He turns back and puts his warm hand on my face. “Thank you, Jane. I’m okay. Go ahead without me. I’m okay.”
I nod and I start to cry, his hand wiping each tear away.
“I’m okay too, Daddy.”
And I believe it, too. That’s the first time I’ve ever felt that way, dream or no dream, since the day my father killed himself. The blackness swirling through my mind begins to echo with the sound of the shot, my mother’s screams, and the noise of sirens and walkie-talkies, medics and policemen. My father died that night, but something inside of me started to grow, and at first, I tended it, helping it, but then I lost control and it grew into something that existed all on its own: a raging beast inside of me that almost devoured me from the inside out.
“Goodbye,” I tell my father, and I touch his face once more and he leans into me, very close. I can feel the imprint of his kiss. Then his face turns mean and ugly and I can feel his breath on the top of my nose.
I open my eyes, and for a split second I am looking up into the yellow eyes of the wolf. Then suddenly, snap! The icy wind hits my face and I awake.
I’m frozen and panting from my dream.
I stand up and grab my walking stick and look upriver and then down. There’s no sign of the wolf. It was just a dream, Jane. The wolf is only as real as your father. Let them go.
I turn and head downriver with the wind at my back. Walking the riverbank is the easiest walk I’ve had since I started. That’s good, because my body is failing me now, and every hundred feet or so, I have to kneel down and gather my strength. Eventually, with the help of the wind pushing me forward, I feel some energy. I’m thinking about that last climb Paul made and how he came to life on that day, just before he took a turn for the worse.
Is he still alive? How could he be? He just has to be. Don’t give up on him. My thoughts turn to the people who never gave up on me. My mother, Old Doctor, the nurses, some of the other Life Housers like Ben. I remember one day in the hospital; it was a low point perhaps a couple months into my stay. I was looking out at the courtyard filled with snow. I was thinking about how wonderful snow is to a child. Sledding, snowmen, snowball fights. And it must have made me sad, because tears were rolling down my face and Ben came up to me and sat down. He didn’t say much, but he offered me a cigarette. And even though I wasn’t a smoker, I joined him out in the courtyard. When we were done, he said, “Everything I look at has the potential to make me sad.”
“I love the snow,” I said. “But it makes me sad.”
“Yeah. It makes me sad too,” Ben said.
“It makes me miss my father. We played in the snow-I still think about that a lot.”
Then he did something that made my mouth drop but I now realize was perhaps the grandest gesture ever committed at Life House. He pulled down his pants and took a pee in the pristine white snow, spelling his name.
“Now you’ll think of me.”
I laughed. And it makes me smile even now.
My pace steadies, and I move along the river until it takes a wide turn back toward the mountain range I left days before. It is so easy to walk along the river and follow its path mindlessly. But I feel the sun, and I know where that river is going. I can’t go back there. I stop and look across the river, considering my options. As far as I can see from here, there’s nothing but an open field of grass beyond the underbrush. Cross and take my chances of dying from exposure in the middle of the field? Or follow a river back toward a world I know holds certain death for me?
My eyes focus deep into the vast expanse beyond the river and follow a clear dark line straight along the horizon. Is that a fence? A road? A power line? A logging road? It must be man-made, whatever it is. Nothing in nature could cut such a long, straight line across the horizon. It occurs to me that my eyes could be playing tricks on me.
The first thing standing between the line on the horizon and me is a narrow piece of river. I step to the edge of the riverbank and look down to where the bend breaks. It is probably fifteen or twenty feet across at the narrowest point, maybe less. The river isn’t deep; I can tell because I can see it rippling off the rocks on the bottom.
I take out all my dry clothes: a pair of pants, a shirt and sweater, two pairs of wool socks, and my jacket and shell, and I put them into a plastic bag and tie it. Then I put the bag in my sleeping bag, knowing I must keep my clothes dry if I am to survive crossing the river.
I shimmy down the bank and slide into the water with both boots. The slow-moving current is more powerful than I anticipated, but it only goes up to my shins. I plant my full weight and hold the bank with my arms so as not to be swept away. I look up to the bank and know that scrambling back up isn’t an option. I take a deep breath. Let me cross. Let me cross.
Chapter 34
I stand still for a moment, taking in the strength of the current and the distance I have to cover. It is less than twenty feet, I tell myself. You can do this. I walk out and the current stays around knee level for the first two or three steps, then the water is up to my thighs and its chill is bracing.
I jam my stick as far out as I can manage but am pushed a few feet downstream as I do it. I step and push against the stick like a pole vault jumper, and the current sweeps me up. I flutter kick as fast as I can and push hard against the stick and I’m able to move two or three yards across the river. Don’t fight it, Jane. Let the river move you. I try pulling my stick back toward me, but the force of the drag makes it impossible. I see it float away, rushing in the current, and I feel like I’m losing my best friend.
I’m moving quickly and making progress, but the bend is closer than I expected. I don’t fight the current; it floats me directly toward the far bank. The cold of the water strangles my muscles, and I am struggling to stay afloat. Their tightness makes lifting my arm from the water nearly impossible. My body feels heavy and numb. For a moment, my head is swallowed by the heavy drag from below. I get my mouth just above the waterline and gasp, trying to inhale deeply. My lungs feel frozen.
My legs are numb and weighted down by my waterlogged pants and heavy boots. My treading slows, then stops. I flail my arms, but the cold has numbed my shoulders. I look up, and I can see that I’m halfway across but stuck in the center sweep of the current. When the river breaks right, I need to be near the bank so I can stop my forward momentum. But I have nothing left. The fight in my legs is gone, and my arms offer no more force than a feather against the churning, moving beast.
Just as I hit the bend, the river roils and my feet graze the rocky bottom. I immediately kick back and run through the mud, and the effort ignites my arms, which thrash into the water with ferocity. My body lurches toward the shoreline, and I slam into the riverbank just before it turns sharply and cups the excess roiling water.
I drag myself up, drape myself over the lip of the bank, and hook my right leg over the top, rolling myself onto solid ground. I cough and heave water and bile into the snow. I am shaking and sobbing and my fingers and hands begin to burn with pain. After a while, I get on my knees to fling off my sleeping bag. I have no idea how much or how little time has passed. I push my frozen arms into the frozen bag and grab the ties with my teeth. I pull the knot free, and the bag unrolls.
I put my knee on the lip of the sleeping bag, but I can’t hold the edge of the lining with my frozen fingers, so I bite the corner and pull it open with my teeth. I reach in and grab my clothes. My hands are about as useful as clubs, but I manage. The bag is damp, but my clothes are dry.