Chapter 18
The farm where the lambs had been killed was on the north end of the island, out by Roche Harbor, but Sam’s internet searches told her that bears could cover huge distances in a day, and at the grocery store she overheard a conversation about a beehive destroyed only a few miles from her family’s home. The bear was a topic of interest now, as sure as news of some upstanding couple’s divorce or a scandal at the annual Knowledge Bowl. It was something the good citizens of Friday Harbor came together over. A communal conversation.
As far as Sam could hear, no one had anything of real value to say. There’d been no sightings half as substantial as hers and Elena’s. Nobody had yet gotten a good picture of the thing. People were gossiping over a paw print here, a pile of scat there. They talked about the bear like it was the island’s exotic pet. A new mascot, to replace the image of the snarling wolverine stuck to the side of the high school. It scared them, but more than that it excited them, the way riding a red coupe over San Juan’s hills might—it gave them a story of adventure to tell each other tirelessly.
Sam heard them in the clinic, the pharmacy, the general store. On the ferry, even, a tourist family approached her to ask if she knew where on the island they might spot bears. To tell the truth, she’d heard that before—tourists asked the stupidest things—but this time the question didn’t seem like simple geographic misunderstanding. Everyone wanted to see it. The magic Elena had talked about, they wanted to be part of that.
Sam just went to work and waited for the animal to vanish. She and Elena had gotten through their encounters with it more or less untouched; a little fear, a little humiliation, a quick and bewildering disagreement, but now they were fine. The house was damaged but Elena had arranged for that to be taken care of. Their family made it through with minimal loss of money or time. Sam didn’t want to risk either any further. Let the bear be everyone else’s distraction now. Sam was only thinking of what would have to happen beyond it: the day a buyer came to the property without any worry of smelling musk.
The whole situation had gone to show how much she and Elena needed to get off this island. Sam wanted to be somewhere big enough to have more than one subject discussed at the drugstore. She wanted more than one drugstore. She wanted more. So when, toward the end of her morning shift, she learned the afternoon galley worker had called out, she told her manager without hesitation that she could cover. Getting paid time and a half for boiling water: yes, she could do that. No problem. She texted Elena to let her know.
Overtime was an opportunity but also a sacrifice. By her twelfth hour on the clock, the minutes crawled. It was late afternoon before a crew member came up to say they’d found someone else to take the rest of the shift. Sam offered to stay later—she was already halfway through eternity—but the crew member waved his hands to dismiss her. Centerplate didn’t feel like paying her rate after all, Sam supposed. The new girl boarded at Lopez and stepped into Sam’s station. For her last twenty minutes on the boat that day, Sam rode out in the open air, letting fine mist wash across her face. Seaplanes hummed overhead.
She drove home from the harbor with the windows down. The breeze was warm, powdery with pollen, soft with the promise of early summer. Here was another day she’d almost entirely missed, penned through the daylight hours in the fluorescent-lined box on the ferry’s top deck, but she’d made it at last into this sunshine. Driving lazily, playing pop on the radio. Trees brushed by on either side. Farm animals watched her pass. When she and Elena moved off-island, they would enjoy, she imagined, mentioning to people the beautiful place in which they’d grown up. The air smelled like cedar and sugar. It was lovely. With every curve in the road, her body relaxed deeper into the driver’s seat. She’d gotten the final piece of the day, the sliver of goodness left.
At the side of the road, the edge of the shoulder: Elena. Sam spotted her as she passed. Elena’s back to the cars, her hair up, her telltale black polo from the club. Sam checked the time and the rearview mirror and then pulled off, a quick right onto gravel, and turned in her seat to see. Yes, definitely. She stuck her head out the window to call—“Elena!”—but she was just a fraction too far away for her sister to hear. Sam spun the wheel, swung across the road, and drove back to pull over by where her sister stood.
They were less than twenty feet from each other now. Sam leaned across the passenger seat. “El,” she shouted, but her sister didn’t turn around. Sam tapped the horn, one polite beep, and Elena startled, and something beyond her, some enormous low shadow, moved.
Sam knew what it was. She knew. Was this how their mother felt? In her chest, all the time? Their mother, whose lungs were failing, whose arteries strained and would soon collapse—was this how their mother sat with the knowledge of death? How sure it was. Sam’s own certainty took her breath away, too.
Elena shaded her eyes with her hand and grinned. She shone in the sunlight. There had been a bear behind her. Sam had seen it. A bear beside her sister, close enough to walk over to and touch.