Black Heart on the Appalachian Trail (7 page)

Mrs. Wasatch removes a jar of mentholated balm from her purse. “For the pulled muscles afterward.”

Leona starts laughing. She doubles over and gulps huge breaths and points at the jar. Emanuel pounds her on the back but she isn't about to stop and she laughs the Wasatches and their mentholated balm out of the house and into their Cadillac. Then she laughs all the way to her bedroom, where she yanks her dress over her head and sits in cotton-shrouded silence. Out in the hall, Emanuel knocks and tells her in a loud voice next time it will go smoother.

“I don't see why you don't pick up woodworking,” she says, matching volume. “I bought you all those chisels for your birthday.”

Her husband has not stepped happily into retirement, misses the plant, where he was floor supervisor and responsible for turning out seventy-five ceiling fans an hour. He has tried to keep himself occupied, first by fixing every little thing that was broken around the house, then attempting a failed run at a county seat. She blames his latest obsession on a roving eye he developed on their trips to the spa, has tried to reduce her weight to the woman of her twenties, cannot keep up with the pretty young things who squeal through entire aerobic classes without breaking a sweat.

“I never should have quit,” he says. “I should have worked until they forced me out the door.”

The next few minutes pass without a word between them. She thinks that is that, is surprised to hear him ask if she is all right.

“I'm fine,” she says.

“Okay, then.”

It is not okay, not even close.

*   *   *

Leona finds the tape while she searches pockets prior to washing clothes, waits until she is in her room that night to turn on the cassette player. She hears an explosion. Then the crackle of gunfire, sporadic, then never ending. She pictures the jungle all around, banana leaves so broad they block sunlight.

“I'm in a muddy foxhole,” Emanuel says. “I'm here and all I can think of is you.”

The noise becomes so loud it is impossible to hear him and it is easy to imagine he is dead, blood gushing like a crimson waterfall out of his chest. Leona holds her breath through this part, thinks the worst possible things, so when his voice comes on again the relief is sweet as can be. Another explosion sounds. This one louder than the first.

Emanuel's voice cuts through the chaos, and he talks about coming home and starting a family. He wants two kids, doesn't care if they are boys or girls. Leona thinks that is poignant, the part about new life in the midst of all that death and destruction. She draws into herself and imagines bullets ricocheting off trees, mortar shells detonating nearby. She smells gunpowder, hears the screams, senses young men expiring around her. She tries to imagine what she would think of in Emanuel's place, if she'd worry about herself or dream of her lover.

The tape ends, and Leona unscrews the top to a perfume bottle.
Rose. Her husband's favorite. She dabs the sweet scent on her wrists, tiptoes down the hall, and stops at his door. Leona yearns for the warmth of his bed, but does not have the courage to take another step in his direction. She turns and heads to her room.
Her
room. How odd the lines that now etch their lives.

Later, as the moonlight shines through the curtains and casts textured shadows across her bed, she replays the tape. Young Emanuel had loved her with a passion all the bombs in the world could not extinguish. She had loved him back.

That seems like a long time ago.

*   *   *

Heather shows up on the doorstep, says she needs to get away for the weekend. She wears her brown locks cut close to the scalp, a grim hairstyle she has not changed in three decades. Her dress, gray as an approaching cold front, hangs off her shoulders to her calves. Leona puts fresh sheets on the bed, goes up to the attic, and digs out a bunny rabbit. Sets it atop the dresser. Hopefully the pink will brighten her daughter's mood.

The surprise arrival has come just in time. Emanuel has lined up an interview for tomorrow afternoon, this with a couple close to their age. She must admit that riding the stationary bicycle down at the spa has done her husband good. He still sleeps more than she thinks is healthy, but he's dropped at least two pant sizes and seems lighter on his feet. Trying to do her part, Leona has started day hiking the trail, an exercise that makes her sore in the ankles and hips. She thinks, if she can become fit enough, that she might bring along a pair of pruning shears for old time's sake. Maybe she'll hide them in her day pack, snip a few briars when no one is around to make a fuss over someone her age maintaining trail.

After a dinner of vegetarian chili, Heather's favorite, Leona and her daughter sit on the porch. The night breeze pushes through the screen and brings out goose bumps on Leona's arms. She wraps a shawl around her shoulders and studies her oldest. Heather wears the same moody dress, has her head down, seems determined to while away the evening staring at her nails.

“I think your brother left Thailand and went to Iceland,” Leona says.

“I found a swinger magazine when I was in the bathroom. It was under the fresh towels.”

Leona draws the shawl around her neck. “I throw them away when I find them, but he's like an alcoholic hiding a bottle. You can never find them all.”

Heather takes on a chiding tone. “It's one thing to talk about it and laugh over the phone, but actually seeing it is disgusting.”

Her daughter's opinion surprises Leona.

“Your father and I are not prudes,” she says.

Bluish light strobes out of the living room, through the sliding glass doors onto the porch, and she knows without looking Emanuel's finger incessantly taps the remote.

“Mom, do you think I'm stuffy?”

Her oldest doesn't know how to enjoy herself, an attribute she put to good use at Ohio State University, then later when she interned at Massachusetts General. Heather is in perpetual control, and Leona suspects more than a few pregnant patients appreciate her daughter's focus.

“You're a doctor,” Leona says.

Heather sips her cocoa, holds the mug in both hands. The breeze changes direction and carries with it the aroma of grilled hot dogs. A balloon drifts across the yard, settles in front of the
screen door, bobs on the ground as though it lacks energy to continue its journey. Her daughter's voice sounds tired and broken. “She left me, and this time it's for real. She took all her things, including the bed and the breakfront.”

They talk in low tones, Heather getting it out one strained syllable at a time. Her lover has taken another, a stripper who drives a Corvette and dances around a chrome pole on an elevated stage. Heather claims the relationship won't last a week and her lover will come crawling back, but this time she is drawing a line in the sand.

“I am not a piece of shit,” Heather says. “She can't come and go as she pleases.”

Emanuel appears and asks how his girls are doing, walks back inside. Her husband gravitates toward his kids when they are in trouble, yet he exercises the good sense to stay clear when they talk to their mother. Appreciative, Leona pours a cup of cocoa, takes it to him, and returns to the porch.

“You really should stand up to him,” Heather says. “You should stop this nonsense once and for all.”

“It's not so bad. We both like to meet new people.”

“Mom!”

“Now hush, we haven't actually done anything.”

Heather chuckles. Unlike Parker, she barely moves when she laughs. Leona's hand seeks the warmth of her own stomach, and she marvels at how one womb can produce such different people. She gives her daughter a big hug and thinks about asking if she wants to go hiking tomorrow, nixes the idea. Heather likes to sleep in whenever she visits.

The strobing coming out of the living room stops, and Leona goes in and unfolds a blanket over her husband's lap, leaves the
television on so he won't be confused when he wakes. She meets her daughter in the kitchen. In the bright light, Heather looks older than her age. Leona's stomach twists. Growing old is one thing, watching it happen to your children is something else entirely.

“I don't know what I'd do without you and Pop,” Heather says.

Her daughter pads off, and Leona's heart beats a fierce rhythm. Any woman who leaves Heather is a darn fool.

*   *   *

Leona almost reached the ledge yesterday, which is a mile up from where the trail crosses the road, but stopped short, like a kid who puts off opening a present to prolong anticipation. She has roamed these mountains since she was young, has stood on the edge many times. Back then she walked on legs that never grew weary. Now, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, big brown boots on her feet, she listens to her legs complain every step and satisfies herself with the knowledge reaching her goal is no small accomplishment. Her day pack holds water and a candy bar, along with a snipper she uses to cut flowers at home. She cannot move the larger branches that lie across the trail, but anything small she cuts and tosses into the weeds.

The trail, which starts out level, begins an upward slope through the hardwood forest. The air is cool, enough to tingle her ears. A pileated woodpecker swoops over the brush and latches onto a tree trunk. The bird cries its shrill sound and flies onward. Her heart skips beats if she walks too fast, so she takes measured steps and turtles along. Later in the year, when the northbound thru-hikers reach New Hampshire, this section of
trail will become crowded. She thinks of the hikers down in the southern states, toiling their way north, knows the journey will be too hard for most of them and they will quit in the small towns along the way.

Her mind turns inward, and she can't help but think her life has become an uphill climb. She has a son too itchy to stay in one place, a pervert for a husband, and a daughter who returns home whenever she has lover problems. Not that Leona begrudges the intrusion. It is nice to see Heather . . . it would have been nicer under different circumstances. Leona chides herself for the thought and walks faster for punishment.

As the trail rises in elevation, spruce grows in clusters, and moss clings to outcropped rocks. Sound is muted, save for the crunch of her boots on the pebbles and the dry husk of her breathing. The change in Emanuel worries her the most, and Leona wonders if she should go along with his desire at least once. Do it, get it out of the way, move on with their lives.

The precipice appears so abruptly she almost passes it in her concentrated state. She stops and looks down into the valley, where a creek, glittering in the sunlight, meanders across a pasture and under a two-lane bridge. In the trees at the bottom of the drop off, crows caw to one another. Leona stretches her legs, sips from her Nalgene. Her cell rings, and she puts it to her ear.

“What?” Leona says. “What did you say?”

“She called and wants to get back together.”

“Oh.”

“Pop's taking me to the airport,” Heather says.

“Now?”

“Love you, Mom!”

Leona swivels toward the direction that will soon swallow her
oldest, picks out the notch on the horizon. There, a road sweeps down into a larger valley and T-bones into a highway that leads to the airport where Heather will board a jet on her way to Massachusetts. Her daughter is unlucky in love. It is not something a mother can fix.

*   *   *

“We've been swinging for five years,” Mr. Tannenbaum says. “The time has been most enjoyable.”

Leona suggests they hold the interview in the backyard, adds that black fly season isn't for another couple weeks, and the four of them head for the lawn chairs on the manicured grass. Mr. Tannenbaum's mustache is too bushy for Leona's taste, but his eyes are green and his voice is distinguished. Mrs. Tannenbaum has delicate gray hair, enviable cheekbones, and had once been beautiful. Leona glances at her blouse, checks all the buttons to make sure they are secure. Emanuel nudges her.

“Honey,” he says. “They are asking if you have sexual preferences.”

“I like to take it up the ass while my old man watches,” Leona says.

Mrs. Tannenbaum says, “My stars.”

Emanuel asks Leona to follow him to the kitchen. She does.

“Are you going crazy?” he says. “Are you off your rocker?”

Leona cuts coffee cake into four squares, licks crumbs off her fingers. “I've been reading your magazines.”

“We are cultured people, we don't talk that way.”

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I guess I'm not myself today.”

“Okay, then.”

She wonders where Parker is at the moment, has the vague
suspicion she is forgetting something. Oh, the coffee cake. She slides the squares onto plates and asks Emanuel to carry two on his way out.

The afternoon temperature is comfortable, and Leona sits quietly in her chair. Conversation turns to retirement, and Mrs. Tannenbaum talks about how she volunteers in a soup kitchen in downtown Buffalo. Her husband competes in senior triathlons, had set a New York State record in the mile swim in his last event. Emanuel drops his fork, picks it up, wipes it on his napkin.

“I must ask for the recipe for this cake,” Mrs. Tannenbaum says. “It's very moist and sweet.”

Leona dips her finger in her tea and swirls the ice cubes.

“Moist as a juicy pussy,” she says.

Feeling Emanuel's glare between her shoulder blades, she excuses herself and carries the plates to the kitchen. Mrs. Tannenbaum walks in, wets a dishrag, and dabs a spot on her dress, says it had been a long drive and they stopped for hamburgers and she spilled ketchup on her lapel.

“You needn't worry,” Mrs. Tannenbaum says. “All we do is go to separate rooms and talk. It's good for their egos.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing ever happens. We don't actually do anything.”

Leona follows her guest to the yard. Nothing ever happens? She snorts her disbelief, then whispers in Emanuel's ear.