by Edie Claire
He stopped talking for a moment as his mind traveled far away. “I see,” Mei Lin encouraged. “Moving around in an area like that must have been dangerous.”
He nodded, his weathered brow creasing. “We had to stay inside the compounds. You couldn’t go for a walk outside the barriers, much less take a joy ride. Being on the roads was always risky, but I was used to that; floating between camps was what I did. The organization had an SUV, and I drove it myself whenever I got the chance. It was a sorry old vehicle, beat up as hell, but at least it ran. After being cooped up in the camps, it was always a rush to get behind a wheel again. Any wheel.”
“I’d be terrified to go out at all,” Mei Lin admitted.
He shook his head. “The roads were dangerous for any number of reasons, but it wasn’t men with machine guns that took us down that day. It was nothing but a damn pothole.”
Mei Lin remained quiet. After a long moment, he spoke again.
“I wish I could say that somebody shot at us,” he said bitterly. “Or that the brakes failed, or that we were rushing to save lives. But none of that was true. There was nobody on the road that afternoon but our convoy. I took that as an invitation to let loose and see what the old Expedition could do.”
His tone was flippant, but fraught with self-recrimination. “It was the rainy season. Puddles everywhere. I was dodging the potholes; making a game of it like some idiot teenager. Erik was laughing and egging me on — we were both punch-drunk from lack of sleep. But that was no excuse. One of the peacekeepers could have driven us. Truth is, we were having fun — until I hit a puddle that was deeper than it looked. There was a cracking sound, and the next thing I knew, we were rolling.”
His voice turned stony. “Erik was cut up bad. He bled out right in front of me. I couldn’t do a damn thing to help him. Nothing! My legs were pinned; I couldn’t feel my right arm. He was a young guy, maybe forty. He’d been on assignment less than a month.”
Mei Lin tried to steel herself, but her eyes grew teary anyway. She was a hopeless crier. “Your arm,” she squeaked, “that’s how you injured it?”
He nodded. “It was mangled. Bad enough that if I’d come in with a bunch of critically injured, it would have come off right then and there. I can’t tell you how many amputations we did in the camps. We had no choice. There was never enough time — always another patient who couldn’t wait, another life that would be lost.” He scowled at his nearly normal-looking arm. “I only have this… I’m only here at all, because of Angela. Our escorts turned around and took us back to the hospital we’d just left. She was the resident surgeon there. She pronounced Erik dead and then went to work on me. Never mind that she’d been up all night, too. She spent hours. Stitched together muscles, tendons, nerves… the job would have been difficult under the best of circumstances, and she had little to work with and no backup. Just her own skill with a needle and thread. And the whole time she was knocking herself out to save my arm, she knew that it was me who’d caused the accident. That I’d been reckless and just plain stupid. She knew that it was all my fault.”
“I’m sure she didn’t pass judgment,” Mei Lin soothed, disturbed by the film of anxious sweat forming on his skin. “You wouldn’t have, either. She knew that you and that arm of yours had saved countless lives—”
“She should have let me die!” he shouted suddenly, his eyes flooding as his voice rose. “At the very least, she should have cut off my arm at the shoulder!”
Mei Lin remained silent.
His previously taut muscles went limp. After a long spell of silence, he spoke in a mumble. “Erik was her husband.”
Mei Lin stifled a gasp of horror. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Then tears spilled over her cheeks and her voice came back to her. “What happened was an accident.”
“It was involuntary manslaughter!” he countered. “In this country, I could have been charged.”
The word “charged” sent another icy ripple through Mei Lin’s veins. She would never be able to erase the image of Julia crying and screaming as she was handcuffed and taken away from the nursing home. But this was about Stanley’s demons, not hers. She cleared her throat and sat up. “You made a mistake, yes. And that mistake had horrific consequences. But you can’t control the world and everything in it. Nobody gave you the option of dying instead of Erik, and nobody asked if you deserved to lose your arm as punishment, either. What happened, happened. You can apologize, and you can try to make right whatever is in your power to make right. But that’s all you can do.”
The speech was parroted straight from the advice Mei Lin’s therapist mother had given her after the Silverson debacle. But the words had no more effect on Stanley now than they’d had on her back then.
“It wasn’t one mistake,” he lamented. “I’ve been a daredevil my whole damn life. Always looking for the next big thrill — and to hell with how anyone else felt about it.” He turned and held her gaze. “I told you I never really loved the woman I married. But I believe she did love me. For a while, anyway. Whatever love she had, I killed it. I was so damn cocky… I really did believe I was immortal. I had a sports car and a Harley, and I collected speeding tickets like baseball cards. Performing life and death surgery wasn’t enough for me — I had to go bungee jumping, hang-gliding, sky diving. I had to climb Mt. Rainier and surf Mavericks. Got plenty of injuries, but always bounced back. And Margot hated it all, because she worried about me. She cared when I didn’t call, feared the worst when I didn’t come home. Idiot that I was, I couldn’t understand that. I resented it; I thought she was a nag. I led the kind of life you’d expect from a shallow, impetuous teenager — except that I was pushing forty at the time. Eventually Margot had enough. She told me she didn’t care what I did anymore. And towards the end, she really didn’t.”
Mei Lin drew in a shaky breath. She was feeling a strong tug of sympathy for Stanley’s ex-wife, but she recognized the emotion as counterproductive. “Your marriage was only part of the equation,” she reminded. “You had two sons together, and their childhood was happy. The man you’re describing is not the dad they remember.”
He looked at her sharply. “How do you know?”
Mei Lin felt a wave of warmth creep up her neck. She tried as hard as she could to look blasé.
Stanley laughed out loud. “So that’s how it is!” he chortled with renewed merriment. “Well, son of a gun! I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. He is a handsome devil, isn’t he?”
“And how would you know?” Mei Lin asked with sudden irritation. “Have you been spying on him?”
“Oh, no,” Stanley said more soberly. “That wouldn’t be safe. But the internet is a wonderful thing. I’ve seen pictures. Is he as tall as he looks?”
“Yes,” Mei Lin snapped. “He’s also intelligent. And funny. And kind. And honest.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning when he says he misses his dad, he damn well means it!” she fired back, surprised by her own vehemence. “Thane remembers you very well, Stanley. He loved you! I can see it in his eyes every time he mentions your name! To know that you didn’t die… that you’re right here, right now, and that he could so easily see you again… don’t you understand what that would mean to him?”
Stanley stared back at her, stricken. His pale lips moved experimentally several times before he managed to form words. “He… he talked to you… about me?”
“He told me the whole story of your family history with the glacier bears!” she practically shouted. “How do you think I got suspicious in the first place? He remembers everything: the bedtime stories, camping in Yakutat… you’d think the guy was raving about Disneyworld! And he thinks you were murdered, Stanley. Murdered! He’s carried that horror with him for twenty years!”
Stanley turned his face away. “He has another father.”
“That doesn’t matter!” she persisted. “You don’t just trade off people you love like used tires! Thane deserves the chance to get to know you
again! And so does Jason!”
“We’ve been through this already!” he fired back. “I’m telling you, finding out about me would only hurt them mo—”
Mei Lin said a bad word. She practically screamed it. “That’s not the real reason and you know it! You’re just plain scared!”
“I’m just plain dying!” he yelled back at her. “You want to tell them I’m alive just so they can watch me die all over again? So they can cry at another funeral?”
Mei Lin stopped yelling. She got the feeling they weren’t talking about sepsis anymore. “You’re just plain dying,” she repeated thinly. “Of what?”
He let out a growl. A pain stabbed through her as she realized how much it sounded like Thane’s.
“Cancer,” he answered dryly. “They found it when I got sent back stateside, for my arm.”
“What kind of cancer?” she shot back. The C word didn’t scare her. She’d nursed too many survivors who died of something else. “What stage?”
He frowned at her, but rattled off his diagnosis in medical speak.
“So what?” she barked. Coming across as unsympathetic was as unnatural to her as kicking small animals, but she was on a higher mission. “That’s almost certainly treatable, and you know it!”
He snorted. “Well, it’s not getting treated.”
“Because you’re afraid,” she goaded.
“Because I deserve to die, dammit!” he shouted again. “What part of I’m a worthless jackass don’t you get?”
“All of it,” she retorted.
He swore. “Look,” he said after they’d both cooled down a bit, “If I’m done living, that’s my business. I’ve been ready to go ever since the moment Erik took his last breath out on that godforsaken bloody road. Having cancer is merely a convenience. If I just bide my time, nature will take care of me all by itself.”
Mei Lin seriously wanted to hit him. “Nature has nothing to do with this. And it would be your business… if you didn’t have children. But you did, Stanley. And you do. Which means this isn’t just about you.”
His jaws clenched visibly. For one beautiful moment, she thought she’d gotten through. But in the next instant her hopes were dashed again.
“I know what’s best for my sons,” he said sternly. “And I need you to promise me you won’t tell them anything.”
She stifled another frustrated scream. “Why should I?”
“Because you already promised!” He held her eyes with the full intensity of his own. “You promised me that nothing I shared with you would leave this cabin. Do you remember that?”
She made no response.
“Don’t let me down, Mei Lin,” he continued. “I trusted you. I’ve thought about this for a long time, and I know what I’m doing. It’s the best thing for everyone.”
Her eyes felt hot. A pressure was building up inside her — a pressure of unshed tears and unrelieved frustration. She could not stand much more of it.
“Promise me,” he said again. But this time it wasn’t a demand. It was a plea.
Mei Lin stood up and grabbed her pack. “I’m sorry,” she heard herself say as her feet started moving. She needed to get away. Away to somewhere she could think straight. And cry. And maybe even scream. “That’s not a promise I can make.”
Chapter 24
Mei Lin climbed back into the Subaru and planted her hands on the steering wheel. She didn’t know where to drive. She didn’t want to go back to Elsie’s house or even to the Nagoonberry Trail, because in both places her emotions would be hopelessly distracted by happy memories of Thane. She wanted to be alone. All she’d done on the walk from the cabin was cry. Now it was time for the thinking part. She needed a quiet, lonely place where she could sit and concentrate. But where?
A memory flashed through her mind. She’d been told of a place just outside town… a sobering place that inspired reflection.
She drove a few miles north of Gustavus to the spot Carol McRoberts and several other locals had described to her, then she got out and started walking. The trail was only a footpath, but enough humans had preceded her to make it easy to follow. After a few minutes, she reached her destination.
Here, on a miserable night of bad weather in the winter of 1957, an Alaska Air National Guard plane had crashed. The pilot and three others in the cockpit had perished, but seven military passengers survived the night. At first light, neighboring citizens who had heard the terrifying noises were able to locate and rescue the men, some of whom they carried out on litters made of tree branches. The debris from the crash was left behind. All through the half century that followed, the surrounding forest had been gradually but steadily enfolding the scattered remnants.
The story was a poignant chapter in the town’s history, and the site was touted as emotionally affecting. Still, Mei Lin had never wanted to see it. She tended to avoid anything depressing, which she supposed seemed strange for someone who had chosen end-of-life caregiving as a career. But her empathetic soul felt things keenly, and if she could do nothing to help a situation, she tried to spare herself the heartache. Why her heart would lead her to seek out such an experience now, she wasn’t sure.
The wreckage materialized in bits as she approached. First to appear were shards of painted metal, twisted amidst the underbrush. Then more shreds of metal, as well as stray pieces of piping and rubber. When she reached the fuselage itself, she sucked in a breath of surprise. The plane’s cylindrical midsection was battered and beaten, but largely intact. Vacant window holes gaped from its sides. Older trees had snapped and collapsed with it; now new trees stretched toward the sky, hemming it in. The red and white tail section still thrust up proudly through the leaves, and a broken wing lay crumpled across the forest floor, dressed with mossy vines.
She stepped carefully over and around pieces of gray metal entangled with furry green growth, wondering at how deftly the forest had incorporated the unnatural materials into its web. As she scouted out a fallen log to sit on, small birds flitted about overhead. Other than the crunch of her feet on a floor of brown needles and twigs, the cheeping of the birds was the only sound to be heard.
Her eyes were dry now, and her emotions less volatile. Thinking that four men had once died here was unquestionably sad. But despite the tragedy that had brought the plane to lie in this place, thinking of how its solid belly had shielded seven others from death lent the scene a bizarre, paradoxical sense of peace.
Stanley Buchanan himself was a paradox, she realized. He had led a selfish life in many ways, spurred on by his innate restlessness and a compulsion for thrill-seeking. At a minimum, he’d been a lousy husband. Mei Lin couldn’t and didn’t excuse that, but his self-recrimination went too far. Although he had frequently tempted fate in the pursuit of his own fun, he hadn’t done so with the intention of harming anyone. He had certainly never asked to be kidnapped and shot at, and it was that unfortunate incident which had forced him into making the decision that would separate his family. He had acted unselfishly, if not necessarily wisely, in letting his sons and parents believe that he was dead. The “unselfish” part could be argued if he hadn’t cared about his children, but Mei Lin knew that he did. His boys had occupied center stage in his delirium, and the honesty of that testament spoke for itself. Yet as much as Stanley loved his sons, as much as he must have craved any information about their wellbeing, he had never attempted to see them, even surreptitiously. He had denied himself that pleasure for the sake of their safety.
No, she thought as she twisted a green twig anxiously between her fingers. Stanley was wrong about himself. He was imperfect, but so was everyone. No matter what mistakes he had made, he still had much to give. His cancer could almost certainly be cured; with luck, he could live for decades. Decades that could be filled with family Christmases, Sunday dinners and birthdays, camping trips and bear quests, perhaps even time spent with grandchildren.
Aggravated anew, she tried to snap the twig. But it was too green; its stringy tendril
s merely clutched her fingers tighter. If Stanley wasn’t so blasted stubborn, he could be enjoying all of those precious family times! The future could bring them all so much happiness. But Stanley couldn’t see it; he was too blinded by his own, unnecessarily negative perception of himself.
Hypocrite! she thought with a frown. Was this not the same Stanley Buchanan who had worked so hard at building her up, at making her see her own strengths and failures more objectively? Had he not harassed her about underestimating herself, forced her to see the irrationality of her self-blame, to the point where she had finally begun to think that yes, damn it, she could do it? Maybe she could be a nurse practitioner, and a good one? Maybe she could grow a pair and take a stab at what her heart truly wanted… to stay right here in Alaska? To stay and make a real difference by ensuring that every terminally ill person in the area had the option of dying as comfortably as possible in the security of his or her own home?
Mei Lin pulled with all her might until the tenacious vine at last gave way. Ha! She untwisted the remaining pieces from her swollen, green-stained fingers and chuckled ruefully. She hadn’t even realized she’d made that decision. But now she was certain. She was going to apply for state certification, accept the town’s generous offer, and give the nurse practitioner thing a go.
Thanks to Stanley Buchanan, she believed in herself again.
She rose from the log and straightened her spine. She was going to fix this fine mess of his. How she could do it without breaking promises, sowing family chaos, and hurting feelings that were already raw, she had no idea. But she believed she could do it.
Mei Lin Sullivan had her mojo back.
***
Thane and Dave didn’t find the glacier bear on the river trail. They couldn’t even find any tracks. They would have concluded that the couple had made the whole thing up if the assistant ranger — who knew nothing of Mei Lin’s sighting — hadn’t insisted that their story sounded credible. Dave planned to try and contact the couple himself first thing tomorrow, this time with his wife’s German-English dictionary in hand. Perhaps, he grumbled, something had gotten lost in translation.
