They Almost Always Come Home

by Cynthia Ruchti

  But we’re not likely to find hints if Greg purposed not to leave any.

  “Anything appeal to you?” Jen asks. She’s rifling through cellophane packets of gumdrops, fried pork rinds, and beef jerky.

  “Not really.”

  Sunflower seeds. Greg would have gone for the sunflower seeds. Lacey too. They shared that. In the shell. When they indulged, popping open the salty shells and extracting the tiny little seeds, they left piles of empties. If I hadn’t insisted they drop the shells into a paper cup, I might have found the family room floor looking like the ground under the bird feeder.

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  Lacey on her Daddy’s lap sharing sunflower seeds. That’s

  the snapshot I should have with me.

  Greg and I held each other like a good Christian couple

  after she died. We cried onto each other’s shoulders at her funeral. We prayed together for the family of the young man who turned a rabbit gun on the school janitor, our daugh- ter, and himself. We led a support group for grieving parents, counseling others with words we could not absorb.

  No one could have imagined that Greg’s simple words—

  “You’re going to school, Lacey”—would carry a bullet impact. Or that the ricochet would wound the whole community and destroy our marriage.

  To be fair, his decision didn’t destroy our marriage. It

  stretched a pinhole to the size of a pencil eraser, through which all the life drained out.

  And now I’m the mother of two sons whom I trained not to

  need me. I’m the wife of a man who grew tired of waiting for my heart to heal enough to let him back in.

  How will I explain it to our church friends if we discover

  that Greg bailed on what was left of our marriage? We’ve cov- ered so well, haven’t we? Until now, I wasn’t sure even Greg knew how thin and brittle was the ice on which we skated.

  He knew I was sad too much of the time—in private. That I

  was stuck on stage four of a six-stage grieving process.

  I didn’t know he’d figured out I gave him full credit for

  that.

  When some people lose a child, they grieve most deeply

  over future events they’ll never share with that child. High school graduation. Wedding. Grandchildren.

  I most miss the child as she was. I don’t mourn the loss

  of an opportunity to shop for a prom dress. Prom has never been my idea of a good time. I don’t lie awake at night wish- ing it were possible for Lacey and me to spend a weekend in

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  Madison or Green Bay or the Twin Cities searching for the perfect wedding gown.

  I miss the twelve-year-old who hadn’t lost her little-girl desire to sit as close to me as possible during lightning storms. I miss her wide-eyed devotion to her big brothers. I miss her spidery legs entwined with mine when we camped at opposite ends of the couch with a bowl of popcorn and the DVD remote between us.

  What keeps me awake at night are mental snapshots of her personality. Such a charmer.

  “Mamacita?”

  She started calling me by that endearment after befriending the daughter of a family of Mexicans who worked at the cran- berry processing plant near us.

  “Mamacita, don’t you think it’s time for a girl day?” She scheduled girl days with the finesse of a professional event planner and had done so since she was six or seven. “We’ll have lunch at McDonald’s because you got to choose last time. Then we’ll go to Goodwill because Tatiana says they just got in some vintage stuff that’s to die for.”

  Vintage? A twelve-year-old?

  “Then the mall because frankly, Mama (she put the empha- sis on the second syllable), you could use a haircut. And while we’re there, we might as well stop at the gift shop in case they happened to get in the new Ginny Gymnast figurine I’ve been waiting all my life to add to my collection.” All her life.

  “Are you planning to use your birthday money for it, Lacey?”

  “That’s already spoken for.”

  “Oh?”

  “I plan to give all my birthday money to help the missionar- ies build that hospital for AIDS victims in Africa. You know,

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  Mamacita. We heard about it in church on Sunday. Seems like the least I can do.”

  Did I have any other choice but to shell out the money for a

  ceramic Ginny Gymnast?

  ********

  The last-chance store is many miles behind us now. As is

  the ranger station check-in point. The shadowed thoughts are still with me.

  Jen spares me from further introspection and my penchant

  for picking at emotional scabs by asking, “Are you ready for this?”

  I’m not sure to which of my crises she’s referring until I note

  that Frank is swinging the Jeep in a tight curve into a wide spot between rocks. This must be it. We’re here.

  Checking in at the ranger station an hour ago gave me a

  false sense of security, I see now. It had a real parking lot. An actual building. People. Not many, granted, but people none- theless. People and moose heads and flattened beaver pelts and samples of tents made into shredded wheat by “nosey and normally harmless” black bears. Too many descriptors. “Harmless” would have been enough.

  The sound of our footsteps had bounced off the cavernous

  ceiling of the ranger station and made us sound like an army. If only. Frank logged us in, while Jen and I used the refresh- ingly modern restrooms and then perused the racks full of brochures.

  Contrast that scene with where we are now.

  We emerge from the Blazer and stretch muscles and limbs

  that are sure to sport bruises tomorrow morning, considering the condition of the back road we just traversed. Frank disap- pears into the undergrowth just beyond the parking area. I’m

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  tempted to put “parking area” in mental quote marks. He’s gone less than two minutes, which means he wasn’t exploring but relieving himself.

  Though my bladder’s been bounced and shaken, I’ll wait until we reach our first campsite, thank you.

  “Canoes first,” Frank says, as he tucks his shirt back into his pants and assumes command of the launch process. “Where’s the water?” I ask.

  He smiles. Smirks. Something. “A quarter of a mile that way.” He points to a slight opening in the woods. No wider than, say, a canoe.

  That man and his sense of humor. A quarter of a mile before we even reach the edge of the water?

  I offer to hoist one end of the canoe he’s released from its car-top perch, but he’s already shouldered it and is starting down the trail, bouncing it a little to adjust its position like a woman would fuss with her bra.

  “Frank? What should we do while you’re gone?”

  “Bring the other canoe,” he calls back, and then laughs in a way that reminds me of Bela Lugosi, the horror film star. The sound wrinkles my spine.

  Jen and I look at each other. The second canoe is still strapped down on top of the Blazer. We shrug in unison, mir- ror images of each other’s ignorance, and set to work undoing the straps.

  I have to open the passenger door and step up on the run- ning board to reach the clasp on the front strap. The two canoes were lashed down separately. Probably a smart move, considering the jostling they’ve just endured along with us. But that means removing the first canoe didn’t simplify the process in which we are now engaged. Jen works on the back tie-down.

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  A wave of doubt overwhelms me. This is crazy. Nuts. Insane.

  We’re not outdoorswomen. Not only will we not be a help to the investigation, we’ll probably kill ourselves or one another while we’re at it.

  I wish I’d said yes one of the times Greg asked me t
o experi-

  ence this adventure with him. Imagine the advantage I’d have right now. I’d know how to get a canoe off the top of a Blazer without ramming it through the windshield or dropping it onto the rocks.

  “What do you think?” I ask Jen. “Slide it off the side or end

  to end?”

  “Side. Isn’t that what Frank did with the other one?”

  I wasn’t paying attention. I was swatting mosquitoes. One

  good thing—they’re so thick in the air up here that when you swat your arm, you can kill half a dozen at once. We did pack insect repellent, didn’t we? And I thought Greg said the bugs aren’t bad late in the summer.

  Jen and I are both in shorts. Frank warned against it, but I

  thought he just didn’t understand how uncomfortable we’d be in long pants. Along about swat number sixteen, we decide to abandon the canoe project and find the insect dope. And long pants.

  We relinquish our grip on modesty and change right beside

  the Blazer. It feels roughly like the open locker room in gym class. But we’re so far from civilization there’s no reason to fear pimple-faced Peeping Toms or girls who like to make fun of underdeveloped or overdeveloped body parts.

  Slathered with insect repellent, we dig through the packs

  for the hats Frank insisted we bring, despite my protests about hat hair.

  One sniff reveals we smell like a chemical that is surely

  outlawed somewhere. But our legs are covered, our arms sport

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  long-sleeved shirts, and we’ve neatly lined the packs along the Blazer’s flanks.

  A state-of-the-art but incredibly heavy backpack for each of us, plus a Duluth pack for the food, a light but bulky pack that holds the sleeping bags, and another, smaller pack for miscel- laneous supplies. Our ensemble is completed with tackle box, fishing rods broken down into short sections and stuffed into a rod case, a net, five canoe paddles—Frank insists one each is not enough—and our life vests.

  I’ve just donned my life vest when Frank reenters the scene. How long has he been gone on his two-way trek down the portage trail and back? Forty-five minutes? That does not bode well for me.

  Splatters of mud halfway to his knees tell us this portage is not going to be a walk in the park, or the old but tame roadbed Frank claimed.

  “Took a little longer than you thought, Frank?” I ask, not sure I’m ready for the answer.

  He removes his cap and swipes perspiration from where it rested moments ago. “Water level’s down. What used to be a quarter of a mile stroll is now a half mile. Hope you women are fond of slogging through reed beds. Fond or not, that’s what you got.”

  Frank eyes my life vest and asks, “Afraid you might drown in a mud puddle on the portage, Libby?”

  “I thought I might as well wear my life vest rather than carry it,” I answer. Do I have to tell him I’m hoping it will serve as mosquito protection for my back and chest? A bite-proof vest?

  He shakes his head. He may need to save his strength for head shaking and tsk-tsking. I’m sure he’ll use both actions frequently on this trip.

  “Do you still want us to take this canoe, Frank?” Jen asks.

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  “No, I’ve got it.”

  And he does. He leans one end on the ground, walks under-

  neath it until his shoulders rest under the padded yoke, then with one smooth motion stands fully upright, balancing the beast on his shoulders.

  “Meet you on the other side,” he says as he jogs toward the

  trailhead. Jogs. Show-off.

  I turn to the only other person in the vicinity who under-

  stands my apprehension. “Where’s the satellite phone, Jen?” “Here, in the waterproof bag.”

  “Good. We need to keep an eye on that thing.”

  “Do you think checking in with Brent once a day is going

  to be enough?”

  “It’ll have to be.” I reach for my backpack, then realize I’m

  going to need help putting it on. Jen notices and holds it for me to slip into like a gentleman would hold a coat for his wife—a gentleman like Greg. The only times he failed to do so were when I beat him to the punch. Did I rob him or rob me? “The batteries?” Jen asks.

  “What?” I must have lost track of the discussion. Happens

  a lot lately.

  “Is that why we shouldn’t use the phone more often? To

  save the battery life?”

  I’m pleasantly surprised at how well-designed this back-

  pack is. The majority of the weight rests on my hip bones. I may be able to carry something in each hand, too, and save a trip back and forth on the trail. Distraction averted, I respond, “That’s what I understand. If the OPP find Greg and call back home, we need to know. A couple of minutes on the phone with Brent will tell us the bare facts. Then we’ll book it out of here and connect through a land line at the ranger station to get the details.”

  “Let’s hope and pray that’s how it happens.”

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  “Tonight wouldn’t be too soon.”

  “Do you have a feeling?”

  “You mean, from God?” I don’t have that kind of relation- ship with the Lord anymore. I don’t hear from Him. He doesn’t promise me things like He does some others. Feeling? I haven’t felt anything for longer than I can remember. “No. Wishful thinking.”

  I help her don her own backpack, surprised at how clumsy I am with all those pounds on my back. Like the weight of grief, it makes me stumble on simple motions. It throws off my normal balance. I can’t move gracefully. I don’t glide. I waddle. What I need is a gymnastics class and some of Lacey’s agility. Jen and I hit the trail, wobbling and bent too far forward, which we soon realize is a hazard.

  “You take the lead,” I tell Jen. “You’ll be quicker on your feet.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  I lean my backpack bustle against a tree and let her slide past me in the narrow corridor of the forest. It takes a surge of courage to push off from the leaning tree and start after her. A large part of me wants to wait in the Blazer. For days, if neces- sary. Until they find him. Or don’t.

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  Like a boxer boasting about the bruises he gained during his last match, Greg regaled me with stories about these portage trails.

  Portage. A French word synonymous with torture.

  On a good day, walking a rugged portage trail with the

  aid of two sturdy stabilizing poles would be challenge enough. Today, parts of the path are as slick as yogurt because of the recent rain. And we’re carrying who knows how much weight on our backs. I don’t know about Jen, but I feel as if my back is nine months pregnant and at least as awkward.

  I used to watch “Survivor” on TV and pity the contestants

  who scratch their poxlike bug bites during the personal inter- views at their jungle camps. Now I want to tell them, “Try strapping half a house to your back and itching at the same time.”

  “Ahk!” Jen cries out.

  “What?”

  “I just swallowed something! I think it’s still flying!”

  “Don’t worry,” I assure her. “It won’t live long.”

  Jen sends me a dark look. “You should consider a career in

  professional comforting.”

  10

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  She coughs. So do I. Sympathy cough.

  Certain sections of this portage are downright impossible. I stand on a fallen log that’s split open. Surveying the next twenty feet of the trail offers me no viable options. All I see is what appears to be a path made of ankle-deep mud. We’ll never know how deep unless we step into it, and I’m not vol- unteering. Conjoined trees on the left of the trail. Something that resembles moss but could be cleverly disguised quicksand to
the right.

  I’m grateful I let Jen lead.

  She tiptoes along the left edge of the mud pit, hugging trees like a woman who suddenly thought better of the idea of jump- ing off the ledge of a tall building.

  I don’t tiptoe well. The ooze into which I slide threatens to suck my hiking boots off my feet and take my socks with them. I spread my toes inside my boots and lumber out of the muck onto a stretch of trail that descends like steps with tree roots as treads.

  So much for the hiking boots. We’re all of fifteen minutes into the wilderness, and I’ve ruined one of the two pairs of shoes I brought.

  With the caking of mud, my feet seem as heavy as the load on my back. Because the mud on my shoes is as slick as that on the trail, my boots are like fresh-waxed skis on sheet ice. I have to be all the more cautious where I step.

  “The rocks are our friends,” I chant. “The rocks are our friends.”

  I lose Jen. She’s no doubt in the next province by now, as slowly as I’m taking the so-called path.

  Marathon runners say they reach a point they call “the wall,” when their minds tell them they can’t go on, not another step. By my calculations, I hit three invisible walls on this first portage. As I emerge into the light and joy of the shoreline at

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  the edge of Beaverhouse Lake, I promise myself I won’t ask how many more of these portages we’ll face before the trip is over. I don’t really want to know.

  “Frank, that was no half a mile,” I complain as I drop my

  backpack on the shore near the two canoes and a breathless Jenika.

  “Yeah. May have underestimated. Tell you what. I’ll make

  the last trip back up the trail solo. I’ll haul the last of the equip- ment while you women recuperate.”

  I’m drowning in the words “last trip solo.”

  Jen answers for both of us. “Thanks, Frank. That’s big of

  you. But I think there are two packs and a couple of hand- carried items still back there.”

  “Don’t think I’m gonna go soft on you girls more than this

  once,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads back into the northwoods version of the Trail of Tears.

  Soft? I close my eyes. We just experienced the soft part of

  this trip?

  ********

  Most of the mud slips off my hiking boots when I wade into