“Not bad, Sierra,” he said. “Kind of creaky, isn’t she?”
“She likes me better,” Sierra said. “I have a sweet touch and you’re a clod.”
“It suits you, this little orange ball. How was your drive down?”
“Pretty. A little rainy. Colorado is beautiful.”
“I worried, you know. Thinking about you making that drive all alone when I could have ridden with you...”
She laughed outright. “God, I needed to be alone more than you’ll ever know! Do you have any idea how rare time alone was for me the last nine months?”
“That wasn’t one of the things I thought about,” he admitted. He’d spent all his energy fearing her relapse. Or worse.
“I’ve been living with people for nine months, first in rehab and then in a group home. It taught me a lot, I’m the first to admit that. But it also drove me crazy. For a long day on the road, I could actually hear the inside of my head. My first day in Timberlake there were elk right in the town. On the main street, weaving through the cars.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve heard it happens but never saw it.” He gave her knee a pat. “Tell me if there’s anything you need. If there’s anything I can do to make this move, this transition, easier for you.”
She shook her head. “Nothing at the moment. I planned it very carefully, down to the tiniest detail. If I need anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“You’re being very brave,” he said. “You left your support system and came all the way to—”
“I have a phone, Cal. I’m in touch with my sponsor and will be going to meetings now and then, looking for a local sponsor. I’m in touch with a couple of the women in recovery I lived with the last six months. We shore each other up and...” She took a breath. “And I’m not fragile, all right? See—no sweaty palms. It’s all cool. I’m excited about being here.”
“You never said what did it? What finally got you in rehab?” Cal and his late wife, Lynne, had tried an intervention, offering support if she’d consider sobriety, but it was a failure. Sierra wasn’t interested. She said they were overreacting.
“Listen, something you should understand, I didn’t know I had a problem, okay? I should have, but I didn’t. I thought I drank a little too much sometimes, like everyone. I kept meaning to do better but it wouldn’t last long. I mean, I hardly ever missed work, I never got a DUI, never got DT’s when I didn’t drink and even though I did things I regretted because of alcohol, I thought that was my fault, not the booze. I decided to give rehab a try but I honestly thought I’d go into treatment and learn that everyone else had a problem and I was actually just an idiot who didn’t always use good judgment. But it didn’t work out that way. Now I know all the things I should’ve known a long time ago.” She chuckled and looked out at the view. “Imagine my surprise.”
“I thought you were doing a lot of drugs,” he said.
“Hardly ever,” she said. “I didn’t need drugs. I was busy drinking.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I’m really proud of you,” he finally said. “Nine months is good,” he said.
“It’s excellent, to tell the truth. And I’ll be honest, in the early days I wasn’t very confident of nine days. But here we are. Now you—tell me something—what does it feel like, knowing you’re going to be a daddy?”
He felt his face grow into that silly smile he’d been wearing lately whenever he thought about Maggie. “Unbelievable. Overwhelming. I was getting used to the idea this wouldn’t happen to me.”
“But it’s not a surprise, is it?” she asked. “The baby?”
“Nah, we wanted a family. Maggie’s way more fertile than she bargained for—it happened right away. We’re still getting used to the idea, but it feels great. You’ll see someday...”
She was shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to being an auntie but I’m not all that into the mommy scene. I didn’t grow up looking after little kids like you did.”
“You saying you don’t like kids?” he asked.
“I love kids,” she said. “When they’re someone else’s. But... Can I ask a personal question?”
“Sure. Be gentle with me,” he said, but he smiled when he said it.
“Do you ever worry about the schizophrenia thing?”
Their father, Jed, was schizophrenic and he wasn’t medicated. Rather, he was self-medicated—he smoked pot every day. It kept the delusions a little quieter. Jed was, quite honestly, crackers. And schizophrenia sometimes ran in families.
“I worry about everything, including that. It appears Jed didn’t inherit his disease or pass it on, unless someone’s holding back information. But I have Maggie. She’s much more logical and pragmatic. She began listing things we could worry about—the list was long. It covered everything from childhood cancers and illnesses to teenage pregnancy and she suggested, firmly, that we deal with each problem as it appears. You have to remember, Maggie handles catastrophic head injuries and brain tumors for a living—you can’t scare her. And if mental illness is one of our problems, trust me—we’ll be managing it in a different way than Jed does.” He paused. “How are they?”
“I saw them briefly before I left and they’re exactly the same. Mom said she was glad I was going to be around you, that you probably needed me. I have no idea where she got that idea. I told her not to tell anyone but Sedona and Dakota where I was. I don’t know who would ask but I want to cut ties with that old life. I mean, I still have my Des Moines support, but we don’t give out information on each other. Mom was fine, Dad was getting ready for a big security briefing of some kind. In other words, he’s in Jed’s world. You call them, don’t you?”
“I haven’t talked to them in a couple of weeks—I’ve been busy with the barn. I’ll check in. Sierra, are there debts to clear or something?”
“No,” she assured him. “I just don’t need anyone from rehab or my old party days tracking me down. I’m good.”
“If you have issues like that, tell me. Better to straighten it out than ignore it.”
“I don’t have those kinds of issues, Cal.”
“Okay. But if I can help... Just get settled.”
“I worry about them, too, Cal,” she said.
“But there’s nothing we can do,” he reminded her. “Let’s go find Maggie. She’s dying to meet you in person.”
* * *
Sierra drove the pumpkin, following Cal’s directions to Sullivan’s Crossing. As she oohed and aahed at the scenery, she thought one of the great things about rehab had been learning she was not the only person with a totally screwed-up family. Given the fact that her sister Sedona and brother Dakota were living functional and what appeared to be normal, conventional lives, it seemed to boil down to her parents, and all because Jed didn’t want to be treated for his schizophrenia and Marissa, her mother, didn’t push him. Crazy parents weren’t unusual in rehab. In fact the number of people who had been drinking or drugging their way through delusions was astonishing.
She had told a small lie. She’d told it cheerfully and with good intentions. Truthfully, she wished she could have children. But there were multiple problems with that idea. First, she had a very bad history with men—she chose the worst ones imaginable. And second, not only did she have to deal with schizophrenia in the family tree but also addiction, which also tended to run in families. How could she risk cursing a child with such afflictions? Add to that, you’d have to trust yourself a great deal to be a good parent and she wasn’t even close. Self-doubt was her constant companion.
“You get to see this scenery every day,” she said to her brother. “I was mainly coming here because you and Maggie are here but it’s an amazingly beautiful place.”
“I wonder if you ever get used to it,” he said. “I still
can’t believe I’m lucky enough to live here.”
“How’d you end up here?” she asked.
“You know,” he said. “Wandering. Trying to find myself, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I was roaming. It’s in our genes. Plus...” He hesitated. “I was looking for a place for Lynne. A place for her ashes. I gave her my word—I’d leave her in a beautiful place and then I’d let her go.”
“And did you?” Sierra asked.
He was quiet for a moment. “I found a beautiful place. By that time I’d met Maggie. And my life started over.” He reached over and touched her knee. “Your turn to start over, kid.”
“Yeah,” she said, suddenly feeling tired. Scared. It came upon her at the weirdest times, that fear she’d turn out to be a failure. Again. “Right. And looks like a great place to do that.”
“I think of this as home,” Cal said. “We never really had a home.”
“We had the farm,” she said. “Sort of.”
“You had more of that than I did,” he said.
Their parents, who described themselves as free spirits, hippies, freethinkers and nonconformists, raised their family on the road, living in a bus converted into an RV, but it was really just a disguise. Jed was sick and Marissa was his enabler and keeper. Marissa’s parents had a farm in Iowa and they landed there quite often, all of them helping on the farm and going to school in Pratt, Iowa, a small farming community. Then they’d take off again, on the road. By the time Sierra was eight they’d settled on the farm full-time, taking care of the land for Grandma after Grandpa passed away. Cal finished high school there.
Then he left to seek his fortune, to go to college with the help of scholarships and loans. She had been only ten. He passed responsibility for her on to Sedona, next oldest. When Sierra was twelve, Sedona left for college. She got herself a full ride and went to a hoity-toity women’s university back East and though she called, she rarely visited. When Sierra was fifteen, Dakota left, enlisting in the Army at the first opportunity. Then it was just Sierra. Sierra with Jed and Marissa. Counting the minutes until she could get away, too.
Not long after they all left her she discovered beer and pot.
* * *
The Crossing, the place where Cal had found his woman and his second chance, did not look anything like Sierra had expected. It was a completely uninhabited campground. Little dirt pads were separated by trees, the foliage just beginning to turn leafy. The sites were dotted with little brick grills here and there. The picnic tables were all lined up by the side of a big old store with a wide porch that stretched the length of the building. There was a woman sweeping the porch—had to be Maggie. She stopped sweeping, stared at them, smiled and leaned her broom against the wall. She descended the steps just as they got out of the little car.
“Sierra!” she said, opening her arms.
“How did you know?”
She hugged her and then held her away to look at her. “You couldn’t be anyone else. You belong to your brother as if you were his twin. Maybe I’ll have a daughter and she’ll look exactly like you.”
Sierra blushed. “Would that be a good thing?”
“That would be perfect,” Maggie said.
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does the body.
—Seneca
Chapter 2
SIERRA LEARNED SHE’D arrived at the Crossing in the middle of some serious cleanup. A skinny old guy named Frank was cleaning and stocking shelves; his wife, Enid, was giving the kitchen and pantry a good scouring; Sully was cleaning the rain gutters and when he was done with that he’d begin repairing and painting picnic tables. Maggie was going to hose down the porch, and then she was intent on raking up the patch of garden behind the house so they could get planting.
But everything stopped when Sierra arrived. They gathered on the porch. A table was wiped off, warm buns and hot coffee were brought out for a little visiting, getting to know Sierra.
“Don’t you do too much,” Cal said to Maggie. “Just take care of the bump.”
“We don’t let her do too much,” Enid said.
“I got my eye on her,” Sully said.
“Don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Frank said. “Women been doin’ it since Eve. Exercise is good for her. What?” he asked when he noticed everyone was glaring at him. “I just speak the damn truth!”
“That’s a first,” Maggie said. “I agree with Frank.”
“And I bet Frank just stays in trouble, don’t you, Frank?” Sierra said.
“Young woman, I been working like a farmhand every day it don’t rain,” Frank informed her.
“’Bout damn time,” Sully said. “Tom Canaday is rounding up some boys from that county road crew he works with. Some fellas who need a little extra cash and can bring their own equipment. They’ll give the grounds a good grooming, clean out my trench for the runoff from the snowpack melt and cart off some heavy trash when they leave. I can fix and paint the picnic tables, spruce up the lavatory, showers and laundry room. And while the yard crew is here, I’ll get ’em to till up that garden.”
“I always thought running a campground would be easier than this,” Sierra said.
“Mud season,” Maggie informed her. “When the snow melts and the rain plagues us, there’s a lot to do to restore the place before the campers start showing up again. We’re coming up on spring break and Easter weekend and from Memorial Day through summer, it’s full almost all the time.”
“Maybe I can help out,” Sierra said.
All eyes turned to her. It was quite a while before Sully spoke. “Could you use a little extra money, girl?”
“I was thinking of being helpful,” she said. “I have a job, but it’s only part-time. I’m happy about that—I want some time to explore and...you know...get settled in. I’d be happy to help out.”
“That’s very sweet,” Maggie said. “Are you going to stay with Cal and me?”
“In the construction zone?” she asked. “Thanks, but I have a place.”
“Oh?” three people said at once.
“A hostel in town,” she said. “It’s very nice. It’s next to a bookstore. It’s across from the diner, where I’m going to work a few mornings a week.”
“Midge Singleton’s place?” Sully asked.
“That’s it,” Sierra said.
Sully leaned forward. “Girl, that woman will stack bodies end on end, stuff as many people as she can in that place.”
“It seems decent enough. She seems very nice,” Sierra said defensively.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t nice,” Sully said. “I’ve known Midge over thirty years. She opened up that place when her husband died a long while back and she means to make a good living on it. You got extra beds in your room?”
“Just one,” Sierra said. “For a female in my general age range. She promised to let me have the room alone as long as she could and that’s just how a hostel works. I’d like to think she means that...”
“I’d like to think that, too,” Cal grumbled.
“Here’s another option,” Sully said. “You go ahead and try that hostel, but watch your stuff. Let Midge lock things up for you—she’ll do that. If you don’t like it so much, I have empty cabins. There’s a shower and bathroom in each one.”
“That’s awful nice, but—”
“You can have one of ’em if you want,” Sully said. “I ain’t gonna put another camper in your bed with you, no matter how full up we get.”
Cal laughed and Maggie winced. “What’s the rent on one of those cabins?” Sierra asked.
“Well, let me think,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Bathroom needs regrouting. Picnic tables need paint. Porch on the store and at the house need sealer painted on. Garde
n needs work and tending. And there’s stocking daily in the store. Fifteen or twenty or so hours should cover a week. Easy. Then there’s always the rumpus room, which is free. But you’d have to share a bathroom with an old man.”
“Rumpus room?” she asked.
“Our old apartment,” Cal said. “It’s in the basement. The pipes clang sometimes but it’s comfortable. And no roommates.”
They visited for almost two hours when Sierra noticed that Sully was getting a little fidgety. Very likely he wasn’t used to sitting around, swilling coffee and yakking. “I think it’s about time I got Cal back to the barn and to work or Maggie will never get her house. And, Sully, give me a couple of days to figure out my schedule and the town and I’ll come around to lend a hand.”
“I’m capable if you have better things to do,” he said, standing up from the table and giving his jeans a yank up into place.
Out of habit, Sierra picked up cups and napkins along with Maggie, carting them back to the kitchen. She stopped to look around a little bit, intrigued by the supplies that ranged from food to ropes to tools. There was even a bookshelf full of secondhand books.
“This place is a popular stop off for campers and hikers,” Maggie said. “Through-hikers who have taken on the Continental Divide Trail count on this place to restock and rest for a day or two. There’s even a post office—they can pick up mail here.”
“Are there a lot of them?” Sierra asked.
“All summer,” Maggie said. “They’re amazing. It’s quite a conquest, the CDT.”
“Is it a long trail?”
“It’s 3,100 miles from Mexico to Canada.”
Sierra gasped. “Are you kidding me?”
Maggie shook her head. “It’s a pretty interesting group that passes through here in summer—everyone from hikers and rock climbers to families camping for vacation. There are quite a few RVs and fifth wheels here from spring through fall—lots of people enjoying the wildflowers and then later, the autumn foliage. It’s a beautiful place.”