Halfway to the Sky

  “It's not a real journal,” I said. “It's just mileage, where we stopped, what the weather was like.”

  “You ought to keep a real journal,” Mom said. “That would be interesting. You could write about this afternoon.”

  “What happened this afternoon?”

  Mom shut her eyes. “Everything,” she said.

  What happened was just hiking, lovely, plain, pure hiking. We came off Hawk Mountain and followed a ridgeline for a long time where we could see for miles through the bare trees on both sides. We weren't far from a road but it wasn't a busy road, and it felt like we were halfway to the sky. There were no clouds anywhere. We kept a comfortable pace. My feet weren't hurting anymore and my muscles were warm and loose; my heart beat steadily and strong. When we had to climb Sassafras Mountain, I did start to sweat, but I liked the feeling. I drew the cold air into my lungs. I felt whole.

  At the top I sat down on a log in the sun and waited for Mom. Her shoes were making it difficult, I knew. The trail itself was a narrow ribbon of earth; the cold night combined with the sun's warmth had made it soft and slick. The soles of my boots left deep marks, but I didn't slip like Mom did.

  When she came up, she dropped herself onto the log and let the makeshift straps of the tent and sleeping bag slide from her shoulders. I handed her some raisins and some water.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Trade you,” I said. “The pack for your stuff, for the next leg.”

  “Deal,” she said. “It's pinching my shoulders.” She looked through the trees with a hint of a smile.

  “Was it this pretty when you walked it before?” I asked her.

  “Mmmm,” she said. “It gets better later on. It gets green. And then in September, in Maine, the leaves are red and gold.”

  I was sure that was true but it made me angry. “I want to see it,” I said, “for myself.”

  “I know you do,” Mom said. “Ready to move on?”

  We climbed Justus Mountain, which was shorter than Sassafras, and then we were tired. We pressed on a bit to a creek and a good place to set up our tent, and there we found Vivi, setting up hers. Her face lit up when she saw us. “Oh, my,” she said. “Staying here tonight? I'm sure I'll get used to it, tenting by myself, but I didn't feel quite safe alone this first time.”

  Mom smiled. It was such an uncomplicated smile that I was shocked by it. It was like seeing the ghost of my former mother, the one I had when I was a little girl, before we knew Springer was sick. I turned away, my hands trembling.

  “Dani?” Mom said. “You want to set up the tent while I filter water?”

  “Sure,” I said in a halfway normal voice. I wiped my face on my sleeve and went to work.

  But when it came to lighting the stove, I hesitated. “Maybe we could have a campfire?” I said.

  Mom said, “Oh, geez, Dani,” which meant no, but Vivi said, “Wouldn't that be wonderful!” and started to gather wood.

  “Check your guidebook,” Mom said. “Make sure it's legal.”

  Campfires were forbidden in some places along the Trail but not in the national forest where we were. Vivi showed me how to clear a space in the earth and stack the wood just so. It was a lovely fire. We cooked our noodles over it and scorched the pot, and ruined my face towel using it as a dishrag. We didn't have marshmallows or hot dogs or anything you could cook on a stick. But Vivi shared some chocolate, and we all sat quietly watching the flames. I could have stayed up all night. At eight o'clock Mom said it was time for bed.

  We got into the tent and then the sleeping bag. That was when I took out my journal and Mom said I should write more than the date and miles. I didn't bother. I knew I wouldn't forget. I clicked off the light. Mom fell asleep. I reached into the side pocket of my pack, pulled out Springer's shirt, and pressed it against my cheek. I fell asleep in a heartbeat.

  March 4

  Suches General Store (Georgia)

  Miles hiked today: 6 (so far)

  Total miles hiked on the Appalachian Trail: 20.0

  Weather: chilly, windy, warmer in the sun

  I sat on the floor of the Suches General Store writing the morning's mileage into my notebook and cramming Snickers bars into my mouth. Mom was on the pay phone outside trying to reach Dad. I could see that she was talking to someone. Her face looked grim. After my third Snickers, the dude running the store came out from behind the counter. “You planning on paying for those?” he asked.

  I spread the wrappers flat. “My mom will, when she comes back in,” I said. “See, I'm keeping track.”

  “How many you going to eat?”

  “I don't know. It's time for lunch.”

  “You could get a sandwich or something,” he offered.

  “Maybe,” I said. I didn't know what our plan was going to be. Mom's car was in the parking lot at Amicalola. I supposed she could call the Gainesville taxi service to take us there. Since I wasn't the one making us leave the Trail, I didn't plan to worry about it. I started on another Snickers.

  “Hiking?” he asked.

  Brilliant deduction, given my pack. “Sort of,” I said. I could see my mom gesturing with both hands, the phone receiver jammed between her shoulder and her ear. “But I think we're done.”

  A moment later Mom walked into the store. She looked awful, grimy and sore, and her jeans and shoes were ruined. I felt achy and tired, but not hurt. I wondered if I looked as dirty as she did.

  “You'll never believe it,” she said, smacking her hands together. “Guess where your father is.”

  “Jamaica?”

  She shook her head. “Amicalola.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “You're not kidding. He's a little upset.”

  “Tough,” I said. “He can be upset all he wants. He's the one that ran off and got married to some bimbo.” I thought of Lisa and her ugly fingers. I reached for the last Snickers on the rack.

  “Give me that,” Mom said. “How many have you had?” She ripped the wrapper open and took a giant bite.

  “Six,” the clerk said. We looked at him. “She's had six,” he repeated.

  “I told him you'd pay,” I said to Mom.

  “I'm not paying,” Mom said. “You're the one with the five hundred bucks. I've barely got anything left beyond my driver's license.”

  We paid the clerk to calm him down and then went outside. “I guess I feel like you must have felt when I showed up at Stover Creek,” she said. “Busted.”

  “Yeah, except you didn't spend six months planning this, and you're a grown-up and can do what you want.”

  Mom looked at me sideways. “You really planned for six months?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Starting when?”

  “That day.”

  “Hmmm.” She sat down on the sidewalk and pushed her hair away from her forehead. We never talked about That Day. We never had to. Springer was buried on the first of September, and when we got home from the funeral, Dad started to pack. Neither he nor Mom said a word. I asked questions but no one answered them. By nightfall Dad was gone. Later in the week he called and gave me his new phone number. He acted like it was a perfectly normal thing to do, like I'd been sitting around wondering only what his new number would be. Sometimes he called to see if I'd finished my homework, and on weekends we sat in his new apartment and watched TV. I didn't play soccer in the fall, and he didn't even notice.

  The night we buried Springer I dreamed my brother was standing tall and strong on the top of a mountain. I'd always known what our names stood for. I knew what I had to do. The only way to put our family back together was to start over, at the place where it'd all begun.

  “Why is Dad at Amicalola?” I said. It was beyond hope, really, that he'd come.

  Mom sighed. “I think he must have cut his honeymoon short a few days. He knew you were missing, I'd called him at the resort. He came home Thursday, and then yesterday the man we met on the Trail called and actually talked to him instead of his answerin
g machine. So Dad drove down this morning.”

  “Where's Lisa?” I asked.

  “At home,” Mom said. “I talked to her. Then I talked to your dad on his cell phone. He's on his way. He'll be here in an hour.”

  “Can we have lunch?”

  Mom waved toward the store. “Help yourself.”

  I whispered, “Do you think he really got married?”

  Mom turned and put her hands on my shoulders. Her eyes looked straight into mine. “I am certain he got married. I hope his marriage will be a long and happy one. It stinks for you, Dani, and I am so sorry, but please remember that there is now another child involved.”

  I pulled away. “Why didn't anybody tell me the truth?”

  “Cowardice,” Mom said. “Guilt. Fear.”

  “I mean you, too,” I said. “Not just Dad.”

  “I know,” Mom said. “So do I.”

  I went inside and bought a sandwich and a little bag of chips. I ate an apple and drank a pint of milk from the dairy case. I used the toilet and washed my hands and face in the bathroom sink. It was worse that Dad was coming for us, or maybe better. I couldn't tell.

  Mom came in and said to the clerk, “You stock socks, blue jeans, anything like that? A fresh shirt, maybe?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma'am. Got some deodorant. Got some soap.”

  Mom nodded. “Well, that would be good.” She came up to me. “Here I am, trying to be honest and up front with you. What if we take a week's vacation and keep hiking?”

  I tried not to hope. “What do you mean?”

  “One week,” said Mom. “It's Saturday now. I'll get your dad to call my office and your school, I'll make it work out somehow. Your dad won't be happy, but I'll make him agree to it if this is something you care about. But it's only one more week. You've got to understand that, and accept it from the start.”

  “Okay,” I said very quietly.

  Mom's expression changed. “Honey, you don't have to. I'm sure it's harder than you expected. And if I get gear you'll have to carry more. Would you rather go home?”

  “No,” I said. “I'd rather go to Katahdin.”

  “You can quit anytime,” Mom said.

  “I won't quit until you make me.”

  Mom smiled. “A week is the best I can do. Take it or leave it.”

  “Take it,” I said.

  “Besides,” she added, “two thousand miles is a long way. We've done about one percent of the Trail so far. It gets harder, not easier.”

  I crossed my arms and didn't answer. Mom touched my elbow gently. “It's the best I can do,” she repeated.

  “Okay.”

  “Are you happy?”

  “No,” I said. “But thank you for trying.”

  She sighed. “Dani, we can't do the whole thing. It's not possible. I'm giving you a week. Aren't you glad?”

  A week compared to how much time she gave Springer, to how much time she spent working? A week. “Sure,” I said. “To finish the whole thing we only need to walk three hundred miles a day.”

  Mom threw up her hands. “Go for it,” she said.

  March 4

  Walasi-Yi Center, Neels Gap (Georgia)

  Miles hiked today: 6 (so far)

  Total miles hiked on the Appalachian Trail: 20.0

  Weather: too hot in car, too cold outside

  Dad wasn't happy.

  His car was the first one in several minutes that we saw on the road in front of the store. He accelerated toward us, stopped with a screech in the first parking spot, threw the door open, got out, and wrapped his arms around me, all in one continuous motion, like a movie.

  “Dani!” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” He smelled so comforting and familiar, a little bit like Springer's shirt.

  Dad pushed himself out to arm's length while still holding my shoulders. “Why did you do this?” he said. “Why did you run away?”

  I looked away. “How was Jamaica?” I asked.

  Dad's face turned red. His mouth fell open. “Of all the childish tricks,” he said. “Is that why you ran off ? I wouldn't have thought—”

  “No,” I said. “It's not why I left. I didn't even know where you were because you didn't tell me anything about it. I did not ‘run off.' I'm hiking.” I thought that of all people he would understand.

  “You had us scared to death, Dani—”

  “She knows,” Mom cut in. “We've been over that. I think she understands.”

  “Does she have any idea what could have—”

  I couldn't stand them talking about me in front of me. I said, “I'm sorry you had to come back early.”

  Dad looked puzzled. “We didn't,” he said. “We had always planned to come back on Thursday. Lisa had to work.”

  Really, I did not feel like speaking to him, not at all, not ever again. But I couldn't help myself. I said, “So. Did you decide to marry somebody you hardly knew at all, or were you lying to me when we ran into Lisa at the restaurant?”

  Dad opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again. Mom said, “Dani, get in the car.”

  I climbed into the backseat. They started yelling at each other even before I could slam the door. I turned my face from the window and plugged my ears with my fingers. I tried to recall the peacefulness of the walk the day before on the ridge-line. I couldn't.

  When Springer was alive, we'd play backgammon when our parents fought. They tried to keep their arguments private, but we always knew. Backgammon was a good game, just interesting enough that we had to pay attention, but not so complicated that we couldn't listen for when the shouting stopped.

  Springer liked Dad best, I know. Dad liked Springer.

  After a while the car door opened. I unplugged my ears. Mom shoved my pack into the backseat beside me and got into the front passenger seat. I looked out the window. Dad had his back to us. He was talking on his cell phone. “He's calling Lisa,” Mom said. “He's going to take care of things so that we can stay out here this week.” She gave me a funny look. “I know you're angry—I do—but please keep a cork in it right now. You're not helping.”

  “Sorry.”

  Dad got into the car and put it in gear. I hadn't noticed, but he'd never turned the engine off. “Are you taking us back to the Trail?” I asked. That was good; Suches was two miles from the trailhead. We'd hoped to hitch a ride in, but no one had stopped.

  “I'm taking you to Walasi-Yi,” Dad said. “Your mother needs boots and a sleeping bag.”

  “No,” I said. “We have to stay on the Trail.”

  Dad turned onto the road. “I have to have boots, Dani,” Mom said. “I can't keep hiking in running shoes.”

  “No,” I said. “It doesn't count as a thru-hike if you skip any.”

  “Dani,” Dad said, “this is not a thru-hike. You are taking a walk in the woods.”

  The car sped up. I opened my door wide. I was on the passenger side. I could jump, probably, onto the grass shoulder. I grabbed my pack.

  “Dani!” Dad grabbed the other side of my pack and braked hard. “Shut that door!”

  I didn't. The car was almost stopped and I took a leap out of it, leaving my pack behind. I tumbled onto the shoulder, into the ditch. I wasn't hurt.

  The car stopped completely. Mom walked down into the ditch. She watched me stand up. “You are not behaving rationally,” she said.

  “I hate him,” I said. “I think I really do.”

  Mom didn't say anything, didn't touch me, didn't move. “Get back in the car,” she said after a long minute. “Do not try anything like that again.” She put her head in the open door and said to my father, “After Walasi-Yi, you'll take us back here. To the trailhead. Okay?”

  Dad said a lot of words to her about spoiling the child, about therapy, and how I never behaved like this before, and how I was a danger to myself, but Mom's face was like a rock and all his words were just washing over it without changing it at all. I understood that we would come back to the right plac
e on the Trail, so I got in. Dad said a lot more on the way to Walasi-Yi. I didn't listen to any of it.

  Walasi-Yi Center, at Neels Gap, Georgia, is the only place where the Applachian Trail runs through a building. The building, not surprisingly, is a hiker's paradise. Mom got boots and clothes suited for hiking, a pack, and a sleeping bag. We emptied my whole pack onto the floor and went through it, deciding whether we needed a bigger stove or more water bottles, figuring out what we could share.

  Dad watched and shook his head. “Wow. Good bare-bones hiking. Did your mom tell you what to pack?”

  “I did it myself,” I said. “No one taught me.” I waited for him to realize that he could have taught me, or Mom, but he didn't say anything. I said, “I wanted to take more, but I was afraid I couldn't carry it.”

  “That's smart,” said one of the employees, a woman who was helping us. “You should see the stuff we ship off from here every year. Folks have only walked thirty miles by the time they reach us and already they realize they're carrying way too much. Man came in here yesterday with an eighty-pound pack.” She whistled.

  “But you don't have any comforts,” Mom said. She had emptied the main compartments of my pack and now she unzipped the side pocket. With a slightly puzzled look she pulled out Springer's T-shirt, and then saw what it was.

  “I have that,” I said. I reached for the shirt and Mom gave it to me. Her face was very pale. I held the shirt near my face and sniffed it, just out of habit.

  “Is that Springer's?” Dad asked in a choking voice.

  I missed him so much. I longed for my big brother. Dad took a step closer and suddenly we felt like a family again, a little triangle of people huddled around a dirty old shirt. I said, “I use it for a pillow. It smells like him a little.” I handed it to Dad, but he didn't smell it. He stood very still and cradled the shirt in his hands.

  “Better keep it in that side pocket,” Mom said. “Keep it separate from your other stuff.”

  I had expected them to think I was crazy for carrying around Springer's shirt. They were so gentle and sad that I forgot for a moment how angry I was with them.