Halfway to the Sky

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  “Whose fault is that?” I said. “You didn't tell me anything.”

  “It's been hard,” Dad said. “For all of us. It'll get better.”

  I didn't know what to say so I just kept eating. Dad cleared his throat like he was going to say more, but Lisa came back then. She had washed her hands and face, but a puke smell hovered around her. She said, “Thanks for eating your sausage first, Dani. That'll help.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  When breakfast was over, Dad asked if I wanted to go back to their house with them. “I've got a lot to do,” I said. “We're going to try to be back on the Trail tomorrow evening.”

  Lisa pursed her lips. “Are you sure you think this is a good idea?” she asked.

  “Yeah, why not? The sooner the better,” I said.

  She turned and gave me this adult-to-small-impertinent-75 child look, and I realized she hadn't been talking to me. “Missing school?” she said to Dad. “It doesn't seem responsible.”

  “It's fine,” Dad said.

  “But I don't think—”

  “It's fine.”

  End of discussion. End of seeing my father. Total words spoken by Lisa directly to me: 16. Total words spoken by me to Lisa: 15. I won.

  March 19

  Rufus Morgan Shelter (North Carolina)

  Miles hiked today: 11

  Total miles hiked on the Appalachian Trail: 133

  Weather: warm, very springlike

  The Trail was packed. From the moment we got back on I noticed how the number of hikers had increased. “They're bunched together,” Mom said. “Some started early but have been moving slowly. Some started later and are moving fast. Not very many have quit so far.”

  Mom spent the Monday at home dressed in business clothes, going to her bank and arranging things. I spent the day going through our packs and getting everything arranged there. I also went through the refrigerator and threw out practically all the food in it. We didn't need to leave another disgusting piece of meat. I stayed home all day. I kept thinking Dad would call. He didn't. Maybe he thought we were already on the road.

  When Mom got home, she looked worn out. She took off her dressy shoes and rubbed her insteps.

  “Can we leave right now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She went upstairs. I followed. She changed into her hiking clothes and carefully put her work stuff away. Then she went from room to room, drawing curtains and checking wastebaskets. They were all empty. I'd done that, too.

  “There's a bus leaving in half an hour,” I said.

  “Nancy's taking us,” said Mom. Nancy was our neighbor, Mom's one good friend.

  “Right back to where we left?” The Forest Service road was dirt, a goat track.

  “She's got a Jeep, remember?”

  So we drove toward the Trail in Nancy's Jeep. We stopped for dinner on the way, and it got dark. By the time we got to the Forest Service road it was raining and absolutely black. Nancy turned onto the road and said, “Nope. No way.”

  She parked and we spent the night right there, with our sleeping bags draped across us. Mom and Nancy laid the front seats back and I stretched out on the backseat. I don't know how Nancy felt, but Mom and I were fine—it wasn't any less comfortable than your average shelter. In the morning Nancy hugged me hard, then hugged my mother. “This is a sane, healthy thing to do,” she said. “Remember that.”

  We were only about a mile from a shelter so we stopped there and made a hot breakfast. The shelter was full, but of course we didn't know any of the hikers there. Beagle and Vivi and all the other familiar faces would be thirty miles away by now, and I was sorry we wouldn't see them again.

  When Mom wasn't looking, I checked the Trail register. I had to flip back a few pages, but there it was: a box of stars, and inside, Good night, Katahdin, wherever you are. It was signed with a big B, which I knew meant Beagle. He was still thinking about me.

  We took it easy the first day out—only eight and a half miles—but Mom took the lead and seemed glad to be hiking. At lunchtime she said, “You haven't even asked yet how everything went.”

  “We're here,” I said.

  “Do you want to know for how long?”

  “No.” Because to tell the truth, I was still hoping for Katahdin. I didn't want to tick her off, though, by saying so.

  Mom sighed. “Two months. Sabbaticals can be from one month to a maximum of three, but they didn't seem very happy about my asking so I told them I'd take two.”

  “If you're allowed three, you should have taken three.”

  “Look, I took a week's vacation last week with zero warning, and they gave me extra time when Springer died, and I've had several years with lots and lots of sick-kid days. I'm not exactly their star employee.”

  “You work all the time.”

  “That's your opinion,” Mom said. Her tone softened a little. “And it's my opinion, too, I'll be honest with you. But it's not their opinion. Okay?”

  “If it's policy they can't fire you,” I said. “You should have told them three months.”

  Mom took a swig of water. “I'm not sure I want three months of this. Did you see any of your friends when we were home?”

  “No.”

  “Really? Not even Tanner? Did you call her?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “She wasn't home.”

  At Rufus Morgan Shelter, Sunday night, Mom said, “You want to go white-water rafting tomorrow?”

  I was busy cooking. “No.”

  Mom came over to me. “Come on, why not?” she said. “We're a mile out from the Nantahala Outdoor Center, tomorrow we'll be walking right through it. We can stop and go rafting and stay the night in the hotel, then restock Tuesday morning. It'll be fun.”

  “No,” I said. “I want to stay on the Trail.”

  “I've always wanted to go white-water rafting.”

  “So let's come back some other time,” I said. She looked stubborn. I poked the noodles I was cooking with a spoon. “You had your turn on the Trail,” I said. “This is mine. I want to hike.”

  “Dani,” Mom said.

  “No!”

  The next morning Mom walked into Nantahala wearing her stone face. We started our clothes in the Laundromat there, walked to a grocery store a mile down the road, and stocked up for another week. We moved our wet clothes into dryers and paid to take showers, and we were back on the Trail by noon. “It's too cold for rafting anyhow,” I said, once we were well on our way. “The water would be freezing.”

  “Your problem,” Mom said, “is that you can't see the forest for the trees.”

  I waved my arm. “Look,” I said. “Nothing but trees.”

  March 22

  The Hike Inn (North Carolina)

  Miles hiked today: 11?

  Total miles hiked on the Appalachian Trail: about 160

  Weather: blizzard

  Although we were still not averaging more than ten miles a day, I was starting to feel really good. I couldn't tell if the constant aches in my muscles had really lessened or if I had just gotten used to them. My feet were tough; I rarely had a blister. I woke and ate, and hiked and ate, and hiked and ate and slept, and then did it all over again the next day. I didn't think about much, but I felt good. Mom quit longing for newspapers. Even when we had the chance, neither of us called Dad.

  A few days after Nantahala we stopped for lunch at a shelter called Cable Gap. We usually ate cold food for lunch, apples and peanut butter and stuff like that, because it was too much trouble to dig the stove and pots out of our packs. Today, though, it was pretty cold and Mom wanted tea, and while she crouched beside the stove waiting for the water to boil, I leafed through the Trail register.

  This time Beagle had written more. All days are hard, but some are harder than others. Is Maine still part of the plan? Good night, Katahdin, wherever you are.

  Of course it is, I thought. Maine was always part of the plan. I picked up the register's pen and leafed forward to an open space, and I wrote, The
Trail is the same, but the walk gets easier. Katahdin.

  There, I thought. It was a nice counterpoint.

  That afternoon, it began to snow.

  At first I was fool enough to think it was kind of fun. We were in a place called Walker Gap, nearly three miles past the lunch shelter and just over four miles from Fontana Dam, where, Mom said, we would find a pretty decent hostel with hot showers. Hot anything sounded good. I'd woken up cold and been chilly most of the morning. Now, between the wind and the wet sleety snow, I couldn't seem to get warm.

  Mom looked at the heavy clouds, and she looked at our map. Then she looked at me. “This won't be easy,” she said. “It's downhill all the way.”

  People think hiking downhill should be easier than hiking up, but it's not. Your heart pounds going uphill, but the rest of your body pounds going downhill. Your toes pound into the front of your boots, and all your other bones pound into each other. It hurts after a quarter of a mile, and soon you're wishing for a nice steep cliff to climb. Also, you don't fall uphill, or if you do, you're not so likely to slide off the mountain while doing it. With icy mud underfoot and my pack pushing against my back and shoulders, my hands shaking from the cold and my toes going numb, I started to feel that I was teetering on the edge of disaster with every single step. Reach—slide—grab— rebalance; reach—slide—grab—rebalance. As I grew clumsier I grew slower; as I grew slower I grew colder and clumsier.

  Mom was in front of me. She turned and looked over her shoulder. “You okay?”

  “I'm cold.” My teeth chattered. The sky was dark and heavy. It clung to the mountainside like a thick wet blanket. Wet snow stuck sideways to the branches and trunks of the trees. It had started to accumulate on the Trail itself. My boots were wet through. I wondered how we'd get down this stretch once the rocks were covered.

  Mom stood still while I made my way to her. “What clothes do you have that you aren't wearing?”

  I blinked at her. “One shirt. Socks. A pair of shorts.” I was wearing my thermal underwear and my fleece, and a hat and gloves.

  “Put the shirt on. I'm going to find some sticks for us to use for hiking poles. We need to eat something, too.”

  By the time I'd gotten my pack off, my shirt on, and my pack back on, she was back with four big sticks. I rested my weight against one, and it snapped into two pieces. I looked down at the piece still in my hand.

  My mother laughed. “Sucky day,” she said. “We'll get through it.”

  “Want a Pop-Tart?” I asked. I threw the broken stick into the snow.

  “You bet.”

  I cannot say for sure how we made it down that mountain. Within twenty minutes of our stop I felt twice as miserable as before. I fell once, ripping my thermal pants across the knee and bruising my knee, too. Mom kept on, faster than I wanted her to go. My teeth were chattering and I really wanted us to stop again, put up our stove, and make something hot to drink. When I said so, Mom shook her head. “We're too wet. We'll freeze if we don't keep going,” she said.

  I knew she was right, but I didn't want her to be right. I knew we needed to keep moving, but I wanted her to slow down. I knew I had no reason to be angry with her, not that day at least, but I was.

  Then she fell. On the trail below me I saw her stumble, try to catch herself, and roll forward in what seemed like slow motion. The Trail followed the ridgeline, and she went right over the side of the mountain, rolling and crashing into trees. She didn't shout. She came to a stop and didn't move.

  I threw myself forward, skidding, sliding, fighting to keep upright and still run down the slope. When I reached her, she was on her stomach in the snow, her face turned a little to one side. “I'm not hurt,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. My heart pounded.

  “No,” she said, “but I think so. Except I can't get up.” She'd landed stomach down with her feet uphill, her pack on top of her and her arms and legs tangled in the sodden underbrush. I helped her roll over and stand up. She was scraped and filthy. Blood trickled down the side of her face, and when she took a step she winced.

  “Is it bad?” I asked.

  “I can't tell yet,” she said. She picked up her walking stick and took another step, and another. “Not horrible,” she said. We climbed back onto the Trail. “Not good,” she admitted. Her lips were blue and she was shaking. “And now I'm really wet,” she added.

  I pulled out the map and tried to guess where we were. “Long way yet,” I said. “Let's go.”

  Now it was my turn to push, my turn to lead. Mom gritted her teeth and kept walking. I stayed just in front of her. I made her swallow some water and eat a candy bar. I kept careful watch for the white blazes that marked the Trail. I checked the map, and I decided when we could rest for a moment and when we had to move on. Mom looked awful, and the sky was getting darker. The nearest shelter was still two miles away, but at the end of the unholy mountain was a road. U.S. 28. I tried to remember what day of the week it was, and wondered if anyone would be out driving in the snow. Mom's eyes were looking glassy, and I couldn't feel my feet. I thought we needed to get under shelter, and soon.

  Finally, the road. I made Mom take off her pack and sit on it, and I laid my own pack against her to shield her from the snow. After a moment I unlashed my sleeping bag and draped it over her. She had stopped shivering, which was not a good sign. I was shivering so hard I felt like my eyeballs were bouncing loose. Not a good sign, either.

  A solitary car swung around the bend in the road. I stuck out my shaking thumb. The car kept going, then braked hard, its wheels sliding on the wet road. It turned around. It pulled up next to us, and the driver inside reached over to open the passenger door. She looked out. “Lord, you're not thruhikers?” she said. “Get in!”

  I helped Mom heave her pack into the backseat. The car was an old one with wide bench seats. Mom and I crowded into the front seat, where the heater was. I was still shivering. Mom looked blue.

  The woman driving didn't seem put off by our sodden filthiness. She turned the heater up full blast. “Wait a minute,” she said. She got out and rummaged through the trunk, and came back with an armful of old towels that smelled like dog pee. “Wipe yourselves dry,” she said. “It'll be about a fifteen-minute drive in this weather.”

  “But the shelter's that way,” I said, pointing over my shoulder in the direction she'd originally been driving.

  The woman shook her head. “I'm not taking you to a shelter tonight,” she said, “not in the shape you're in. Your mom's too cold, you know that?” I nodded. “So.” The woman smacked her lips and nodded once, hard. “I'm taking you to the Hike Inn.”

  My mom stirred a little and smiled. “The Hike Inn. It's still there?”

  “Yep,” said the driver.

  “Mmmm,” said my mother. “Trail Magic.”

  Trail Magic is when you stumble toward a road crossing after a long afternoon of uphill climbs and find that someone— you'll never know who—has left a cooler full of cold sodas and fresh fruit there, with a sign telling you to help yourself. Trail Magic is people seeing you in a town with a full pack on your back and offering you a ride back to the Trail. And Trail Magic is when an untidy woman finds you at the end of the scariest afternoon of your life and takes you to a place that's safe and warm. The Hike Inn was like heaven after that day.

  By the time we got there Mom had started to shake, and the woman driving us wouldn't leave until she'd seen Mom safely into a room, lying down swathed in blankets with hot water bottles—our water bottles, filled with the hot water from the tap—at her feet and hands, and the room furnace running full tilt. “You take care of yourselves now,” she said, cupping my chin in her brown hands. “Stay here until the snow melts, don't be fools. And have fun.” Then she tucked a piece of paper into my hand and walked out into the snow. The paper was a business card: Mandy Dennis, Attorney-at-Law. I put it into my pack next to Springer's shirt. I stripped my wet clothes off and took the hottest shower I could sta
nd.

  When I got out of the shower, Mom was sleeping. Her cheeks and lips were pink again, and she looked okay. I found another blanket in the closet and tucked it around her, then put on the driest clothes I had (still pretty wet), bundled all the rest of our clothes with the hotel towels, and hauled the bundles down the hall in search of washing machines and food. There had to be hot food somewhere.

  There were laundry machines, the desk clerk told me. There wasn't a restaurant but there was a pizza delivery service, and when I called they promised to bring three large pizzas with everything right away.

  And there was Vivi. I couldn't believe it. The clerk had just finished saying, “Honey, how's your momma?” when I looked up and saw her coming down the hall. My mouth must have dropped open a foot.

  “Dani!” Vivi said. “What happened? Do you need help?” She rushed over and put her arms around me. I was so relieved not to be alone anymore that I burst into tears. Vivi held me tight.

  Vivi came back to our room and agreed with me that Mom looked all right. “Hypothermia is a dangerous business,” she said. “You did a good job. You handled it well.”

  I shook my head. “It could have been so much worse. If that attorney hadn't been so good to us … ”My voice trailed off.

  Vivi pushed the curtain back from the window. We were sitting at the little table by the door, eating pizza. Vivi had already eaten but was glad to have just a little more. We had saved one whole pizza in its box for Mom. Vivi said, “This is nasty bad weather. I hope everybody got off the mountains.”

  I took a swig of the Coke I'd bought out of the machine. I felt almost cozy. Vivi had lent me dry socks and a fleece sweatshirt so that I could put mine in the washer. “Why is everybody so helpful?” I asked.

  “You mean on the Trail, or in general?” asked Vivi.

  “On the Trail,” I said. “Mom and I hardly talk to people, but they're all still nice to us. At home we don't even talk to our neighbors, except Mom's friend Nancy. When Springer died, they didn't even know.”