The Monday after our first date a dozen roses arrived at the office for me with a card: Thank you for a wonderful evening and terrific conversation. I look forward to seeing you again.
Within weeks, we were a couple. We spent almost all our free time together during the week; we went to car shows and the beach together on Saturdays, and to church and dinner at his mother’s house on Sundays. I felt safe with Fish and knew he was someone I could be happy with. He was the antithesis of the kind of man my brother had warned me about. He was gentle to the core.
Within months, we moved in together. I was elated, although not surprised, when he proposed. The engagement fell perfectly in line with our parallel paths, and we were stronger when we walked together.
I was excited about my wedding, although no specific plans were in the works. When Fish proposed, I had insisted we not set a date until my brother had returned, because I wanted him to walk me down the aisle.
IT WASN’T LOST ON ME that Shelly, too, had chosen against the tradition of being escorted by our father to her groom.
Her wedding ceremony took place on a beautiful day in the city, with feathery clouds holding perfectly in place to shield the summer sun. Sam stood in the pergola with us, along with his wife and son, our father, my mother, Auggie’s mom and sister, and a couple of close friends.
Shelly looked so beautiful and so content. She and Auggie had chosen to have an intimate gathering in this natural setting, a place they had come to often during their courtship. Neither was concerned with formalities or tradition, and since they were paying for the wedding themselves, the reasons to keep things simple were practical as well as philosophical. They’d chosen a female officiant who was not of a strict religious code, and they exchanged vows that focused on being human and sharing love. Both wore black and white, and Shelly held a small bouquet of fragrant white gardenias. The colorless palate was a symbol of their belief about keeping things uncomplicated.
After the ceremony, Billie muttered comments about these contrasting color choices. Augustine was Caribbean and had a mulatto complexion, and she said things like “His coloring is very interesting, isn’t it?” I ignored her questions, and I noticed Shelly did, too—or tried to.
Dinner was at Tavern on the Green. Both the bride and groom were well-respected servers at the upscale restaurant, and the many coworkers present helped keep the conversation busy, allowing for safe pockets of side discussion and plenty of opportunities for evasion. The main celebration was to be a garden reception the following week in Denver with Marcia and our other siblings, a gathering of seventy-five or so people, to which Walt and Billie were not invited.
Shelly had confided to me that she’d felt conflicted about inviting Walt and Billie even to the ceremony. But at twenty-seven, she was in a good place. She was attempting to reconcile with her dad and stepmom to whatever extent possible and also felt inviting them would be easier than dealing with the drama if she didn’t.
Sam, always the one to analyze and bring order to things, began to sum up Walt and Billie in two words: The Show. Humor had long been a tool Chris and I used to cope with our parents’ antics, something we’d learned from our older siblings. What had started as a defense mechanism grew along with the outrageousness of Walt and Billie’s behavior to a point where we found ourselves regularly busting out in laughter over the absurdity of their latest actions. For Shelly’s wedding, The Show stood unified amongst all that was unsaid.
Chris was noticeably absent from the day’s event and from our lives. I wondered, as I often did, where he might be. Our parents had hired a private detective to try to find him, and when he came up empty handed for substantive leads to Chris’s whereabouts, I was pleased for my brother. When the detective discovered that Chris had donated the remainder of his college fund to the famine-relief charity Oxfam America, Mom and Dad understood the seriousness of his departure. They finally realized he was trying not to be found.
I hadn’t heard from him or seen him in over two years. But unlike the rest of those circling around our family during this period, I didn’t wonder why he hadn’t called. I knew. He’d divorced our parents. And as for me, he knew I’d understand why he wasn’t in touch. I had no doubt that once he’d taken the time and space he needed, he’d show up on my doorstep. Even in his absence I felt like he was beside me, and as I walked around the patio after dinner, I made mental notes of what to tell him about this day in the park: How the buildings and towers rose synthetically above the landscape. How our parents seemed just as artificial. How Shelly tried to let my mother’s little comments roll right off her back. He’d relish Mom’s obvious discomfort with the lack of formality surrounding the ceremony, and when she made the comments about the groom’s dark complexion, I swear I could see Chris’s customary smirk and eye roll.
If Fish got tired of hearing about Chris, a guy he’d never met but who loomed larger than life in our relationship—who in fact was the reason we hadn’t set a wedding date—he never showed it. He seemed to grasp how close we were, and because I talked about Chris so frequently, Fish began to feel like he knew him. Maybe that’s why he never pressured me to get married before Chris returned.
FISH AND I WENT HOME to Virginia Beach and got back to work. Fish had been dealing with a lingering dull ache that had been repeatedly diagnosed as an inner ear infection. We knew something more serious was happening when the pain became unbearable and he suddenly felt disoriented. We were faced with the shocking discovery that Fish had a brain tumor. The doctors acted quickly, and it was an incredible relief to learn that the benign growth was noncancerous and located in an area that allowed for its safe surgical removal. Fish was strong and healthy and recovered quickly. It was a blessing and a wake-up call, and it had motivated us both.
Throughout the previous year, I’d encouraged him to follow through on his aspirations to be a shop owner. I was absolutely certain that his expertise, backed by my organization skills, would ensure our success as shop owners. With little more than five hundred dollars cash, Fish’s well-equipped toolboxes (which resembled multiple-compartment refrigerators), and some flyers I’d whipped up on the computer at work, we prepared for our grand opening.
We rented a small space with two service bays and a back office. Fish recruited some friends to help him construct built-in workbenches and storage shelves for the garage space. His mom painted the large sign that would hang above the overhead doors. I cleaned and prepared the office to double as a workspace for me and a waiting room for customers. The landlord was pleased by how we’d quickly transformed the dingy space with ingenuity, elbow grease, and new paint.
From the beginning, we aimed to do things differently. Instead of the typical posters of half-naked women lying across or straddling various means of transportation, we gathered industrial posters and metal signs of all colors from the tool manufacturers and parts suppliers to decorate the shop. The paint color scheme was red, black, gray, and white. The office was decorated in softer shades and looked more like a room transplanted from the house Fish and I rented together. I’d used the same wall and trim paint, snagged a portion of the sectional couch from our living room—complete with throw pillows and a blanket—and repurposed our IKEA dining room table as my desk. My mom and dad were proud of these signs of entrepreneurism and passed along some good business advice and a refurbished filing cabinet. Dad recommended I read The Wealthy Barber and learn about investing and saving intelligently; despite the luxuries they enjoyed, my parents always saved more than they spent. Mom’s filing system and customer-relations skills were ones I aimed to emulate. The shop was tiny, but the environment was exciting. It was a new beginning.
Fish left for work early each morning and stayed late every night. Since the shop was only a few minutes from the CPA firm, I could help out with estimates and phone calls to customers during my lunch hour, then return after hours to do the bookkeeping and prepare invoices. I scheduled most of my college classes at night and on the weeken
ds. During breaks, I helped out even more at the shop. I handled the receivables and payables, recruited new clients, and paid close attention to everything Fish taught me in the shop. We developed a strong following of both male and female clientele, the latter feeling secure and comfortable with my presence. Fish was a brilliant mechanic, while my automotive knowledge was steadily increasing. We did thorough and honest work, referrals spread fast, and the business grew quickly. Soon I was able to quit the CPA firm and work at the shop full-time. I was done working for others, for good. It felt satisfying, empowering to be in control. I didn’t even care that I was breaking a rule I’d set for myself, never to go into business with my spouse. I’d seen too much of how dysfunctional that dynamic could be. But Fish was so different from Dad—so complimentary about my contributions and easy to work with.
My parents came down to visit from time to time, usually stopping by as they navigated their sailboat down the Intracoastal Waterway. They would stay with us for short periods, sometimes dropping off Buck for extended visits. They were more or less retired and traveled constantly.
“Have you heard anything from your brother?” they always asked.
“No, nothing,” I would answer truthfully as they skeptically examined my expression.
We’d rebuilt a semblance of a good relationship. My time with them was on my own terms and most often in my own territory. And while I felt comfortable with Chris’s absence, now I could see how much it wounded our parents. Mom spoke of leaving a note on the door whenever they left town in case he returned, and I saw how she looked twice at any young man walking along the street with a pack on his back. Dad mused over how unbelievable it was, given his powerful government connections, that he still hadn’t been able to track down his son. Regardless of what was driving their feelings—whether genuine concern for Chris, discomfort about their lack of command in his new life, or just anger at being left—I felt empathy for them, and I thought if they could feel pain, surely they must feel remorse, too. I hoped that the injury his leaving had caused might force some healing. Chris had hoped for that as well. In his last letter to me he had written, “Maybe it will be different for you, Carine. Maybe once I’m gone they will learn to treat you with some respect.”
I wondered if that could happen. And if so, maybe someday, when Chris was back, he’d be open to talking to them again. Surely they’d see each other at my wedding. Even after everything my parents had done, I still longed to have a traditional family life. I was guilty of the same fault as my parents: I wanted us to be who we were not.
CHAPTER 8
IN THE EARLY EVENING of September 17, 1992, approximately seven weeks after Shelly’s wedding, I took my Rottweiler, Max, for a long run along the sandy edge of Chesapeake Bay, where it opens wide to the expanse of the Atlantic. Fish and I were living in a duplex rental on the beach while we built a new home.
Max loved the water as if he were a Labrador. Whenever I stopped to take a break, I would free him from his leash to race into the waves after the day’s toy of choice. He kept up this obsession until he would spot a man, any man, walking toward us. Unwilling to bet that the individual was simply taking his own relaxing stroll, Max would launch himself back onto shore and stand at attention between the trespasser and me. He didn’t growl or bark or even flinch. His large frame and the stigma of his breed was enough for the passerby to receive the message. As soon as the distance between the three of us was decidedly safe again, Max’s demeanor would return to that of playful puppy. His concentration shifted from the toy in my hand to the water, his legs amped and ready for takeoff, waiting for me to throw it again.
After returning to the house, as was the routine, I began to give Max a bath outside. The grit from the shoreline ran out of his thick black coat, through our toes, and across our concrete pathway to reunite with the sandy soil of our grassless yard. As I worked the shampoo into his fur, I was surprised to see Fish’s brown Toyota pull into the driveway.
“Hey! Daddy’s home early, boy!” I said to Max as I slapped him on the side a few times and then wrapped my arm around his neck to keep him under the hose. Fish sat in the car a long time after turning the engine off, staring straight ahead. When he finally got out, he walked into the house without so much as a glance in our direction.
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked the dog, who was looking up at me with the same question, as if we could really explain it to each other.
Soon Fish came back out the front door and walked toward us.
“I thought you were working late?” I asked.
He bent down and began to fling the lather off Max. “I need to talk to you,” he said, his hands moving vigorously across Max’s back and down his sides.
“Whoa, you’re washing the dog. That’s new,” I teased. “What’s up?”
“Just come inside,” he said and led Max into the house.
I stood there, water still rushing through the hose in my hand, and watched as he walked away. “Um . . . Well, okay, then,” I murmured as I turned off the spigot and followed behind.
By the time I came through the front door, Fish had taken Max upstairs and was sitting on the couch in the living room, in silence, his head in his hands, eyes staring blankly at the beige carpeting. I had a guess as to what might be wrong. We had recently hired a couple more technicians to keep up with our demanding workload at the shop. Men enclosed in tight quarters are known to play jokes on one another, some more insensitive than others. I assumed from the injured confusion on Fish’s face that there had been some laughable claim that one of the guys had seen me around town with someone else. Fish was far from jealous, and I was far from unfaithful, so I had little interest in entertaining the discussion.
I walked into the kitchen and rinsed Max’s collars in the sink. When I walked around the corner, Fish hadn’t budged. I came around the couch to sit beside him and put my hand on his knee. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked with a laugh. “Have the guys been giving you a hard time?”
Fish looked up at me, his eyes red and desperate.
And then my world fell apart.
“It’s your brother,” he said slowly. “They found him. He’s dead.”
At that moment I became keenly aware of time and space and my place within all of it. And it was excruciating. My hand left Fish’s knee. My eyes blurred as the room collapsed into darkness, and a black vortex started spinning all around me—a sinister mass that somehow slammed me into myself until I became dizzy.
“No,” I corrected him, “Chris is not dead.”
Then I closed my eyes tightly, threw my hands to my sides, dug my fingers into the couch and began to scream uncontrollably. I could hear Max whimpering and scratching at the bedroom door. I could feel Fish trying to contain me within his strong, calm, kind arms as he searched for the right words to comfort me.
“No! Get away from me! Chris is not dead! He’s not dead!” I insisted and pushed him away. I wanted everything to stop. I wanted Fish to stop speaking, the earth to stop turning, my heart to stop beating—anything that forced me further into a life without Chris.
I crawled to one end of the couch and curled up in a fetal position. I shrieked at Fish to leave me alone as he tried to cry with me. He paced around the house for the next few hours as day passed into night and I continued in my hysterical state. Exhausted, I finally collapsed into his embrace, which I needed so badly.
I don’t know when I first learned more details—that Chris’s body had been found in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Fish may have told me then, but the chasm between what I heard and what I comprehended was wide and bottomless.
In a comatose state, I dragged myself up the staircase and took a warm shower. The simple tasks of cleaning myself up and packing a bag so Fish could drive me to be with my parents were agonizing. I was operating within a murky haze that dragged every action along in painful slow motion. I did not want to go anywhere or see anyone, but I felt a responsibility to be with my paren
ts.
On our way out of town, I asked Fish to stop at our church. It was late but the main door was still open, and as I walked in alone, tears still streaming down my face, I came across the choir director locking up for the night.
“My dear, what is the matter?” he asked softly and put his hand on my shoulder.
“My brother died,” I said numbly, hearing my words and finding them absurd. “He was hiking in Alaska and they found him dead.”
“Oh dear God. I just read about that poor young man in the paper. That was your brother?” He looked at me with wonder. Later I learned that the New York Times had published a story, “Dying in the Wild, a Hiker Recorded the Terror,” a few days before. The paper hadn’t disclosed Chris’s identity because until earlier that day, when Sam was shown a photograph, the authorities had not confirmed who he was. On the choir director’s face, empathy that had once been theoretical became real and acute as he looked a suffering family member in the eye. It was a look I would see over and over again, for the rest of my life.
“Can I please just sit in the sanctuary for a little while?” I asked, looking down at the keys in his hand.
“Oh, of course, of course,” he obliged. “You take as much time as you need.”
I walked across the burgundy runner between the church pews, down the aisle that I had envisioned Chris walking me down on my wedding day, and fell to my knees in front of the altar. I thought about us as kids in the pews of Saint Matthew’s, trusting in a God that would protect us from harm.
“Why?” I cried out into the echo of the empty, cavernous room. “Why did you let him die?” I placed my head onto the steps below the cross and felt my tears soak into the floor beneath me. “Why?” I railed at my Father. “What am I supposed to do now? How do I do this? Why did you have to take him away from me?”
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