And, she had someone to sleep with at night. Not that much sleeping was involved. It seemed to her that Cal was settling in, getting comfortable. Now that there was help after four in the afternoon till closing up the store, Maggie was having dinner with Sully and Cal, most nights at their kitchen table. Maggie and Cal traded off cooking, cleaned up the dishes together, sat out on the porch at the store or by a fire near the lake. They sat at a table together checking their laptops for email and news. And Cal liked to read. He spent at least a couple of hours every afternoon reading—maybe in one of his lawn chairs, maybe in a hammock, maybe on the porch.
He worked vigorously but he wasn’t around constantly; he certainly wasn’t underfoot. He drove out a few times a week, checking out the surrounding area, bringing home groceries and incidentals. He’d been to Leadville, Timberlake, Fairplay and a few other little specks of towns. He dropped in on Stan the Man at the Timberlake Police Department and they had a hamburger together, he reported. He met Paul Castor, the deputy Stan bragged was a computer genius. “He claims to be in his thirties,” Cal said. “He looks twelve.”
His truck and closed pop-up camper were parked behind the cabin that had become his but even though he was helping around the store and property, he was still camping. Sometimes he got out the fishing pole, sometimes fired up the Coleman stove to make his own breakfast or fry a fish he’d caught, even though he had access to the small kitchen in the store or Sully’s kitchen in the house.
“We lived off the grid a lot when I was a kid.”
“As in camping?”
“We lived in a lot of odd places. There was a commune near Big Sur. That was kind of cool—there were lots of kids to play with. There were times we camped, but it wasn’t recreational, it was lack of proper housing. Or it was part of traveling—my parents decided we should see the country so we spent a year on the road.”
“How amazing,” Maggie said.
“In retrospect, my father might’ve been on the run from his delusions. We were essentially homeless, living in a very old converted bus. But we did have a lot of unique and interesting experiences. And every couple of years my grandparents would snag us away from my mom and dad and keep us on the farm for a while—six months or a year.”
“I guess it’s just in your blood,” she said.
“In a way.”
“If you’re interested in hiking and hate being cold, why aren’t you on the Appalachian Trail?” she asked.
“I experienced a lot of that trail as a kid,” he said. “We spent a little over a year in Tennessee.”
“Doing what?” she asked.
“Not much,” he said. “In summer we picked vegetables.”
“The whole family?” she asked.
“The whole family. We picked up a lot of temporary work here and there. My favorite place to pick vegetables was California, around Fresno. The Central Valley. I learned some Spanish.”
“You’ve had a remarkable life,” she said.
“That’s a nice, positive spin,” he said.
Maggie took that to mean it had been a hard life.
More and more packages arrived, indicating hikers were on the trails. A few straggled in here and there, but none of them had traveled great distances—it was still too early in the spring. One couple had been hiking for six weeks, having started in Wyoming, planning to head farther south through the Rockies if the snow had melted enough. Two guys came over the Rockies from the south and reported it was passable—they had picked up the trail on the north rim of New Mexico. There were several people who’d hiked from Boulder and planned to go all the way to Durango.
On the weekends there were hiking groups who were out for the day or maybe one overnight on the trail. Cal wanted to visit with each one of them, asking about what had motivated them and how their experience had been.
Then it happened, right at the end of April.
“Maggie, your dad is doing great. He must be the poster child for bypass recovery. I saw him hauling flour sacks for Enid, patching the rain drain on the outside of the store, putting a little WeatherAll on the porch rail and throwing the ball for Beau. He’s been cleaning out grills, hosing down your back porch and garden and I caught him doing a little maintenance on his truck. Nothing too serious, the truck is running fine.”
“I wish he wouldn’t push it,” she said.
“He’s not, according to him. He said the doctor gave him the go-ahead. Normal activities. And if he feels any discomfort, he’s supposed to rest. But he seems to be fine. You seem to be fine. Any thoughts of going back to work? Going back to your house in Denver?”
“I’m going back next week for a day to be deposed for that lawsuit, but to practice?” She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m thinking of staying through summer. Poor Sully. I can tell he wishes I’d go. My mother has been calling a lot—she’s appalled by my defection. Not just that I’m not practicing at the moment, but even worse for her—I’m spending my time here. I’ve been here seven weeks and by the texts and emails, people are surprised I’ve stretched it out this long. For now, I’m staying. Do you think I’m crazy, too? Because neurosurgeons just don’t do this?”