Chapter Two
C entral Oregon had, on average, about three hundred days of sunshine a year.
This particular unsubstantiated claim was something repeated by realtors, weather reporters, and by your everyday, friendly state park ranger, like Dex Westerly. He was even willing to say it on days like today, where he was basically nature’s janitor, emptying the park’s trash receptacles.
It was one of those feel-good, optimistic statements that was generally accepted and rarely fact-checked, as though life in the High Desert was on par with living in San Diego. In reality, it was used to differentiate between what people imagined to be typical Pacific Northwest weather and what they found here. Foggy, overcast, and rainy more accurately described Portland’s weather, not Terrebonne. When he said it to people from those areas, it sounded more like bragging.
Except the statement was also deceptive because, while there may be many days of sunshine, this wasn’t the same thing as three hundred days of perfect weather. A sunny day could be blistering hot or freezing cold with snow on the ground, depending on the season. If the sun was out, it counted. In Central Oregon, perfect seventy-degree days weren’t rare, but it could usually only be expected for two weeks in spring and two weeks in fall. The rest of the year was a crapshoot in terms of temperature.
After two years living here, Dex was getting used to it and, in fact, loved the area. It truly was an outdoorsman’s paradise, with lots of wide-open space, filled with the natural beauty of mountains, caverns, lava tubes, and waterfalls, all thanks to high volcanic activity millions of years ago. Yes, it was a desert, but being at such a high elevation, it was different and more unique than the stereotypical sandy ones and was pretty in its own right. He liked that about it. Plus, if he ever wanted the lusher, greener part of the state, he only needed to jump in a car and head west for an hour.
People came from all over the country to visit this particular state park. Dex was lucky enough that part of his job was informing people about neat and educational facts about local wildlife and plants. Way cooler stuff than Central Oregon gets three hundred sunny days a year . Such as, “Hey, see those big red ants scurrying on that rock by your feet. Those are edible and taste slightly of citrus. If you ever find yourself foraging in the middle of nowhere, you can eat those, but you’ll have to eat quite a lot to ruin your appetite.” Those types of facts excited and impressed kids more than adults.
To be honest, he preferred dealing with kids more than adults at his job. Kids weren’t boring. Most kids, even those acting up, respected the uniform enough to listen. If he said, “Please stay on the path,” most kids corrected themselves. They were simply curious and exploring. It gave him hope that some of them were able to break away from their electronic devices long enough to see the world around them.
Adults, for the most part, didn’t get excited about weird facts about local cuisine involving ants. Or how white sagebrush could be used as nature’s deodorant in a pinch, if a person rubbed it over their skin. He really thought that latter fact would strike people as interesting. Also, adults could read park signs, but assumed none of the information or rules applied to them. The number of times he had to tell adults to stay on the path was too high. The only information they wanted to know was if there was a “real” toilet around instead of the composting restroom. He’d just smile and point toward the visitor center located at the top of a steep and inconvenient hill.
Sure, his job wasn’t all fun facts, but it was all right. Dex wouldn’t give it up for anything. He felt he was doing pretty well in life, considering.
So well, in fact, he should keep things moving by settling down at thirty-two and ask his girlfriend the biggest question of all.
“I’m thinking of getting married,” he told his coworker, Jon Takala, as they lifted black, plastic bags of trash, transferring them to the back of a state park white pickup truck.
“Married? To who?” the taller, older man asked while brushing a dark strand of hair away with a hand.
Dex gave Jon a confused look. “What do you mean ‘to who?’”
“You can’t mean Ava.”
“Yes, Ava. Who else am I going to marry?” Dex had been seeing the vivacious personal trainer and fitness influencer for over a year now.
They had met at Smith Rock when Ava had been there doing a meditation video for her YouTube channel, and Dex had inadvertently walked between her and the camera. She’d yelled at him, but then they got to chatting, and she asked him if he wanted to get together later. At the time, Dex had been going through a rough patch in his life, ever since Rachel, his previous girlfriend, had packed her things without warning, preferring life in California more than she preferred him. His response to Ava’s question had been, Yeah, sure, why not? She was gorgeous, there was no way he was going to turn her down. His gut had told him, at the time, this was the best thing to get over his current bad luck, and it seemed to be exactly what he needed.
“Why do you suddenly want to get married?” Jon asked as he lifted the truck’s tailgate, snapping it into place. He took the driver’s side while Dex was relegated to the passenger seat. The question surprised him. The older park ranger had been married for at least ten years, had two young kids, and always seemed satisfied with his situation. Why wouldn’t he want the same for Dex?
“Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t want to be married to Ava? She’s great and beautiful and really active.” In his mind, it was a match made in heaven, or at least a version of heaven, where he’d managed to hit a home run and got someone who’d always felt somewhat out of his league. “And I’d really like to share a home with someone else, so I’m not alone all the time.”
“You’re not alone. You have your pet crow.” Jon chuckled at this, as though Dex’s accidental animal situation was amusing fodder to a larger joke about his lifestyle.
“Harper is not a pet.” Dex had found the young, injured crow with a broken wing near the backside of the tall rock spire called Monkey Face, during one of his work shifts seven months prior. With no other resources available, because local wildlife rehabilitation places didn’t have room for crows, Dex had let the bird convalesce at his place. He had given her the name Harper, thinking if he treated the bird like a friend, it would quicken the healing process. It sounded nicer than Ava’s preferred nickname, which was Harpy, even though they could both agree the name suited the crow’s personality more.
The good news was Harper did recover, although she wasn’t the best flier yet. The bad news was crows, like most wild animals, made for horrible pets. Dex considered Harper more like an intelligent, feathered ally, as the animal was free to come and go as she pleased. As such, Harper maintained her own life, but frequently stopped by to visit Dex, usually by cawing next to his bedroom window early on his days off until she was granted access through an open window.
Harper showed her appreciation by bringing him gifts like twigs and metal soda can tabs. He imagined these were valuable currency in the crow world. In exchange, Harper would steal any food she was able to sneak from his cabinets.
Dex found crows to be interesting animals and thought it would be great if other people could discover this too. He often wondered if it would ever be possible to have an animal wildlife rehabilitation and education center at the park, but felt ridiculous to even mention it to Jon, let alone his boss, Chris, since he still felt fairly new to the park. And also because, again, most people didn’t care about crows.
“And?” Jon said, prompting him with a hand gesture as though he should continue with the obvious direction of the conversation.
Unfortunately, the direction wasn’t obvious to Dex. It felt more like a trap. He narrowed his eyes at his fellow ranger, remembering this was supposed to be about his girlfriend, not Harper. “And what? I already said Ava was beautiful.”
Jon scoffed at what was obviously the wrong answer. “Of everything you said, you didn’t even mention love. Do you love her?”
Dex’s cheeks grew warm at his obvious oversight, but there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Expressing lovey-dovey sentiment made him uncomfortable. He was an only child to two parents who didn’t seem to enjoy kids. He’d been treated more like a small adult rather than a child for most of his time growing up. His parents were fine, but he wasn’t close with them, mostly seeing them during the holidays.
His father was a marketing consultant in the automotive industry and was away a lot. His mother was a senior editor for a major home and style magazine, and their house looked the part. Impressions and appearances were very important in the Westerly household. He grew up homeschooled by someone his parents hired, owned a limited amount of aesthetically pleasing toys so as not to cause any clutter, and wasn’t allowed to touch the walls or mess with the pillows on the couch.
Dex thought all this was quite normal until his dad was laid off, and his mom kicked him from the house to go play outside and find a friend. It was then he realized how strange and out of touch he was. Luckily, he made friends with a neighbor kid, Lincoln, who took him to his own chaotic, loud home. Dex got a taste of something different, and it was wonderful. He ate junk food, played video games, and joined Lincoln’s family when they went camping in the great outdoors. It was a messy, wild world out there, and Dex found himself chasing that dream ever since, hoping he’d find something similar with Ava.
His head rested against his seat as he brought the bill of his baseball hat lower and crossed his arms. “Okay, well, obviously, I... love her. I wouldn’t be asking her to marry me if I didn’t love her.” See? He could talk about feelings. Progress.
“You two said that you love each other?” It was a skeptical question from a skeptical man.
Dex opened his mouth to reply before stopping. Jon had him there. “Maybe Ava and I are in a relationship where things just work and words aren’t necessary.” Or they didn’t have any words. They spent a lot of time together doing things rather than having long, deep conversations.
“So... she hasn’t told you she loved you?”
“No,” he answered grudgingly, becoming defensive on behalf of both him and his girlfriend. “Ava isn’t really like that. This is why we’re really good together. What are you? My therapist?” Dex was beginning to feel annoyed and he already had a therapist—Well, not really, but he did talk to Harper a lot. It kind of counted. “Besides, we’ve only been dating for a year.”
It was when Jon laughed did he realize the irony of his last statement.
“Just forget the whole thing. I don’t want to talk about it,” he replied grumpily. He had woken that morning feeling set in his decision and optimistic about the direction of his life, but now it was ruined. Dex had mistakenly thought Jon would be happy for him.
He knew not every relationship looked like Jon’s, one that was loving and affectionate. His parents were more like roommates, but it worked for them, and they’d been together for almost forty years. It had to be somewhat good for his parents to stick it out for so long, even if, from the outside, their relationship was like their perfectly designed house—it never looked entirely lived in.
“Have you told Ava you wanna get married?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think you should at least bring it up?”
While his brain told him Jon’s words were reasonable, he didn’t know how to go about it. Wouldn’t bringing up marriage sort of be a proposal in itself? “Ava says that I need to work on being more spontaneous. For once, I want to do something unexpected, take her by surprise. She likes things like that.” See? He knew her.
At one point, Dex had considered getting Harper involved with a big proposal, or maybe a part in the wedding itself, but he doubted his ability to train the independent bird. Also, Ava wouldn’t appreciate the effort as she hated Harper, and the feeling must have been mutual. She had never been the recipient of a valuable metal soda tab. Also, there was a high probability Harper would see a sparkling diamond ring, think Dex was finally returning the trinket favor, and fly off like a bandit to live like a queen among the other crows.
Besides, proposing with a crow didn’t seem like something a normal person would do, and Dex was striving to be normal. While he’d spent a good deal of his adulthood catching up on movies, TV, and general pop culture, there were days he still felt as if he was trying to fit in with the rest of his generation.
Ava was always eager to try a new club in Bend, go to concerts, eat at new restaurants. He tried for her sake, but there were some days he’d rather stay home with Harper, work on a jigsaw puzzle, or go on a hike to a pretty area. He worried this was all part of his old past creeping in on him and maybe he was destined to be as boring as his parents. It didn’t help when she’d scrutinize him and say, When did you turn into a sixty-year-old man, Dexy?
“Ava may love excitement, but this doesn’t mean she’s going to love a surprise marriage proposal,” Jon said, much to Dex’s dismay.
Except Dex had come up with a marriage proposal that would no doubt impress someone like Ava. “I booked us a hot-air balloon ride. That’s when I’m going to ask her. I think she’ll love it. Why are you being so weird about this? Is there a reason you think she’d say no?”
Jon had only interacted with her a handful of times, and Dex had never had the impression they didn’t get along. If his friend knew something about his girlfriend, he should tell him, right? Especially if he was going to marry her and live with her and have kids with her—Oh God, when he put it like that, it did feel like a lot. He sat up, raising the bill of his hat to ask more specific questions.
Before he could say anything more, Jon said, “Hey,” giving him a pat on his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“So, you think she’ll say yes?” The words were more hope than a question.
Jon teetered his head from side to side as though considering it before replying, “Well, if that’s what you want, then I hope she does.”
Dex tried to shift the doubts away. He’d already booked the flight, bought the ring, and made plans. Everything in his life was going well. There was no reason to believe Ava wouldn’t marry him. Why would she continue dating him if she didn’t see a future with him? This was the next logical step forward.
Besides, in Central Oregon, there was a good chance any day was going to be a sunny one.