Sylvie A Path Across the Lake
Two days from now, at noon, the moon will cover up the sun in Clarksville, Tennessee. Other places too, of course. But it’s Clarksville where we’re headed.
Knox said we’ll be in the Path of Totality, capital letters implied. He read it off my phone, and him looking at the screen made me sad. Like I’d dirtied fresh snow with my footprints.
So in Carbondale, on a hunch, I pulled off the highway, and there it was: a Books-A-Million.
One hour before closing, we made a stack: A Children’s Guide to Astronomy, and My Side of the Mountain, and Into the Wild, and I got Knox a fizzy strawberry drink at the Starbucks inside and of course I got one for myself too.
All the way to Clarksville Knox read to me out of the astronomy book.
Fact: Solar eclipses only happen during a full moon.
Fact: Solar eclipses require a special set of plastic glasses to look at directly and I panicked until
Knox pointed out that probably the gas stations of Clarksville will be selling them for cheap.
Fact: Solar eclipses only happen in the same spot every four hundred—ish years.
Fact: We’re the first Blake and the first Rayburn to see an eclipse in this country. Because four
hundred years ago Knox’s people were blacksmiths in Gretna Green and mine were fishing the fjords of Norway.
While he talked Winslow lolled on the bed, four paws to the sky, and I thought: we should get him glasses too.
Also I thought we’d get a campsite last minute in the Path of Totality.
I’d read about a place called the Land Between the Lakes and in the pictures people in waterproof pants strode across the water on barely visible steps and when I saw it back in May I thought, that’s a place where I would finally be happy.
I’d be walking on water. Buoyant.
I’d be standing in an impossible place looking up at an impossible event.
Fact: Somewhere Miss Mara is feeling a vibration in the universe.
Fact: Knox didn’t run away from me in the middle of the night.
As we pulled up I thought, he and I will make a fire and read survival stories to each other and then
maybe we can talk about whether us kissing some more is a really bad idea (it is) and if we want to (I do) and either way he can sleep in his tent because he’s leaving, how much more do I want
to stitch this boy into my life? Tomorrow. a major astronomical event that I can purge my feelings into, because—
The next day, a short drive to North Carolina.
The next day, it’s over and I’m alone with myself again.
I was so caught up in that drama, I wasn’t in my body.
Though I crashed right back down into my body when the guy at the KOA laughed and laughed and laughed at us for asking for a campsite.
A lot of other people apparently wanted to walk on water during their eclipse, and unlike us they’d planned ahead. Like, months ahead. The Holiday Inn guy was right.
We ended up in a Walmart parking lot.
We couldn’t make our fire.
We couldn’t pitch his tent.
The eclipse wasn’t for another eighteen hours, and we were inches from a van that was inches from another RV, and everyone had their lawn chairs out and chili going and drinks in foam drink holders like it was a tailgate, this, our last night together maybe ever and—
We were going to spend it listening to the dudes in the camper next to us howling along to “Margaritaville.”