—
Midafternoon, a cat appeared. Although it looked black at first, she could see mink-brown fur underneath the black, and although she was allergic to cats and therefore didn’t particularly like them, she thought this might be the most beautiful cat she’d ever seen. She was also happy to see it had a bell around its neck, which meant that someone cared not only for the cat but also for wild birds.
“Got nothing for you,” she said. When the cat jumped onto the table next to her, she stopped work long enough to run her fingers down its neck. “You’re saying I need to get it together and prepare to flee? That humans are about?” She gave it a tickle underneath its chin. “You’re right, I should get ready to run if need be.”
She left the cat outside and scrounged around the house, putting together a go-bag. She put three cans of soup and a bag of rice into her backpack, and then dug around till she found a red shopping bag and put in matches, a candle, two old bedsheets from the bottom of the stack of items she found in a jam-packed linen closet—why did people keep so many sheets? When she looked through the kitchen cabinets to find the oldest, crummiest pot for boiling water, she saw that these cupboards too were filthy and disorganized; there was a thin layer of grime and some mouse droppings over the shelves and pans.
But if there was one thing she didn’t much mind, it was cleaning something that needed to be cleaned. After her escape bags were set to go, she lugged out all the pots and pans, washed them, put them all back, and then went to the other cupboards and did the same with the spices and dishes and silverware drawer. She remembered how much she’d liked basic housekeeping when Powell was young—how she went through the rooms, putting things in order before he returned from school, straightening sheets and hanging towels. She thought about how happy she’d been in Cave Valley while cleaning the cabins. Maybe cleaning was a key to her future.
When she’d finished, she added to what she’d just named her New Zealand Survival Kit by filling a dusty duffel bag with a raincoat from the far back of a closet, a turquoise and much-washed fleece, a floppy sunhat out of a pile of many, and most important, a small blue sleeping bag that fit into the smallest sack she’d ever seen. She was hoping for socks or T-shirts, since she had only a few of each, but there was none of that. There were books, though, and she poached one called Natural Rearing of Children and a tube of something called Bugger Off!, a natural insect repellent.
Her new idea was this: If she heard a suspicious noise, or if anyone confronted her, she’d dart out the door and into the bush. This was the thickest, densest mountainside she had ever seen, the sort where someone could hide a few feet away; it was that thick. It made walking through it nearly impossible—without using one of the narrow paths, that is—but it made hiding easy. Besides, from the map at the store she now knew where to find the freedom camping spot, which was a place she could camp for free, much like the BLM lands in America.
From the map, she also knew of another small beach accessible only by hiking up a steep mountainside and then down, and she supposed that for this reason, it was likely close to deserted. Places without roads signaled places without people. And finally, she knew that people camped in the caves adjacent to the beach; she’d seen evidence of a fire ring on her beach walk today. So, worse came to worst? She’d just run. Since no one knew her name, she wouldn’t be particularly easy to track, and she’d simply hitch a ride back to Auckland when needed. She was flexible and capable. It would be okay.
Really, it would be okay.
She’d have the backpack she’d arrived with, plus these supplemental supplies were near the door, ready to go. She ran through the possible progression of events in her mind: Person shows up? Backpack on her back, a New World bag in one hand, duffel in the other, and shoot straight out the door and up into the forest, then, after about three miles, make a sharp left and head to the deserted beach. Or one of the other destinations.
It was an Adequate Plan, but not a great plan. The Great Plan would be to stay here and make jewelry.
Suddenly she was very tired, so she went back to the bed, propped up the pillows, and watched the birds—a black one with crazy yellow eyes and an orange beak, another that looked like a kingfisher, another with a very yellow head. And she closed her eyes and listened to the cacophony and fluttering cascades of notes. There was one bird that was flat-out annoying and sounded like an enormous hummingbird or a high-pitched, relentless bee. Despite scanning with her eyes and binoculars next to the bed, she could not locate the source for that one, though she did discover others.
The branches of the trees were mesmerizing too. Curvy and winding, they swayed wildly in the wind, as if conducting it. Nature and all her wisdom. She picked up Natural Rearing of Children and felt no great interest; she was done parenting, after all. But she flipped it open and found herself snorting in delight at the tone and style of the book. “Conventionalism in clothing is a health tragedy,” she read. “Especially deplorable is the modern use of synthetic fabrics which cut off air from the human skin. Rubber soled footwear cuts off contact with earth radiations.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she murmured to the book.
She read on. “If the threatened horror of atomic warfare should ever fall upon any part of the world (personally I believe that this cannot happen, for the world is not man’s alone, it is shared by animal and plant life, and their creator will continue to protect their interests in the face of mankind’s increasing selfishness), then it would be a blessing for families to know how to cure injuries and ills without needing doctors or pharmacies.”
“Goodness,” she said, remembering just how scary nuclear warfare had seemed to her as a child.
She flipped to another section. Senna pods were a good laxative, burns should be placed in cold water and covered with a pulp of raw potatoes or asparagus or honey, bruises should be covered with a banana skin.
It was wildly wonderful. Humans’ desire to prepare for catastrophe was, well, so human. And so necessary. Ammalie had felt such shame about it—as if she were the only one who stayed up late thinking about how to survive various scenarios. But no. Trying not to die was part of living.
This author felt like a kindred spirit, with an unapologetic worry for the future. When Ammalie read, “We all now accept the bitter fact that even if we manage to raise healthy children, there are nuclear bombs in the possession of man,” she thought of Powell, and whether or not he’d have kids, given the climate crisis and the seemingly increasing potential that his children might not be healthy or live in a healthy world. Suddenly she felt she should be with Powell—she was crazy to be halfway around the world!—although she had been with him, and all he’d asked for was distance.
She ached, though. Her missing Powell was real. Eco-grief was real. Her desire to protect was real. Her need to be alone was real. Her need for companionship was real. Now she felt compassion for her Sea Creature, having to zoom around her heart with so many different opposing emotions! But even more, she felt a brief, pure moment of connection to and awe for every human on the planet, all struggling to have an arc of time so as to take advantage of their one precious life.
CHAPTER 18
Walls of windows. That’s what the community center was basically made of, and though splattered and dirty, they offered a view of the surrounding jungle, visible by moonlight. The glass door had been locked, but she found the key under a pinkish rock, and let herself into the big echoey space.
On one wall, a row of tall cupboards, and behind that wall was what she presumed were small studios and bedrooms; she couldn’t check because the key didn’t open the big wooden door that separated this segment from the large room. But the cupboards opened, and she was delighted to find a treasure trove of art supplies. Blocks of wrapped clay, paints, canvasses, brushes, aprons, gloves, drop cloths, buckets, rags—so much potential! The last cupboard was filled with all sorts of random equipment, including, hallelujah, a Dremel tool and small pliers and dental picks and scissors and clippers, all of which would help with jewelry.
She stood in the dark room and inhaled. What was that smell? Perhaps it was oils used to coat the wood? Perhaps it was the wood itself? Or just layers of years of art in the making—paints and dyes and solvents, all infused with the smell of salt and sea. She stretched and did some yoga on a mat she found, then meditated, and then sat quietly in the predawn light—she’d decided to sneak into this area before any reasonable person would be up—and tried to focus not on the skill set of making jewelry, but rather on the impulse of it. What’s my vision? she thought. What am I trying to stand for?
Perhaps there was some aesthetic energy in pairing the violence of smashing beer bottles with the gentleness of the sea. Or she could create pieces that inspired care for Mama Earth. Perhaps she could…She wasn’t sure, and when she closed her eyes to imagine her ideal piece of jewelry, her mind was a blank. And now the sun was coming up, the first rays lighting the windows, and so she slipped out, replaced the key, and went for a walk on the beach. After an hour in the early light, she had found only a few shells, which she suddenly felt guilty picking up—didn’t the ocean need them?—and so she put them back but scanned the sand for sea glass. Near the rock outcropping, where all the mussels had attached themselves, she found one small piece, green and still jagged, very un-special and yet still a delight.
On the way back to the house, she scanned the beach and road for signs of life. No one. So she slipped into the community center again, spooked by its silence, which echoed even her light footsteps. She got on her hands and knees and rummaged through all the cupboards again. Surely there would be something she could use? Something that would inspire her?
There was only one low cabinet left unexplored, different from the others, smaller and handcrafted with thick wood. She crouched down and ran her finger over the lock. She pulled hard, but there was no budging the solid door. It was the most well-made cabinetry in the room, with fitted, hand-cut dovetail joints and an inlaid top of contrasting-colored wood, and she wondered if it was made from the now nearly extinct kauri trees. Regardless, it was gorgeous, and as she ran her hand over the top of it, she saw the word NAN expertly etched into the wood. Ah, the owner’s personal cabinet.
She stood, hands on hips, and gazed around the room. Scratched her chest and fingered the greenstone necklace. And looked down to see her fingers rubbing the thick key.
Naw.
But maybe?
She took off the necklace, and before she even got the key to the lock she knew it would fit. The lock and key looked like each other: thick, old, brass. A pair.
She held her breath, turned the key, heard the click, peered inside. The top shelf was stacked with faded, dusty papers. School notebooks and crayon drawings and crooked, awkward, delightful kid lettering. Was there anything sweeter than seeing the evidence of a child’s early learning? She got on her hands and knees and ran her hand over the bottom shelf. Empty, empty. Just a fine coat of dust, which became streaked with the motion of her fingers. But in the back corner, her hand hit something hard. She ducked even lower, her cheek now nearly on the floor. There were two canning jars, and she pulled them out, unscrewed one lid, and peered in.
Sea glass?
Yes.
Two jars of it.
No.
But yes. And why not? Who, living by the sea in the ’70s, would not collect sea glass? It had once been so ubiquitous. She squealed and spread the pieces out on the floor. Sitting crisscross over them, she breathed out a string of cusswords of joy. Their beauty was not in the mass of them but in each individual piece. The white ones were not just white—one looked like a frosted windowpane, another had a thin streak of lavender coursing through it, another looked like shell, another was ice blue with ripples. There were pearl colors and sand colors and eggshell colors.
The browns, equally diverse. Some the color of root beer, others like tea, others like earth. And the greens—the greens! Jade and pea green and apple green and pale green and lime green. There were a few with a crosshatch marking on them, and others that looked like the lids of old bottles. Some seemed to be flecked with mica, and others were solid. Dark greens, she knew, were for alcohol, since alcohol breaks down in light. The light greens, on the other hand, were likely soda bottles.
There were only a few blues—deep like a Noxzema bottle, and light, like the color of the bottle of gin she preferred. There were even fewer orange and red pieces—she’d read in the art book that orange will only be found one out of every ten thousand pieces collected. One piece was red with gold flecks, and she guessed this was likely a piece of a motorcycle or car lens light, back from when they’d used glass instead of plastic. Finally, there were even some weathered marbles—remnants of children’s beach games.
The most special thing about Nan’s collection, though, was that most of it was not “half-done,” the term for when it was not yet frosty, or still jagged. Nan’s pieces were true sea glass, which meant they were completely frosted, smooth, perfect.
