Chapter Nineteen
The kayak we arrived in is overturned, its flat bottom floating like a dead fish. Lily is gasping and spitting out lake water
and every curse she can think of.
“We’re even,” I say through chattering teeth.
“Even for what?” She swims over to the boat that had skittered away but mercifully only a few feet.
“I’ve done nothing since we got here but try to help you. And you’ve done nothing but give me shit.”
“I’ve given you shit?” Lily wipes her sopping hair out of her eyes. “That’s a laugh. I’ve been trying to enjoy my vacation, and you’ve done
nothing but shut me down.” She reaches out to the boat and places her hands on top of it. “Go to the other side and do this.
We’ll have to pull ourselves up at the same time, or you’ll knock me in again.”
I don’t want to follow her orders. Lily doesn’t get to tell me what to do; but she’s right. I don’t need that PhD in aerodynamics
and physics from MIT to know we need to balance each other out to keep the boat from flipping.
It takes three or four tries, during which we both slide back into the icy water after each attempt.
The good news, if there can be any good news in this godforsaken situation, is that an upside-down kayak is sturdier than an upright one, and somehow, we both end up on top of the bottom of the boat—Lily straddling it, me flopped on my belly.
The other boat has drifted beyond our sight. The mission to solve our problem without Brick finding out has failed. We are
up the creek without a paddle. Literally. I spot our oar banging gently against the iceberg. No way we are trying to retrieve
it. That lesson has been learned. Hopefully the current (is there a current in a lake?) will sail us back to where everyone
will surely be waiting to have another laugh at the Ackerman sisters.
“I’m not trying to shut down your fun,” I pant, still lying on my stomach, afraid that trying to right myself will end me
up back in the lake. “I’m trying to protect you. You’re not yourself, Lily. I don’t want you to make a mistake that is only
going to make your current situation worse.”
“I’m freezing my fucking ass off, sitting on top of a capsized boat, lost on an iceberg-filled lake, and stuck with you. How
can my current situation be any worse?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t want to talk—”
“You never want to talk about it. But isn’t that why we’re here? Isn’t that why you wanted me to come so badly?”
Lily looks pained. Her face is ruddy. Her eyes are sunken. There is an unfamiliar downturn to her mouth. I know it’s mostly
from being submerged in cold water. But I also know that’s not all of it.
“Well, I changed my mind.”
“Now is not the best time to tell me you changed your mind about me being here.”
“I don’t mean that.”
“Then, what do you mean?”
She wipes her nose with her wet sleeve and looks off at the moonscape-like terrain. “I can’t tell you . . . I mean, I don’t . . . oh, for fuck’s sake, Big. Can we just drop it for one damn second? You’re like a fucking pit bull.”
No, I will not just drop it. That’s not what I do. Not when it comes to Lily. “So, you’re just going to bulldoze through the
trip and cry yourself to sleep at night?”
My sister growls in exasperation. “You wouldn’t understand. You have everything you’ve ever wanted. You don’t have to pick
up pieces of a life that someone else shattered into sharp, stabbing shards and keep going. Let alone start again.”
Lily will never understand how every one of those sharp pieces hurts me too. How much I want her to have her happily ever
after. How hard I try to give it to her. But some things, I guess, are not mine to give.
I take a deep breath and share the lunar view with her. I’ll try again another time. “Whatever happens, hon, you’re not alone,”
I say. “You have a lot of people who love you.”
“Except one.” She wipes a tear from her eye, then lifts her chin back in the direction we came from. “Oh, look. The cavalry.”
Two boats have come around the back of the iceberg. Brick and Dane, each leaning forward to dip their oars faster when they
catch sight of us. Once they paddle closer, I see my empty kayak tied behind Brick.
He reaches us first. “What happened? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Before we can answer, he radios Jace and calls him out here. They’re going to need backup. “Lily, Lily, are you okay?” Dane
shouts. His handsome face looks like a cross between anxious concern and heroic. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you!” he says and
then jumps out of his own kayak into the frigid waters and swims to our boat. Idiot.
“I’m fine, just freezing,” Lily answers as the actor hangs onto the edge of our kayak like he’s Jack giving up his place on
the door for Rose. My sister seems charmed by the stupid gesture.
“I’m fine too,” I mumble from my position lying butt up, my legs dangling.
Dane ignores me and asks Lily, “How did you end up in the water?”
She glances over, and I’m ready to be ratted out. I let my boat float off. I clumsily fell in. I pulled her overboard. “It
was a silly accident,” she says. “Beginner’s bad luck.”
“As long as you’re both unharmed,” says Brick. “But, Dane, I appreciate the help, but we didn’t need a third person in the
lake.”
“I guess there’s no more ‘drinks for being in the drink’ prize,” I say.
Brick raises an eyebrow at me, too polite and professional to tell me what he’s probably thinking. “Let’s get you sorted and
back to camp, find you some dry clothes and a cup of hot tea, and tuck you up in front of the firepit.”
Wrapped in a new set of hand-me-downs—a hoodie from a band called Royal Blood from Xavier, flannel pajama bottoms from my
box of secondhand belongings, and Mimi’s shawl, crocheted by her in colorful granny squares, I hold my hands up to the flames.
I can’t shake the chill that still hangs over me like a shadow.
Jace throws another log on the already roaring fire, and orange sparks jump and rush up to the sky. The glowing embers are
like stars—the closest we’ll get to seeing them, considering how long it stays light this time of year. Everyone around the
firepit is quiet, their bellies full of Heidi’s Chinook salmon linguini and a few glasses of nice wine—except for my sister
and Dane, who have their heads together laughing at something. The talking to I gave Dane seems to have done nothing to deter
him. Lily, clearly taken with his moronic Titanic act, is only encouraging him. I try to keep an eye on them, but my lids are too heavy to be up for the job. In fact, every inch of my body feels leaden.
Mimi is the first to excuse herself. She kisses Luna on the head and shuffles off. She’s been especially quiet today, and
that’s saying something. When she’s disappeared into her cabin, I scoot over and take her place on the log next to Luna. “I
hope you don’t mind me asking, but is she okay?” I ask.
“She’s just tired.”
“Oh, I’m with her. I don’t even know how I’m sitting up right now. I guess you all figured out this adventure life isn’t really
my thing.”
Luna puts her hand on my arm. “You’re doing great.”
She has such a soothing demeanor, so generous with her assurances, so easily able to meet you where you are. Even if where
you are is a clumsy, out-of-shape, in-over-her-head housewife on an ill-planned and unadvised wilderness trip. She must be
a great mom. She’s the kind of parent I always thought I’d be. Instead, I turned into the one frantically putting out fires
while my own hair is ablaze.
“You guys make everything look so easy,” I say, with a heavy sigh. It’s been a day.
“We have a lot of experience. Many trips into the mountains. Many peaks summited. Stars counted. Vistas shared. Although . . .
it’s been a while. Not since . . .” She trails off and stares into the fire. She is quiet as Jace stands up to jab at the
logs, sending a new set of embers upward.
“She’s sick,” she finally whispers. “I mean, she’s sick again.”
“Oh, Luna.”
“She went through all the treatments. The chemo, the radiation. She lost her hair, she lost her breasts, we both almost lost our minds. But she beat it! She rang the bell. We were so relieved.” Luna picks up one of the pine cones scattered on the ground around camp and tosses it into the firepit.
It sizzles and snaps. “Then, at her last checkup, we got the news. It’s back.
They think they missed something far back, on the back wall of the breast, and in her lymph nodes. ”
“I’m so sorry, Luna.”
“We have to start all over again. Well, she does. The thing is, she’s not sure she wants to do it. So, we came out here. I’m
hoping being in Alaska will clear her mind and give her the strength to say yes. She wants to block it all out, to forget
about all of it. She wants to pretend it isn’t happening.”
Sounds familiar. I guess there’s a lot of that out here in Alaska, where you can easily get lost—on the trail, in the wild
terrain, and maybe, if you wander far enough, in your mind.
“It’s always been on our bucket list, a trip like this, as I said the first day. I thought if we moved it up, came now, she’d
realize what life could be like if she only fights a little longer. Easy for me to say, but what am I going to do? I’m trying.”
Now it’s my turn to lay a hand on her arm. “You’re doing great.”
We are all trying. Trying to help the ones we love. Are we succeeding? Like the Magic 8 Ball says, ask again later.
“She doesn’t want anyone to find out. You won’t say anything, Bridget?”
“Of course not.” Another secret I’ll tuck in my pocket. I turn an invisible key at my lips. “Safe with me,” I say.
Luna looks tired too. She drags herself off the log with a groan. “That’s me, shuffling off.”
“Good night. Can’t wait for tomorrow’s death-defying act.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Such a hoot,” she says, and then she waves to Lily and the men and does indeed shuffle off.
My sister and the others are sitting on the other side of the fire, partially obscured by smoke now rising from it.
The sun, while not setting, is weakening, giving the light around us a yellow tinge.
I’m too beat to join the group, my social batteries have run out for today.
My little twin bed is calling me, but getting up is too much of an effort, so I just stare off into the woods behind the dinner barn, in a bone-weary haze—until I see something move out there.
I blink and sit up straighter. No one else sees it, they’re facing the opposite way.
I stand up slowly and walk toward the barn.
No one notices. Closer to the barn, I see what had moments ago looked like simply a shadow. It’s a fox.
I freeze.
Is it my fox?
Hi, little guy, I say in my head, fearing any sound would scare him off. I glance back at the group. They are missing this. I can’t say
I’m not happy about that. I want the fox to be here just for me. I step gingerly, not wanting to make a snap or a crackle
or a pop. The fox watches me. I silently ask him not to run away. He doesn’t. At the far end of the barn, the corner closest
to the woods, there is a bench. Like a slow-motion video, I step over to the bench and lower myself down. The only sound I
make is a creak in my knee, but somehow the animal takes pity on my old legs and stays.
We sit in silence, my fox and me. We blink at each other. So nice of you to find me, I say, but still only in my head. I want him to stick around a little while longer. I tell him about my day—the lake, the
capsizing, Lily’s nonsense with Dane, and now, Mimi’s diagnosis. He promises not to tell anyone, at least that’s what I see
in his golden eyes. My exhaustion evaporates and is replaced with a relaxation I haven’t felt in . . . well, in a long time.
I don’t have the urge to pull out my phone and send a photo of the fox to my kids, which is always my first thought when I
see something I think is cool. I don’t want to summon the rest of the group and point out my find. I’m happy to sit on this
bench and share the evening with a new friend. No further agenda.
After a few minutes, the fox, who is now named Merlin, a suggestion he agreed to, shakes his head like dog and turns back to the woods. I understand. We can’t stay here all night. Foxes have things to do. I stand, and Merlin bounds off without so much as a goodbye.
I walk back to the firepit. It’s finally time for bed. I’m sure even Lily will agree and join me. The fox visit has left me
feeling content, even with today’s drama, and my lost luggage, and my unpredictable sister to chase after. Jace is still poking
at the fire. Ian and Xavier are playing cards. Lily is gone. So is Dane.
“Bridget,” says Jace when he sees me. “Interest you in a game of rummy? I’ve got another deck.” His smile is strained as he
glances over at my cabin.
“No thank you, I can barely keep my eyes open. Night, guys.”
“How about one last drink? A nightcap, yeah?”
Now he glances at Ian, who also glances over toward my cabin. “Thank you anyway,” I say quickly. I turn and drag myself down
the gravel path. Nothing looks untoward, the curtains are drawn, the frying pans are nestled in each other by the door. Why
do people around here have to act so weird about me going to bed? Everyone must be overtired, I think as I turn the doorknob.
The knob doesn’t move in my hand. I jiggle it and try again. I lean my shoulder against the door and give it a light shove
as I saw Brick do the first night. Nothing. I knock, and when Lily doesn’t answer, I bang. Nothing. I step back, my fists
balled, my nails digging into my palms as I realize what’s happening. My sister has locked me out.