How to Save a Life(86)

I didn’t like it; it sounded wrong. Like a pen name I hadn’t chosen for myself.

I’ll be Jo for Evan, I decided. I’ll always be his Jo.





I got an early start the next morning and made it to Page, Arizona before noon. The desert sand was the exact color I pictured it in my mind: a pale, burnt-orange that made the waters of Lake Powell vibrant, almost explosively blue.

Page was a small tourist city, its businesses geared toward the lake and the nearby Grand Canyon. Here, I set about constructing a life.

I’d planned to rent an apartment in the little town, or maybe find my dream lake cabin. But one day when I drove past Antelope Point Marina, with its rows of bobbing houseboats, I changed my mind.

Or maybe it was changed for me.

Evan would love a houseboat.

A home on the lake. Not by the water but on it. We’d fall asleep every night, rocked in its arms.

I found a houseboat realtor, Nick Burton, a rotund man with a sunburned face. He showed me around his inventory. Most were too big—two-story behemoths I couldn’t drive, let alone afford. Then Nick showed me his smallest houseboat: twenty-four feet long, white with blue trim. It had one bathroom, one bedroom, a tiny living area and an outside deck with just enough room for two chairs. The kitchen and bath were outdated as hell—Nick said the boat was built in 1994.

“How much?” I asked.

“Twenty-five hundred.”

I gaped. “That’s it? Are you sure?”

Nick smiled. “I’d love to play poker with you sometime, Miss Price.”

My cheeks reddened. “It’s perfect. I’ll take it.”

But I couldn’t actually take it since I was still very much unemployed. But I had five hundred dollars of my prize money to slap down as down payment, and that made Nick a little flexible. In his office overlooking the marina, he and I worked out a plan to let me rent the boat—and move in immediately—and then conclude the purchase after I could prove some source of income. He’s also gave me a bunch of info on houseboat ownership and how to maneuver a vessel that size.

“Can I keep her docked here until I get the hang of it?” I asked as Nick walked me to the door.

“I’d recommend it. Slip fees are reasonable. And best to keep her here in the winter, for sure. But the rest of the year, take her out anywhere near the point. Lots of little swimming holes and coves. Fact it, soon as our deal is wrapped up, you can take her anywhere you’d like. She’ll be all yours.”

Mine and Evan’s, I amended silently. Our home.





Living arrangements made, I set about finding work. It was June and the tourist season was in full swing. I quickly got a job running the register at a place called Lakeside Rentals. They dealt in kayaks, paddleboats and canoes. It wasn’t the most enthralling job in the world but Marjorie Tate, the owner, was a sweet, boisterous gal in her mid-fifties with a silver braid down her back and a perpetual smile on her face. She was a far cry from Patty Stevenson and went out of her way to make me feel welcome. Though I felt her curious eyes on my face, she didn’t ask me once about my scar.

“I had an accident,” I finally said. “A long time ago.”

I said it with a reassuring smile, indicating it was neither a secret nor a topic for further conversation. I didn’t add car onto the accident or elaborate with dead uncles or an anguished mother. It was just an accident now. Something unfortunate.

On the lunchbreak of my second day, I took a walk around Page. Like Marjorie, the little city had a welcoming charm. I liked its southwest, touristy bustle in the middle of the silent desert. The lake to the north and the Canyon to the south. A Navajo reservation lay out east, Marjorie told me, and I saw several shops selling Native American art.

I stepped into one of these shops on a whim. The glaring dry heat of the desert—so different from Louisiana’s wet, green smother—was immediately quelled by a whirring air conditioner and soft light.

The shop was a wonder of First Nation artwork and artifacts. I meandered along shelves of turquoise jewelry, gorgeous pottery and animals carved from wood or stone. On the wall hung small tapestries or rugs with simple but beautiful prints. From the ceiling hung dream catchers. Hundreds of them.

A dark-haired man with a leather-fringed vest and turquoise bolero called from the counter. “Let me know if I can help you with anything.”

I smiled, about to tell him I was just looking, thanks, when I spotted a print on the wall above the register. I stepped closer, peering at a modern graphic of a man with his eyes closed. The details of his face only black lines against a smoky red backdrop. In the space above his eyebrows were shadowy figures holding bows and arrows, feathered headdresses spilling down their backs.

“This is beautiful,” I said. “What is it?”

“Dream walker,” the man said. “The sleeper is dreaming and the spirits who have crossed over are showing him a great battle that took place a long time ago.”

“The sleeper is the dream walker?”

The man nodded, and when he spoke, his voice sounded old. Older than his years. “A man—or woman—in greater harmony with the realms that exist under the surface of our waking life.”

“Under the surface,” I mused. “Does one have be Native American to be a dream walker?”

The man rubbed his chin. “One only needs to be alive to sleep. And in sleep, we all dream. And if all of us sleep and dream, it stands to reason that many of us walk.”