They Almost Always Come Home (12 page)

I roll my shoulders, preparing to switch from paddling

mode to hauling. “Isn’t this the ultimate in inefficiency?”

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“What?”

“We unload the Blazer, then load it all into our canoes, paddle untold hours past bays and pine trees I know I’ve seen before, then pull into a portage location, haul it all out of the canoe, pick up the canoe, carry it over the trail, go back for the equipment, haul it over the trail, load it all back into the canoe, paddle another hour or two, pull into another portage location, start all over again.”

Jen turns her back to me so I can lift her pack onto her shoulders. She adjusts the weight against her hips and adds, “And now we’re hauling all that same stuff up Mount Everest so we can camp on its desolate peak and wake in the morning to load our gear into the canoes and begin the process again.” I slip my arms through the straps of my pack with Jen’s help, and we turn to face our Everest.

“Reminds me of laundry,” she says.

Laundry?

“Or grocery shopping.”

I entertain the idea of letting that go, but instead say, “Huh?”

Jen punctuates her words with huffs and puffs as she climbs. “What do the
Guinness Book of World Records
people say is the longest a clean sink has gone without a dirty dish or glass?” “Ah.”

“And has a laundry basket or hamper ever been truly empty more than a few milliseconds? What’s the world record?” Focused on planting my feet on flat, dry rock pseudo-steps, all I can think of at the moment is how much Greg appreci- ates it when I take the time to dry the sheets outside in the sunshine rather than in the Maytag. How many men would notice?

And how seldom did I offer that simple gift?

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“Put a little hustle in your bustle, ladies.” Frank stands on

the plateau at the peak and wiggles his behind. He has to wait to make another trip for gear until we reach the top, our camp- site. It’s a single-file climb and descent.

“Shall we show him what we’re made of?” Jen calls over her

shoulder.

“Marshmallow crème and pillow stuffing?”

Her sigh carries well. “Rawhide and pure muscle!” she

grunts out as she takes the rest of the climb in double time.

It’s not that I don’t have the energy for it . . . exactly. It’s that

I don’t have the heart. If Greg had been here when we reached this island, he’d have taken the pack from my back and car- ried both his and mine. I know he would.

If Greg had been here, we wouldn’t be.

********

Frank’s attitude would win him an early vote off the island

if Jen and I were allowed to vote. He’s bossy . . . for good rea- son. He’s the only one who knows what he’s doing. Jen and I need direction for every step of the process of setting up camp. He tells us where to put the tent, where to stash our equip- ment, where we’ll construct a makeshift kitchen. Then he tells us
how
to put up the tent,
why
we’re stashing our equipment where we do, and
how
to make a meal with no table, no coun- ter, no cutting board, and no microwave or fridge.

He’s a decent teacher . . . except for the bossiness. His

instructions are worded simply enough so we don’t end up impaling anyone while pitching the tent or strangling our- selves while hanging the food pack in a tree. Success.

Exhaustion. Is it bedtime yet?

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Location, location, location. If I were into real estate, I’d have no trouble selling this island property for the view alone. Frank had us position the tents and the “kitchen” area in con- sideration of the wind direction and flat ground. Serendipity positioned our temporary dwellings with stunning views of woods and water.

The view intoxicates me. I guess this is what intoxication feels like—a heady distancing from reality. As dusk lays its kind, calming hand over the scene before me, the water stills completely. The fire we’ve built in the rock-hemmed circle comes alive against the darkening sky. Worry never leaves my side, but it graciously retreats to a spot a few feet away while I plant myself on a log to watch the fire.

The air chilled noticeably when day decided it had enough. The part of me facing away from the fire feels the chill, as if I have backed into an open refrigerator.

Jen is inside our tent, arranging things by flashlight. I half expect her to poke her head through the zippered opening to ask if I prefer minimalist, art deco, shabby chic, or mid- century modern. Seems to me the only real decision is whether our sleeping bags will face north-south or east-west.

Frank must have decided already. From his tent wafts the music of air pushing through his throat and nasal cavities. The aroma of the fire reminds me of times I’ve pressed my face into Greg’s chest when he returned from one of these trips. His shirt always smelled of fresh air and flame-broiled wood. He always came home. Before this past week, I’d never seriously considered that one day he wouldn’t. Why did I draw such lopsided comfort from his campfire-scented embrace? The last several years, I think burying my face in his smoky shirt might have been equivalent to grabbing for a thread of hope.
He’s home. Good. Maybe I’ll feel differently now.
But though he always came home, Lacey never did.

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How did King David do it? How did he learn of his child’s

death, then rise out of his grief, reenter life, and abandon him- self to the God who refused to answer his prayers?

I should study up on that when we get back home. Wish I’d

thought to bring my Bible.

Pressing my hand to my heart as if that will keep the

cracks from widening, I feel the thin notebook nestled in my pocket—the journal from Greg’s office. It seems fitting to read his words by firelight, with wood smoke embracing me as he would if he were here.

I refrain from removing it from my breast pocket until I’ve

stoked the fire to give more light and heat. As I bend over to position a couple of sausage-thick logs among the flames, I hold the pocket closed with my other hand to keep the words from slipping out. I can’t afford to lose them. “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

I didn’t hear Jen exit our tent. How did she do that so qui-

etly? “It is.”

“Frank’s out for the night, huh?”

“He plays the tough guy, but this has to take a toll on

him.”

“Don’t forget how long all three of us spent bent like pret-

zels into the Blazer before we even hit the water. And Frank did more than his share of the driving.”

“And yet we’re still alive,” I add, brushing bark crumbs off

my hands and onto my pants.

Jen draws a log of her own next to mine. I tap my shirt

pocket with a promise to make the connection with Greg’s words when we’re alone.

“How are you doing?”

“Better than I thought,” I say.

She considers my answer for a few beats. “I . . . I have a

favor to ask.”

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“What is it?” I poke at the base of the fire with a two-foot- long stick. Sparks wake from their slumber and dance upward into the night sky.
Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.
Of all the scriptures for my mind to retain! Where is the cra- nial folder of comfort verses?

“I need to make a pit stop. In the woods.” “Not surprising. Happens to the best of us.” “I’d like not to have to go out there alone.”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. A wall-less bathroom is hard enough to take in broad daylight. But at night?

“I’ll hold the flashlight for you,” I offer, “if you’ll return the favor for me.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

She rises from her log and does a Jenika version of a River Dance number.

“Now?” I ask.

“Now.”

On our way past the tents and into the suffocating black- ness of the woods, Jen asks, “Did I ever lend you my copy of the novel that talks about moments like this?”

“Moments like this?” We’re looking for restroom in the mid- dle of the wilderness. A small branch crackles underfoot. “The necessary circle.”

Neither of us can read facial expressions with the flashlight trained on the ground in front of us, but Jen must know by my lack of a response that it doesn’t ring a bell.

Jen slows her pace as the darkness overwhelms any light the campfire behind us offered. “Pioneer women showed their respect for one another by forming an outward-facing circle so one by one the women could take care of ‘necessaries’ in the center while the others formed a privacy curtain with their bodies.”

A one-woman circle. Big help I am.

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Jen’s a mother with two young daughters. She’s used to lim-

iting her time in the bathroom. When it’s my turn, I let the cold night air and the threat of whatever lurks in the dark beyond press me to hurry.

Tomorrow, I will make my “necessary” trips with gratitude

for the glare of revealing sunshine.

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I
sincerely hope I don’t regret how much Maglite battery power I used up reading Greg’s journal under the covers last night. When I was certain Jen was asleep, I buried my head as deep into the sleeping bag as I could without suffocating and flicked on the mini flashlight. It illuminated his penmanship and his soul.

The notebook I’d grabbed off his desk registered his thoughts about—of all things—the first trip he took to this wilderness area after Lacey died. Nine months later. Long enough to have another child. Long enough for him to have nurtured a seed of grief deep within his spirit, tended it, fed it his own lifeblood, brought it to maturity, and birthed it as I’d wished I could have. During those same nine months, and for the three years since, my version of grief miscarried a dozen times.

He didn’t overanalyze his grief on the pages like I do. But it threw shadows on the journal. Inescapable. That’s mourning for you. He wrote:

The mayfly hatch yesterday completely killed

the lake trout fishing. What self-respecting lake

trout would pass up a mayfly for one of our

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CYNTHIA RUCHTI

artificial lures? Denny grew irritated by the

hatch. He counted on digging into that wild pink

flesh with his fork tonight for dinner. Granted, the

swarms and the debris of the larvae stage they

shed form the closest thing to litter we’ve seen in

this human-deprived territory. But nothing’s worth

getting irritated over. Certainly not an insect.

I watched a few dance on the surface of the lake

water, their wings fluttering, their bodies gyrat-

ing to a music neither Denny nor I could hear.

Reminded me of Lacey. What doesn’t? She often

danced when the rest of us were unaware of any

music. She too fluttered the wings of her indomi-

table spirit just for the joy of flapping. I suppose

I should have known we wouldn’t have her long

enough, a child like that. I thought Libby’s heart

and mine would stop ticking for eternity the day

four-year-old Lacey looked up from her chicken

nuggets to tell us, “I really miss the angels.”

We should have known.

Denny’s making beef stroganoff for supper with a

little sprinkling of whining that it’s not lake trout fil-

lets. Maybe the bass will hit in the waters under the

painted rocks tomorrow. Might lift his mood.

The notebook is back in my pocket. I intend to return it to

Greg when we find him.

********

The morning drags my attention from last night’s private

interlude with my husband. Will the day hold any hope?

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The smell of coffee hits the sensors in my nose. What is it about this northwoods atmosphere that rarefies the simple, everyday things? This isn’t even the good stuff—hazelnut or Cinnastik or caramel-pecan French roast. Frank did the food shopping. His tastes gravitate toward store brands and any- thing for which he has a coupon.

Generic coffee?

Here, it smells like a corner Starbucks in heaven.

Maybe it’s because I’m one ceaseless shiver. Frank warned it might get cold overnight, even in summer. How close are we to the Arctic Circle?

The sleeping bag zipper leaks air. Sometime in the night, during my attempts to flip and flop and find a rock-free pocket of ground for my hips, the zipper’s teeth chattered, clamped down hard, and then opened wide in an expression of horror. “Oh, no!” it and I screamed as the night air rushed in to chal- lenge my body heat to a duel in the darkness.

First order of business this morning? Fix the zipper, if pos- sible. Right after another cup of coffee.

Frank’s bent over the cookstove, attempting to coax a steady flame out of the current spurt. I lift the coffeepot from the nest of rocks within the fire circle.

Another campfire. How blessed are we? Two days of solid rain before we arrived in addition to the dousing the area received from the thunderstorm sometime last week nullified the previous fire ban. It made the portages a study in mud. But we are free to warm ourselves—one side at a time—at the firepit.

I raise the mug to my lips and sip too-strong coffee. It fights the obstacles in my throat on its way to my stomach. “Bacon and pancakes for breakfast?” Frank asks. “Bad for my cholesterol and my waistline, Frank.” “Bacon and pancakes it is, then.”