Epilogue
“Hey, Pops. Can I help?”
It’s a bluebird November morning in La Pine State Park, another recreational paradise I’m getting to experience for the first time. This one’s less than an hour from Charity Falls.
Already Dad has the beginnings of a campfire going. He’s wearing a buffalo plaid fleece hat with earflaps just like the one he got for Chase. When his grandson wakes up, they’ll be twinning. S’cute I can hardly stand it!
“Hey, tiger.”
I hand my father a log. He positions it on the fire, igniting crackles and sending up bright sparks.
“Just like old times. The two early risers. Boy, I sure loved our camping trips, all you kids smudged and dirty and happy.”
I know he’s referring to back when we were a family of five, because the camping trips ended after Mikey’s passing.
“A lot has happened since then.”
A slow nod. “But some things never change. Like thieving chipmunks.” He gestures to one of the striped critters waiting in the wings for something edible to appear.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” I say.
“Already done. Pour yourself a cup of something warm.”
I settle into a camp chair while my father continues poking at the fire. Getting it just right.
“Does my heart good to see you so”—his voice cracks—“to see how well you’ve managed to . . . to know you’re going to be okay.”
I cradle my cup in both hands. “More than okay, Pops. I’m dirt-smudged and happy.”
We merge into the silence. The fire pops.
“So much for quiet,” he says minutes later. “Here comes the queen of the sleepyheads.”
My mother emerges from their one-room cabin, huddled inside a faded blue quilt. Is that . . . ? It’s the same old quilt that always appeared from nowhere at family picnics.
“Whose brilliant idea was it to freeze our tushies off in a forest?” Mom’s breath comes out in clouds of vapor.
She takes the chair next to me and tucks some of her blanket over me. “What’s your secret, Lu?”
“Two pairs of socks.”
Dad hands her a steaming mug.
“Knight in shining armor, that’s what you are, babe.”
“I married a princess, that’s for darn sure.”
***
Carly
This is precious. Lucy and me under the blue blanket. Roger fiddling with the campfire like old times.
After a minute, Lucy tightens her gaze. Scrutinizes my forehead. Have I got food on my face?
She reaches up, brushes her fingers along my hairline. “What’s this? There’s a little divot here. I never noticed that before.”
I touch the place I think she means. “You mean this little dent here?” I sigh.
“It’s what you might call an old friend that recently returned.
I vaguely remember my parents telling me that when I was a toddler I had to have stitches in my forehead.
Until recently, I guess my skin was plump enough to disguise it.
” Until that nasty collagen-sucking demon struck. “How about that?”
“The scar reappeared? You mean it was there all along?”
“Crazy, right? I’ve been carrying that scar with me most of my life and didn’t even know it.”
Lucy is quiet a moment. Then she says, “We do that, don’t we?”
“We do,” I say. For a long moment, there’s only the sound of the fire crackling. The low echo of a dog barking somewhere.
“I still can’t believe you took a sabbatical,” Lucy says. “I can’t believe you’re really coming home to Oregon.”
I gather Lucy’s hand in mine. “You know, sweetheart, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Someday, when I die—”
“Mom. Stop. Don’t be morose on a day like today. Let’s not—”
“Now listen. Let’s say you guys decide to have a memorial service.
And, mind you, it’s neither here nor there to me whether you do or don’t.
But let’s say you do, and then let’s say some folks decide to go up to the front and say a nice thing or two about me.
Honey, if all they can talk about is my ministry, I will have utterly failed.
This . . . family, relationships, love .
. . this is the stuff I want to be remembered for.
That’s why our cowriting project means so much to me.
For the gift of time together. For the connection you and I are building while working on the book, far more than the book itself. ”
There’s a sheen of tears in my daughter’s blue-green eyes. My mother’s eyes. Lucy stands, and I join her. We wrap ourselves in my big old quilt and hug it out.
“I love you, Mama,” she says. “I better go check on the birthday boy.”
After she goes, I run a fingertip over this weird new divot in my forehead.
What a sweet, regenerative God.
Only you. Only you can take the stuff of scars and create something new and beautiful and life-giving.
***
Lucy
Traipsing toward the cabin I share with Chase, I’m mobbed by a great black rug of a dog.
“Moby! You lug!” I drop to my knees to give him a thorough scratch and a hug. “Good morning to you too. Where’s your daddy?”
The man who holds my heart emerges through a stand of pines. “Moby! Give her a break already. It’s my turn.”
Wyatt ambles closer, pinning me with an exaggerated smolder. “Hey, are you a library book?”
“Huh?”
“’Cuz I can’t stop checking you out.”
I try to elbow him good, but it doesn’t make much of a dent in the padding of his Carhartt. “Where’d you just come from?”
“Took him to the pet area.”
Dark scruff nearly conceals Wyatt’s chin dimple. Almost but not quite. I run a finger over it, then meet Wyatt’s kiss.
“Nice beanie, Lieutenant. Looks handmade.” I don’t tell him it’s kind of a shame to hide all that great hair.
“Ha. Be warned. I’ve no doubt that the day you met my mom, she went straight home and started knitting something for you. She can’t be stopped.”
“Today’s the big day,” I say, grinning.
“Mm-hmm. Today’s the big day.”
By 10:00 a.m., the sun is slanting golden through the piney branches, the sky’s impossibly blue, and the five of us have embarked on a short trek along one of the park’s many trails. But this isn’t just some random trail.
“Stick together!” Mom shouts from the back of the line.
“I know why you’re saying that, Nana,” Chase says. “I saw the sign about cougars.”
“Nothin’ for us to worry about, son,” my father says. “I have it on good authority that cougars detest birthday parties.”
My new nine-year-old appears to consider this.
Wyatt halts. Points up ahead. “Why don’t you go see what it says on that sign, Chase?”
Chase returns, wide-eyed. “‘Big Tree.’ It says ‘Big Tree.’ The arrow points down that way.”
Wyatt suppresses a smile. “No kidding? Maybe we should check it out.”
“Yeah. Obviously there’s a pretty big tree down there.”
“Obviously.”
But already Chase has adopted that forward-leaning gait of his and set a new, brisk pace down the narrow trail. As if our family hike has just become a serious botanical expedition.
“Stick together!” Mom yells.
Wyatt and I exchange a smile.
I rub my palms together. This is going to be so good.
Within minutes, we stand dwarfed in the shadow of a massive ponderosa. Chase’s eyes are glued to the interpretive sign.
“You guys! Big Tree is the largest ponderosa pine ever recorded! What the what?” Again and again he spouts “What the what?” while marching around the tree.
He examines Big Tree (couldn’t they have come up with a better name?) from every angle.
He studies its giant gnarled trunk. Its stubby limbs, mangled over the centuries by weather.
His grandpa reads the marker. “It says its crown was recently lost to weather, making another ponderosa taller. But Big Tree remains the largest in circumference. Says it’s over five hundred years old! Which means it was already a giant before the Oregon Territory was established.”
“I’ll tell you what the what,” I say when Chase finally comes to a halt. “You can thank Wyatt. He made the discovery—”
Wyatt stuffs his hands in his jeans pockets. “Oh, it was no big thi—”
“He found out about Big Tree and came up with this whole birthday idea.” And for this, I couldn’t love him more.
“Thank you, Wyatt!”
“Happy birthday, Chase,” Wyatt says. “Wait. Isn’t there some goofy song we’re all supposed to sing on someone’s birthday?”
Chase rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”
It’s no small feat to convince my son to pose for a family photo in front of this mighty tree with the pale green river winding beyond. He’s never been much for photos, doesn’t harbor a fear that one day he will want to remember the past. I still have so much to learn from him.
And I can’t help thinking that God is a present-day God. He doesn’t hang out in my past. And I won’t find him in the future until I’m there. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.
Beautiful fodder for the book I’m writing with, of all people, my mother.
Seriously, though. What the what?
Eventually Chase’s interest in lunch overshadows his interest in trees, and my parents accompany him back to our campsite.
Wyatt and I linger on the bank of the rippling green river.
“Guess I’ll have to dream up another excuse to come to the station and interview you,” I say.
“Nope. My turn to get in on this business of interviewing. You game?”
“Oof. I’ve never been interviewed before.”
He smiles with his eyes. “What do you see, Lucy Montgomery, when you look into the future?”
I contemplate this. “I know what I don’t see . . .”
I picture the daily congregation of Grumblies, building an altar to the idol of What Ought to Be But Isn’t, one sour stone at a time.
Sunny comes to mind, bless her. I refuse to wait until I’m seventysomething before making peace with the dark side of life. Before finally inching toward the light of hope.
But what I do see?
I see a renowned author, unwilling to hand the keys over to her fears, scooching blindly off the side of a one-hundred-foot ledge.
I see myself. Someone less often fighting against lies and more often living in truth.
And secretly, I see a toddler girl with warm coppery eyes, Wyatt’s chestnut curls, and my curious nature.
But I don’t say any of this. What I say is, “I see a version of me who no longer shows up afraid to her own story.”
Wyatt taps me on the nose. “That’s the Lucy Montgomery I’ve always known.”
“Almost always.”
“You know, you’re pretty sassy sometimes. But also . . .” He laces his fingers through mine. “Also you’re pretty kweet.”
I snort a laugh.
“Oh, and I see more of this for sure,” I say, waving an arm toward the forest. “I always wanted an adventure buddy.”
“Buddy, huh?” He scrubs a hand along his jawline. “That’s not exactly what I . . .”
“You know what I mean.”
Wyatt rests his forehead against mine. “I see us as so much more.”
I press a finger to his lips. “Me too. Next question?”
“I don’t know, Luce . . . You’re so much better at this. Let’s see. What’s your favorite pastime?”
“Lately, kissing you.”
Wyatt’s lips part on a grin. “Solid answer. Interview over.”
“Short interview.”
“Already got the answer I was looking for.”
My throat tightens. I let my eyes fall closed.
And invite this man’s lips to hold me steady while I back off the ledge.
THE END