Another time she embraced them both. Her family!
In a hoarse voice Jenna was saying that she’d been afraid to call them, to explain why she was late. She’d thought that, if she’d said that she was lost somewhere between the airport and the lake, they would tell her not to bother to come—“You would tell me that you didn’t need me, you could do this alone.”
Her voice trembled. Her hands clutched at them to hold them fast.
“Mom, for Christ’s sake! What a silly thing to say.”
“Yes, Mom. Silly.”
Though exactly what they’d been thinking, just before Jenna had arrived.
Delightful, delicious and thrilling, to lightly scold their mother who smiled shyly at them, not certain how to respond.
“In any case, I think my cell phone is dead. I’d forgotten to turn it off for the plane flight, and the battery has run out.”
Together in Darren’s car they drove two miles to Wild Fowl State Park, and to the trailhead (which Naomi recalled as soon as she saw the green-painted paired outhouses). Jenna had not wanted to take time to check into the motel, unpack and hang up her clothing, she’d already made them wait—“There’s plenty of time for that afterward.”
Pausing then, for the word afterward had sounded strange to their ears for no reason they could have named.
On the trail, Darren led the way and carried the urn. He’d said that Gus’s ashes were “ashy-light”—“weightless”—but the pewter urn was somewhat heavy.
“As Dad would say, ‘death with dignity.’ You would not want an urn made of Styrofoam or plastic.”
Naomi laughed. Why was this funny?
Jenna said, “Oh Darren. You sound so like—him.”
“I guess I do. Sometimes I hear it, myself. A kind of echo.”
They hiked along the trail, single file. Darren in the lead but turning back to Naomi and Jenna, to speak over his shoulder. Darren in an ebullient mood, expansive, like one who is very relieved. Like one who is in charge.
On any trail they’d taken Gus had always been in charge—of course. In any vehicle in which he’d ridden, Gus had always driven. But now in his place Darren would do as well, it seemed.
It was a bright, chill autumn day. At the height of the day the sun was warm but as soon as the sun declined, the temperature would drop into the low fifties.
Naomi saw that Jenna was wearing sensible hiking clothing: lightweight mosquito-repellent trousers, a khaki jacket, a cap with a visor to protect her eyes, hiking shoes. Gus had insisted that his wife and his children wear proper hiking shoes for such hikes, as they had to wear proper hiking boots for rockier trails. It did not surprise Naomi that their mother who seemed to have drifted so far from their old life was observing Gus’s requirements.
Darren had brought walking sticks for them all. A hiking stick would have been Gus’s recommendation for such a hike along the pebbly lakeshore, with the possibility of encountering rocks, boulders, fallen logs and other impediments on the trail, it was a good idea to be prepared.
Gripping her stick, Naomi was beginning to feel just slightly panicked. She had vowed, she would not break down.
Many times she’d heard the click-click-click of her father’s hiking stick against rock, in front of her. She had not heard that sound for a long time.
Yet: so many years had passed, she wasn’t the grieving child any longer. She did not think of Gus Voorhees every hour of every day—hardly. Nor did she think so often of Jenna, ironically now that, at last, Jenna seemed to be moving back into their lives.
The fact is, Naomi had been thinking since Muskegee Falls: we are all growing older.
Though she looked younger, waif-like, wan, Jenna was in her mid-fifties. Poor Madelena was nearly eighty—(and looked her age, or nearly). Their Voorhees grandfather was eighty-five at least. If Gus were still alive, he would be fifty-seven years old.
Many times Naomi had thought, she would not ever see her father old. She would not see him aged, ailing. She had seen him only in the prime of his life, in the prime of his robust manhood. She had never heard his voice except as a strong voice, even a commanding voice.
The first part of the trail led through a wooded area of birch trees, cedars, pines. There were outcroppings of rock, you had to take care hiking. Then the trail opened onto a grassy marshy area, and then onto a rock-strewn area, and then they were at the lakeshore where the sky opened above them, somewhat abruptly, before they were altogether ready. The horizon was distant, there came a chill wind from the north with a faint familiar smell of rotted things—fish, kelp, driftwood.
Jenna was hiking well, considering. Of course, Jenna could not have kept up with Darren and Naomi if they’d chosen to hike ahead. But Naomi had positioned herself at the rear. Wanting to be last, to watch the others. Her tall confident brother, her silvery-white-haired mother. Hers.
She would tell Madelena—My mother and I are reconciled, I think.