Trying not to stumble, fall on the sharp-angled rocks. (Oh but where were the frothy ashes going? Where had the pale bone-chunks gone? Naomi was in terror of falling to her knees, reaching into the cold slapping water after a trail of ashes to retrieve a handful . . .)
“I—I wish—”
What was she saying? She could not speak, her breath was sucked from her.
The others did not seem to hear her. They could not face one another. Darren was shaking the last of the ashes out of the urn, tight-faced, frowning.
Why was it so important, so crucial, to shake the last of the ashes out of the urn? It was Darren’s plan to leave the urn behind too, in the inlet.
Except Jenna said suddenly, she would take it. The urn.
The sun was slanted in the western sky like an eye that is beginning to squint. The wind had come up. They were shivering. They turned to hike back the way they’d come, to the trailhead where Darren’s rented car was parked, and this hike was accomplished in less than a half hour, as if their burden had been lightened, and they were in a hurry to escape the beautiful desolate Wild Fowl Bay.
EXHAUSTED, THEY RETURNED to the Katechay Inn.
It was just five-twenty. They had not been gone long. Though it felt as if they’d been gone for a very long time, an entire day hiking an arduous trail.
“The reservation is for seven. We should leave for the restaurant at about a quarter to seven, OK? I’ll drive.”
They were reeling with tiredness. Naomi, Jenna. Even Darren.
Naomi saw her mother stagger a little as if the earthen-colored urn were heavy and not light as Styrofoam, and slipped her arm around Jenna’s waist to steady her. Now Jenna did not seem quite so tall, and her body felt frail, insubstantial. She had removed her cap and her feathery hair was matted and flat, and her skin seemed bloodless, dead white with fatigue.
“We should all rest. Try to take a nap, Mom.”
“Yes. I will. And you too, Naomi. Promise!”
As if she were a young child, who had to promise her mother to nap.
How deeply Naomi slept! Fell onto the bed in her room only just kicking off her muddy-soled hiking shoes, too tired to unbutton or unzip clothing. She had time to sleep—enough time. They would all take naps and be rejuvenated for the evening.
But when at six-fifty Darren and Naomi went to knock on the door of B18, their mother’s room, no one answered.
“H’lo? Mom? It’s us.”
“Mom? Hello . . .”
Knowing to their chagrin that it was an empty room. No one inside.
At the front desk the clerk said yes, a woman named “Jenna Matheson” had paid for the room, for one night, with a credit card; but so far as anyone knew Ms. Matheson had not actually moved any of her belongings into the room—“I think she just used the room, used the bathroom, a towel or two. That was all.”
“But—what did she say to you?”
“She said she was ‘checking out’—she’d changed her plans and wasn’t going to stay the night. She didn’t give any reason. She drove away around an hour ago.”
“Which direction did she drive in?”
“I think—toward the bridge.”
“Did she leave a note?”
The desk clerk checked the mail slot for Darren’s room, and for Naomi’s. In Naomi’s was a folded sheet of paper with a handwritten message—Forgive me, very sorry. Jenna.
They read the terse little message several times. Darren was muttering, “But—this isn’t possible . . .” Naomi was too shocked to speak at all.
Seeing their faces the clerk asked sympathetically, “Was Ms. Matheson some relative of yours? Are you all related?”
FIGHT NIGHT, CINCINNATI: NOVEMBER 2011
MIDWESTERN BOXING LEAGUE WOMEN’S 8-ROUND WELTERWEIGHT BOUT
PRYDE ELKA (“THE SQUAW”) VS. D.D. DUNPHY (“THE HAMMER OF JESUS”)
EAST CINCINNATI WAR MEMORIAL ARMORY —NOVEMBER 18, 2011
TICKETS AVAILABLE BOX OFFICE, MAIL ORDER & ONLINE
She bought a ticket to the fight online. Ninety-four dollars plus tax for an aisle seat, eleventh row. She had no idea what she was doing only just that she would do it.
With the same air of impulse and deliberation she bought plane tickets. Round-trip New York City–Cincinnati.
Two nights she would stay in Cincinnati. Maybe that was a mistake, one night in Cincinnati might be all she could bear.
Nonetheless, two nights she booked at an airport motel.
Naomi where are you going? Again? What on earth is there in—Cincinnati?
She had no answer to give to her grandmother Madelena. She had no explanation. It was like that first grief, she’d felt the interior of her mouth stitched together with coarse black thread.
Don’t know. Or maybe I will know, when I get there.
IN THE COLLAPSE of her life she wasn’t unhappy. In the ruins in which she stumbled she would salvage something valuable, she was sure.
Why she seemed to be returning to the Midwest every month and always clutching her camera.
Why she’d given up the archive of her father’s life (and death) yet had not destroyed the archive.