Chapter Two Cape Split
Chapter Two
Cape Split
“Scooter, come!” Jacob picks up the leash and dangles it temptingly.
Scooter—now ten months old, fifty pounds, and clumsy on enormous paws—jumps off the sofa and gallops toward the door.
It’s our first weekend back at school since Christmas vacation, and the weather is unseasonably mild.
Earlier this morning, my mother called after church and referred to this as the “usual January thaw,” but I cannot remember any day, in the dead of winter, when people walked around in shorts.
It’s an anomaly. What should have been snow over the last forty-eight hours had turned to rain, and the snowbanks along the streets melted and caused minor flooding in the ditches.
But today, the sun is out, and the weatherman is calling for record temperatures until Monday, so Jacob and I have decided to forgo an afternoon of studying in the library and go hiking at Cape Split.
“Do you have the backpack?” I ask as I finish wrapping our tuna sandwiches in cellophane and place them in the lunch bag.
“It’s right here.” Jacob tries to hook the leash onto Scooter’s collar, but he spins wildly in a circle. “All right, all right. Hang on, buddy—we’re going.”
“He’s so excited,” I say, laughing.
Jacob opens the front door. “Let’s bring that old beach towel in case he’s dirty later.”
“Good idea.” After the rain, it’s bound to be muddy on the trail, so I suspect that all three of us, together, will be one big hot mess.
The hiking trail at Cape Split begins at the inlet of Scots Bay.
It’s a pleasant and picturesque thirty-minute drive from the university, through the historic valley towns of Port Williams and Canning, past dykelands, cornfields, and apple farms. Naturally, it’s less lush in the winter months.
Today, the landscape is a soft palette of grays and browns.
Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel there’s something special about this January day when we can drive with the windows down and feel the sun’s warmth.
Scooter is making the most of it in the back seat with his head out the window, the wind in his face, his tongue flapping like a ribbon on a kite.
We find a place to park not far from the trail entrance, and I get out, hook the leash on to Scooter’s collar, and watch him jump out of the car. His tail wags while Jacob slings the backpack over his shoulder and locks the car doors.
“Let’s go,” Jacob says.
Scooter charges ahead, and I stumble forward. “Slow down, you rascal! You nearly pulled my arm out of the socket!” I turn to Jacob. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s deaf. He doesn’t seem to hear a word I say.”
“He’s just half husky,” Jacob replies, in jest.
“Mush, mush!” I shout, and Scooter drags me harder and faster.
Jacob jogs ahead, grabs hold of Scooter’s collar, and speaks firmly. “Scooter, stop. Sit.”
Scooter’s ears press back, and he immediately plants his bottom on the ground.
“Good boy.” Jacob pats him on the head and turns to me. “You just have to be firm with him.”
“I try, but he only listens to you. I think it’s your deep voice.”
“Maybe we should sign up for obedience classes.”
I laugh. “For him or me?”
“Both,” Jacob replies with a smile.
We start walking again, and Scooter trots beside me. He glances back at Jacob repeatedly, seeking approval and looking very eager to please.
“He worships you,” I say.
I can’t blame Scooter. I feel the same. Sometimes I wonder if Jacob’s a saint.
The trail is steep and challenging, but it feels good to exert myself in the fresh air. I realize I’ve been hibernating since early November, when it became necessary to scrape ice off the car windshield every morning.
“This day doesn’t feel real,” I say as I step carefully over exposed tree roots and feel a strain in my calves on the upward climb.
“I know,” Jacob replies. “I feel the same way. It’s like we’re in another universe.” He’s walking ahead of me, leading the way, while Scooter, off leash, follows behind me. I sense that he’s being protective, which makes me love him more, even if he doesn’t always listen to me.
“I’m glad we skipped the library,” Jacob says. “Even if I flunk that quiz on Monday, this is worth it. Life is short. And I love this place.”
“Me too.” I’ve hiked Cape Split since I was a child, once a year with my parents. It was a summer highlight and a family tradition.
Jacob stops at the top of a steep cluster of boulders that function as steps. He turns around. “You doing okay?”
“I’m great,” I reply, but that doesn’t stop me from accepting his hand when he offers to pull me up and over the last big boulder.
By this time, I’m perspiring, but it’s rejuvenating with the wind in the trees and the distant roar of the ocean at the base of the mountain, the fragrance of mud and decaying leaves all around us.
It’s a two-hour hike to the top of the peninsula, but the payoff is worth every ounce of spent energy because the point at Cape Split is a natural wonder.
It overlooks the Bay of Fundy from a height of two hundred feet.
It’s like standing on a narrow precipice at the edge of the world.
When at last we reach the summit, we emerge from the shade of the forest onto a hairpin turn around a narrow break in the cliff. We pause to stand at the wooden rail and look straight down a vertical drop to the pebbled beach below.
“This is giving me the creeps,” I say. “Which is weird because it was always my favorite part of the hike when I was a kid.”
Jacob lets the thought linger, turns it over in his mind. “Maybe, as we get older, we develop a clearer sense of danger because we become more aware of our mortality.”
I feel a cool breeze blow across my forehead. “That’s very deep thinking, but it makes sense.” I back away from the rail. “Let’s keep going.”
Jacob follows with Scooter, and we emerge onto a field of grass, flaxen in its winter dormancy. I stop and gaze at the breathtaking views of the bay while Jacob hooks the leash on to Scooter’s collar.
“I’ve never seen it like this before.”
In summer, grass and wildflowers grow tall here. They dance and sway in the wind. But today, aside from the evergreens, all plant life seems dead. Blades of grass are flat, crisp, and darkened by rot.
But nothing is dead. I know this. Beneath the ground, the shoots are protecting themselves from freezing temperatures. They’re conserving their energy during these shorter days and reduced sunlight. They are surviving. In time, the grass will green up. It will come alive with the arrival of spring.
Suddenly, laughter startles me out of my musings, and I turn. Others are sitting on camping chairs, enjoying a light lunch or taking photographs at the cliff’s edge.
Jacob leads Scooter across the summit toward the point, but I hang back, watching them with nothing but love in my heart.
I close my eyes for a moment and take in the scent of damp earth and spruce needles and the salty fragrance of the bay.
I listen to the waves crashing steadily onto the beach below the cliffs, and I marvel at the miracle of this planet—the glaciers that formed the very ground I’m standing on, and the thousands of years of swirling waters that eroded this high curvature of land, turning it into something like a crooked finger, pointing west.
Jacob kneels and gives Scooter a good scratch behind both ears. Scooter leans into it, hard, and I smile.
I’ve been blessed. But why? Was I simply born under a shining star?
Or did some powerful force from above consider me deserving?
If so, I don’t understand the reason. I only know that I’ve been incredibly lucky.
I met the love of my life in my own neighborhood, at the exact right time. God has been very good to me.
It’s not possible to sit on the grass because the ground is wet from the recent rain, so we find a fallen tree trunk to sit on.
I open the backpack and dig for the water dish for Scooter.
I peel off the plastic lid, and he laps greedily while I reach back into the bag for our tuna sandwiches. I pass one to Jacob and unwrap my own.
After a few bites, Jacob lays his hand on my knee. “Are you aware that it’s been nine months to the day since you took that pregnancy test?”
I tip my head back to look skyward. “Yes. I thought about it a lot over Christmas. I wonder where we’d be right now if the test had been positive.”
“Maybe we’d be in the hospital,” he replies, “standing over an incubator. Or in the apartment, changing a diaper. Are you sorry it didn’t work out that way?”
I pretend to consider it, but the truth is I’ve been reflecting on it for weeks. “I think we’re exactly where we’re meant to be. Otherwise, we’d be someplace else.”
Jacob pats Scooter, who takes a seat on the grass beside him. “Yeah, but if it had happened, everything would’ve been fine. I think for you, it’s possible to have everything you want.”
I turn to him. “What do you mean?”
“A child and a career. Because you’re a doer, Sienna. You don’t let setbacks or obstacles get in your way. You figure out how to get around them.”
I feel my cheeks flush at the compliment and realize that Jacob sees qualities in me I don’t always see in myself. And he says the sweetest things.
I raise my sandwich to take a bite, but Scooter goes into begging mode. He rises up on his hind legs and drops his front paws onto my lap.
“Scooter . . . sit,” Jacob warns with authority.
His floppy ears flatten. He drops his bum obediently but remains laser focused on my sandwich.
As soon as I finish the last bite, Jacob scans the horizon, and then he starts to pack up. “We should go. I don’t want us to get stuck on the trail after dark.”
I’ve never come to Cape Split in January, when the days are so short, and I wish we’d thought to bring flashlights. With a sense of urgency, I zip up my jacket, and we begin the trek across the summit, back to the trail.