The way she said it, the tone, made Cheyenne think she was going to say more but Justine left it there.
“Let’s start,” she said.
Sitting down, she struck the meditation bell. Nothing happened. People fidgeted or filled water glasses, they stretched. One rifled through a bag, another untangled a necklace clasp from her hair. It was as if they hadn’t heard the bell at all. Cheyenne looked at Justine, offended for her, but Justine showed no sign of interest. Cheyenne leaned back against the wall of the yurt to wait it out. She watched them, forming a line to the coffeepot, staring vacantly out the window—who were these people anyway? Youngish, nowhere to be on a Monday morning. Ten minutes passed. The milling continued. Irritation crawled up her spine. Whatever agreement these people had, she wasn’t in on it. No one had warned her. No one told her how to act. Do you know what this looks like from the outside? A student production of a French experimental play. A boring movie with the sound off. She had to go to the bathroom. She was still having her period and everything about the bottom of her felt heavy and everything about the top of her had been blown up into the sky. Irritation began moving up her spine as she realized she didn’t know how long the meditation would go on. These people knew how long it was going to last so it was their privilege to set that thought aside. And is nothing so much a part of being a child as having no control over time, the land where everything is eternal until you are told different—why hadn’t Justine woken her up earlier? Five more minutes passed and her rage got so bright and fast it burned the circuit. What was left of her was still and without current. The sounds had settled. Under her nails she felt the tender pink skin, and on her arms, the tiny hairs. Like a cut waiting to be sewn, open to everything. The meditation bell was struck once more. She could feel the waves of sound moving through her.
Justine shifted into a more comfortable position. “Death or fear?”
She waited.
“Who here has been terrified? I don’t mean scared. I mean shit-your-pants terrified. Real terror. Like ice in your lungs, skin on fire, you can’t breathe or speak, your guts turn to water—anybody?” Justine flashed a quick smile at Cheyenne. “Y’all should live a little more.”
Cheyenne laughed but she was the only one.
“You’ve never been truly scared,” said Justine. “Your fear is just a story. Your compassion is a story too. It’s not-caring you feel. It’s pity.”
The idea that terrible things could just be a story had always enraged Cheyenne, but coming from Justine it sounded different.
“I met a woman in a truck stop when I first arrived, a waitress,” said Justine. “She asked where I came from and I told her I was from the Midwest but spent time in Seattle and California. I named a few other places—I was very sophisticated. She had never heard of Washington State. I drew a map. She only recognized half of the country. Her whole world was the seventy square miles around where we stood. Anything that happened in those seventy miles would have been the End of the World. You know what she was doing? She was saving every penny to enter her five-year-old in a beauty contest in Huntsville to win a black-and-white TV. My daughter is the most beautiful girl in the world. She told me, ‘If I take her there, everyone in the world will see it.’ ”
Justine looked at Cheyenne, then went on.
“I was in a Thai temple once and saw the body of a young woman rotting in a glass case. She’d been a great beauty, a former Miss Thailand. She died of a heart complication and donated her body to the monastery as training on impermanence. Death is always in the room. Here we lie about it. Teenagers have to make their own dead bodies just to show it to us. Collapsing bridges, ice sheets snapping in half—it’s not important. Death is death.” Justine’s eyes fell on Cheyenne. “Why things happen doesn’t matter.”
Justine’s gaze stayed for a few seconds and then she turned and went on, answering questions, asking some, all the time glancing back at Cheyenne, looping her into the secret conversation. The sense of connection grew until it was a physical thing in the room. It elevated her in a way she’d never felt. Not all daughters resemble their mothers. Not all people who look alike are related. When people got up to go, Cheyenne felt a rush of pride. That’s right. You have to leave and I get to stay. She’s mine, not yours.
As the door closed behind the last person, Cheyenne heard the solid swat of a hand slapping a counter.
“So many bugs,” said Justine.
A man knocked. He was there to fix a leak under the sink.
“Oh, hi Jake. This is Cheyenne.” Justine slapped the counter, killing the fly. “Cheyenne is a student of mine.”
48 The Brochure
KIRSTEN LOOKED at the brochure the insurance broker had given her: SAY I LOVE YOU AFTER YOU’RE GONE.
There was no useful information in the brochure, like cost or exclusions. It was about selling their estate-management side, or so it seemed from the silver-haired men in the sunshine on a tennis court. Years ago, Margaret had taught her to look for the message beneath the message in advertising. Hint: It’s usually paterfamilias. The broker went to ask the underwriter a question and Kirsten took out a pen.
SAY I LOVE YOU AFTER YOU’RE GONE
SAY GOODBYE WITH CASH
APOLOGIZE WITH MONEY?
SAY GOODBYE WITH MONEY
FREE YOUR SLAVES UPON DEATH
That was a message for sure, but not this message.
FREE YOUR SLAVES UPON DEATH
REST IN THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL
The broker returned. “Sorry about the wait. I’m new.”
“Trust fund. Have you ever thought about those words? I mean trust is exactly what they’re not about. That’s what makes it funny,” said Kirsten.
The broker gave her a vague smile. He’d never met anyone with a trust fund.
“I have a few more questions to get you a final quote. Are you the major breadwinner?”
“My kids are grown.”
“But you want them to be secure after you’re gone.”
She laughed. “They aren’t secure now.”
“What about funeral expenses? Would you like a more comprehensive plan for when the time comes?”
“What’s comprehensive?”
“We have plans for under fifty dollars a month that pay out at three hundred thousand.”
Her mouth fell open. “I’m surprised you don’t have more suicides.”
“Well, we have precautions,” he said but couldn’t meet her eyes.
“You know, for someone paid to talk about death you’re not very good at it.” She sighed. “So how does it work?”
“You choose a policy. We do a health screening and start you on a plan.”
“What if there’s a problem with the health screening?”
“The policy might cost a little more, but we have pricing tiers to address most conditions. Unless it’s something like cancer.”
“No pricing tier for that?” she said.
“No, but it’s not the end of the world either.”
“Could be. You never know.”
* * *
—
She faced the oncologist again with her insides displayed on the wall-mounted light box behind her.
“I’ll do chemotherapy.”
The oncologist fidgeted. “I’m not going to be able to keep seeing you,” she said.
“I don’t want to go over all of this with someone new.”
“I know it’s a very vulnerable time.”
“You don’t know the fucking half of it.”
“You need a different type of care than I can provide.”
“I have cancer. You’re in oncology.”
The oncologist cleared her throat. “Yes, but I’m on a different side of it.”
She waited for Kirsten to understand but Kirsten didn’t. The
oncologist stood.
“I work with people who have a chance of getting better,” she said. “Someone from palliative care will contact you.”
The appointment was over, but Kirsten hadn’t realized it until the oncologist stood.
* * *
—
Outside the sky was feathered with clouds. She was going to miss clouds. She was also going to miss the oncologist, which was ridiculous because she barely knew her, but all of a sudden the woman had seemed very beautiful. Kirsten stopped for a coffee and realized she was going to miss the barista who made her soy latte. She got on the bus and realized she was going to miss the bus driver even though she’d never met him. She looked around at the people on the bus. She was going to miss everybody.
She stopped by the grocery store where a woman from her coven worked and almost told her as practice, but then veered away from the subject. Once home, she cleaned her stove. She made a vegan Frito pie and cleared the cookies off her laptop.
It was her fault and she knew it. She had put off seeing the doctor and been dragging her feet on choosing treatment. It would be easier with money, but she wasn’t the type to make a cancer Kickstarter campaign and blog; she had no desire to waste energy performing positivity for assholes. Photos of sunrises, her smiling in a bandanna—who was that supposed to comfort? But she wasn’t a martyr. One of the kids was going to have to step up. She could write Justine and ask her to have Cheyenne call. But she was afraid it would sound like begging—and there’s no way in hell that was happening. She wrote Livy at her last known address in Dutch Harbor.
Dear Livy, I have cancer of the stomach. I am going to die but they tell me I will die less quickly if I try to kill my body first and fail. I know it’s not funny. I need you to come home. Love, Mom
She dropped the envelope into the glorious mystery of the US postal system where it crisscrossed the mountains in flight, arcing over the sphere until it landed on the harbormaster’s desk. From there it was shuffled into a box full of credit card offers and catalogs to be burned as trash.
49 Sarah
JUNEAU WAS NOT AS DARK in November as it was farther north, but it was still darker than anything Livy had ever experienced. She’d gotten work doing minor repairs on a trawler owned by a snowbird living in Florida. That work led to other small jobs. She had no plans other than to get out of town, but that was turning out to be far harder than she expected. It’s not like she could hitchhike on the roads that ended in the Tongass National Forest in both directions. Ferries and planes were expensive. Even if Sarah had that much money to spare, the idea of being in debt to a stranger made Livy’s blood run cold. She had gotten herself here; she would get herself out. But every day she only made enough for food and a little bit to give Sarah for bills.
Cash in hand one afternoon, she stopped at the hippie grocery store on her way back to the apartment. All she needed was quinoa pasta but she got stuck in line behind a mother and daughter who evidently knew the cashier. The chatting was taking forever but Livy wasn’t paying much attention until she heard the name of her old crabbing boat. Eliana. Eliana. She heard it again. Then the name of the captain came out of the woman’s mouth. She spoke of the fishing season, best in years, according to her husband. This, Livy began to realize, was the captain’s wife. Livy’s skin started to vibrate. She looked at the girl, who was no more than fifteen. Slightly pudgy, dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, hunched to hide her breasts: This was the captain’s daughter.
The mother and daughter paid and left. Livy told the cashier she’d forgotten her wallet and followed them out. They got into a car and turned left out of the parking lot. Livy walked into the street. They drove just three blocks up the hill and parked. A porch light came on and they carried their groceries inside.
Livy walked slowly back to Sarah’s, dropped the day’s cash on the kitchen table like a dead rat, and went to bed. The next morning, she sat perched in the dark on the cold rung of a jungle gym in an old schoolyard. She watched the captain’s house. Up and down the street everyone was getting ready for work or school. The porch light came on and the captain’s daughter came out. She zipped up her coat and took out her phone, scrolled, and selected. The girl put in her earbuds and her face relaxed. She moved in small pulses, all motions circular, all angles rounded, trotting down her front steps. Livy followed her.
A few blocks later, the girl crossed a small footbridge and took stairs down the backside of the hill into a part of town Livy hadn’t seen. A neighborhood of small, weathered, Easter egg–colored houses. The girl cut through the streets until they ended in an arterial that ran along the harbor in front of the high school. Livy followed her into the halls pressed with kids and teachers but lost her. A bell rang and the crowd thinned and she saw her again. The girl was alone. As alone as anyone Livy had ever seen. Students passed in pairs and groups and she never once looked around for a familiar face. A second bell rang and she took out her earbuds. As she wound the cord around her phone, Livy saw hatch-mark scars all over the girl’s arms. Some healed, some new. Livy turned and walked away.
* * *
—
When she returned to Sarah’s apartment, she heard a rustling sound in the kitchen, a scratching sound like an animal, and found Sarah with her nose in a family-sized box of cereal, shaking it, then going in with a fork to sift for raisins. When she found one, she carefully put it in a pile on the table. Then she shook the box again and looked inside, then drew back, fox-like, her red hair springing in all directions, and dumped the cereal on the table. When she had sorted out the number of raisins she wanted, she brushed the rest of the cereal off the table and back into the box.
“They always go to the bottom,” she said.
“That’s good, though. It makes the last few bowls taste like dessert.”
“Yeah, but they’re last. Tell me you’re not the type who eats everything they hate first.”
Sarah offered her the cereal box. Livy declined.
“The captain of the Eliana lives here. The Eliana was my boat, Eliana. He has a daughter and a wife. I was behind them in line at the grocery store and heard them talking. They are polite and buy organic and live just down the street. I followed them home then followed the girl to school this morning. I don’t know why.”
“What do you want to do?” asked Sarah.
“I honestly don’t know.”
She went out for another aimless walk.
* * *
—
Returning later that day she heard Sarah vacuuming her room. She’d only seen Sarah’s room through a crack in the door. There was a mattress on the floor, a quilt for a sheet, a sleeping bag curled like a pill bug on top. Livy knocked and went in. The walls were covered with butcher paper with notes in different colors and arrows leading to bubbles of names that were underlined here and there with triple exclamation marks. Sarah shut off the vacuum cleaner.
She saw Livy looking at the walls.
“It’s how I think,” she said.
The word PRAJNA appeared several times on the butcher paper.
“Is this what you do?” Livy asked.
“Did,” said Sarah. “I was a strategic planner for environmental campaigns targeting corporations, going after their client base to shame them into better behavior. It doesn’t work. They’re ashamed of nothing.”
Sarah unplugged the vacuum cleaner and balled up the cord.
“People are assholes,” said Livy. “They want to make money. You’re never going to stop that.”
Sarah pushed the vacuum cleaner into the corner and threw the cord over the top.
“What about talking to your family?” she said. “Have you thought about calling?”
“They wouldn’t be able to help and then they would feel bad, and then I would feel bad about how they felt bad. Everyone would be worse. Did you know PRAJNA means deep universal enlighten
ed wisdom? It’s from the Upanishad.”
“I know what it’s from,” said Sarah. Her tone was biting and Livy flinched. “Did you see any of the wells where you were fishing?” Sarah asked. “We tried to run a ballot initiative against the new drilling but got outspent.”
“I think I saw a woman with a clipboard talking about that in a bar in Homer,” Livy winked, “but I managed to duck her.”
“Tell me you vote,” said Sarah.
“Well I haven’t but—”
Her perfect non-voting record had always been a source of pride. Now she had come down in Sarah’s eyes and it bothered her more than it should.
“You’re a gay woman,” said Sarah. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“It’s not like whatever you think. I believe in democracy. I just think my whole life is a vote. Everyone’s is.” Livy pointed to photos taped to the wall, oil-covered sea otters and shorelines on fire. “Everyone voted for that.”
Sarah sighed. “It’s too bad you aren’t a drunk,” she said. “I was thinking about ways for you to get home if a job doesn’t turn up. Or at least a place you can go. You’re welcome here but I’m leaving in a few weeks. But if you were a drunk, you’d have more options. We could get you into a treatment center or a halfway house. Could you say you are? Who’s to know? They’d have to take you at detox. I think they’d have to check your blood alcohol level but I suppose we could get you really, really drunk—like alcohol-poisoning drunk—and take you into the emergency room. They’d send you to detox and we could advocate for a bed in a halfway house from there, which is a stronger position and you’d only have a shitty headache and the shakes.”
“You said you were leaving. Where again?”
“Panama. PRAJNA is getting ready to drill down there too.”
“I thought you quit.”
“I did. Why do you think your family can’t help? You should call even if you don’t say anything about what happened.”
The Great Offshore Grounds Page 25
