by Shawn Grady
“Could take a lot of praying.”
A strong gust eddied down the flue. The fire waved and shook.
Eli stretched. “Well, you’d best leave in about forty-five minutes. Should work out pretty close time-wise for you to cross the bay and meet up with her.”
CHAPTER 30
It was the womb of Lake Tahoe.
Eagle Fall’s twisting umbilical fed the pear-shaped basin below. A simple stone house perched on a tiny island in the center, ensconced by lunar-lit snowmelt.
There was a quiet to Emerald Bay. All the more on the water’s surface. A rhythm to the drip-paddle-splash and the coursing glide of the kayak. No towering buildings at river’s edge. No distant siren echoes. Just peace. And the Lake of the Sky.
The alpine air entered my lungs, crisp, light, brisk. I felt at home. In my element.
The moon’s shimmer followed me on the water. Objects ashore melded into amorphous shapes and blobs of inky green.
I scanned the mountainsides, eyes trailing up snow-covered draws to the craggy outline of Jake’s Peak and down to where I estimated the highway lay.
There was a saying about shooting ducks in a barrel. . .
I moved my arms faster, my smooth glide becoming a swift carve, the water unsettled and rolling in a broad V-shape from the boat.
I found myself praying for cloud cover.
Through my jacket pocket came warmth from a stainless-steel Thermos Eli had filled with hot tea. Already sweating from the paddle, I stripped off the wool beanie he’d provided from the cabin’s front closet.
Near the beach I brought the oar into the boat and made ground at a slow coast, coarse pebbles rolling beneath the hull like poured coffee beans. I rolled up my pant legs and took off my shoes and socks, stepping into the biting cold water to pull the kayak ashore. I set it down and placed my hands on my hips, looking at the distance I’d just covered.
Her voice came from the tree line. “Jonathan?” She wore a dark fleece jacket and a beanie with tassels that hung like two braided hair locks.
Somehow, the expanse of the water and the vacuum of space – the silence and solitude of it all – freed my inhibitions. I ran and grabbed her around the waist, lifting her. Her arms fell around my shoulders, eyes piercing mine.
I let her body slide down.
Our cheeks caressed, warm breaths disseminating in the air.
She smiled. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“Everything all right?”
I didn’t think – I just spoke. “I’ve missed you.”
Naomi brought her lips together and tilted her head.
I didn’t want to let go of her.
“You . . .” she began. “How long have you missed me, Jonathan?”
A simple question. The answer like a thread entangled in a scab.
Water lapped.
It was the pool at Bethesda.
I swallowed. “All my life.”
Our eyes locked, and for a moment I knew her. The sheer power and truth of it delivered a defibrillating jolt.
I let go of her waist.
My eyes clouded. I turned toward the boat and blinked it away.
I shuddered, the cold reaching my core. I felt vulnerable. Like a nine-year-old boy seat-belted in the back of a wrecked Plymouth.
Naomi walked down the beach and knelt by the fore of the kayak. She ran her hand over the rope handle. “I like your ride.”
A shadow darkened her face. A gray barge – the lone cloud in the sky – sailed in front of the moon.
I smiled and took a deep breath. “Yes, ma’am. One midnight kayak ride, courtesy of Dr. Eli and a God-sent cloud cover.”
She turned to the bay. “That’s Fannette Island, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve only ever seen it from far off.”
It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t a prudent decision. But I heard myself say, “Then it deserves a closer look.”
She bit her lower lip and cinched down her beanie. I shoved the boat halfway in the water. She climbed in and I set it afloat, quick-stepping through the shallows before hopping aboard.
We placed the oars and paddled. The small island jutted up like a jagged cone, and the teahouse, encompassing the size of a large kitchen at best, reigned in stone solitude with glassless windows and a missing roof.
I rowed and related to Naomi the story of the narcotic-theft accusation, being jailed downtown, about Eli bailing me out, and the letter from the MCATs.
She didn’t reply, then suddenly sang, “ ‘I’ve seen better days, been the star of many plays.’ ”
I swung my oars back in the water, grinning. “ ‘And the bottom drops out.’ ”
The teahouse features amplified, growing prominent and higher in my field of vision until the island approached and shadowed it with trees and granite and the pale blur of the clouded moon.
We slowed. The water waved smooth and transparent. Boulders and sea serpent roots interspered the sandy bottom.
I shifted my oar. “Let’s bring it around to the opposite side.”
We skirted the west aspect and slid onto the island’s one sandy shore, barely the length of the kayak.
I hopped off the nose of the boat and grasped the front strap.
Naomi climbed forward, did the same, and we dragged it to the base of a towering mud wall.
We found a narrow, winding path and worked our way between boulders. Branches made handrails. Every stone got tested.
At the top the wind picked up, whipping like an angry cat, blowing in my ears and biting at my neck. I pulled on Eli’s beanie. Moss and grass shoots filled cracks of the mortared teahouse walls. I got the feeling that the house stood watch. Had the sense it was looking toward the neck of the bay leading to the greater breadth of Lake Tahoe.
Naomi posed at the threshold, looking like a flapper from a 1920s film. “Right this way, darling.”
A vision unearthed of my mother standing at the door of our new house. “Right this way, darling.”
My gut corkscrewed.
I didn’t want to go in.
CHAPTER 31
“Jonathan?”
I blinked.
“You all right?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. It’s nothing. Just a weird flashback. You and your Greta Garbo.”
“Come on.”
I heard my father’s voice, “It’s how much?”
The real estate agent spoke appeasing words, reassuring.
My father turned toward the door, refusing to look at my mother. “Let’s go.”
“Stuart.”
“No.”
“Stuart, I like this place. It’s safe and it’s cute.”
“It’s too small.”
“Not for us three.”
I squeezed my mother’s hand. “Mom, I – ”
“Jonathan.” His voice struck like a sledgehammer. My body tensed. My eyes burned hot.
“Jonathan?” Naomi said.
I refocused.
She ran a hand along a glassless window frame. “We finally make it to the teahouse, and we don’t even have any tea.” She made a pouty lip.
I walked to the middle of the house and stared at the canopy of stars above. I pulled out Eli’s Thermos. The lid squeaked as I unscrewed it.
Naomi looked surprised.
I held up the lid cup. “Care for some tea?”
She walked up and put her hands around the Thermos. “It’s nice and warm.”
Steam waved as I poured. She lifted the cup to her chin and breathed in, eyes closed.
“Jasmine!” Her eyes flipped open. “You brought jasmine tea.”
She gave a coy smile.
Thank you, Doctor Eli. He was an observant fellow.
I pulled out the rolled fleece blanket from the backpack and spread it over the stone-tiled floor. I sat back on my hands. “Incredible view.”
Naomi sat cross-legged, cradling h
er tea, shoulder touching mine. “It’s not so breezy down low.” She took a sip. “So is this where you take all the girls?”
I laughed.
She ran a finger along the rim of her beanie, fingers feeling for a strand of hair to tuck. “Is that how you work it? Lead them into thinking you’re in some kind of mortal danger? Soften them up and get them all worried over you?”
“Are you worried about me?”
“Of course.”
I nodded. “Me too.”
She inched closer. “You’re warm. Wait. You didn’t answer my question. How’d you do that?”
“How’d I do what?”
“Get me to cozy up to you without even telling me if this is your secret wooing spot.”
“I’m not trying to trick you.”
“You still haven’t answered me, Jonathan Trestle. Look me in the eyes and tell me you haven’t taken any other girls here.”
“I promise. You, Naomi Foster, are the only one.”
She stared as though I’d said something once heard in a dream. She took a token sip of tea and looked up at the stars. “Hey look, there’s Copernicus.”
“That’s not a constellation.”
She handed me the cup. “Here, pour yourself some.”
I did, held it to my lips, and blew on it.
The wind slid through the windows, whisking overhead. I traced my finger over the sand and mortar that separated the irregular floor tiles. The grains tumbled coarse under my fingertips.
Naomi folded her arms and leaned forward. “Still hot?”
I nodded and offered her the cup. She took it, fingers lingering a moment with mine.
“So,” I said, “how’re things looking for your mom?”
“She has good days and bad.”
“More good than bad?”
She breathed deep. “No.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“Mixed. The cancer isn’t spreading right now. She’s weak from all the chemo and radiation. It knocks her out. She stops treatments this month.”
“Permanently?”
“For a few weeks. We’ll see what happens.” She looked away. “I can’t imagine losing her.”
I brought my knees up. “God willing, you won’t have to.”
There was silence, and then I felt her hand between my shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I know that you . . . that your mother . . . We were both so young.” She set the cup down. “You’ve never really spoken about it. All I know is that there was a car accident.”
I stared at the floor, running my finger along the sandy cracks. Up, down, right, left. My mind repeated the pattern, trying to order the chaotic emotions within me.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”
I saw the memory take shape. “I was nine. In that new house we’d bought. Sitting on a rug in my room. It was oval shaped and multicolored. Brown-sugar yellow, plum, red. I was playing with a balloon, trying to keep it from hitting the floor. My parents were yelling at each other in the living room. It made it hard to concentrate. I was mad at them. They didn’t want to watch me with the balloon.
“My mother cried out. The sound was like something sharp driven into my chest. ‘What?’she kept saying. ‘What? Who is she?’ The balloon fell. I ran out of my room and yelled at her, saying why couldn’t she be quiet, I was trying to play.
“And something like a light switched off in her. She looked older. There were curves to her face I didn’t recognize. She twisted the diamond ring off of her finger, reached out her hand, and dropped it in my father’s palm. Then she turned to me and said, ‘Come here, darling.’
“I forgot why I was angry. I ran to her side and buried my face in her ribs. She told my dad in one quiet, resolute sentence that we were leaving.
“That was the end of it. The transecting of what I had known and what would become.
“I remember the rain whipping at the living-room window. I can see Death waiting in it now, his scythe sharp and clear like water.”
A meteor streaked and vanished overhead.
“My dad protested, but my mom cut him off with a finger in the air, saying, ‘No. No more. You’ve lost the right.’
“She walked me to my room and stuffed a bunch of clothes into a backpack. I kept asking her if she was all right, and she kept saying, ‘Mommy’s fine,’ hiding her face from me. I protested. I wriggled free and grabbed my stuffed bear from my bed and my favorite shirt from a drawer. She walked me through the living room. My father was in the same place he stood when we’d left the room. He looked like a wax-museum statue. My mom pulled me through the front door and strapped me in the back of our Plymouth.”
My heart raced. I’d never told the story like this before. I tried to slow my breathing.
Naomi tilted her head. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m listening.”
I swallowed. “We drove out of the city, along a narrow and winding road. Rain dumped so thick. I couldn’t see the lines on the street. That’s when she lost control of the car. A tree as thick as the grill swung at us like a pendulum. The hood wrapped around it. She wasn’t seat belted and was ejected through the windshield.
“I sat there in the car and called for her. Rain pelted the rooftop. Water poured in on the dash – a body-sized hole in the glass above the steering column. I sat for a long time and just called out for her.
“I finally climbed out and went searching through the downpour. A couple school-bus lengths away I found her, face up in the mud. She didn’t look hurt. But she was pale, white, and staring up at the rain. Like she was looking to see where that pendulum had swung from. I nudged her shoulders. I shook them. I tapped her face. But she wouldn’t blink. She wouldn’t talk.
“The rain splashed on her eyes, and she wouldn’t blink. I kept saying, ‘Close your eyes, Mom. Close your eyes.’ If they’d just been shut, like she was sleeping, or knocked out, I could have had hope. She was there but she wasn’t. And there wasn’t anything that I could do.”
I wrapped my hands around my beanie. “I knelt by her until I was soaked through and shivering. I don’t know how long. When the first policeman came I barely had any sound in my voice. ‘Help’ was all I could manage. ‘Help.’ ”
Naomi put both hands on my face. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
I shook my head. “You don’t have to cry for me.” A well of pain swelled inside.
She cradled my head.
Her empathy unsettled me.
And then I felt them. Hot stinging tears. I wrapped my arms around her and let my sorrows escape.
I heard the sound of her heart, the rhythm of air entering her lungs. And I felt a peace in place of the pain, like a weight had been lifted.
We stood, fingers intertwined, her eyes at once unsettling and electrifying. We crossed the threshold of that old stone house.
By the kayak we lingered. Our clothed bodies couldn’t have been any closer. Steam danced with our breaths.
Our lips hovered close.
And we kissed.
Her warmth became mine, and mine hers.
She smiled. I couldn’t help but grin.
Tomorrow we may die, but right then we’d live forever.
CHAPTER 32
I awoke on the cabin couch, a blanket half covering my jeans, beanie all cockeyed over my forehead.
My neck was stiff from the position I’d slept in against the armrest. Naomi’s feet tucked beneath mine, the lion’s share of the blanket up to her shoulders. She slept on her side, head resting on a tasseled pillow.
I had woken to many things over the years – the sound of dispatch tones and musty posts, often to an empty bedroom with vacant light streaking through the blinds. But I’d never woken in her company. I saw a glimpse of what life could be. The peace in her face, the trust in her slumber – a foreshadowing of what could be mine, completely.
Trails of smoke filtered up the flue, the firebox floor now filled with soot, ash, and the charred remnants of hardwo
od. A vague memory returned of coming in the cabin door late, the only light from the smoldering fireplace, and the stark difference in temperature between the small back bedrooms and the heart of the cabin.
I remembered sitting back on the couch with Naomi, my arms around her, her head back on my shoulder.
We spoke about my dad. That none of the choices he’d made in this life were my fault. That regardless of his inability to forgive himself, I needed to forgive him and love him, as much for my own sake as for his.
“Everyone has a different path to redemption,” she said.
I leaned my head on hers, smelled her fragrant hair, closed my eyes, and then it was morning.
A teapot whistled. I propped myself up to see Eli lifting a black kettle with a rag in hand. He was dressed for the day in jeans and a flannel shirt. The impressive beginnings of a white whiskered beard grew on his face. A few days’ growth would give him the look of an older version of Grizzly Adams. He smiled and held the teapot in the air with an inquisitive look. I nodded my head and mouthed, “Please.”
He poured three cups and placed two with saucers on the coffee table. I slid my legs out from the blanket and went to work building a new fire, rolling newspaper and placing it between wood cribbing. Naomi stirred. I struck a wood match and lit the papers in several places, adding thin wood strips Eli had set beside the stash of logs. A healthy fire soon popped and waved. The heat felt wonderful.
Naomi sat up and covered her mouth with a closed-eye yawn. She ran fingers through her hair and gave her head a shake.
I crouched and warmed my hands. “Good morning.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Good morning, Mr. Trestle.” She noticed the tea on the table and glanced at me.
I nodded toward the kitchen. “Compliments of our gracious host.”
Naomi turned. “Eli.” She leaned her arms on the back of the couch. “How are you?”
Eli set four pieces of bread on a wire-frame tent over a gas burner. “Welcome, Naomi. Did you sleep all right?”
“Just perfect.”
He pulled red jam from a pantry. “I grabbed bread and a dozen eggs before leaving yesterday. I’m afraid I don’t have any other perishables.”
