The River at Night(2)

But today I’d lost the battle. I plopped down on a hard plastic seat, pouting inside but feigning serenity as I watched him slap through his slow-motion crawl. He appeared to lose steam near the end of a lap, then climbed the ladder out of the pool as only a ninety-year-old can: with careful deliberation in every step. As I watched the water drip off his flat ass and down his pencil legs, I realized that he was making his way to me, or rather to a stack of towels next to me, and in a few seconds I’d pretty much have to talk to him. He uncorked his goggles with a soft sucking sound. I noticed his eyes seemed a bit wearier than usual, even for a man his age who had just worked his daily laps.

“How are you?” I shifted in my seat, conscious of my bathing cap squeezing my head and distorting my face as I stole the odd glance at the deliciously empty lane.

“I’m well, thank you. Though very sad today.”

I studied him more closely now, caught off guard by his intimate tone. “Why?”

Though his expression was grim, I wasn’t prepared for what he said.

“I just lost my daughter to cancer.”

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. I felt socked in the soft fleshy parts; smacked off the rails of my deeply grooved routine and whipped around to face something I didn’t want to see.

He took a towel and poked at his ears with it. A gold cross hung from a glimmering chain around his thin neck, the skin white and rubbery looking. “It was a long struggle. Part of me is glad it’s over.” He squinted at me as if seeing me for the first time. “She was about your age,” he added, turning to walk away before I could utter a word of comfort. I watched him travel in his flap step the length of the pool to the men’s lockers, his head held down so low I could barely see the top of it.

My hands trembled as I gripped the steel ladder and made my way down into the antiseptic blue. I pushed off. Eyes shut tight and heart pumping, I watched the words She was about your age hover in my brain until the letters dissolved into nothingness. The horror of his offhand observation numbed me as I turned and floated on my back, breathing heavily in the oppressive air. As I slogged joylessly through my laps, I thought of my own father rolling his eyes when I said I was afraid of sleepaway camp, of third grade, of walking on grass barefoot “because of worms.” As cold as he could be to my brother and me, not a thing on earth seemed to frighten him.

I had barely toweled myself off when my phone lit up with a text from Pia. A question mark, that was it. Followed by three more. Methodically I removed my work clothes from my locker, arranging them neatly on the bench behind me. I pulled off my bathing cap, sat down, and picked up the phone.

My thumbs hovered over the keys as I shivered in the overheated locker room. I took a deep breath—shampoo, rubber, mold, a sting of disinfectant—and slowly let it out, a sharp pain lodging in my gut. I couldn’t tell which was worse, the fear of being left behind by my friends as they dashed away on some überbonding, unforgettable adventure, or the inevitable self-loathing if I stayed behind like some gutless wimp—safe, always safe—half-fucking-dead with safety. Why couldn’t I just say yes to a camping trip with three of my best friends? What was I so afraid of?

Pool water dripped from my hair, beading on the phone as I commanded myself to text something.

Anything.

I watched my fingers as they typed, Okay, I’m in, and pressed send.





2


The lurch and grind of the Green Line trolley, Monday morning, inbound to Boston. Sunshine filtered through grimy windows, warming the solemn faces of nine-to-fivers dressed for the office, coffee cups in hand. My phone beeped with a new message from Pia, titled Our fearless leader! :), CC’ed to Rachel and Sandra. Attached were photos of our white-water rafting/hiking guide, twenty-year-old University of Orono student Rory Ekhart.

Shoulder-length dreadlocks, eyes the exact green of an asparagus mousse we’d featured in our March issue. And that bursting--wide smile—as if whoever took the photo caught him laughing or in a state of joy. Rangy and loose-limbed in a mud-spattered T-shirt and shorts, he stood straddling a narrow stream banked by white birches. An ax dangled from one hand. The tagline read, “Third-year SAG undergrad Rory Ekhart on the trail maintenance crew this summer at Orient Ridge.”

In another shot he could have been anyone: a man in a cyan--blue parka, hood up and slightly cinched, face in shadow as he held a hiking pole up in victory or salute against a setting sun behind a snowy mountaintop. In the last photo he wore his biggest grin yet; he was beaming. In full camouflage he knelt on some treeless ridge, the butt of his rifle jammed into the dirt next to his kill: an enormous moose lying on its side, its expression even in death both ferocious and sad.

I finally got around to Pia’s actual message, where I found myself scrolling through a bottomless list of camping gear needed for the trip: thirty-nine must-haves, not including optional stuff such as playing cards and a sun shower, whatever that was.

I looked up to see I’d traveled two stops past my own. I jumped to my feet, my mind a whirlwind of wicking shirts, water--purifying tablets, carabiners, Dr. Bronner’s soap, and bags with hooks I imagined suspended from trees and batted about by the giant paws of nine-foot bears on their hind legs. Excusing myself through jam-packed commuters to the platform, I hoofed it hard back up toward Beacon Street and my office, regretting my choice of stacked heels and narrow skirt, which shortened my already--short stride.