Dan snorted. “I wondered. I saw that your car is set up for camping. You’ve been sleeping in there?”
“Yeah.”
“Money a problem?” He asked it carefully, with hesitation.
“Not really. Kind of. It’s complicated.”
“I could loan—”
“No, no, no, thanks. It’s not about saving money so much as, well, making sure I can explore in new and different ways.”
He paused. “I get that, I guess. But it sounds uncomfortable…and maybe unsafe?”
“Well, thank heavens I’m not out there now,” she said, trailing off, and to keep from thinking about Kit, or anyone else who might be in the desert, she added, “Poor Lulu. She’s okay, you think?”
“I made it as exciting as I could. A good adventure and all. But to be honest, there’s other stuff going on for her, and I can see it’s starting to pull her down into a dark space. For example, the phone calls—she needs them. The phones are out, of course. She misses her parents, she’s homesick. And you heard that her mom—my daughter—has cancer. We timed this trip to take place during the worst part of her chemo.”
“She said it was the okay kind.” Dan’s silence said more than words could, and she added, “Fuck cancer” very quietly.
“It’s about as bad as this storm,” he said at last. “Pretty fucking bad.”
Her eyes blurred with tears. “You’re a good grandpa. She’s lucky to have you.”
“Thank you,” he said, and she could tell his voice was thick with emotion.
She squeezed his hand again and listened to Lulu’s steady breathing. Ammalie heard a rustle then—he was lifting her arm so that he could kiss her palm. She let her surprise settle and then relaxed into it as he pressed her palm against his heart.
“Thank you.” He said it so quietly that she could barely hear it, and she realized that he was lonely and struggling too.
The house creaked loudly in a gust, as if agreeing with her thought, so she said, “Tell me one good thing about your life?”
So Dan spoke quietly of designing and building passive solar homes—he’d been one of the pioneering group that had helped develop energy-saving methods—and in older age, he’d started volunteering to transport bone marrow and stem cells from donors to recipients. It helped people who were dying from blood cancers. Sometimes the trips were across the country, sometimes across the world.
“You fly with stem cells in, what, a suitcase?”
“A cooler.”
Her laugh was soft but genuine. “A cooler. That blows my mind. Sometimes what I think is so technical is just so…not. A cooler with ice!”
He snorted a quiet puff of agreement. “Saving people is not as hard as people think. Whether it’s a body part or a granddaughter, it doesn’t take that much.”
“I don’t suppose we’re very good at celebrating our successes,” she whispered. “So I’ll tell you mine. I simply went on a road trip. And so far, I’ve saved one tree, one dog, helped one woman who was having a tough anniversary of getting off heroin, helped one guy who needed a hand, and someday, I’m going to plant a tree or twenty. Or something. For the planet. Since she’s been so nice to house me and all.” Then, she added what was really on her mind. “I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too,” he whispered. He took her hand and brought it to his lips again. The first kiss was on the back of her hand, the second kiss on the palm, and she could tell how very much he meant by it. “Ammalie,” he whispered in the dark. “You’re a fine explorer.”
She understood that had a child not been between them, and if they were not in such a precarious position, they would have folded into each other, if for no other reason than to defy the laws of aging and of storms. The very idea of it was enough. She smiled a weary smile, and since there was a child between them, and a roomful of exhausted cold people around them, they simply held hands, his thumb rubbing her hand back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in what was surely one of the most comforting and tender moments of her life.
CHAPTER 14
Thank the heavens, she thought, staring at the sky. Ammalie had never felt such relief at seeing bits of muted blue poking out from clouds, and never felt such relief at the sound of a vehicle. She turned to see a white pickup charge through the snow, pulling right onto what would be the lawn and right near the sidewalk she’d shoveled with some of the others this morning. Rita jumped out with a wave and began checking on the guests, like a mother hen clucking and gathering her chicks. The driver’s door swung open, and Ammalie watched as a white-haired, round-faced man swung a sporty-looking wheelchair from the cab of his truck, lowered himself into it, and pushed himself up to her. It was such a fluid and confident motion that it reminded her of a bird in flight.
He placed a big sack of granola bars and chips in her hands. “If you don’t mind dispersing these. Everyone okay?”
“You’re Rex!”
“The mysterious brother.”
She tilted her head toward the wheelchair. “I didn’t know…”
“Yup, wheelchair-bound for about a decade now. MS. I don’t get out much, but that’s by choice, not disability. I don’t much care for people.” He winked, and she could see his resemblance to Rita, the round features and playful eyes. “It’s nice to meet you, though. I’ve heard good things. But I guess I better assess the damage here.” He rolled along the shoveled sidewalk toward the office building, and Ammalie realized she hadn’t taken notice of the wheelchair ramp on one side. There were so many things she didn’t notice! So many things she took for granted.
Before entering the office, Rex turned around in his chair. “If you don’t mind letting her out for just a few minutes,” he said, nodding to the truck, and Ammalie turned to see Lady’s face pressed against the window and a tail flapping wildly. In a flash, Ammalie was crouching to embrace Lady, who was circling her and whining, and then nudging her nose in Ammalie’s crotch in her signature greeting. Lady looked well brushed and well fed and well loved, and when Ammalie ran her fingers over the old burns and scars, she could see they were all healed and hardly even noticeable. “Oh, I missed you,” she said, and realized now how much she had.
As she and Rita and Rex dealt with the aftermath—canceling reservations, checking road closures, feeding birds, helping people get back to their cabins, confirming the health and well-being of everyone—Ammalie tried to frame the experience for them as she had once done for Powell: “Peter Pan said something like, ‘Life is a very Grand Adventure.’ You’ll remember this like no other part of your vacation!” But everyone seemed to already take it that way—humans were a sturdier lot than she’d thought, or at least, these humans were.
It occurred to her that the human spirit was a miraculous thing, as miraculous as warm sun and a clearing sky. It seemed they’d more or less enjoyed the night together on the floor, although they’d also admitted to fear and panic and backaches, and several cried, and several mentioned needing to call their therapists or friends, so she knew there was some processing to be done as well. Adventures did not come without a cost.
Later in the day, she stood outside with Lulu to give Dan time to pack, and silently they watched the resident coatimundi scale a tree and grapple with a suet cage like a pro. They laughed at his anteater-like nose, and how, like a raccoon, he used his paws so adeptly to scoop the suet into his mouth. When it was time, she blinked back tears and gave Lulu a long and sincere hug with a promise to pen-pal, for real, the old-fashioned way. It was time for Lulu to get home to see her parents, and so Ammalie did not begrudge her and Dan their departure, though it hurt. At the last moment, Dan came back from their Subaru, took her in his arms, and said, “Unless you object, I’m going to kiss you,” and because she hadn’t blurted out anything, he did exactly that, a kiss that pushed with desire, and she was left standing there, mouth still open with surprise, even as he backed up, winked, and turned for his car, saying over his shoulder, “Track me down if you wish. I, for one, would not mind meeting again!”
She stood in the snow, touching her lips. She’d been kissed by two men in the last week—one younger, one older, one softly, one with passion. No one could accuse her of living a boring life now. She did a little dance as she walked around, pulling the biggest fallen branches through the snow to a pile near the firepit.
When she turned the corner, she was surprised to see Rex there, gingerly standing, the knees of his pants wet, his round cheeks rosy, a small scowl on his face. “Horrible storm, worst I’ve ever personally seen down here. We owe you one, which is why…” Then, without explanation he said, “Your car.”
She blinked. “Hello, Rex!” She glanced around. “Where’s your wheelchair?”
“Don’t need it all the time. New Mexico?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then at the license plate he was staring at, then back at him. “Yes.”
