The Middle of Somewhere(10)

Telling Dante she’d been pregnant would lead to confessing to the abortion. During her interior rehearsals, this was where she forgot her lines. That confession, however worded, would inevitably lead to owning up to her ambivalence about living with him. Except for fleeting moments when she forgot her own painful history and she was simply happy, she hadn’t found level footing, the graceful certainty she’d done the right thing by moving in.

If she somehow managed to admit to the abortion (highly unlikely), and if Dante was still listening (inconceivable), she would have no choice but to explain why her actions had nothing to do with him. He would be relieved, and possibly encouraged, because it meant they’d have a chance after all—assuming he suffered an episode of amnesia regarding the abortion. But his relief would be misguided. And to explain why, she would have to voice something she had never told anyone, not even Valerie. When he heard that story, he would leave and never come back.

Which, from the look of things, might happen anyway.

She took her hand away on the pretense of pushing her bangs from her eyes.

“I wanted to do this hike alone. I wasn’t leaving you.”

He shook his head. “But you’ve been distant for a while. Like you’re making plans without me.”

“I was. I was planning this trip. And then you started having an issue with it.”

“Only because it seemed so . . . so, I don’t know, necessary to you.”

“And your problem with that is what? I’m too independent?”

He frowned deeply. She could see the answer was “yes.” She felt sorry for him, because her “independence” was, in part, a product of all the things he didn’t know about her. She kept truths from him because he wouldn’t love her otherwise, and she wanted his love. Her secrets were wrapped in a cloak of self-sufficiency she could both hide behind and hold up as a virtue. Independence was a flag American women waved proudly, and Liz knew Dante was drawn to this in her. His mother was a highly emotional woman who could do little more than breathe on her own, and his entire family had suffered because of it.

“Too independent? Of course not,” he said.

“Look, Dante, I was actually fine with you coming along if you really wanted to. And if you respected the way I wanted it to be.” Not entirely true, but true enough to state with conviction.

He regarded her with skepticism. “I think you were testing me. And I failed.”

“Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Why couldn’t you just have let me go? It could have been that simple.”

“Simple for you, Liz. Not so simple for me. Not when I don’t understand what’s going on with us!” He took a couple of steps back, turned away from her and threw his hands in the air. “Shit!”

She pulled a bottle from the outside pocket of her pack, unscrewed the lid and drank. She watched as Dante opened his pack and began unloading it. She knew what was happening but said nothing. They’d pretty much covered it, at least what they were willing to say. Dante lifted out his bear can and placed it next to the pack. He leaned on it with one hand and dropped his chin to his chest.

“You were right about the boots. They destroyed my feet. I probably wouldn’t be able to continue anyway.”

“I’m sorry about your feet. And everything else.” The truth, in its entirety.

“Let’s go through all the gear. I don’t want you to be missing anything you need.”

They emptied the backpacks and bear cans and spread everything out on the grass. It reminded Liz, and probably Dante, of a similar array on their dining table the night before they left for the mountains.

She repacked her bear can with enough food to last until Red’s Meadow, where she would pick up the first of two resupply buckets they had shipped. Red’s was four days away. The second resupply would be waiting at Muir Trail Ranch, fifty miles farther south. The tent and cooking gear went on her pile as well, in addition to the rudimentary medical kit and the Ziploc bag containing an assortment of safety items: nylon cord, an extra tent stake, a flare, waterproof matches, zip ties, replacement shock cord for the tent pole, and a patch kit for the tent. Her pack would gain a few pounds; two can live almost as lightly as one.

She placed the water filter among his belongings. He gave her a questioning look.

“Trying to save a pound. I’m going to use the Aquamira.” The purification tablets were backup. They killed everything they needed to, but not immediately. And if the source water contained sediment, it would stay cloudy.