Solstice - Of The Heart (21 page)

“Dad’s been here, Mom. On the mountain
and in this cabin. He shopped at the Fifth Season.”

“But he died on Mount
Hood.”

“Now you want to move there? To
Oregon?”

“No. I didn’t say that. I’m still
searching. His friends are in Minnesota. My friends are in
Minnesota. Don’t you miss your friends? You and Dennie Jo were tied
at the hip all through junior high.”

“Yes and no. We kept in touch at
first, but Dennie Jo has moved on and so have I.”

“I know you have Cherrie. She’s sweet,
but she seems too old for you. Don’t you have any friends your
age?”

I stalled by throwing more wood on the
fire and pretended I didn’t hear what Dierdra asked. She answered
for me.

“I talked to Aaron at the
hospital.”

“What? When?”

“In the waiting room when the doctors
were working on you in emergency. Cherrie...”

“Cherrie was there too?”

“Yes.”

“In the waiting room?”

“Yes. Why?”

I imagined the worst. Dierdra,
Cherrie, and Aaron all secluded in a room together—and I was the
main topic of conversation?

I didn’t know where to
begin.

“How’d you meet Aaron?”

“He was there when you
fell.”

“At the accident!”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing here?”

“He told me you two had a spat in
school. He felt bad about it so he came over to apologize. He
brought you this.”

Dierdra handed me a small box, the
kind a ring might come in.

Something told me not to open it. Why
would Aaron be giving me a ring so early in our
relationship?

I set it off to the side.

“And he just happened to be there when
I was knocked over by a snowboarder?”

“Yes. He saw the four of them coming
over the hill. I saw him waving his arms at you to warn you, but I
guess you didn’t see him. Everything just happened so fast. Now
that I think about it, it was odd, though.”

“What Mom? What was odd?”

“There were four
snowboarders.”

“Yes, you said that. That’s
odd?”

“No, but,” Dierdra turned toward me
with a puzzled look on her face, “three of them were going
backwards.”

“You mean riding their snowboards
facing backwards?”

“No. They were facing forward, but
they were going back up the hill.”

“Like something pushed
them?”

“Yes. Back up the hill. And then they
fell down.”

“What happened to the fourth guy? I
mean did he go backwards, too?”

“No. He was behind you when I first
saw him.”

“And he’s the one that hit
me.”

“Yes. I don’t think he saw you, not
that it makes any difference. They should never have been
snowboarding on the road in the first place.”

“Why don’t you think he saw
me?”

“Because he was looking back over his
shoulder to see what happened to his friends.”

I sat down next to Dierdra. I looked
into her eyes.

“Mom, this is important. Was Aaron
waving at me or did it look like he might be doing something
else?”

Dierdra looked away. I
could see her trying to remember the details. I really didn’t
expect her to remember anything except my being pummeled by a
snowboarder. But I knew her training in psychology had ingrained in
her an acute awareness of observing and remembering minute detail,
even during times of duress.

I hoped for the best.

“He did this,” she said. She held up
her hands, palms forward, arms stretched out, fingers
splayed.

I sank back into the
cushions.

“I think he was trying to stop you or
maybe catch you as you slid down the hill.”

No, he wasn’t.

I knew different.

Aaron stopped three of the
snowboarders, but the forth one, because I blocked a direct line of
sight to him, his force could not stop. In fact, Aaron’s force may
have even pushed me back into the snowboarder, although I didn’t
remember going backwards, only being hit from behind.

The more I thought about it, the more
it became clear; Aaron’s attempt to stop the snowboarders had led
to the collision. Had the boy behind me not been looking back to
see what had happened to his buddies, he would have seen me and
more than likely gone around.

Aaron certainly must have realized he
was at fault after the collision.

“That’s why he came to the
hospital.”

“What?”

“Oh, just thinking out loud. Wondering
what Aaron was doing at the hospital.”

“Yes. He helped us carry you down to
the car.”

“He rode to the hospital with
us?”

“No. Cherrie drove. I held you. There
wasn’t enough room in my car. I wasn’t in any shape to drive so we
drove in her car. Aaron drove his.”

“Aaron has a car?”

“Some old truck he was driving. Said
it belonged to a Bernard.”

“So what did you guys talk about at
the hospital?”

“Not much. We were all shaken and
upset. Cherrie wouldn’t sit down. She kept going outside. I think
she was smoking? Does she smoke?”

“I don’t think so, Mom. Aaron was
there?”

“Yes. He sat off in a corner by
himself at first.”

“At first?”

“Until Cherrie introduced
us.”

I tried to imagine the breaking of
that ice. Knowing Cherrie she probably used a sledge
hammer.

“She said he was a classmate of
yours.”

“Yes, we have biology
together.”

“He sure is a handsome young man. He
seems to like you a lot.”

“Oh, yeah? I didn’t know
that.”

Even though I had hoped Aaron felt
something for me. Now I wasn’t so sure his feelings for me came
from his heart.

Had Aaron waited at the hospital
because he felt guilty about causing my accident? Is that why he
infused me with energy? He was afraid I would die or get sick and
suffer for having caused it?

I felt his drug wearing off, both the
idea of love and the energy.

“He stayed at the hospital all night
in the waiting room. They wouldn’t let him in to see you. They
weren’t going to let Cherrie in either, but I told them she was
your sister.”

“Yes. I saw Aaron this
morning.”

“Good. After spending all night I
hoped they would let him see you. How come you haven’t told me
anything about him?”

“Told you I knew him, Mom.”

“Yes, but no details.”

“Just met him this past week. We have
Biology together. We’re dissecting a pig. Nothing else much too
tell,” I lied.

“Well, he sure is a nice boy. He kept
telling me how sorry he was to have seen you get hurt. He asked me
to keep him informed of how you were doing and, when I told him he
should go home, he said he’d rather not. He wanted to stay until
you were released.”

“He should have gone home.”

I said this almost too harshly. The
knight in shining armor I had envisioned was fast becoming
tarnished.

“I know. I told him. But he insisted.
Said he felt like it was his fault. He wanted to be there in case
you needed him.”

“For what?”

“Told me sometimes it helps just to be
touched.”

My chill came back big time! The
thought of it scared me.

Had he touched Dierdra?

“Did he touch you, Mom?”

“Yes, he did. He was right. I felt
much better. The human touch can be a powerful thing.”

Yes, especially if it is coming from
Aaron!

“I think he’s Christian,” Dierdra
said. “Maybe even Lutheran.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mom. You shouldn’t
let young boys touch you. Ever!”

“Why not?”

It took me a second to come up with an
excuse. The best I could think of was, “because you never know what
they’ve handled. Aaron touched a dead pig at school.”

My comment gave Dierdra pause for
thought, but not the way I expected it to—more puzzlement than
fright.

If Aaron continued to go around
healing everyone with his transference of energy, how long could he
possibly last?

Then I got to thinking; if Aaron had
been responsible for what happened to me, logically he felt guilty.
Most people would want to correct their error. Maybe, by touching
Dierdra and touching me, Aaron felt he was fixing the
mistake.

So this should be a good thing,
right?

The fire warmed the room. I piled on
more wood. Dierdra nodded off. I tucked her in.

As I climbed into bed, I looked out
the window.

Rain fell.

A good day not to go to
school.

A good day to stay in bed.

15 LAW OF ONE

I woke up for a couple of reasons. I
felt cold and it was to quiet.

I checked my watch. It said 8
o’clock.

I hadn’t slept long, or at least I
thought I hadn’t slept long. One look out the window told me I
slept through the night. The sun shone.

It was Friday morning.

Not wanting to wake Dierdra, I
tip-toed out into the living room. The blanket she used last night
lay folded up neatly on the couch. Her suitcase was gone. I
expected her to be in her bed.

She wasn’t.

The note hanging on the
refrigerator door told me why. She had gone to Redding and would be
spending the night. There was more.

Julissa

I’m glad we had our talk
last night. I’m not really sure what was said as I don’t remember
it all. I know I shouldn’t be drinking so much, but sometimes that
is what gets me through the day. The best way I can describe the
way I am feeling about your dad right now is with this
poem.

If tears could build a
stairway

And memories were a
lane,

I would walk right up to
heaven

To bring you home
again.

No farewell words were
spoken.

No time to say
good-bye.

You were gone before we
knew it,

And only God knows
why.

My heart still aches in
sadness

And secret tears still
flow.

What it meant to lose
you,

No one will ever
know.

Rest today and I’ll see
you tomorrow.

Love Mom

I pulled the collar of my
robe up around my neck to ward off the chill, from inside and out.
Tears rolled. I dashed them away.

I understood Dierdra’s pain, to some
extent. But I didn’t know what it was to lose a soul mate, to have
a chunk of your soul ripped from you.

Simon had been gone a lot when I was
young, on the road driving truck. In my tweenies, he switched jobs
and started driving short hauls out of Minneapolis to the
surrounding areas, trucking ash for a concrete company. I knew he
gave up something he loved—the open road—to be closer to home and
us. But by then it was too late. We had never been close and we
were growing apart.

I never doubted I was Daddy’s little
girl, but I barely knew my father.

My head felt cold, especially where
the bruising had set in. I searched my back pack for the maroon
beanie. It wasn’t there, so I slipped on my WBL orange beanie and
pulled it down over my forehead. The pressure helped with the
soreness and warmed the wound. I guessed when I was knocked to the
pavement my maroon beanie had gone flying.

The wood box needed filling so out the
door I went.

The chill of the morning set me to
shivering. I gritted my teeth at the cold. Birds sang which, to me,
was a good omen for a dry day. I hadn’t seen the sun for a few days
and, after being in the dark so long, it took my eyes awhile to
adjust to the brightness. My gaze drew to the east and the bulk of
Mount Shasta.

I saw Shasta as the poet, Joaquin
Miller, described it: Lonely as God, and white as a winter moon,
Mount Shasta starts up sudden and solitary from the heart of the
great black forests of Northern California.

The rain had washed away all the snow
and ice in the flatlands, but the mountain kept her new covering of
snow. The trees dotting her flanks were heavily covered in a thick
layer of white. I thought it would make a pretty Christmas card.
Even from the distance where I stood, I could see the sparkling of
the sun off the ice crystals.

All so very pretty.