front of the truck. “We’ll save you some dinner.” His hand rests on my shoulder. “I think there’s pie.” Then he’s gone.
I close my eyes and vent. When I open them, she’s still staring at me from across the barnyard. I don’t know who moves first, but we meet in the middle.
Up close, I can see how dusty she is from working all day.
“Hey.” I ache to hold her, but we both hang back.
“You cut your hair.” She touches my neck.
My hand goes to the place she touched. “Gram loves the garden.”
She half smiles. “I’m glad.” A muddy drop of perspiration runs down the side of her face.
I wipe it away. “She cried.”
Leesie catches my hand before it leaves her face and wraps it in hers.
I bring her dusty hand to my lips, kiss the faint scars like I used to. “You recovered from that hell I put you through?”
She pulls her hand away, biting her lower lip to keep it still. “I don’t remember it like that.” She hands me my hat. “I borrowed it.”
I don’t take it, want it forever on her head. I hand her a small brown package. “Keep this safe for me, okay?”
She unwraps my dive log—can’t speak. Her eyes are shining and wet. She eases the band off her hair, shakes it out, full and brilliant with sun-kissed streaks. I capture her in my arms and smother my face in that hair. It smells of dust and sweat and wheat chaff and Sweet Banana Mango shampoo.
Next morning Leesie’s mom sends Stephie to a friend’s house and drives truck so Leesie and I can spend the day together. That’s all I have. Just this one day. Tomorrow I’m off to Phuket.
Last night, I showed her pictures on my laptop of the live-aboard I’ll be working on, gleaming white outside, dark wood interiors. “Whale sharks, Leese. I’m going to be diving with whale sharks. Big as a bus, those suckers.”
Leesie touched the screen and whispered, “It’s so far away.”
This morning we drive to Coulee Dam. Leesie’s idea. “Back where we began.”
We stop at the dam for a few minutes, and then she wants to go to Kettle Falls, the place where the Salmon People gathered for the real Ceremony of Tears. The falls aren’t there anymore, just the Kettle River flowing wide and slow into dam-made Lake Roosevelt. We park by the tribe’s visitors’ center. Leesie drags me through it. I’ve never seen anyone get so pumped over old black-and-white pictures and a homemade tribal flag. She brought a couple of inner tubes. I have my free-dive gear and her pink mask and fins.
We hike up the road with the tubes, then float down the river.
“When do you leave for BYU?” I stretch out on the tube, savoring the smell of pines that meets me everywhere here. It reminds me of the pines at Leesie’s lake and her hand drawing a line across my chest and how I stood there like a stone.
“Two weeks. Mom and Dad are driving me down.” She dabbles her fingers in the water.
“I always thought you’d fly.” I drag my foot in the cool river.
“My computer doesn’t fit in a suitcase.”
“You’re not taking that piece of—”
“We can’
t all afford an upgrade.” She tries to splash me, but I’m way out of reach.
I splash her back. “You better have fun there.”
She laughs, wipes water from her face. “Well, it’s not whale sharks”—her voice turns serious—“but it’s one thing I’ve prayed for a lot.”
I know the other. It makes me feel safer, going off to Asia with her back here chatting with her God-man about me.
When we get to where the river empties into Lake Roosevelt, we ditch the tubes. I lift the bag with my free-dive stuff out of the back of the Jeep.
I brought my BC for a raft. I bought a real raft for the condo. Black kayak. Room for two. I used it summer evenings when I didn’t have to work, free diving at my parents’ monument with a buddy from the club. A shrink joined the club last fall. He’s been cool. Agrees it’s good therapy. Isadore never found me there, but it didn’t keep me from missing Leesie.
She and I put on masks and fins and float the vest out into the lake fifty feet past the mouth of the river.
“We should be right over where the falls were.” Leesie sounds solemn. This is another ceremony for her. She’s too caught up in it to be afraid today. She’s changed. Maybe more than I want to know.
I blow into the BC’s oral inflate hose to fill it up.
Leesie treads water as I set up my red and white diver-down flag. “Promise you won’t go too deep.”
“Sixty feet, max. Just keep your eyes on me. If I pass out, it’ll be on the way back up—the last ten feet or so. Swim down and pull me out.”
“Right.” She still isn’t freaking.
“It’s easy.” I pull an extra weight belt and a five-pound weight out of the BC’s front pocket. “We’ll practice just in case.”
She hangs on to the floating BC and snugs the belt around her waist.
“All you do is hang on to the line and watch me.”
“That won’t be hard.” Her tan cheeks tinge pink.
Months loading and unloading scuba tanks supplied me with ripped abs and pecs to rival Troy’s. I like that she noticed. “Breathe through your snorkel. Keep focused on my eyes. If they roll back into my head—”
“Don’t scare me.” She slaps my arm. “How often has this happened?”
“Once. My mom saved me.”
“And now I’m supposed to save you?”
I can’t resist kissing her cheek. “You already did.”
Her mask fogs up. She pulls it off and rinses it.
I swallow the lump in my throat, get busy as Mr. Diving Instructor, helping her get the hair out of her mask when she puts it back on. “Looks good. Now, if I slump on the way up, just duck dive.” I make her practice a few. She dives down fifteen feet no problem—doesn’t panic once. Then I show her the rescue position and dive so she can practice pulling me out. It’s great to see her swimming down to me, feel her arms go around my chest, her slender body close behind me, her strong legs kicking against mine. She wants to practice again. So do I.
I dive twenty feet, level off, look up, and see her floating at the surface, the sun’s rays refracted around her, long hair loose, fanned out in a circle. I remember my old blue water nightmare, see her coming through the water, fringe and long hair. My rescue. She pulled me out with both arms and didn’t let go until I could breathe on my own.
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM #48, KETTLE FALLING
His chest expands, collapses
in patient cycles, waiting,
while the salmon People
chant farewell,
my grandmother
whispers blessings,
and his parents don
their wet suits.
Kettle Falls hides in
the dark water below us.
He’ll be safe with me
one more time.
the music wanes
and his body shakes
with the effort of packing
air on top of air.
He slips the snorkel from
those lips I’ve missed for months
and motionless transforms to
fluid, fast, silent, slow—
all at the same time.
so different from his scuba,
which hampered him
with a tank and BC,
bubbles, and me—
terrified and shaking,
holding him back.
It was nothing like
the resilient soul,
the hope in motion,
the lanky poetry
I watch as he dives
free.
Thank you . . .
Mom. She always believed I could do this, so I believed it, too.
All my sisters and brothers, their wives, husbands, and kids. My most enthusiastic fans.
My husband, Allen. He learned how to free dive with me, paid for my MFA, and worships the ground I walk on. I love you.
Rob and Andy, my oldest sons, who filled my head with teen guy voices. The next book will feature time-traveling space pirates and a troop of undead monkeys. I promise.
Shante, my caring daughter-in-law, for Baby Jack.
Rachel, my daughter, for taking my beautiful author photo—and forty ugly ones. And keeping me and the rest of the family fed while I revised.
Will, my youngest. Sorry I missed all those birthdays. Thanks for not milking it too much.
My first mentor, Mrs. Daniels, at Tekoa High School, who sent me off to CENTRUM fiction workshops where I met authors and, glory be, other teens who felt like me.
BYU for the scholarship, and all my professors, roommates and friends, who made my time there everything I’d prayed for.
Vermont College. You changed my life. Thanks, especially, to my brilliant advisors, Ron Koertge, Sharon Darrow, Louise Hawes, and Susan Fletcher, who helped me birth this novel, my talented critique buds, Joelle, Connie, Kathi, and Rhay, and my classmates, Le Salon—colleagues, sisters, soul mates.
My heroes, Ann and Erzi in Paris, who gave up their creative time to throw the SCBWI Sequester where I found the lovely, Lexa, my genius editor.
Thank you, Lexa, and everyone at Razorbill for all your hard work and taking a risk on an unknown author, a novel that had been rejected, rejected, rejected, and my faithful Mormon heroine.
And I must acknowledge and thank the Source of my story. He sent me these voices and compelled me to capture them and craft them into the novel you hold in your hands. I could not create without His guidance. Thank you, Father. I am most grateful.
Taken by Storm Page 18
