The Urn Carrier (21 page)

“You really don’t do this a lot, right?”

“Mom . . .”

“I know. I’m being a mom.”

“I hardly ever. But this is special. Our girls’ trip.”

“It is special.”

Tessa decides to come clean. “I actually found this in the rig,
when a light wasn’t working. It’s Aunt Sadie’s.”

“How do you know it’s hers?”

“Because no one else would stash it there.”

“It didn’t taste old.”

“Aunt Sadie took that trip to Dauphin Island last year.”

“Oh yes. We were frantic, but she had a much younger friend with
her . . . I can’t remember her name . . .” Her mom starts giggling. She’s
almost hysterical, holding her chest. Then her eyes widen. “Oh, oh, oh . . .”
She runs to the camper.

“Mom?” Tessa is right behind her.

“I just have to pee,” her mom says before she dissolves in
laughter again and makes it into the camper.

Tessa is grinning.

Beth’s muffled voice comes through the bathroom door. “Oh, honey,
I forgot how much fun that stuff is. Not that I’m condoning it.”

“Of course not.”

“I never would condone it.”

“Strictly medicinal,” Tessa says through the screen door.

“Yes. Medicinal.”

They laugh.

“Did we pick up any ice cream last stop?” Beth is out of the
bathroom, zipping up her shorts. She opens the freezer and squeals like a
little child. “Chocolate!”

Murphy watches from under the picnic table. He licks his lips and
sighs heavily.

Tessa looks back at him. She goes to the table, crouches down, and
pets him. “Don’t worry, you. We’ll have play time tomorrow.”

He picks up his head and wags his tail at the familiar words,
play
time
. She reaches in her shorts pocket and finds a treat. “That’s only
fair, right?”

He gobbles it up. Ever since Dina left he’s been back on his
regular feeding schedule.

Tessa looks at him thoughtfully. “I need to listen to you better.”

As the evening comes on, Beth drags out a
sheet from the camper and Tessa lies with her as they look at the stars. Murphy
lies next to Beth. His warmth is calming. Beth and Tessa entwine hands. “It’s
been so long, since I felt this young.”

“You should always feel young, you’re beautiful.”

“I feel young now, and beautiful.”

They both smile. A shooting star with a tail blaze of blue ignites
the sky, searing an impression in the blackness.

“Wow!” they say in unison, then, “Aunt Sadie.”

They look at each other and grin. Tessa rolls her head to her
mother’s shoulder. “You’re always there for me.”

“Always.”

“Love you,” Tessa murmurs, her eyes closing.

“Love you too.” Beth rolls her head toward Tessa’s, closing her
eyes too. “Indica.”

They both chuckle and snort, giggle and laugh on their blanket
they call home.

And then, they share the quiet intimacy of a campfire, wrapped in
unconditional love.

Chapter 28

IN IDAHO, THEY walk to the top of a lake by the eagle’s nest and
watch the eagle fish from the far shore.

Her mother stoops and exclaims, “Tessa, look!”

A magnificent long feather, black and white, flutters down onto
the ground in front of them.

“She dropped one for us,” her mom says, turning to her with bright
eyes. She picks up the feather.

They shift from the ridgeline and continue to watch the eagle. She
catches a fish in her talons and flies up to the nest and pecks at it, her head
and beak working jackhammer like, till she gets a bit of food. Her head arches
up as she swallows the food. She holds it momentarily before regurgitating it
to her babies.

Tessa and Beth watch from a respectful distance away, the nest in
clear view, little heads bobbing up to take the food from mom.

“Tessa? I have a question.”

Tessa turns and searches her mom’s face. “You can ask me anything.
You know that.”

“This one is hard. Before . . . you didn’t want to talk about it.”
Her mom takes a deep breath. “The fact you are attracted to women.” She is
looking at the feather. Tessa watches her stroke the feather. “Is that part of
who you were, before the surgery?”

Tessa smiles. Something inside of her has shifted, and she’s
unsure why, but now she can broach this topic and her mom, so fearful to ask,
yet brave enough to ask anyway, deserves an answer.

“Mom, I’ve always been me.” And then she uses the words Prince
gave her. “My sexual identity is who I go to bed as. My sexual orientation is
who I go to bed with.”

Her mom looks into her eyes as the words sink in. “Then, I have
one more. Do you love women because I hate men?”

This truth surprises Tessa as much as it seems to surprise her
mom. Her mom puts a hand to her mouth, as if this truth just slipped out.

“Do you really hate men?” Tessa asks.

“I hate what some men do. What most men, do. They are cruel and
unthinking.” Her mom is looking down.

“Not all of ’em. Not Eli, not Josh. Not a lot of guys I’ve met.”

“Well, maybe the younger generation is different.”

“I love women, because . . . I love women. Truthfully? I’ve been
with men. I’m just closer to women. It’s not about the sex. It’s about the
connection.”

“Even though she broke your heart?”

“A friend of mine says sometimes people break
your heart . . . wide open.”

“I just hate to see you in so much pain.”

“I’m okay for a while and then I think about what we could have
had. I think about this.”

Tessa twists the ring off her finger and holds it out. It’s the
first time she’s felt strong enough to remove it.

“It’s a beautiful ring,” Beth admits.

“And it was a beautiful promise. I thought she was my forever
love.” Tessa feels Aunt Sadie near. “I probably will cry more. I’m grieving.
But, it’s not every minute. It’s not even every hour. With you here,” she looks
at her mom, “it hasn’t even been every day.”

The eagle skrees as she dives back toward the water for more food.
They turn and watch her graceful, arcing flight as she hits the water and comes
up empty, then flies up to a branch on a white pine tree near shore to watch
diligently for her next catch.

“And pretty soon it won’t be every week.” She hugs her mom. “I’m
so glad you’re here.”

“So am I, darling one.”

THEY CONTINUE DRIVING Route 2 through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They arrive at the tip of the Keweenaw. They
find a level site in the Fort campgrounds.

Tessa takes what is left of the ashes and divides them in two. She
takes some of her cut hair to burn and float with the ashes.

“Let’s take it in the vase this time,” her mother suggests.

Tessa smiles. With her mother she needs to hide nothing.

They stroll along Lake Superior, right where Great Aunt Sadie and
Percy had walked sixty years ago.

Her mother spies an agate. “Oh, have you ever seen one so pretty?”
She touches it lovingly, fawns over it, and pockets it. She finds another rock,
this one large and blood red from the iron ore in the water and removes an end
of chalk from her pocket.

“Mom?”

“You don’t mind I borrowed from your supply do you?”

Tessa shakes her head no and watches her mother curiously.

Her mom initials the rock with BW + TW. She places it, letters up,
in the midst of other lettered rocks. People in every region have a different
way of commemorating relationship. In Oregon, against the high sand walls of an
undercut incline. In Arizona, the petroglyphs, in The Upper Peninsula on red
rocks at the shores of Lake Superior. All along the way, Tessa recalls initials
over a large boulder in New Mexico, carved in trees along the Mississippi near
the Indian Marker trees. The Piasa and Thunderbird in the limestone cliffs.
Whether present day or past, humans have made their scrawl, their
mark—petroglyphs above pools of water outside Apache Junction, on train
trestles and overpasses, on city walls, in caves in France.

“Now we are here forever.” Her mom smiles.

Together they do the ceremony. Her mom uses the eagle feather they
were given in Idaho, cleanses them both, and then indicates Tessa to take over.

“You’re the Elder.”

“You were given the ashes.”

So Tessa acknowledges the four directions. She gives thanks to the
five elements and silently closes her eyes and asks for her Great Aunt Sadie to
come in, and anyone else, any guides to come. Doing ceremony with her mom amps
up the intensity of the moment. She senses Great Aunt Sadie is standing right
behind her as she pours the ashes from the beautiful vase into the waters of
Lake Superior, burning the remnants of her hair and letting it go also.

She looks over her shoulder from her crouched position and sees
her mom, her eyes closed, a smile around the corners of her mouth. In this
light, Tessa swears she is seeing herself.

Her mother is so beautiful.

Tears spring to Tessa’s eyes.

And so are you.

“And so am I,” Tessa whispers. Some part of her is healing.

LATER THAT NIGHT, in the raucousness of a nearly full campground,
Tessa and her mom enjoy s’mores over their campfire. They share a beer. Light
banjo music comes from a few camp sites away. Long after they retire, the young
men that were ingesting Jell-O shots in the site next door are yelling and
banging.

They left their food out in bear country.

They’re running around with iPhones and cameras, trying to chase
the cubs.

Tessa flies out of the rig in an instant.

“Stop it!” she shouts, running in front of them and giving the cubs
time to scramble away.

The three boys square off in front of her.

One of them sneers. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m camping next to you.”

“So what?” One of them brushes aside her and she grips his arm
with unyielding strength. Not letting go.

He tries to rip his arm away. “What the fuck?”

She releases him. She’s trembling with barely
controlled rage.

She sees the boy’s fists ball up.

He rushes his face too close to hers, attempting to bully her
backward, and she stays rooted to the earth. His alcohol breath circles them
both like smoke from a fire.

“Are you even a girl?” He attempts a guttural and growling tone,
but he’s sloppy, weak, and drunk.

Suddenly he’s yanked backward, feet off the ground, as if he’s hit
a live, electric line. An older guy with greying long hair and tattoos, has
uprooted him unapologetically.

“Do what she says. Leave those cubs alone. Are you guys fucking
idiots?”

A crowd has gathered. Moms and Dads and little kids, and Harley
dudes and dudettes.

Everyone is intently looking at the three young men. Silently the
crowd moves forward as one, like a wave, toward the now sheepish-looking boys.
The three shrink back to their camp site.

“Fuck, we were just trying to get some pictures. They wrecked our
food.”

“You wrecked your food,” a clean cut father says. His two kids,
with big saucer eyes, watch him. “Put it up on a line between two trees, or
stow it like the rest of us do. Where the cubs are, the mom is, and you’re
endangering all of us by your stupidity.”

“Geez, quit acting like it’s a federal crime.”

“As a matter of fact it is.” A woman steps forward. “I’m a
National Park Service law enforcement officer and what you’re doing violates a
federal protection act. Would you like to push your luck?”

The boys, now quiet and out of F words, retreat
to their camp.

“Didn’t think so.” The Harley guy grins. “And don’t bother these
young ladies either.”

Tessa turns, her mom, in a robe, arms folded, is standing near
her.

“Ladies.” The man tips his cap to them both. The crowd slowly
disperses.

“Let us know if you have any trouble again,” someone calls to
Tessa and her mom.

“Wow, baby.” Her mom encircles Tessa’s shoulders with her arm.
“You are one powerful protector.”

Tessa smiles. Another piece of her is returning home.

Chapter 29

AS THEY DRIVE south over the Mackinaw Bridge, some parts of Tessa
still tingle and rage over Dina’s,
“
You could have kept
. . .”

Angrily, Tessa tears the ring off her finger and tosses it out the
open passenger window. The sun reflects a gleaming flash as the ring arcs over
the green rail on its long journey to the bottom of Lake Michigan.

“Did you just do what I think you did?” Her
mom, looking ahead as she drives, has a smile tipping the corner of her mouth.

“You’re damn right I did.”

They high five.

THEY MAKE CAMP in Lake Ann. Tessa wakes in the middle of the
night, in the midst of nightmares. She wakes fearful and crying and in physical
pain and nausea.

Her mom is a rock, awake and holding her. Murphy with both of
them.

If this is her heart breaking wide open, why can’t it just do it
all at once?

What sense is grief?

Why is she being haunted?

What else is inside her, clawing for release?

Like a deer that has been shot but doesn’t know its wound is
mortal, it continues running, sometimes for miles. Tessa tapes her ankle
snugly. She tries to run, not knowing if her internal wound will ever heal.

“Honey.”

“Mom, I have to. I have to. It’s the only thing, besides you being
with me, keeping me sane.”

She purposely chooses the hillier trail, by St. Mary’s Lake. She
gets as far as the curve all the way around the lake and she has to turn back.
She limps, and it takes her twice as long to return as it did to run.

She nears the rig and sees Josh leaning against the pick-up truck,
his one foot crossed over at the ankle.

He breaks into that beautiful smile of his as she half runs to him
and sobs. She’s never cried so much in her life.

“Now you and I do ceremony,” he whispers into her hair.

“I have no more ashes . . .”

Tessa tries to block out the fight with Dina, she keeps her cheek
against his chest and gazes down. He lifts her face up, thumbing her cheek.
“Your eyes. We need to fix those.”

Tessa changes into some long slacks and they drink tea with her
mother.

They start for Josh’s truck.

Tessa looks back. “C’mon, Murph.”

But Murphy remains lying beside her mother
and looks up.

“This is for you and me,” Josh says.

At Pearl Lake he drives to the north side and pulls out the canoe.

Tessa follows his lead, and he holds the stern, while she slips up
to the front, paddle in hand.

They cross beyond poison ivy point, past the eagles’ nest. A loon
calls from one of the other outlets—not an alarm cry, but the mournful evening
song. Silently two sandhill cranes cross low and directly in front of them, red
hues entering the light cirrus clouds above.

They’re heading to the DNR primitive campsites. No official sites
anywhere. No outhouses or drinking water, but the lake. A huge line of boulders
prevents any traffic, save foot or horseback. One tent, a wisp of smoke rising
from a cook campfire, sits in somber isolation. Two tall pine trees rise in
silhouette against the darkening sunset sky.

Tessa wonders if this is their destination, why not just take the
Rayle Road?

“You’re always taking me the long way, Josh,” she says.

Only his paddle stroke responds, slow, methodical, sure.

They pull up short of the lone camp.

A man crouches by the water. He stands and turns as they approach.

It’s the monster.

His face is no longer half blood and he has no knife in his hands.
In real life, he is not so tall anymore, and his eyes are filled with tears,
though his head is mostly tilted down.

“Dad?”

Tessa is in disbelief.

He stands frozen, unable to move. He crosses his hands in front of
him and his head barely nods.

“Wha—?”

Tessa turns to look for Josh, but he has receded, and she cannot
spot him.

“What are you doing here?” She sinks down to one of the large
boulders.

“I thought I killed you. I thought . . .” His voice is hoarse, as
if he hasn’t spoken in a very long time.

“I thought I killed you,” Tessa says through her tears.

“You don’t know how sorry I am.” He looks away.

She’s never seen her dad cry. But now his tears are falling just
as fast as hers and still he doesn’t approach.

Tessa holds out her hand. Some part of her is mortified she is
doing this and the other part is just doing it.

He’s there in an instant, a man child sobbing fully into her lap,
muffled muted howling, “Please, forgive me.”

She strokes his curly-topped head, like a mother to a child.

I will not hide my love as I do not hide my grief.

At some point, her father shifts and moves over to the water’s
edge, just a few feet away. He cups some of Pearl Lake in his hands.

The twilight is coming on rapidly now. A Michigan’s autumn night
quickening twilight. Tessa watches the now lavender light on the silhouette of
his face, the curve of his cheeks, and his sanguine nose.

He pours the water over his face and offers her some.

She rises, takes a few steps, and crouches next to him. She
reaches into the lake and washes her face.

“In the islands, in the Pacific, you have to ask permission for
the water to let you in. There are four sets of waves and on the fourth, you
follow her in. And when you leave, you always face her, asking permission to
leave.”

She doesn’t know this father. What led to this? She has a million
questions and yet she waits.

“You don’t talk very much.”

She shakes her head no.

She wishes Murphy was here. Her touchstone. His reactions would
tell her everything.

“I took from you and Eli.”

“Yourself.” Her voice is soft. “You only took from you.”

She doesn’t say it harshly and she doesn’t mean it that way. It
simply is.

He accepts this with a nod.

“I learned that thou shalt not kill can also mean thou shalt not
kill yourself. You never killed yourself for anyone. You never killed part of
your soul. But I tried to make you do it. I killed part of my soul for others.
For what they would think. I was so proud to have two boys. I was so proud to
have you, who could climb anything, fearless, and fast and could see everything
. . . and then, when you said you were really a girl . . . I didn’t know what
to do with that. What do I say, what do I feel when I tell all the guys? I felt
God played a joke on me, for being so proud I had two sons.”

They stand and she touches his scar, the deep groove she can’t
quite remember seeing herself create, yet remembers the heft of the ax in her
hands and the sound it made when she connected. She remembers how it felt to
stop the monster from killing her brother. She remembers how good it felt to
know she saved her brother.

She moves her fingers gently over the partial ear, mostly hidden
by his curly hair. “I did this to you. I remember it.”

“You did this for Eli.” He puts his hand over hers as she explores
the healed wounds. “And I remember too.”

“Uncle Chuck.” Tessa suddenly freezes, fear rising.

Her father holds her hand calmly and together they count to four.

Her eyes widen. It is he who taught her to count to four, to be
safe, to breathe, to wait.

“Chuck has his own demons.” His voice allays her fear. “He has no
business between you and me.”

He touches his forehead to hers. Then, for the first time, they
hug as equals.

In the dwindling light, over her father’s shoulder, Tessa catches
movement. She glimpses something pacing stealthily among the saplings.

A young doe is tiptoeing from the water’s edge, her ears back,
eyes avoiding contact. She walks silently, picking her way among the shore
saplings and into the deeper woods, disappearing between the dusk of night and
the forever.

Tessa closes her eyes and breathes, without counting.