“Rapp’s uncle wants to go today,” said Lia. “He’s bringing his friend Keko Kim from Vashon Island. Today works best for her.”
Uncle Vince turned on a spray of water and whooshed egg shells into the drainer. “You need to be careful and have an adult with you every time you swim in that river. Things happen out in nature to city kids when they aren’t paying attention. Understood? And I want phone calls from you and Niki twice a day, morning and night.” He shouted behind him. “Did you hear that, Niki? I know you’re listening!”
Niki shouted back, “Yo, Dad! Loud and clear!”
“Tell Jack to call me before you take off, Lia. I want to make sure this isn’t something you’ve forced that nice man to do.”
“Thank you.” Emma put her arms around Uncle Vince and kissed him on the cheek. She turned to Aunt Kate and took her jam-sticky hands. “I love you dearly . . .”
“C’mon, Sonnet. We don’t have all day.” Lia seized Emma’s arm and towed her through the house and out the front door.
Lia and Emma, with Niki, Jules, and Evan, walked up the street to Uncle Jack’s house lugging sleeping bags and backpacks full of clothing. Keko arrived, tooting her horn. Uncle Jack jumped down from the top of the van where he had been packing the tent and supplies into a big box.
“Seven bags of groceries, Keko? We’ll have enough food for weeks. No one will go hungry on this camping trip,” said Uncle Jack.
“Seven bags may only last a couple days. Your visit to Vashon reminded me teenagers are hungry beings after all that food disappeared from my kitchen in less than an hour yesterday.”
Lia nudged Emma away from Uncle Jack’s and Keko’s banter and moved to the shade of an old crabapple tree.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to jerk your arm off, but I had to get you outta the house. I thought you were going to start sobbing and drooling over Mom again. And that would’ve been a disaster.”
“I was going to cry. You were right to take me away. Sever me quickly from Aunt Kate’s loving arms.”
Lia sighed. “I would share my mom with you forever if I could. You know that, right?”
“I know you would. You are the best friend anyone could ever have.”
“Now I’m gonna start crying.”
Emma laughed and shoved at Lia’s shoulder like she had seen her friends do to each other. Lia giggled and shoved her back. Emma was learning how to take her share of playfulness and joy. Just as the scarecrow in the Oz movie needed straw to be whole, when the straw fell out, or when it caught on fire, his friends would stuff him full again. Just like Lia’s pokes and jokes with her.
THE packed van careened into the camping area next to the river in the afternoon. They found a flat, grassy area and pitched a tent.
“Is there enough room in here for everyone?” Jules had stacked her belongings in a corner next to Emma’s sack of clothes.
“Rapp and Evan can sleep outside under the stars and be on the lookout for bears. Or if they’re pansies like me, hunker down in the van. The girls can have the tent—there’s so many of them,” said Uncle Jack, inhaling the woodsy air and stretching his arms over his head, happy and in his element. “Perfect. Negative ions. Just what we all need to keep us steady and focused on our plan.”
Evan and Niki set up chairs around a large fire pit and sat down. Niki extended her tennis shoe to the edge of the bricks and flicked off a piece of old charcoal with her toe. “Where did Keko go? She needs to wear a bright orange hunting vest so we can keep track of her.”
“Here!” Keko stood still in a swath of ferns beside an enormous tree. She stared off into the universe, her army-green tunic melding with the landscape. “My, my. I’m picking up sensations from days gone by. The vibes I’m getting are literally out of this world. I’m so glad I came. This should be good.”
“Please tell us,” said Emma.
“I certainly will. There were many people here at one time when the town was booming, and then hardly anyone after the mining operations shut down and everyone moved away. So, there is no interference, no confusion for me to have to override like there would be in a big city with continuous civilization. Just a clear path to a specific time and place when you lived here in the late eighteen hundreds. This is good. Do you understand?”
Emma turned to the dimming sky, seeing things in front of her only she could see. The giant cedar trees swayed and groaned in the wind and the nearby river gurgled and rolled against rocks. A sharp green odor hung in the air. It smelled and sounded and looked like home. It was her home. “Yes, I understand. I only wish you could hear their voices distinctly and tell me what they are saying. I would like to know if they miss me.”
“You’re just homesick, Emma,” said Niki.
“Yes, I am sick for my loved ones. My brothers. My . . .” She sighed. “Being here makes me melancholy. This was the place of my life, as unrecognizable as it is now.”
“Well, I know what cheers me up.” Evan opened the cooler and prodded around. “Are we gonna have fire-toasted hot dogs for dinner? I can get everything started. Someone start finding some good, sharp sticks and firewood.”
Keko joined Evan and dug through her grocery bags. “Let’s see. Graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars. S’mores later around the campfire, anyone?” She held up the packages as if they were important prizes as Team Switch screamed out in delight.
“Oh, man, Emma,” said Evan. “Just wait until you try the best camping dessert in the world—you’ll never want to go back.”
Emma wandered over to Evan’s side. “Let me help, Evan. Please, give me something to do. Being with you can only make me happy.”
“Sure, Emma. If helping me makes you happy, let’s do this thing.” Evan handed her bags of lightweight utensils and plates. “Set this up on that table over there. Niki, can you help? Maybe try to wipe off the table first. Here’s the buns and mustard and stuff.”
Lia and Jules and Keko found pieces of dry wood and sticks lying around under the trees and built a fire. Uncle Jack sat back in a chair with his guitar and began playing a tune from back in his day, while Rapp took a harmonica from his bag and set up next to his uncle, keeping time with his foot. Soon, everyone was humming along and singing a few words of the chorus.
Snappy happy, happy snappy . . .
They worked their different tasks together as well-oiled cogs—unique parts running smoothly toward a collective goal. All individual impulses were set aside, and guitar and harmonica music, and vibrations spilling from their lungs, wound through their hands and through their hearts, binding them and giving them purpose.
Even Emma, who had never heard music like this before, knew the universal melody and hummed with all her might. After all, the goal was to get her home.
Dusk settled in, and soon it would be pitch black, no city brightness to beam light up into the night sky. The music and camaraderie had soothed Emma, and everyone had taken notice. Snappy happy, they decided to kick back, sing songs, and eat their fire-cooked camp food.
They would wait until daybreak to hike up to Emma’s house.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sonnet
1895
Wafts of cooking berries and baking bread lured me by an invisible cord from Emma’s bedroom down the back staircase to the sunny kitchen. Cook set a small jar of blackberry jam into a basket and slid a paper-wrapped loaf of her sourdough bread in beside the jar. Each basket came labeled with a miner’s name and cabin number. There were fifteen baskets. If each basket took fifteen minutes to deliver, I would be out of the house, independent and free, for over four hours. Giddy at the thought, I stuck my finger into a lidless jar and sucked the warm goodness off.
“Now, Maxwell will take you ’round, Miss Emma. Do not dally. Your mother wants you back for your dress fittings.” Cook smiled at me and brushed a straggly red hair off my face.
“If I’m supposed to be leaving in a few days, how will all those dresses be finished?”
“The o
nes that are complete will go with you. The others will be sent in a trunk, I suppose. That is for someone else to worry about, not you, my dear.”
I smelled her perfume before I heard her. “There you are, Emma. Missus Love and her assistant, Goldie, will be here at three o’clock. It is imperative that you are back by then.”
I slowly faced her. “Finished so that you can send me away—dear Mother?”
Thorn looked at me like I had spit on her. “Why—your impertinence—”
“It’s honesty, not impertinence. The truth is you want me out of here. Gone.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
She raised her hand and tightened it around my elbow. “I do not know who you think you are to speak to me in such a manner. But I can tell you one thing, young lady. You are not the lady of the house. I am. I am your father’s wife. Not you. And you will respect me as such.” Her face had turned red and splotchy.
Of course, she was John’s wife. Of course, I wasn’t John’s wife. Her long octopus fingers choked off the blood in my arm and her wet eyes scared me. I had sunk to her level and instantly regretted it. “Let go. Please.”
Thorn dug her nails into my flesh for a second longer as she leaned in toward my ear. “Your countenance will no longer haunt me.”
Someone cleared their throat.
She gazed around me to Cook, momentarily startled, as if she had forgotten she was in the kitchen. She blinked a few times, refocusing, and dropped my arm, clicking her shoes across the wood floor and out the room.
Cook, frozen, held two jars of jam in the air. Her brown eyes filled with her own tears. She whispered, “About time you took a stand. I’m glad you said it. Someone needed to. I will truly be sorry to see you leave, my girl. You have always been a sweet light in this house. And I know the little ones will be overcome with grief.” A sob filled her throat. “Especially Jacob, our sensitive little man.” She sniveled, tears flinging from her eyes. She set the jam down and sniffed. “She’s a selfish one to send you away like this—”
Now my eyes brimmed with tears. Her usual face, as round and welcoming as a friendly Halloween pumpkin, was mottled with sadness. “You are the kindest person in this house, Cook. I’m glad they’ll have you. You’ll just have to learn how to push them in the swing.”
“Indeed. If I can manage to walk to the swing and back with these gouty legs.” She sighed and looked around at her kitchen, getting her bearings again. “Now, here is a picnic basket for you and Maxwell to share. You’ll have your own jam sandwiches with a pear apiece and a bottle of lemonade.”
Maxwell rapped on the screen door and trotted in, surveying the baskets of jam and bread. “I’ve brought a crate to carry the baskets to the . . .” He looked from me to Cook and back again. “To the carriage.”
I helped him fill the crate. “I’ll walk with you, Maxwell.”
I stroked the horses’ velvety noses. He gave me time to recover. “I provoked Emma’s mother. I shouldn’t have. She just made me so angry.” I rubbed my arm. “And then I felt bad and then Cook felt bad for me and then I felt even worse for her. Cook trusts that I’m the person I say I am, and she deserves to know the truth. I wish I could tell her. I wish I could hug her.”
“But what would the truth do but upset her?” He held the red carriage door open for me. “Your predicament is to act shrewdly, keep your secret among your friends, and do not forsake our plan.”
“If I was wise like you, I probably wouldn’t be in this trouble to begin with.”
“Oh, I’ve certainly been in trouble before, especially when I was not so wise.”
“I find that hard to believe. You’re like an adult stuck in a kid’s body.”
Maxwell crinkled his face and laughed. “When grandfather’s father quit the tribe and left his family, the only possessions remaining from his time with the Salish were his books, a gold watch, and his young son, Simeon. Years later, Grandfather put those ancient books to good use and had me memorize them as school lessons. And because of his demanding instruction and all the trouble it caused, I can now spout the prose and poetry of Shakespeare and the philosophy of Aristotle. So, you see, wisdom comes of trouble, and only with time do you see it.”
“Well, I hope I find my wisdom soon,” I said. “And your spouting Shakespeare doesn’t surprise me a bit. Since you’re so smart, be my dictionary. What does countenance mean? She said when I leave she won’t be haunted by my countenance.”
“The way someone appears. Their face.”
“Just the sight of Emma drives her crazy. Her own kid.”
Maxwell flicked his eyes up at the house. “And she most probably is eavesdropping.”
He pushed his red-and-gold cap up and ran over the list. “We take the first thirteen baskets and deliver them together. I’ll then drop you at the cabin. You retrieve the clothing while I go deliver the last ones. Be ready for the carriage at half past two when I come back for you. Thirty minutes is all you will have.”
The carriage crunched through the gravel and cut off in the same direction we had taken down to the big river the day of the picnic—the day I’d had to put up with Olive and Pearl in order to be blessed with meeting Maxwell.
The jumble of new cabins, and the humanity that lit them, were light-years from what existed in ghost town Monte Cristo, where only a few ramshackle survivors had somehow withstood more than a century of harsh mountain weather and engulfing forest. But on this sunny summer day, the area teemed with people. The mountain was alive and full and welcoming.
Maxwell and I knocked on the first cabin door. No one answered. He joggled the door open and stepped into the tiny space, leaving the basket of jam and bread on the table. We distributed the rest of the baskets the same way. Some doors were locked and some were open. I hoped the stray dogs and cats didn’t get the ones we left behind on windowsills.
We stopped in a field for our picnic along the way. Maxwell asked me about my family, my life, my world. I was the professor and he was my student, and as the sun beat down on us, and bees buzzed around the wildflowers, I lectured my curious new brother, who was impatient to pick every last factoid out of my brain.
Wound up in my happy memories of home, my audience of one was enthralled by my stories. He questioned, he probed. He inhaled information along with the mountain air. I could have laid around that meadow, gabbing with him the entire day.
WE had no blackberry jam for the inhabitant of the fourteenth cabin, but I did save my pear for him. Tor flung open his door and jogged to the carriage. He helped me out, nodding at Maxwell, who turned the carriage around and left to take care of the last two deliveries.
Tor held my hand, his eyes never leaving my face, and walked me through his door. He took me in his arms and held me to him. I pushed my body up close, as close as I could in my layers of clothes, next to his thumping heart. I breathed him in . . . sunshine and horses and the fir-scented wind off the mountain. He kissed me. And this time he knew who I was.
I unwound myself from his arms and moved to the middle of the room, setting the pear on his little table. A blue-and-white enamel pot sat on top of a small pot-bellied stove. I could smell the cold coffee grounds inside it, and his ragged breathing was all around me. I stared at two red wool blankets folded neatly on the end of a narrow bed. . . .
“I can’t fight against it,” Tor finally said.
“I know, I know,” I whispered. I glanced back at him. Those eyes of his deserved a long paragraph, a page, an entire story. They devoured every inch of me. Hyperaware of being alone with him, everything I had been trying hard not to dream of was here, and I didn’t trust myself. My body made me afraid of what might happen if he ripped me from the pot-bellied stove and up against him again.
I turned back to the blankets. The wool was as thick as winter socks, and the loops were uneven and nubby. Slate-colored threads, barely visible, were scattered throughout the red. I had never seen a blanket as clearly. “It’s so confusing. Maxwell an
d Simeon said there are no mistakes. So why are we here together in Monte Cristo?”
“Perhaps it has nothing to do with us. Or perhaps it is beyond understanding, and we will never know.”
He waited until I looked at him again. His fists scrunched and then opened at his sides, hanging. He swallowed hard, as if he had something big caught in his throat. “Sonnet, if Emma does not return . . .”
“I have to go back to my life, Tor.”
“If you stay and she does not come back . . .”
“Emma will come back. She has to.”
“Please, listen to me. If you stay here and she stays there. Reassure me . . .”
I smiled. “My family would be horrified to think I would marry so young. It isn’t done where I come from. Girls, if they get married at all, don’t get married until they’re older. Girls get to have a life, too. I want to go to college, Tor. I want to have a life.”
“How old must you be to take me as a husband? I’ll wait. My parents would have been pleased if I married someone like you.”
I laughed. “How about twenty-five? Ten years from now.”
He crossed the room and took my hands in his, laughing, too. “Ten years will never do. How about when you are nineteen? Four years from now. I’ll be an old man of twenty-two by then.”
“Is this some kind of barter? Okay. If Emma doesn’t come back and I stay, I’ll marry you. I just can’t promise when. How’s that?”
“It is sun rising on a dark and desperate life.”
“What does that mean?”
The light had gone out of his eyes. “Aloneness is dark. Dark and desolate.”
His parents would have been pleased if he married someone like me. “Where’s your family . . .?”
“They were taken from me in a house fire when I was but fourteen. My mother and father and two young sisters.” He unbuttoned his shirt, bringing it down over his shoulders. Shiny white scars twisted over his chest and neck and ran down his back.
“I tried to save them . . . but being just a boy, the fire was too hot. I hadn’t the strength.” He rolled up his sleeves and held out the backs of his hands and arms. The hair grew in patches here and there where the fire had leapt across his skin. “I left my country after that and came to America. I really do understand how alone feels.”
But Not Forever Page 12
