Never Coming Back(83)

Climbing.

Leaving the world behind.

The sound of trucks and cars on Route 28 receded. The sound of the wind intensified. The bare limbs of oaks and poplars were leafless, and the higher I went, the stronger the wind blew.

Be fearless, Clara. From now on, be fearless.

Long ago I used to hike this mountain with Asa, back when we were teenagers. He used to run down the mountains we hiked up. I would watch him disappear ahead of me on the trail. He laughed when he ran. The way I made my way down was the way most people did, by bracing my knees a little with each step. Fearful, then and now, to run down mountains.

There was so much to fear in this world. Avalanches, sudden blizzards, car crashes, bridge collapses, tunnel cave-ins. Death by freezing, death by fire, death by madmen with assault rifles. Failure. Heartbreak. Gene mutations.

Once, when I was eleven and beginning to understand the world of fear and loss, I looked out the kitchen window of our house in Sterns to see a big black bird on the lawn. The word raven appeared in my mind, like a message from poor dead Poe, and fear swarmed up in me. Something bad was about to happen. Someone I loved was in great danger. Was it Tamar? All that day I waited, consumed with worry. Where was the danger, and how could I make it not happen; what were the signs I needed to look for, and where was I supposed to look for them?

Inch by excruciating inch the day passed. Tamar came home from work and we ate beans and corn and pickles out of cans. She was alive. She was alive, and tired, and hungry. She was not hurt.

But you were hurt, Clara. That was my thought as I made my way up and up and up, through the bare and muted trees. You were hurt. All that worry hurt you, and all that fear. All that wondering how you could possibly stop whatever was going to happen from happening. A foreshadowing of loss to come. But loss came to everyone. The bus careened around the corner, the sheet of plywood fell from the overhead stack, the gene mutation revealed itself.

“It’s best to have low expectations,” I said once to Sunshine.

“It’s best to have no expectations,” she countered. “Best, but impossible.”

I thought about that sometimes. Like now, where the final part of the trail turned to rock. Almost at the summit now. Not far to the Rondaxe Fire Tower. Asa had been with me the last time I climbed the tower. We had stood at the top—it was rickety back then, rusty and neglected, not restored the way it was now—and watched the sun sinking against the western sky. A mile back down to the trailhead but neither of us wanted to leave.

No one else was out today. Too late in the day, too late in the season. Tomorrow they would thread the wires through my veins and into the heart of my heart, and then they would set it on fire.

The summit. That vast expanse of sky and mountains and trees stretching all around me. The valley spread out below. To the west were the Adirondacks, my home, and to the east, beyond the smoky purple-blue horizon, were the Green Mountains. Beyond them were the White Mountains, where I had gone to college.

Be fearless, Clara.

I turned and started back down. Daylight was fading and by the time I reached the trailhead the sky would be a red glow. I pictured my heart the way it would look tomorrow, lit with fire from the inside in that one tiny, misfiring place. I pictured Asa all those years ago, running ahead of me down the mountain. I heard the sound of my own voice calling to him, laughing but also afraid. Of what? Falling? He had run; why hadn’t I? How hard could it be?

Not at all, as it turned out.

Maybe running down the trail felt to me the way flying felt to a bird. I remembered that first airplane flight, back when I was seventeen, from Syracuse to Ohio, how I had looked around for someone who felt the way I did and found the businessman looking at me with recognition in his eyes. It’s a miracle, isn’t it? That was what he had said to me, and all these years later I could still hear his voice in my ears. I flew down the last slope of the trail, arms held out to touch the trees as I passed, and then I signed my name in the ranger’s book and called Chris. Heart Surgery for $1600. The Daily Double.





* * *





Do you have a ride home, and if your ride home is a cab, someone needs to accompany you in the cab. If you notice bleeding from the insertion points, press down firmly using a towel. If there is still steady bleeding after an hour, then have your companion bring you to the emergency room. Avoid sex for at least two weeks. If you notice your heart still accelerating, or trying to, do not worry. Do not panic. Sometimes it takes your heart time to understand what happened to it and that it can’t do that anymore, that it no longer has the ability to outrace itself.

“And who are you?” the nurse said to Chris. “Boyfriend, brother, husband, paid escort?”

“Bartender.”

“A personal bartender. Now that’s something I could get behind. Your name?”

“Chris Kinnell.”

He squeezed my hand. The nurse watched us, smiling. “You guys are cute,” she said. “How’d you meet?”

“She came into my bar one night,” he said, “and ordered a gimlet.”

“Did you make her a good one?”

“He did,” I said. “Two, actually. Extra lime.”

It felt like a long time ago, that night with the high-top table and the martini glass beaded with condensation. The heavy door, opening and closing. The sound of cars and trucks on the gravel parking lot. Gayle with her tattoo. The bartender mixing drinks and pulling beers. The darkness of the bar and the darkness of a day that began early, with the quilt exhibition at the arts center and the children cross-legged on the floor. Blue Mountain and his singular question.