“What were you doing?” George berated her. “Do you have any idea what might have—”
“Please, please, please, shut up,” Jess said. She couldn’t bear to talk to him in front of everybody else.
But the others were busy. Leon was helping Daisy with her harness. The Tree Savers gathered around her as she started her ascent. “Free the tree,” the Tree Savers chanted joyfully, as Daisy lifted off to take Jess’s place. “Free the tree. Free the tree. Free the tree.”
The Tree Savers were focused on Daisy. Only George was watching Jess as she knelt on the ground, clutching herself, breathing hard.
“Are you hurt? Are you okay?” George tried to help her to her feet, but she shook him off and stood up on her own.
“Let me see your hands.”
“No! Go away.”
“You can push me away as much as you want,” he said. “It won’t make any difference.”
Jess looked up at Daisy, suspended in the gloaming, small as a silkworm hanging from a slender thread.
“Tell me you won’t go up there again,” George said.
“You’re embarrassing me!”
“I don’t care.”
“Of course not!” She started walking, taking the trail to the parking lot.
“Wait, Jess.”
She didn’t answer.
“Where are you going?”
“None of your business!” she called back.
“I was worried about you.” He jogged a little to keep up.
She spoke without looking at him. “You’ve got quite a double standard driving up here.”
In the dirt lot, she found the Honda that George had loaned her. Her hands shook, and George called after her, carrying on that she wasn’t safe to drive. She didn’t listen. Her ripped hands still shook, and the old car shuddered when she turned the key, but she never hesitated as she drove away.
26
Her hands bled on the steering wheel as she wove from one lane to the next. She drove for miles, and her wet jeans felt like lead. There she’d been, guarding Galadriel, and what did she do? She gave up. No dimpled spider for her. No swinging birches. She drove on, and spots appeared before her eyes, tiny points of light, and visions of Daisy climbing, and George making a scene, crashing the Tree-Sit. What was he thinking? Why was everything about him? But most of all, she remembered Leon’s face. All their time together ending in his quick glance, his cold assessment, as commanders consider casualties. She was dead to him, and he wouldn’t leave Galadriel unguarded. How fast could he replace Jess once he got her to the ground? Earth’s the place for love. Earth’s the place for love. The words rushed like blood in her ears, even as she looked in the rearview mirror and saw George driving after her. Earth’s the place, she thought as she accelerated in her anger and her humiliation.
George followed in his Mercedes, keeping Jess in sight. She was right, of course, about the double standard. I wasn’t ready. We were too new. In a strange way he believed it. The collector in him believed it: His time with Jess was too new, too sweet to share. But that was selfish. That was unfair. She deserved more than that. She needed more, and he could give her more. He could do better—if she would let him.
But she drove for hours in the rattling old car, and all he could do was trail after her. When he lent Jess the Honda he had never intended her to drive so far. Certainly not at this speed. He thought she would tire and pull over, but she did not. She drove for an hour, two hours, almost three, until she seemed to calm herself, slowing down, keeping to one lane as she cut through ranch land and timbered mountains.
When at last Jess exited, George followed, assuming she needed gas, but she did not drive to a rest stop; she took a winding road lined with colossal trees to a place called Fern Hollow, where she parked in the dirt lot.
He waited, but she did not get out of her car. Cautiously he approached and saw her sitting, staring at the dark tree trunks ahead.
“Jessamine.”
She didn’t answer.
“Jess.” He tapped on the glass until she rolled down the window.
“What?”
“What are you doing to my poor old Accord?”
She didn’t answer.
George walked around to the passenger side and let himself in. He sat next to Jess and waited. He was sure that she would speak, but she did not. She kept staring straight ahead.
“Do you want me to apologize?” George asked at last. “I apologize.”
She didn’t answer.
“I was worried about you.”
She turned on him. “You embarrassed me!”
“You scared the hell out of me.”
“What are you? My father?”
“Why do you have to be Joan of Arc?”
“Why do you have to be such a cynic?”
“Why do you think that trees have rights?” He saw that she was about to interrupt, and didn’t let her. “Do you really think redwoods are sentient beings? If you believe that, then vegetables have rights, and you shouldn’t eat anything at all.”
“You don’t care what kind of Earth your children inherit.”
“I don’t have children.”
“Exactly. That’s your problem, among other things.”
“Which are?”
“That you prefer objects to people.”
“I do not …,” George protested.
“Oh, really? I think you do. I think you made all that money, and you had your great expectations, but you got hurt, and now you just hide behind your stuff, because you think your books and your maps and your typewriter collection will last. You think they’ll last forever and they’ll never leave you. So in your mind you think you’re Pip, but actually you’re Miss Havisham.”
“Miss Havisham?”
“With books instead of clothes.”
“You love the books,” he reminded her. “You’re working with the books.”
But she ignored this. “You don’t have anything left for trees or animals or the outside world, because you’ve shut yourself in. You’re a shut-in. You’re like the curator of your own heart.”
Wounded, but too proud to let it show, he spoke lightly. “I see why I resisted therapy all these years. I was waiting for you to explain me to myself. And now that you have, I can reach out to other species. Does Leon count?”
“Don’t talk about Leon.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t even know him.”
“Oh, I exchanged some words with him. I think I was getting to know him pretty well.”
“George, do you think this is some kind of joke?”
“That depends on what ‘this’ is.”
“Then you’re just being snide? You’re trying to offend me? What exactly are you trying to do?”
“Let me see.” He reached for her hands.
“It’s just rope burn,” she said. “I’ll clean them up myself.”
“Let’s get some water.”
She hesitated.
“Oh, come on, Jess.”
At last, she got out. She found the park restrooms, and then followed him to his car.
“Q.E.D.,” she said when he opened the trunk and she saw his duffel bag, a case of bottled water, a tent, a first-aid kit, a cooler full of food. “You’ve got all your stuff as usual.”
“Is that such a bad thing, under the circumstances?” George handed her a water bottle. “Drink.”
There were two other cars in the lot, but no hikers visible. They walked down to a picnic table under the trees, and she let him wash and bandage her hands. He knelt down and removed her soggy old climbing shoes and wet socks. With a clean towel he dried her feet, rubbing them up and down. That was when she began to cry.
“Jess,” he whispered. “Darling.”
“Darling?” She tried out the word through tears.
“I’m sorry I compared you to Joan of Arc.”
“I’m sorry I compared you to Miss Havisham.” She paused. “But actually …”
“Oh, you’re fond of that comparison, aren’t you?” George teased softly. “You think that was pretty good, and you don’t want to give it up. I know you.”