A Book of American Martyrs(200)

On the trail, Darren led the way and carried the urn. He’d said that Gus’s ashes were “ashy-light”—“weightless”—but the pewter urn was somewhat heavy.

“As Dad would say, ‘death with dignity.’ You would not want an urn made of Styrofoam or plastic.”

Naomi laughed. Why was this funny?

Jenna said, “Oh Darren. You sound so like—him.”

“I guess I do. Sometimes I hear it, myself. A kind of echo.”

They hiked along the trail, single file. Darren in the lead but turning back to Naomi and Jenna, to speak over his shoulder. Darren in an ebullient mood, expansive, like one who is very relieved. Like one who is in charge.

On any trail they’d taken Gus had always been in charge—of course. In any vehicle in which he’d ridden, Gus had always driven. But now in his place Darren would do as well, it seemed.

It was a bright, chill autumn day. At the height of the day the sun was warm but as soon as the sun declined, the temperature would drop into the low fifties.

Naomi saw that Jenna was wearing sensible hiking clothing: lightweight mosquito-repellent trousers, a khaki jacket, a cap with a visor to protect her eyes, hiking shoes. Gus had insisted that his wife and his children wear proper hiking shoes for such hikes, as they had to wear proper hiking boots for rockier trails. It did not surprise Naomi that their mother who seemed to have drifted so far from their old life was observing Gus’s requirements.

Darren had brought walking sticks for them all. A hiking stick would have been Gus’s recommendation for such a hike along the pebbly lakeshore, with the possibility of encountering rocks, boulders, fallen logs and other impediments on the trail, it was a good idea to be prepared.

Gripping her stick, Naomi was beginning to feel just slightly panicked. She had vowed, she would not break down.

Many times she’d heard the click-click-click of her father’s hiking stick against rock, in front of her. She had not heard that sound for a long time.

Yet: so many years had passed, she wasn’t the grieving child any longer. She did not think of Gus Voorhees every hour of every day—hardly. Nor did she think so often of Jenna, ironically now that, at last, Jenna seemed to be moving back into their lives.

The fact is, Naomi had been thinking since Muskegee Falls: we are all growing older.

Though she looked younger, waif-like, wan, Jenna was in her mid-fifties. Poor Madelena was nearly eighty—(and looked her age, or nearly). Their Voorhees grandfather was eighty-five at least. If Gus were still alive, he would be fifty-seven years old.

Many times Naomi had thought, she would not ever see her father old. She would not see him aged, ailing. She had seen him only in the prime of his life, in the prime of his robust manhood. She had never heard his voice except as a strong voice, even a commanding voice.

The first part of the trail led through a wooded area of birch trees, cedars, pines. There were outcroppings of rock, you had to take care hiking. Then the trail opened onto a grassy marshy area, and then onto a rock-strewn area, and then they were at the lakeshore where the sky opened above them, somewhat abruptly, before they were altogether ready. The horizon was distant, there came a chill wind from the north with a faint familiar smell of rotted things—fish, kelp, driftwood.

Jenna was hiking well, considering. Of course, Jenna could not have kept up with Darren and Naomi if they’d chosen to hike ahead. But Naomi had positioned herself at the rear. Wanting to be last, to watch the others. Her tall confident brother, her silvery-white-haired mother. Hers.

She would tell Madelena—My mother and I are reconciled, I think.

And Madelena would say—I’m happy for you. That is a good thing.

It had happened, without Naomi quite realizing, she was closer to her grandmother now than to her mother. She’d come to love her grandmother more than she loved her mother.

Was that unnatural? It seemed to have happened without her awareness.

But she loved Jenna, too. Her love for Jenna was wary, guarded. She did not quite trust Jenna, as she had grown to trust Madelena. The one had kept her at arm’s length, hinting at an invitation to come, that Naomi might stay with Jenna in Bennington for a while; the other had made it clear that Naomi was welcome to stay with her, to live with her, at any time and for as long as she wished.

Madelena loved her, but Madelena also needed her. It was not clear that Jenna needed any of her children.

On the hike Darren was telling Jenna about his medical school life. His courses, his professors. The climate in Washington, the cabin he and Rachel had built on the Skagit River, which they tried to get to whenever they could. Naomi was half-listening. She had heard some of this before from Darren, and could take pleasure in her brother’s voice. And Jenna’s murmurous—Oh yes? Really? Really! Naomi was staring at her mother’s back, her mother’s head. Wanting to touch her mother’s hair, or her shoulder, or an arm. Just the lightest touch.

They were to have dinner together, at the Light House. Exactly the restaurant Gus would have chosen. And Gus would have insisted upon calling to “book” a table, though it wasn’t likely that a reservation would be needed midweek at this time of year, on Katechay Island.

In his place, Darren had called to “book” a table. Naomi had smiled to hear her brother speaking earnestly on the phone, and had heard Gus’s voice in his. That echo.

Mid-October, a pearlescent cast to the choppy lake. At a distance, a lake freighter passed with the stately aplomb of a prehistoric sea creature. Since they had lived in Michigan, near the Great Lakes, freighter traffic had diminished significantly. (Naomi had learned.) Gus had always pointed out the “lakers,” as they were called; as an undergraduate at U-M he’d worked on one of them in summer months, with the odd name Outlander Integrity, moving cargo from Sault Ste. Marie to Chicago to Buffalo and the Port of Montreal and back.