“No,” I say. I know I could check online but want to wait for the letters. “Any day now, I guess.”
Paul nods. “Well,” he says. “I just want you to know, I had a college account for Luke that I switched into your name after he died. I want you to use that for Boulder of course, but also if you get into Stanford or CC or wherever. There’s enough money to cover whatever you decide to do.” He sounds slightly embarrassed at this generosity, but to his credit he doesn’t look at his hands, or the coffee table, but squarely at me. I find it harder to return this gaze, not sure at all how I feel, no longer a threat to him now that she has already gone.
“You had an account for Luke,” I say.
“Of course I did.” He sounds more emphatic than defensive.
“But why would you give it to me?” I ask. “You could switch the account again, couldn’t you, into Matthew’s name?”
“It’s in your name,” he says, suddenly gentle. “I want to pay for your college. I want to make sure you’re all right. Not for your mother, but for my son.” I frown in a moment of confusion, thinking he means Matthew, and then Paul clarifies. “I want to do it for Luke,” he says.
A small sob has collected itself in my throat, and I battle not to let it out. Paul presses on. “It’s not your fault your mother took off again,” he says. “And it’s certainly not your fault that I trusted her.”
I wait, but he doesn’t exonerate me for the most important crime. He can see that I’m waiting for that, but he can’t grant it. Instead he says, “I’m not going to pretend you and I have been close. We both know we’ve had issues, you and I. But whatever your mother does, wherever she goes, you and I are family. You’re my daughters’ sister. And I’ve got plenty of guilt of my own, Tressa. You must know that.”
I lean forward and cover my face with my hands. For a minute I wait for tears to come, but they don’t. When I speak, still hiding behind my hands, my voice sounds laced with the same anger I directed at my mother. “Paul,” I say. “It almost sounds like you’re saying you’re sorry.” He blows out a thick stream of breath, and I take my hands away so I can look at him.
“Yes,” he agrees. “I was wrong. We should have let you two be. We should have respected your feelings. I’m sorry.”
Hearing the apology, after all this time, the tears make their way into my throat. I know I should say thank you, but I don’t want to cry. Not just now. Paul rubs his hands over his denim-covered knees, not nervous exactly, just emotional. “Since Hannah left,” he says, “I’ve been thinking that maybe what I couldn’t stand about seeing him, and about seeing the two of you together, was that it gave me a mirror of my own feelings, my own relationship, and what it would look like if it were actually reciprocal.”
“That can’t be easy to admit,” I say, finding my voice again.
“No,” he says. “It’s not. But I need to do it, because I feel terrible for what I stole from him.”
I lean toward Paul, hoping the weight of my words—the simple truth—will help him the way he’s trying to help me. “But you didn’t steal anything,” I tell him. “You couldn’t.”
He stops the OCD movement of his hands and nods. “I’m not going to file for divorce,” he says, which somehow doesn’t seem like a non sequitur. “What’s the point? If she wants a divorce, she can file. This all serves me right for walking straight back into it.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I say. “You couldn’t help it. You loved her.”
“Loved her?” Paul says. “You know the crazy thing? The infuriating thing?”
“You still do.”
It’s his turn to cover his face with his hands. I do the only thing I can think of, which is reach across the coffee table and pat the top of his handsome, graying head. I wait for something to break the silence—the baby, a magpie, a car rumbling down the road. But the room stays preternaturally still and quiet, the weight of this unlikely truce hanging in the air around us.
* * *
Never one to leave well enough alone, when Paul walks me out to my truck, he says, “I hear you’ve been spending time with H. J. Burdick.” I don’t ask who he’s heard this from, or point out that it began before I left his house, when he had more pressing concerns to attend to. I don’t say anything, just wait for him to tell me that H. J.’s too old for me. But instead he says, “I’m glad. I hope you’re moving on with your life. That’s what I’m going to do. Move on. Your mother has left so many times, I can hardly keep them straight.”
Something in his voice acknowledges the cycle, and the fact that she may end up back on his doorstep. But love her though he may, Paul has finished taking her back. I expect his resolve not to divorce her will last a good month or two.
“Listen, Tressa,” Paul says. He makes a gesture with his hand, waving it outward, away from his house, toward the world. “The thing to do is to move on. Alive or dead, you have to let it go. This thing we feel, however huge it seems. It’s madness. We have to leave it behind, once and for all, to save ourselves.”
I know Paul means well, and I recognize the truth in his words, the danger of keening toward the unattainable, the just-out-of-reach. But I would feel too much like a traitor agreeing with him. So I just say “Thank you” and do one of the most unlikely things of all. I hug him.
* * *
The wheels of my truck slosh through new snowmelt; the sun’s bright, cheerful glare has continued since that day H. J. and I spent on the slopes, and all around me spring finds ways to make itself apparent, in buds on trees and the increasingly green shimmer of aspen leaves as I drive down the road, this old familiar route. Part of me wants to turn around and head out of town. What would happen if I truly became my mother’s daughter and hit the gas, heading down the highway, not leaving word, just disappearing?
You can’t really fault people for leaving. They do it, whether they want to or not. I may be angry at my mother right now, and she may have left, but I still love her and I always will.
Luke left, but his love stayed behind. It stayed behind so big and huge and permanent that after a while it brought him back. I know that no matter what, that love will never go anywhere, will never diminish, will never stop defining me.
Then why not let yourself get better? a voice from somewhere says.
I nod as I drive and take the turn onto Arapahoe Road. My sleeves are pushed up to my elbows. I have stopped trying to cover up the scars. What’s the point, when everyone knows they’re there? They look less dramatic than they did in the fall, less red and raised.
Respectfully, we summoned a spirit, Ted Hughes wrote. It was easy as fishing for eels / In the warm summer darkness.
My chest is full of tears, my eyes blur so that I can barely see, and I remember my good luck, my good fortune, in knowing a place so well I can navigate my way without the benefit of sight.
* * *
LUKE
I’m fading. Stepping back. Before. Now. The after-Luke. Everything blurs together. I can’t feel my feet on the ground. I know Tressa’s next to me but I can’t see her face. Sometimes I hear her voice but I don’t think she hears me when I answer. I know she’s there, exactly next to me, but I can’t make contact.
From someplace far away I hear a dog barking. It may be time. I know I’m on my way. But I haven’t left just yet.
( 31 )
TRESSA
The next day I skip homeroom; I can always go to the office later and let them know I’m here. Not that it matters at this point, if I cut class. Nobody worries about me failing, or taking drugs, or loitering my life away. A glimpse of me walking the halls, safe and sound, has become all that anyone—including myself—requires.
The sign on the faculty lounge door says NO STUDENTS ALLOWED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. THIS MEANS YOU. I ignore it and push the door open. The teachers just look up from their coffee and smile. Mr. Tynan sits at a round table, going over quizzes with red ink. “Tressa,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to schedule a meeting w
ith you. How’s the paper going?”
I sit down across from him. “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” I say. “I’ve read all the biographies, and the poems. I’ve got all the pertinent information.”
“Has that been okay for you?”
“It’s been hard,” I admit. “They’re sad stories.”
Mr. Tynan nods. “They certainly are.”
“At first I thought I would hate Assia, because of the little girl. But somehow I can’t hate her. I just feel sad for her. I just want to run back in time, into that room. I want to turn off the oven and open up the windows.”
Mr. Tynan nods gravely. “Do you think she’d thank you for that?”
“She might not,” I admit. “She might never appreciate it, and there’d be all that shame from trying. But still I’d know I’d done the right thing, saving them both.” I lean down and open my backpack. I take out my copy of Birthday Letters and slide it across the table to Mr. Tynan. “It’s a good book,” I say. “I can’t say whether he was a good man, because I didn’t know him. But he’s a good poet.”
Mr. Tynan tilts his head to one side. He furrows his brow, more fond than consternated. “What’s wrong, Tressa?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I tell him. “Nothing’s wrong. But I can’t write this paper. I can’t think about all this anymore. So instead of handing in the paper, I’d like to give you this book. As a present.”
He leaves the book sitting in the middle of the table. Then he opens his grade book. He leafs through it till he comes to my class. Of course he hasn’t entered any final grades yet. Those spaces are blank. But he runs his finger down the column, and it doesn’t take him long to get to my name. In permanent red ink he writes a large, capital A. Then he pushes the Ted Hughes book back to me.
“I hate to return a present,” he says, “but I think maybe you should keep this. It was written by the survivor, after all.”
I hesitate, then nod. “Thanks,” I say. “For everything. For that especially.”
“You’re welcome,” he says.
I leave the lounge with a light step, testing that new word—“survivor”—in my head, and realizing, among other things, that I don’t have to go to high school English ever again. I’m not sure why this makes me happy, since it was always the class I enjoyed most. But it does.
I am moving forward. I am leaving things behind. When I pass Kelly Boynton in the hallway, we both stop. We stand there a moment, examining each other’s faces, until finally Kelly says, “Hey, Tressa.”
“Hey, Kelly,” I say. When she walks away, I turn and head in the other direction. Her footsteps click behind me, calm and even. The sight of me will never make her cry again.
May looms, bright and shimmering, just around the corner.
* * *
Evie has avoided me since the storm, and since this has turned into a day for putting things in order, I go searching for her. I find her in the library, sitting on a couch by a western-facing window. She has an American Civil War textbook open on her lap, but she’s staring out at the mountains and doesn’t notice me until I perch on the table right in front of her.
“Tressa,” she says, not startled, just a little dreamy.
I decide to channel H. J. and get straight to the point. “I miss you,” I say.
She sighs, and then nods. “Sure,” she says. “I miss you, too. H. J. says your mother took off.”
“Yes,” I say. “She moved to California.”
Evie nods. “Did H. J. tell you he decided not to sell the house?”
“No.” For no good reason this information makes me light-headed. Something that won’t change—the Burdicks staying in their family home. “Does that make you happy?” I ask.
“It really does,” she says. “I feel relieved. I feel like I need that house for a couple more years, you know? A place to come home to.” We both nod. Evie says, “You should call H. J.” Something in her voice makes me feel guilty. At the same time I recognize her granting me permission.
“Did you hear about college yet?” Evie asks.
“Not yet,” I say. I can tell she’s about to tell me to check online, then changes her mind. She understands I have my reasons for waiting. She doesn’t need me to be any different than I am.
“I bet you will today,” Evie says. She smiles, her eyes lit from within, reflecting sadness but also an unflinching optimism—the tenacity of her commitment, to forgiveness and continuing, despite the curveballs life has thrown her. I decide to put her permission to use.
* * *
H. J. answers on the first ring. “Tressa,” he says, not one of those people who pretends the cell phone hasn’t already told him. “Let me come get you,” he says. “I want to talk.”
“Okay,” I agree. “But I’ll get you. I want to check the mail anyway.”
When I pick up H. J., there are two letters on the passenger seat—a rejection from Stanford and an acceptance from Colorado College. H. J. picks them up before sitting down, then pretends to weigh them with his hands.
“This one’s hefty,” he says. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you know what you’re going to do? CC or Boulder?”
“No,” I say. We drive about five minutes to Silver Lake, then walk silently over the damp ground—the snow in patches, dirty and gray. Although that sun has been increasing over the past several days, I am not prepared for the sight of the lake itself—completely thawed, reflecting the blue sky, not a single chunk of ice floating on its placid water.
“Wow,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
H. J. kneels beside the lake and dips in his hand. “Still too chilly for swimming,” he says, then flicks the water at me. I duck away, but not before a few freezing droplets connect with my cheek and dribble down my neck, inside my shirt.
I resist the urge to retaliate, and walk over to the log. H. J. sits next to me. “Evie tells me you decided not to sell the house,” I say.
“Not for a couple years, anyway. I figure we can swing in-state tuition that long.”
“So you’ll stay here?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe some traveling. I was thinking about buying an open-ended ticket to London. I could fly over there, spend a year going through Europe. A backpack, hostels, the whole thing. And just make my way back here whenever. Maybe in a year. Maybe two. Maybe I’ll come back to Rabbitbrush, maybe I’ll go to New York City. Maybe I’ll enroll in culinary school. Mostly I won’t make any plans for a while.”
“That sounds nice,” I say.
“Yeah?” he says. “You want to come with me?”
I close my eyes, wondering why the invitation doesn’t surprise me. Then I breathe in deeply. Like any place a person calls home, Rabbitbrush has a very particular smell. Sage and pine, of course. Wildflowers in summer, and the chilly, elusive, persistent scent of snow in winter, also infused by pine. The damp moon fragrance of red dirt. And something more, something far less identifiable lying beneath it all, so personal it might come from someplace inside, my own reaction, my own senses.
The truth is, in addition to Rabbitbrush I have another home, and it’s called the world. Before I ever set foot in Colorado, the first place I lived was nowhere in particular—wheels traveling over asphalt, the sky in motion above my head. For the first time in ages, maybe ever, returning to that known uncertainty, to travels, feels very appealing.
But I can’t answer, not just yet. So I say, “Maybe. I don’t know. Let me think awhile. Okay?”
“Okay,” H. J. says. He reaches out his hand and closes it over mine. Inadvertently, I am sure, his thumb brushes over my wrist. And I can feel it, the slightly calloused skin, its warmth, its good intentions. We don’t turn toward each other, or say anything else. We just sit there, holding hands. We stare out together, across the lake. Beneath that small and local body of water, a thousand frozen creatures stir their way back to life.
( 32 )
&nbs
p; TRESSA
May offers no guarantees. Sometimes in Rabbitbrush it snows as late as June. But for now we enjoy a stretch of extremely warm weather. In the early nineteenth century tuberculosis patients traveled to Colorado hoping that the dry, high air would open their lungs. Rabbitbrush never boasted a sanatorium, which was another tourist boat missed, because it would have been perfect—the air here carries oxygen so clean and painless, the sun beats down so insistently, so lovingly. It could cure any illness at all.
I decide to let Grandpa teach me a few chords on the ukulele. What harm could it do? After dinner we sit in the living room and play old Doc Watson songs. Then Grandpa puts his guitar aside and stands up. He walks over and places his large hand on my head.
“Tressa,” he says. “I have something to show you.”
It’s early, not quite six thirty, and through the open windows light evokes summer evenings. I follow Grandpa out of the house and across the wide eastern field, Sturm and Drang following us with huge, lazy footsteps. Grandpa walks a few paces ahead of me. He has only become a shade wider or thinner, or grayer, a little at a time, in all the years of my life. He wears the same Carhartts and flannel shirts. He turns to me with the same expression of kindness and love, intent on concealing the worry that always accompanies those first two emotions in this uncertain world.
“Close your eyes,” he says, and then—not quite trusting me—he places his wide, rough hand over my eyes. Once when I trip over a root he catches me by the elbow. When he takes away his hand, we stand on top of the hill overlooking town. Since Paul has cleared trees for his theater, we now have an unobstructed view of Main Street, and the high school, and the Rabbitbrush Café. The movie screen hasn’t been installed yet, but I can see the marquee, the snack shack, the flat grass where everyone will park, and the rows of speakers.
Grandpa and I stand beside an alien apparatus that I don’t quite recognize, a tall metal pole with a funny black box on top. I stare at it, confused, long enough to realize that it’s another speaker.
Meet Me at the River Page 24
