The Light Through the Leaves Page 7

  “I’m not a total stranger. We’ve met, and you’ve seen me in uniform where I work. You’re smarter than you’re letting on.”

  “What about the pony?”

  He put his finger to his lips. “We shouldn’t talk about the pony in her presence.”

  “Then let’s talk about you. How does a person become a park ranger? Is that a specific program?”

  “I have a degree in environmental science, but there are other ways to become a ranger.”

  “You knew from the start that’s what you wanted to be?”

  He nodded. “When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a cop—because my grandfather was a police chief. But I was happiest when I was running around the woods and creek of my parents’ apple farm. I sort of split the difference and became a ranger.”

  “You grew up on an apple farm? That sounds idyllic.”

  “I guess it was.”

  “Where was that?”

  He finished his beer. “A little town in Pennsylvania. Doubt you ever heard of it.”

  “Pennsylvania? Are you a Steelers fan?”

  “Of course. Are you?”

  “I had to be to live with my grandpa. His father was a die-hard fan from Pittsburgh.”

  “Now I see—that side of the family is where you got your smarts.”

  Ellis smiled at the joke but said no more about that side of her family. She wasn’t sure about smarts, but they had gifted her with a predisposition toward addiction.

  She finished her food. She wanted to order another drink, but she wondered what he’d think. And there was the matter of driving under the influence. He was sort of a law officer, wasn’t he?

  He put her dilemma on hold when he asked, “Would you like to dance again?”

  She did because the band was playing another slow song.

  They danced closer than the last time. Toward the end of the song, he tentatively nuzzled at her neck. She’d never felt anything so delicious. She arched her neck to let him have more. When the song ended, he leaned in and kissed her. It was more intense than she’d thought it would be. The room, the people, the music, everything disappeared. Everything but him.

  When they parted, he looked into her eyes. His irises were dark, his pupils like two black moons in eclipse.

  “Would you like to come over to my place for some cognac?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Your place? Where would that be?”

  “I can’t remember the name. Something to do with a lake. It’s close. You can drink cognac while I put up the tent.”

  “I know the campground you’re talking about. Wouldn’t you rather come to my place?”

  “No.”

  “It’s snowing pretty hard out there.”

  “I know.”

  He kept staring into her eyes. “Why do I feel like a gorgeous witch is luring me into a dark wood?”

  “Good, the spell is working.” She took his hand and pulled him toward their table. “Follow at your own risk.”

  He followed. They paid their bill, put on coats, and went out into the snow.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come to my place?” he said. “There’s heat there. And electricity. And comfy furniture, flushing toilets—”

  “French cognac?”

  “I think I’m all out.”

  “Did you ever drink French cognac in the snowy woods at night?”

  “Let me think . . .”

  “I haven’t either. Let’s go.”

  “You follow me,” he said. “I know the best campsite there.”

  She was glad she didn’t have to bother with navigation. She followed him along snowy roads, her windshield wipers swatting at the falling snow. At the entrance to the campground, Keith got out of his car and paid for a campsite. He drove down a winding road and stopped at a wooded campsite that might have a view of the lake, but she couldn’t see past the trees through the snow.

  She started setting up her camp on autopilot. She lit two battery lanterns, found the tent pad despite the cover of snow, and laid out her insulated undercover. She emptied the tent from its bag on top. Keith tried to help, but Ellis could do it faster without explaining. She got the tent up fast and quickly outfitted it with blankets, pillows, sleeping bag, and other necessities.

  She took two cups out of her cooking supply box and found the cognac buried in a box of food supplies. She’d been saving the expensive French cognac for a special occasion. She’d found Jonah’s hidden stash of liqueurs when she was packing the few items she’d wanted from his house. He’d hidden it from her in their bedroom closet, and she’d felt no compunction about taking a few bottles.

  She turned off one lantern and set the other inside the tent to dim its brightness. She gave Keith his cup of cognac. “What should we toast this time?” she asked.

  “Gorgeous witches who lure men into the snowy woods at night?”

  She held up her cup. “To gorgeous witches and their equally gorgeous prey.”

  He tapped his metal cup to hers.

  In that setting, the strong, cold brandy tasted like a witch’s brew, a magical mix of black-molasses night, falling-sugar snow, and a spice of stars hidden behind the storm.

  “Good?” she asked.

  “Very.” He kissed her, and she tasted the sweetness again on his mouth.

  They drank and kissed and drank and kissed until they’d emptied their cups.

  “More?” she asked.

  “I’d better not. The driving will be hazardous as is.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  Rather than answer, he smoothed her hair. It had turned to wet coils in the snow. “I love your hair. It’s as wild as you are.”

  “I’m growing it.”

  “That will be beautiful. You’re soaked. Aren’t you cold?”

  “Not yet. Are you?”

  “No.”

  “Keith . . . ?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have to know—if we go in the tent, I’m still leaving tomorrow.”

  “I supposed that was the deal,” he said with an air of wistfulness.

  The snow, its muting of the woods, felt like words neither of them could say.

  “Are you leaving?” she asked.

  “I probably should.”

  “I understand.”

  He took her in his arms and held her against his chest. “How did you get like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like here but not here. Like this snow I can’t touch without it melting in my hand.”

  “You become quite the poet when you drink, don’t you?”

  He held her out and looked into her eyes. “What happened to make you do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Go off alone into forests in the middle of winter.”

  “Why do you think something had to have happened?”

  “I saw it first thing this morning. You’re sad. Deep down.”

  “Isn’t everyone?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  The snow fell between them.

  She kissed his cheek, cold, wet skin prickled with new beard. “I loved being with you tonight. It was more for me than you understand.”

  “I’m glad you called me.”

  She kissed him again, briefly, on the lips. “I’m going in the tent. I’m getting cold.”

  She walked away from him.

  “Goodbye, Ellis.”

  When she unzipped the tent and slipped off her boots, she saw him vanishing into the snowy darkness. She sealed the door before he’d fully disappeared. She took off her clothes and put on thermal underwear, sweatpants, a fleece pullover, and wool socks. She would let her hair dry a little before she put on a hat. She slid into her insulated sleeping bag and turned off the lamp.

  She wanted to sleep. Immediately. She didn’t want to lie there wanting Keith, or thinking about the River Oaks Apartments, or seeing her phone with pictures of the kids in the river.

  But that wasn’t how it went for her anymore.
Usually she had to take something to get to sleep. She felt around in the darkness for the pill bottle and water.

  “Ellis?”

  He was standing near the tent. Same as when he’d first called to her that morning.

  “I don’t care if I’ll never see you again,” he said. “I want to be with you. If that’s what you want, too.”

  She unzipped the tent. “It’s what I want,” she said. “I’ll even let you bring the pony.”

  10

  Ellis pulled the pony out of her pocket. She set it on a boulder, framed by the snowcapped mountains. Ellis called it Gep. The day after she’d spent a snowy night with Keith Gephardt in her tent, she’d found it zipped into the pocket of her down coat. Keith had hidden it there before he left.

  At first, the pony’s name had been Gephardt, but that had become abridged, as had everything in her life as weeks and months went by. “What do you think, Gep?” she asked the pony. “We’re at the top. Great view, isn’t it?”

  The pony gazed silently at the mountains. Ellis took out her water bottle and held it up in a toast. “To ten days of being sober,” she said before she drank. “What do you think? Can I do it this time?”

  The pony’s smile looked more sardonic than supportive.

  She hadn’t succeeded the first time she tried to get sober, back when she was camping in the mountains of New Mexico. She’d nearly made it to two weeks of sobriety that time. She’d discovered ascents didn’t work so well when she was drunk or zoned out on pills. That meant she had two choices: keep to her tent and look longingly at the mountains while she got stoned, or stay sober and climb. But even if she climbed, she’d return exhausted and usually drink a lot in her camp at night.

  But this time she was determined. If she could get through this day without pills or alcohol, maybe she was finally strong enough to stay sober.

  She said to the pony, “Guess what today is?”

  Gep smiled.

  “Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I left my baby in the forest.”

  His blue smile remained.

  “Seriously. I put her down in a parking lot and drove away. I left her for some lunatic to find.”

  Two men and two women came up the trail. They looked at her oddly; maybe they’d heard her talking out loud. Ellis remembered the pony too late.

  “I used to have one of those,” said a woman with a bear-ear hat.

  “That picture will be awesome,” the other woman said. “Are you sending it to a little girl?”

  “Yes,” Ellis said. She took Gep off the rock and stuffed him in her pocket.

  Now that the pony was out of the picture, the two couples started taking photos against the boulder. Ellis packed up her stuff and headed back down the mountain.

  About a quarter of the way down the switchbacks, Ellis patted her pocket, and when she discovered the zipper open, she panicked for a few seconds. Gep was the one thing she owned that was irreplaceable. She reached in and felt the smooth mane. She zipped the pocket.

  Ellis had slept with two men since Keith, and neither had been half as good as the ranger. She found that ironic. The partners she’d met on a trail and in a campground had been much more compatible with her. They wanted sex with minimal emotional connection. Keith was the reverse. He’d mainly wanted connection. He hadn’t expected sex when they met in the tavern. He’d even walked away from it initially.

  A raven was calling from the forest when she arrived at the campground. She still hated that sound. But another commotion distracted her. A group of six had put up three tents in the two sites next to hers. They were young and loud. Constant laughter and the smell of weed wafted into her camp.

  She’d tented near much worse in campgrounds. Ellis might have even been with them, young and spirited, if her life had gone a different way. She mostly resented the noise because she wanted a quiet night on the anniversary of Viola’s abduction.

  She made a fire and heated a small dinner. A young guy from the adjacent camp walked past and waved at her. She raised her hand in greeting but made as little eye contact as possible.

  Ellis sat on a log to eat. She stared into the fire, letting the shape of the flames steer her thoughts. Normally she’d sit by the fire and drink whiskey, but she tried not to think about that. And she tried not to think about where Viola was and what River and Jasper were doing on the other side of the country. They would start kindergarten in the fall. She knew they would do well. But River might have issues if his teacher was overly authoritarian. Ellis hoped Jonah would make sure that didn’t happen. Mary Carol wouldn’t be careful about that. Or was Irene more their mother now?

  She felt like the growing dusk had leaked into her. An awful gloom she felt viscerally. Why had she let herself think about her children? She put down her bowl, unable to finish her food.

  God, she needed a drink. But she’d hiked a trail for two days to make sure she couldn’t get to her car easily. How could she have believed she’d get through this day without help?

  She unzipped her left pocket and took out Gep.

  He beamed at her.

  “Your incessantly positive attitude makes me want to throw you into the fire,” she told him.

  She imagined the pony melting into an ooze of blue plastic in the orange flames. Sometimes she thought she should do it, be done with the bizarre addiction.

  But there were worse addictions. She smoothed the pony’s faded purple mane with her fingers. As Keith had done to her hair in the snow.

  “Hey there,” someone said.

  Ellis looked up. It was the man who’d walked past her campsite earlier. She slid Gep into her pocket and zipped it closed.

  “Want to share a joint?” he said.

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  Her stomach plummeted when the man pulled a flask out of his pocket.

  “Maybe a drink?”

  She thought of what she’d said to River and Jasper. I’ll be in pretty places, getting better.

  But what did it matter what they thought when she’d never see them again? She needed it. Just one more night. To help her through this anniversary.

  The man came over to the fire. He held his free hand down toward her, the other clasping the flask. “I’m Caleb.”

  “Ellis,” she said, taking his hand.

  “Ellis?”

  “Yes.”

  “Want some?” he asked, holding out the flask.

  “No,” she said, surprising herself with how firmly she’d spoken.

  “It’s not drugged or anything.” He opened the flask and took a swig, then pointed the open container at her.

  “I said no.”

  He heard the anger in her tone. “Okaaay.” He slipped the flask into his pocket. “Want to join us next door? We’re just talking and whatnot.”

  It was the whatnot that she didn’t trust herself with.

  “Thank you, but I’m tired,” she said. “I’m going to bed soon.”

  He looked at the small tent she’d packed in. “You all by yourself?”

  She’d been asked that question occasionally since she’d started camping and hiking alone in her college years. It always rattled her. She replied as she always did. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Well, I saw this beautiful woman over here, and I was wondering if you were with someone. I assumed you were. But I haven’t seen anyone. So here I am, making a total ass of myself. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

  He walked away.

  She was afraid she was becoming her mother. A miserable person who poisoned people with her toxic moods.

  “I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said.

  He turned around.

  “I’m having a bad night.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “Why?”

  “Today is the anniversary of someone dying.”

  She had no idea why she’d phrased it like that. But it wasn’t a lie. One year ago on this day, the person she’d been had died. Maybe her baby, too.

  Caleb loo
ked into her eyes. “Shit. Want to talk about it?”

  “I can’t.”

  He walked over and sat cross-legged next to the log. “Want to not talk about it?”

  “That would be better. But nothing to drink. I’m trying to quit.”

  “Oh god. I’m an ass.”

  “You didn’t know.”

  He stared at her, genuine concern in his eyes. He was attractive. Thick curls, dark eyes, sculpted face. Young.

  “How long have you been in the park?” he asked.

  “Two days. What about you?”

  “This was our fourth day,” he said. “Vacation?”

  “No.”

  “So . . . you’re on the road?” he asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “I knew it. I saw a kindred spirit as soon as I set eyes on you. How long have you been wandering?”

  “Since December.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Too many places to name,” she said. “New York to New Mexico to California to here—and lots of states in between.”

  “Awesome. I’ve been wandering since I was nineteen.”

  “For how long?”

  “Three years. I can’t live any other way. None of us is meant to. You know that, right? Agriculture turned us into prisoners. We never wanted to grow crops and live in houses. We were nomads for millions of years.”

  He adjusted to face her. “You know that feeling you get when you live inside a house for too long? It doesn’t matter if it’s a little apartment or a house or a mansion. You’re gonna feel it. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  She nodded. She had felt it.

  “That’s your genetic memories making you see, hear, smell, touch, and long for how we lived for hundreds of generations. Inside we’re still a nomadic species. All people feel it, but most of them don’t know what’s making them want something that’s always out of reach. They buy fancier cars and bigger houses, but it never makes them feel better. They just keep getting more depressed until they die.”

  He was more interesting than she’d thought he’d be. And doing a great job of distracting her from thinking about Viola.

  He put his hand on her knee. “Hey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be a downer when you’re already down.”

  “It’s all right,” she said.

  He took his hand off her knee and pulled a paperback out of his pocket. It was a battered copy of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. “Do you know ‘Song of the Open Road’?”