Chapter 8
By the time sixth grade let out, Dad was drinking hard. He’d grown thin and haggard. His eyes were haunted like mine, maybe worse. He was grouchy and complained a lot. We got tired of being the adults; eventually our discipline broke down and we went feral.
To escape the gloom of the house, we camped in the woods, sometimes for days on end. We probably looked ridiculous on our bikes, laden down with the tent, sleeping bags and our fishing poles. My backpack held a towel, matches, a swimsuit, a roll of toilet paper, and fistfuls of Twinkies.
And my pills. One time I forgot to bring them. I wasn't worried about the pain - by then it wasn't so bad - but by the next day I was really sick. Jess got really scared and rode all the way home and brought them to me. Within an hour I felt okay again.
We loved the woods. There were thick beds of soft, dry pine needles that sucked away every sound. If we were quiet and sat very still, deer would come up close to us.
When the wind died down, black flies and mosquitoes drove us from the trees. We made camp on the dunes above Lake Michigan and Little Bay de Noc. It was private property of course, but wasn’t built-up yet.
We talked a lot at first, sharing our fears, memories, and dreams of a life together. I told her my secrets, all except the stuff about the fire. Neither of us really wanted to talk about that, anyway.
Jessie and I played on miles of fine, golden sand. Sometimes we waded in the streams, dark with tannin from the cedar swamps. That’s where we discovered the crawdads. Other times we’d fish from blocks of limestone that still bore scars of the last ice age. Once, Jessie caught a salmon that nearly dragged her into the water. Gulls screeched above us as we cooked it over a driftwood fire. We were very careful with the campfires.
Sometimes we’d just sit and listen to the wind whistling through the dune grass and humming in the primeval pines. The longer we were out there, the less we spoke. Our eyes would meet, and we just knew what it meant.
When the big lake roared, we’d bodysurf in the fresh, cool breakers. When it was calm we’d skinny-dip, giggling in the moonlight. When it rained, we’d huddle in the tent – or just ignore the weather and keep playing. The eagles, the thunderstorms, the smell of spruce and fir were the stuff of our hearts. This was our birthright, and we took it for granted. Somehow, the big water helped us heal.
At night we stripped down to our underwear, brushed off as much sand as we could, and zipped our sleeping bags together. We watched the slow progress of satellites across a trillion stars, underlined by the occasional meteorite. She’d fall asleep, and I’d lie awake staring at the face I loved, so unlike any other in the world.
I woke in the dark one night, Jessie’s fingers running through my hair.
“Cory?”
“Yeah?”
Her face hovered over me, lit by the moon’s reflection on the waves.
“Will you always love me?”
“Yeah, of course,” I mumbled, “Why?”
“Will you marry me in your heart, like Mom and Dad?”
Something in her tone made me wide awake.
“You mean for real?”
“Uh-huh.”
I knew this was important; it was a big thing she was asking. But I wanted it, too. More than anything.
“Yeah, Jessie, I promise.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not like that! You’ve got to say I do.”
“Oh, okay. I do.”
“I promise, too. Just like Mom and Dad,” she repeated solemnly. “I do.”
I shuddered as a pang of something powerful and not entirely pleasant cut through me. She leaned down and giggled, “You may kiss the bride,” and laid a big, wet smoochy kiss on my good cheek.
“Yuck!” That just made her giggle harder. I wiped off my face onto my arm.
“Go back to sleep! You’re letting cold air in.”
She laid back down and softly pressed her lips against mine. It left a ringing in my ears and the sweet, minty taste of toothpaste.
“Would you sing to me, Cory? Like Mom used to?”
“You want her lullaby?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Close your eyes.”
That night I dreamt about a rock that was two miles wide. It was perched on top of a saw-toothed mountain. In my dream, I climbed up and touched it, upsetting the delicate balance. It swayed such a tiny bit, but I knew that nothing could stop it from tilting further back and forth, however slowly. It’d be a long wait to see which side of the mountain that massive weight would come crashing down.
The next morning I woke to a flaming sunrise and Jess’s soft body pressed against me, her head on my shoulder. I gently brushed the ebony hair from her forehead, capturing the moment like a diamond in my heart. Somehow, I knew it’d never be the same between us; I thought the love would tear my heart in two. That feeling never really left me.