There would come a time when the cancer would migrate to her vertebrae, stealing the strength and flexibility from her spine. There would come a time when the effort of consciousness would drain the life force from her body. There would come a time when it would be a chore to suck in air, and Paulina and Alice and Zuza would sit vigil waiting, like Claire had for Melana, for the rhythm of her breathing to slow to a stop like the unwinding of an old clock.
Until then, she would vacuum-pack these memories in imaginary snow globes to put up on high shelves until the time she needed to take them down and shake them back into vivid life again.
I mustn’t think of that yet.
Yet that singular thought had kept rising into her mind ever since they drove along the southern shore of Lake Erie out of Cleveland, through Pennsylvania, to the wooden placard that announced Welcome to New York. Only about three hundred miles now separated them from Pine Lake.
Not yet.
The air had grown thin, as if she stood again at the top of Thailand’s highest mountain. Doi Inthanon was only a bus ride away from Chiang Mai. She’d gone there before her Buddhist vows. On arrival she and her friends had roamed around a Hmong roadside market before discovering that there were no hiking trails to the summit, so they paid their two hundred baht to hire a private car and drove their way up. They stopped at Sirithan Waterfall and oohed and aahed over the ornate twin temples built in honor of the king and queen of Thailand. Finally, at the peak of the mountain, they waited in line for a good hour to get their picture taken in front of a teak sign, only to be hustled away to make room for the next tourists. Then they’d milled about, admiring through the haze the blue outlines of the mountains. The return trip to Chiang Mai was an uneventful slide back to the youth hostel.
This was the problem with goals, Claire thought. Once accomplished, they were chased by disappointment. The moment the three of them turned their faces back west, Jenna would summon her energies to the upcoming fight for custody, and Nicole’s worries would shift to Noah’s return from the residential facility. There would be no more moments contemplating mountains or waterfalls in blissful peace.
Claire tried once again to clear her mind. Perhaps she could talk them into a side trip to the wineries of the Finger Lakes region. Maybe she could convince them of the fun they could have swinging through the Catskills. Maybe she could pass out coffee in New York City before heading to Pine Lake. For as long as possible, she wanted to delay her return to her thirty-acre wood with Jon Snow, her raven, and the three-legged goat and the blind possum under the porch, and her forest garden, where she would stay until the end of all things.
Breathe in, breathe out. I hear the rush of the water. I feel the chill upwind seeping from under the railing. Goose bumps spread along my arms. I smell a pink smell—cotton candy, carnival-sweet. I hear Lucky whining.
“Jenna?”
Nicole’s voice was full of concern. Claire blinked her eyes open to find Lucky with his notched ears perked. The dog stretched up to his full height licking Jenna’s jaw. Jenna sat with her wrists limp on her knees, trembling.
“I’m okay,” Jenna said, but her voice was shaky. “I feel sort of strange. Like I’m riding a swing.”
Claire raised her brows. She hadn’t expected this out of Jenna—out of anyone—and certainly not on the first try. Only after three months of intensive meditation did she herself experience this kind of physical reaction. Her teacher called it “the rapture,” one step closer to the tranquility and sharpness of mind that all good Buddhists sought, and it came with shivering gooseflesh.
Jenna said, “I know what I want.”
Nicole said wryly, “A jacket, I assume.”
“No, not that. Back in Chicago,” Jenna said, gripping Lucky, “Nicole asked us both what we really wanted to do on this trip. Now I know what I want.”
Claire felt a pinch of envy at Jenna’s good fortune. In the silence of meditation, wisdom sometimes snuck up on you, like a bubble working its way through a viscous consciousness until finally it exploded to the surface, only to leave you wondering why it took so long.
“I should have known from the beginning,” Jenna said. “After what Nate has done, he has no right to keep me away from Zoe. That’s what I want more than anything else: to speak to Zoe.”
“Seeing Zoe isn’t going to be easy.” Nicole wrestled out of her sweater and then draped it over Jenna’s shoulders. “Camp Paskagamak is like Fort Knox for teenagers. We’ll have to figure a way past Master Ranger Garfunkle.”
No, please. Claire’s spine tightened as she realized what they were planning. Let’s stay here. Just a little longer.
“I don’t care if we have to lock Ranger Garfunkle in the janitor’s closet,” Jenna said. “I am going to see my daughter.”
Chapter Nineteen
To: Paulina, Alice, Zuza Petrenko
From: Nicole Eriksen
Subject: What’s a little criminal mischief among friends?
Attached: StockingUpOnCourage.jpg
While heading in the general direction of Pine Lake, we stumbled on a trail of wineries in the Finger Lakes area. It was Claire who insisted we stop. What kind of West Coasters would we be, she said, if we just passed right by wineries? We’re only a couple of hours from the homeland, but Claire insisted we spend the night. In this picture, you’ll see that Claire has taken a liking to the mead, Jenna is wrinkling her nose at a white, and that’s me, fortifying myself well with some sweet ice wine. (Don’t worry, Jenna’s driving.)
The good news is that we’ve finally passed over the blue boundary into Adirondack Park, which we all would have known by instinct even if a sign hadn’t marked the border. Now, every time the car climbs, we get a glimpse of those hazy peaks, and with every descent, the thick spruces drown us in shadow. Jenna cracked her window, and we can all smell the pine air.
This part of our road trip is soon coming to an end, but we have one secret adventure to accomplish before riding the rapids. Fair warning: this next lark of ours may force the Great Sachem of Camp Paskagamak to defrock both Jenna and me of our Master Ranger Badges…if not lead us to actual legal detention.
Which is why, first, we’re swinging by Pine Lake.
Pine Lake, New York
In the sweet, long-grass days of Nicole’s youth, whenever she perceived a blue luminescence rising from the far hills or a thrumming electric whine just at the edge of her hearing, she knew it was time to leave the shore at Bay Roberts. Lightning storms in the mountains came swiftly. So she’d jump on her bike and race the rumbling clouds, hoping to make it home before the air crackled, before the first heavy drops sizzled on the asphalt, before the first branched lightning bolt pushed a charge through the humidity and raised the little hairs on the back of her arms.
Charged, electric, breathless—that was exactly how Nicole felt now, sitting in the driver’s seat, when she finally glimpsed the exit ramp to Pine Lake. After more than four thousand miles of anticipation, she turned the car onto the off-ramp. At the bottom, she took a left onto the rural road. The steering wheel dug into her sternum as she pressed close to read the old wooden sign:
Welcome to Pine Lake.
In the passenger seat, Claire released a long, slow sigh. In the back, Jenna shifted into life. A church-morning silence descended as they made their way down the half mile toward the center of the town.
Nicole recognized a patch of birch trees that marked the turnoff that led to the Historic Sayward Sawmill, a field trip destination for every Pine Lake middle schooler. She could still hear the drone of the docent’s voice telling the story of the first Vermont settler, a soldier who’d fought in the French and Indian War. He returned to his native mountains after the war long enough to convince his family of the riches waiting for them if they built a sawmill in these deep woods. Behind that sawmill’s waterwheel she’d shared her first sloppy kiss with Joey Colfax while moss squished beneath her sneakers.
The hairs on the back of her arms rose as
she glimpsed the buildings on the north edge of Pine Lake. She saw the gas station, the machine tool and die shop, and, most important, the auto body shop that her uncle had once owned. She eased her foot off the gas, wishing she could pop in for just a few minutes to breathe in the smell of the grease and hear the whirr of power tools and the banging of pneumatic hammers. For two years, she’d pestered her uncle to allow her to work in that shop until he’d indulged her during senior year. He spent the next year trying to convince her to forgo college and take it over so he could spend his time fly-fishing. Now the new owners advertised a thirty-minute oil-and-lube with one of those tall, floppy-armed undulating balloon men.
At thirty-five miles an hour, she raced past it with her heart feeling like a rubber band pulled backward. It sprung back as she glimpsed a converted railroad car belching blue smoke. How many platters of greasy burgers and French-Canadian steak fries with gravy had she eaten in the laminate booths of that diner? Back in his train-obsessed days, Emile’s had been Noah’s favorite eatery.
She drew in a breath to say, Let’s stop in Emile’s for an early lunch—but she halted before the words formed. Nicole had promised Jenna she would get them to Camp Paskagamak by one in the afternoon, the only free time in the campers’ tight schedule. In the rearview mirror, she saw Jenna clutching Lucky close, scratching the pup into an upright doze while her gaze fixed on some middle distance.
Nicole forcibly calmed herself down. She felt like a six-year-old waking up in the dark of an early Christmas morning, her hopes flaring to life with the intensity of a Roman candle, forced by a solemn promise to stay fixed in bed until gray slats of light filtered through the blinds. Only then could she leap upon her parents’ bed to announce the arrival of Christmas morning.
She told herself they’d be back in Pine Lake tomorrow afternoon. She would have days to play tourist, even to unfamiliar neighborhoods like the one they were now entering. Nicole slowed down in the residential area of Cannery Row. She used to be afraid of passing through this area in her youth, partly from her mother’s warnings and partly because of its shady, seemingly shiftless collection of men loitering on corners. The small two-family houses stood only a few feet back from the sidewalk. Their porches sagged and their shutters peeled and they were bleached gray, like Monopoly houses that had baked out in the sun too long. Between the buildings, she glimpsed cluttered backyards that sloped to the water’s edge. One house bore a sign that said Antiques. The little patch of front lawn was cluttered with an exuberant collection of birdbaths and whirligigs and resin replicas of the Virgin Mary.
The cannery itself loomed into view, a four-floor structure by the banks of the river, stained with streaks of rust and pocked with broken windows. In the early twentieth century, it processed a motley mix of Hudson River fish but later turned to pickled cabbage and red beets and sauerkraut until American tastes changed and the costs of improving mechanization proved too much for the owners. She knew, from several forbidden youthful trips into the building, that it was dark and excitingly creepy and still smelled vaguely of vinegar. She wondered if her initials were still spray-painted in black next to Drake’s on the second floor wall.
Claire shifted forward to get a good look at the place. “I’m astonished that old thing hasn’t become a galleria or a mall by now.”
“Bite your tongue,” Nicole said. “If they developed it, where would the next generation of Pine Lake get into mischief?”
Jenna shuffled forward between the front seats. “My mother told me that it took the city council two years to commission a new sign for the town. Just imagine how long it’s going to take for them to sell that property.”
Claire stopped braiding her hair to squint down the road. “Hey, is that really Ray’s General Store up ahead?”
Jenna said, “It’s run by Ray’s son now—Bob.”
“My dad used to say there wasn’t a piece of fishing or camping equipment known to man that you couldn’t find in those aisles.”
“I used to buy pine tar there,” Nicole said. “And softball bats.”
Jenna made a muffled snorting sound. “Like you didn’t wander up here just to watch Drake Weldon unloading stock.”
Nicole’s face went warm at the memory of the tall, lanky hockey player with the charming broken canine.
“Yeah, Barbie and Ken.” Claire eyeballed the beach balls and folding chairs and plastic kayaks piled up outside the old store. “I was sure you two would give birth to two-point-five children destined for major league sports.”
“Pul-eese.” Nicole paused at one of the three stoplights in town. Then, from old habit, she turned right toward the old square. “That boy spent more time on his hair than I did on mine. I don’t think we exchanged more than six words all year. He kept trying to get me to the cannery to—”
Her words stopped on a breath. The beating heart of the town spread before her in full end-of-summer vacation mode. The streets teamed with tourists in khaki capris and flip-flops, wearing straw hats and carrying oversize canvas beach bags. The porch of the Adirondack Inn was full of folks eating brook trout seared in a butter sauce. Even Josey’s, the tiny restaurant that served five-dollar pancake breakfasts with real Adirondack maple syrup, had set a couple of plastic tables on the sidewalk in front of their establishment. Among the little boutiques strolled the better-dressed tourists, the ones who’d probably taken rooms in one of the Victorian B&Bs that graced the slope of the old town.
Claire reached back to tap Jenna on the knee. “Jenna, look—the Book Bag. It’s still here.”
“Yes it is.” Jenna glanced balefully at the tiny storefront. “I single-handedly kept that bookstore afloat during my high school years.”
Claire said, “Maybe now it’s kept afloat by that chain store café that opened up beside it.”
Nicole said, “That didn’t kill Ricky’s Roast, did it? I’ll be so mad if it shut down because of some chain.”
Jenna asked, “What’s the fascination with Ricky’s Roast? Did you really drink coffee in high school?”
“How else do you think I managed two sports, three clubs, and a college-bound course load?”
“You’re perfect.”
Nicole snorted. “You were woefully misinformed. Caffeine, the magic elixir.” She did a little leap in her seat when she caught sight of her old haunt. “There it is—Ricky’s Roast. Oh, my gosh, it hasn’t changed.”
Claire murmured, “It’s still full of men with scruffy beards.”
“God, yes,” Nicole breathed.
Jenna shook her head. “Wow. Two coffeehouses in town now. The Saint Regis brats are really taking over the place.”
Nicole reached back to slap at air as Jenna cringed away, laughing. Then, suddenly, they were driving out of the square and onto the winding residential roads past all the neat little cape houses that were rented out during the summer. The swiftness took Nicole by surprise. The square had seemed endless to the high school girl she once had been, and also to the summer tourist that she had become. Then again, most places seemed endless when you’re tugging three children alongside you.
Nicole tried to keep her eyes on the road and her mind on the route to Camp Paskagamak, but the pattern of the dappled light—so lovely, so familiar—brought on memories both old and new. Late August was the season of fund-raising car washes, of watching the returning college boys sprawl on the lake beaches. Late August was the season of menthol-scented sunburn cream, of shopping in Ray’s for packages of clean white paper and fresh spiral notebooks. Late August was Noah and Christian and Julia toasted golden and coated with coarse-grained lake sand that she’d still be scrubbing out of their hair in September. Late August was when time felt elastic, stretched to its limit as she swam in warm waters under cool skies.
Her heart leapt as she caught sight of another sign on the west edge of town.
Claire drawled, “Well, look at that. Bay Roberts, just beyond those trees.”
A grove of quivering aspens revealed tea
sing glimpses of the lake. Nicole tried to keep her eyes on the road but somehow she saw it all anyway, the winding shaded path, the picnic tables, the bright water, the long gray dock.
The urge was almost unbearable. She imagined herself pulling the car off the asphalt onto the soft dirt shoulder. She imagined racing down the pine-needle path, over sand that sizzled and gave under her toes. She imagined the soles of her feet hitting the weathered boards of the old pier as she made a beeline to the far edge. She imagined raising her arms above her head and pushing off the end of the pier, sailing through the air before plunging into the cool green underwater world.
“Hey, Jenna,” Claire asked, “how’s Lucky doing?”
“He’s just fine.” Jenna set his tags jingling with a scratch. “I’d say he’s good for an hour or so—”
“Are you sure about that?” Claire interrupted. “There’s pretty much nothing between here and the camp, nothing but trees and hills.”
“What else does a dog need?”
“Maybe he needs a little time romping in the water. Maybe he needs, say, ten minutes to bask in the sun.” Claire lifted her arms. “I know I’m ready for a stretch.”
Nicole figured she must be glowing with a sort of blue luminescence, or her yearning was emitting a high whine just on the edge of hearing, because why else in the sudden silence of the car would Claire be looking at her with a sly smile on her face?
“Hey, Nic,” Jenna said. “Promise me you’ll wear a bathing suit, okay?”
Chapter Twenty
Camp Paskagamak, Pine Lake
Jenna last laid eyes on the entrance to Camp Paskagamak nearly twenty years ago, when she’d finished her final summer as a Master Ranger. Now the Chevy rocked over the same dirt road, plunging into the same ditch of tire tracks, only to clamber over a ridge into a second puddle-pocked set of tracks. She leaned forward to get a better look at the bentwood lattice that arched over the entranceway, trying not to whack her head against the back of the driver’s seat as the car lurched. The sign still spelled out the name of the camp in woody letters. Beyond, the road opened up to a clearing faced by a familiar log cabin. The word Office had been charcoal-burned into the gable.
Random Acts of Kindness Page 20
