by Tawni Waters
I unzip the saddlebag and reach inside, rubbing the silt of Mom’s ashes between my fingers, feeling the tiny shards left of her bones. I read once that the author Cheryl Strayed ate her mother’s ashes, and I understand the impulse. I want to ingest her, not let her go. But I have to let her go. I have to let her go because she’s already gone.
I open the saddlebag and pour its contents onto the surface of the hungry sea, watching them dance there for a moment, glittering white in the moonlight. “‘But soft, what light from yonder window breaks?’” I whisper. “It is the east, and Mary is the moon.” I feel it as I say it, Mom as big as the sky, flying free. She doesn’t live in this saddlebag. She never did. She’s out there somewhere, and she isn’t screaming anymore. Somewhere, Mom is dancing.
I send Mom away with a song, wanting to give her music to sway to, wherever she is.
I close my eyes as I sing, and when I open my eyes, the ashes have disappeared.
Twenty
I don’t know why Dean and I haven’t had sex since he came back to me. Maybe it’s my arm. Maybe it’s my heart. But as much as the sight of him makes my belly flip-flop, something in me isn’t quite ready for it. Dean never pushes. At night, we sleep in shitty motel rooms, and he holds my head against his chest, letting me soak his shirt with my tears. I play with his crucifix, touch his mouth, and study the many different shades of blue woven into the webs of his irises. When he sleeps, I run my finger over the lettering of his “unbroken” tattoo, wondering if someday I will feel like that. Right now, I’m shattered.
Still, I’m starting to mend. The sensation is palpable. I can almost see my soul knitting itself back together, just as my arm bones are. I let myself be close to Dean, beating back the Harley who believed she could never love again, telling her it’s time for her to stop ruining my life. Not that I’m an utterly changed woman. My propensity for posturing, as Dean called it, still comes out some days. I snap at him, say hurtful things, and pull away when he needs to talk. But somehow, he always forgives me, and as the days go by, I find myself doing these things less and less. I start to think Dean is my proof that something up there, Mom or god or Yoda, is watching out for me. How else would he have found me under that dock?
During the days, we drive back toward California, more or less, meandering through America, stopping along the way to see sites. We see the sun rise over Ellis Island and watch rainbows ricochet from crashing torrents at Niagara Falls. We visit Dollywood and the Johnny Cash Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, spending a few days in each city we land in, trying to make the most of it, take it all in. When we get back to Nebraska, we stop at Three Guys Body Shop, which is as titillating as its name lets on. The postage-stamp-size garage cannot be accused of false advertising. There are indeed three guys inside, all white, pudgy, and smudged with grease. But I barely notice them. What I see is my Harley sitting in the corner of the parking lot, wedged between an SUV and a Prius, shining like a million suns.
“That’s the only thing in this world I love more than you,” I tell Dean, walking toward the window to get a closer look.
“Uh-oh.” Dean smiles. “Are you going to leave me for a motorcycle?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “But I’ll always come back.”
He comes to me and kisses my forehead. “Deal.”
We tie up the bike in the back of Dean’s truck and drive away. I can’t stop looking through the window, watching her. “Fuck this broken arm,” I say. “I want to ride.”
“Fuck that broken arm,” Dean says. He turns up the radio, and together, we sing with Modest Mouse. I think they’re right. We will float on.
When the song fades into commercials, Dean switches the radio off.
“Would you think I was crazy if I told you I want to call my dad again?” I ask.
He smiles. “I’d think you were crazy if you didn’t.”
“I mean, he spent eighteen years trying to make up for what he did to Mom.”
“I had an uncle who was an alcoholic,” Dean says. “He couldn’t stay sober for a month. Staying sober for two decades takes a lot of strength. The illustrious Mr. Warphol can’t be all bad.”
I nod. “The least I can do is give him a chance.”
“You don’t have to convince me.” Momentarily, Dean lifts his hands from the wheel in a surrender motion.
“And he seemed pretty nice, if you can get around the fact that he punched my mom once upon a time.” I’m trying to persuade myself, not Dean. I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad since that day in the studio. I’m still pissed, but it seems wasteful not to utilize the only parental unit I have left.
Dean drapes his arm over me. “His paintings were a little weird.”
“Good weird?” I ask.
“If you think freakish, postapocalyptic zombie-death-creatures are good.”
“You know I do.”
“Me too. They’re my favorite kind of people.” He kisses the top of my head. “That’s why I’m dating you.”
I smack him with my good arm.
• • •
A few weeks later, I stand beside the Grand Canyon for the first time. Grasping Dean’s hand in wonder and fear, I feel the smallness of me and the greatness of all that is. I drink in the colors below us—the rusty, jagged rocks, the emerald trees, and the turquoise snake of a river. For a moment, I’m genuinely happy. I forget to hurt.
As the sun melts into the horizon, painting the canyon with blazing crimson, Dean and I sit on the edge of a cliff, our feet dangling over the edge. The floor is forever away, and I shiver at the thought of falling. I move closer to Dean, who pours sparkling cider into plastic glasses. I wish it was champagne, but I can’t have that when I’m pregnant, and neither of us is old enough to buy it anyway.
“How’s our girl?” he asks me, pressing a glass into my hand and touching the tiny bump of my belly.
I smile. “I think she’s okay.” I lean against him, wincing at the jolt of dull pain that shoots through my collarbone. I don’t take the prescription meds anymore, just Tylenol, which means I have to feel the pain in my body as well as my heart, but I guess that’s part of life. I’ve figured out that soul wounds are like physical wounds. You have to let them ache when they want to. They will throb until they scab over and form a scar. They will hurt until they don’t. So when the grief comes, I let it wash over me, reminding myself that it’s only pain, that I have survived worse than this.
Watching the edges of clouds go fuchsia, I think about my baby, trying to process the fact that there are tiny toes and fingers growing inside me. I try to imagine what it would be like to give her to someone else, someone better equipped to raise her. It breaks me.
“Whether we decide to raise her or not, I want to call her Mary,” I say.
He bends to kiss our baby. “Hello, in there, Mary.” He whispers into my belly button like it is some biologically engineered microphone.
Together, we lift our glasses toward the setting sun. “To Mary,” I say, watching birds volcano from trees, blurring the horizon with red-winged visions.
Sipping cider, we gaze out at the canyon in silence until purple twilight. “I want to do what’s best for her,” I say as the first stars appear. “That’s all I care about.”
That night, we stay at a hotel in nearby Flagstaff. It’s a funky college town nestled in blue mountains. Its people are kind, not like New Yorkers, and down to earth, not like Californians. They wear hiking boots instead of high heels. If you ask them for directions, they smile and point the way.
“I like this place,” I say to Dean as we flop onto the hotel bed.
“Me too,” he says. “Maybe I could go to college here. I hear they have a killer creative writing program.”
When I stopped pushing Dean away, I learned that his poems weren’t just a hobby. He wants to go pro.
“I’d miss you,”
I say.
“You could move here with me.”
I glance at him, trying to figure out if he’s serious. He is. I’m shocked that the idea of living here with him, maybe in one of those adobe houses we saw as we drove in, doesn’t terrify me. Still, I’m not quite ready to have that conversation. I change the subject. “Should we order room service?”
“I don’t know,” Dean says. “Maybe we should go to the restaurant downstairs. I’m tired of being cooped up. The sign in the lobby said there’s a band playing tonight.”
I can’t imagine what kind of band would be playing in a hotel lobby in Flagstaff, but Dean’s right. Being stuck in hotel rooms is getting old. “I’m game.”
Half an hour later, we sit at a table in a tiny restaurant, quartered off from the rest of the hotel by a low wall and frosted glass. A small stage sits in the corner, encircled by a wooden dance floor. A bar rests at the center, its TVs blaring some game or another. Hockey? Soccer? Football? It’s all the same to me.
“Do you want to split the steak?” Dean asks. Recently, we have begun to share meals. I say it’s because it saves money, but really, it’s because it makes me feel closer to Dean.
“Sure,” I say.
“How do you want it cooked?” he asks.
“Medium,” I say.
Dean looks horrified. “Oh, man. I can’t do that. It’s a waste of a good steak. Might as well throw it straight into a fire and eat the ashes.”
“Normally, I’d agree, but rare meat is bad for the baby. It said so in the pamphlets the doctor gave me,” I say.
“Medium it is,” he says.
Dinner is way better than the atmosphere gave us a right to expect. Mom would be unhappy with my choice of red meat, but man, does it taste like heaven. And I’m pretty sure that baked potatoes with sour cream slathered on top are the food of the gods. Fuck ambrosia.
“Am I putting on weight?” I ask Dean through a mouthful of butter-soaked veggies.
“Not at all,” he says, but I can see in his eyes he’s lying.
“I am!” I say excitedly. I’ve been trying to gain weight for years, and now, my magic baby is making it happen. “Don’t worry. It’s a good thing! For the record, when it comes to me, the correct answer to the question, ‘Does my ass look fat in these jeans?’ is always yes.”
Dean laughs. “Okay then. You look resplendently voluptuous!”
“Go me!” I say, raising my fist in victory.
After we eat, Dean orders a beer, and they give it to him without carding him. As the waitress sets it in front of him, we exchange glances, sharing that secret thrill that comes from getting one over on the proverbial man.
“Today, we pull off underage drinking. Tomorrow, we take over the world,” I whisper as the waitress walks away.
Dean grins. When he kisses me, his mouth tastes like beer. I want one so bad, but I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. Instead, I sip my Sprite as the band takes the stage.
The band is not quite what I expected. It consists of four gray-haired men, all of them close to seventy. They wear Hawaiian shirts, jeans, and really bad hats, probably to cover bald spots. “Uh-oh,” I say to Dean. “Get ready to hear some golden oldies.”
“Hello, Flagstaff!” the lead singer yells, as if he is Mick Jagger greeting an arena full of screaming fans. “Let’s rock!” As the band launches into a surprisingly competent rendition of “Mustang Sally,” I look around the room and realize every other person here is a senior citizen. I shout to Dean to be heard over the music. “I think we just landed in Old People Oz!” Clearly, this geriatric concert is some weekly Flagstaff senior citizen tradition. Everyone seems to know everyone else.
Dean shouts back, “I hope I’m this cool when I’m old.”
The band plays song after song, some of them classic, some of them not. All of them are awesome. Old ladies line dance, their garishly dyed heads and sagging breasts bouncing in time to the music. At first, I think they’re funny. Then, I start to think they are the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. They are what I want to be when I grow up. Hell, they are what I want to be now.
“That’s what freedom looks like,” I tell Dean. Even though I’m not drinking, I start to feel drunk. Dean is drinking, and judging by the way he keeps fondling me under the table, he is drunk. I don’t mind. I like when Dean touches me.
An old woman approaches. She has cat-eye glasses and blue streaks in her hair. I want to tell Dean she gives a whole new meaning to blue-haired lady, but I can’t because she’s standing right there. “You kids need to come dance!”
Instantly, my buzz is gone. “No, thanks,” I say. No way am I dancing in public. No. Way.
Smiling, the woman tosses her head. “Suit yourself,” she says, walking away.
“Come on, Harley.” Dean stands and takes my hand. “Let’s dance.”
“You go,” I say. “I’ll watch.”
Dean kisses me and then joins the revelry. I watch him and the old ladies sway and bop to “Achy Breaky Heart.” I study their feet, thinking maybe when I’m alone, I will practice these moves so next time I get the chance, I can dance.
Dean returns to me breathless and smiling. “What a rush!” he says. He waves the waitress down and orders another beer. As he takes his first sip, the band begins a familiar song. I can’t place right it right away, but after a few chords, I know. It’s Mom’s Jean-Luc Picard song, the one I thought only she knew. When the singer starts the first verse, I think I’m going to burst into tears, but instead, I start to laugh.
“What?” Dean shouts. “What’s so funny?”
“She’s here!” I say. “This is how she talks to me now. Through music. My mom is here!” Warm emotion wraps around me, just like it did that day in the white light. I know I’m not alone. I know there is magic in this world. I yank Dean’s face close and kiss him hard. His mouth still tastes like beer. I drink him down.
“Wanna go upstairs?” he asks. I do, but I don’t. Somehow, this old people fest has turned into the most exhilarating experience of my life. I want to see it through to its end. The band keeps playing. “Honky Tonk Woman.” “Bad Romance.” “Heartbreak Hotel.” The old ladies keep drinking wine and dancing. I memorize their moves. Their steps become clumsier, but their faces shine. And then, the lead singer says, “And now, I’m going to give the microphone to an old friend of mine, one of the most captivating women I’ve ever known. We played in a band together when we were young, and she’s passing through town. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jean Whittler.” I don’t recognize her name, but as soon as she steps onto the stage, I know her. She’s wearing a push-up bra and a zebra-striped shirt. Her red hair gleams, as if she just touched it up. Before, I thought maybe she was a kind of beautiful I couldn’t see. Now, I see it.
I grab Dean’s hand. “Oh my god! I know her!”
“No way!” Dean says.
“Yeah,” I shout. “I met her at a campground. She’s awesome!”
Smiling, Jean takes the microphone from the stand and starts to sway and sing “Girl Crush.” She has the most glorious voice I’ve ever heard. You’d never know by listening that she’s a day over thirty.
When she’s done, applause erupts. Old men hoot and holler as she leaves the stage, as if she is Beyoncé. I run to her and throw my arms around her.
“Harley!” she says. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m on my way home!” I shout as the band starts to play “Friends in Low Places.”
“You spread your mom’s ashes?” she asks.
I nod.
She pats my cheek. “Then the hard part is over. Time to cut loose.” She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the dance floor.
“No! I don’t dance!” I say, but she either doesn’t hear me, or she doesn’t care.
And then, here I am, in the line, and I have two
choices. I can either stand around like an asshole, or I can dance. I dance, tentatively at first, watching the disco balls shatter light over the wooden slats of the dance floor, thinking hard about what my feet are doing, making sure I get the steps right. When I glance at Jean, her head is thrown back in ecstasy. She looks like she won a million dollars or shot up with heroine. I want to be like her. I want to be free and happy and forever young. So I let go. I throw my head back too, smile, and let the music wash over me, the way I have been letting the pain wash over me when it comes. The drumbeats move my feet, and suddenly, I’m not afraid anymore, not of dancing, but of anything. I feel like the world is mine.
“You have badass moves!” I hear Dean say. I turn, and he’s behind me, moving with the line.
“This is the best night of my whole life!” I shout.
We finish the dance, and then, I kiss him hard. His heat fills me. I want him more than anything in the world, and I’m not scared of it anymore.
When the show is over, we make plans to meet Jean and Lawrence for breakfast. Then we go back to our room. I can’t get Dean’s clothes off fast enough. No, that isn’t an expression. Have you ever tried undressing someone with one arm? It’s fucking hard. But with Dean’s help, I get the job done. Then, the world stops. As I look into his eyes, I see the sky in them, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Mom was right.
Maybe the part of us that matters goes on forever.
Epilogue
They tell you labor hurts, and you think you get what they mean, but you don’t. It feels like somebody is stirring your guts with a machete. It’s like dying. The pain makes you forget who you are. You become something bigger than self. You become a life giver.
