The boat hit the dock in three places, on the front, then it bounced back and hit the side and the sail, which came tumbling down almost on top of Mr. Sunny Day, but he ran off at the last minute. The sound the body of the boat made was kind of awesome. It was a serious crunch, and it rippled through the whole boat, and then it stopped, everything stopped. The sail was dangling over our heads, the boat was dented in pretty serious in the front, and Thomas and I were just sitting there wondering what to do next. I could hear Mr. Sunny Day cursing from the land. “You son of a bitch,” he yelled.
There was some arguing after that and I walked back to the cabin by myself because I did not want to see my new husband be crushed like a stubborn hard-backed beetle under Mr. Sunny Day’s foot, over and over until he was broken down. I sat in the living room of our log cabin and looked up all around at the paintings of the lakes on the walls, little price tags in the corners, the humming ceiling fan we had not minded the night before but that now seemed louder than an airplane overhead, the well-worn quilt with blocks of stars, the chocolate roses, the empty bottle of champagne, and our suitcases, still halfway packed. I memorized my honeymoon suite because I knew we would be leaving before the day was done. Out in the world, my husband crashed the first thing he touched. But at home, he would be in control and we would be safe, and I wanted more than anything to be safe in my new husband’s arms.
We will just stay put, then, I thought at the time. And so we did.
3.
Salt Lake City was seventy miles away, and suddenly it was forty, and then it was ten, and there were signs for Cedar City and Las Vegas, too. There were mountains all around, biggest things I had ever seen, clawing their way up to the sky. Then in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the earth, was a huge stretch of highways that circled the city, and tall buildings sparkling in the blinding light of the winter sun. For a while, I let my eyes wander through the city, and then there they were again in the distance, even more mountains, choked with blue at the base, and white caps on top spreading down to the middle. I felt a little pull in my throat. I had seen natural beauty in the past but it had been so long since I had stopped to consider it. I saw things the way Thomas did, or we talked about them together and came to the same conclusion. Now I had to figure it all out on my own. The mountains were alive and changing all the time and getting older but still starting things brand-new. The rocks and the dirt and the earth had been there forever, but the snow had probably fallen just that morning. No one judged those mountains for a thing, I thought. However they changed, in however many years or if it were in an instant, people would still find them beautiful.
I decided to push through to Las Vegas. I was being chased. I was chasing something. I could not get out of the car.
As I drove, the land changed again. It was cold and there was snow for a long time, and then it all started to thin out, and then soon enough I was in the desert. There was sand and sage and wide skies and every corner I turned, the earth just seemed to get prettier, until I found myself smiling. It was the first time I had smiled without faking it in what seemed like months. Maybe I was going to be okay, I thought.
And then there I was, in Las Vegas. I drove down the main strip slowly. I did not think it would be possible to ever go fast there. The streets were clogged with taxis mostly, but also buses and vans and cars with license plates from all over the country, though most of all from California. I will admit to being shocked by it all, though I felt dumb for it. How many times had I seen Las Vegas on TV in my life? I should have known by then what to expect.
Still Las Vegas looked like nonsense to me, a cartoon version of a real town. I knew buildings came from somewhere, that they did not just pop up out of thin air. But it seemed like Las Vegas was made from scratch. There was nothing all around for miles, and then all of a sudden there were these huge towers that were imitations of real places. There was a circus, and there was ancient Rome, and there was the Eiffel Tower. Somebody built these, I kept thinking. Where I came from all the buildings were small and made sense. They served a purpose. This seemed almost immoral. But I could not say I minded it either. Everything new I saw made me feel like I was on the way to figuring myself out.