The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (29 page)

“But what if—”

“Shhh.”

Sniffling, she searches me hopefully with her bright eyes. “What if I'm too—”

“Shhh,” I say. “Trust me, kid. You'll be ready. Everything will change.”

She sniffles once more, leaning into my assurances, but the fear hasn't left her, I can tell.

“
Th
ere's nothing like it, Peach. Nothing even close.”

And suddenly, it's not Peaches but me weeping. She unpins her arm and wraps it around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze.

“Shhh,” she says.

promise

W
e're past the dogleg at Dolphin now, past the cedar snag and the doddering split-rail fence, easing down that final narrow stretch of Agatewood as Piper's voice washes over me. Just past the Birkland place, we hit the tract of potholes that act as our neighborhood speed bumps. Bob Williamson is out mowing his lawn on the rider, an iPod strapped to his thick waist.
Th
e Worths are apparently still down in Cannon Beach, because the Cartwright kid from down the road is there feeding the dogs, his blue bike sprawled in the driveway.

I glance in the rearview mirror. “Show me the booger,” I say.

Piper brandishes her finger obediently. “Daddy, you're not
listening,
” she complains as we pull up the driveway.

“I heard you, honey.”

“What did I say, then?”

“You were talking about the octopus.”

I pull to a stop in front of the garage and park on the sloping driveway.

“
Th
at was before! What was I telling you right now?”

Turning off the motor, I sigh. “Piper, honey,” I say, passing her a piece of junk mail from the passenger's wheel well. “Please just wipe your finger on this envelope and unbuckle your brother, okay? Once we get the groceries in the house you can tell me whatever you want.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

nothing

I
n the morning, while the girls are in the bathroom with the water running, doing whatever it is girls do in the bathroom together, I pull Trev's covers back and begin to lay his clothing out on the foot of the bed—clean boxers, black T-shirt, khaki cargoes. Today we'll wind our way south through Yellowstone to the Tetons and make Jackson before dusk, where we'll deliver Peaches to her mother's house. By nightfall, we'll reach our terminus at Salt Lake and put Dot on a bus for Denver.

Trev remains conspicuously silent, watching the muted Weather Channel unfold over my shoulder as I finesse his arms through the shirt sleeves. By the time I slip the second gold-toed sock over his foot, it's readily apparent that he has no intention of volunteering any information about last night. I've no alternative but to fish.

“You guys were out late.”

“Yeah,” is all he says.

“So how'd it go?”

“Good.”

“
Th
at's good. What did you guys do?”

“Talked.”

“Just talked, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

Scooping him off the bed, I could swear I catch a whiff of Dot's citrus-scented perfume on him.

“For five hours?” I say, nesting him in his wheelchair.

“Yeah, I guess. If that's how long it was.”

“So, then, what'd you guys talk about?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Nothing?”

“Pretty much. Just stuff.”

I decide to wait him out, turning my attention to the television. Fifty-one degrees in Fairbanks. Sixty-three in Tacoma. Eighty-six in Redding. Without the interrogation, Trev settles into silence. Seventy-four in San Diego. Ninety-one in Phoenix. Sixty-eight in Denver. And it is in this silence that Trev finally reveals himself. Monitoring him out of the corner of my eye, I see contentment written plainly on his face as he settles deep into the silence and seems to gaze right through the television screen. And maybe it's the low ceilings or just the way he's sitting with his shoulders reared back and his chin held high, but he looks less frail somehow, bigger, and I suddenly know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he kissed her and that he doesn't want to talk about it—because like all young lovers, he wants to hoard the memory, hold it so close and contained that it can never escape him. I only hope she doesn't hurt him too badly.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you,” he says, at last. “He's here.”

“Who?”

“
Th
e dude in the brown beater.”

old faithful

I
ndeed, the Skylark has returned, less like a malignant shadow, and more like a ticket scalper that won't take no for an answer. Our pursuer picked us up in the tollbooth queue and holds steady two cars behind us, where he has little choice but to remain in the line of traffic as we crawl through the western fringe of Yellowstone, along the Madison River through dense pinewood flats. Within miles, the forest yields to rolling pasturelands, spangled with vast bison herds, strung out along the river to graze.

“What's the difference between a bison and a buffalo?” Trev says.

“Is this a joke?” says Dot.

“No, really. Is there a difference?”

“Beats me,” I say. “Aren't they the same thing?”

“I think so,” says Dot

“Elton would know,” Peaches says.

I don't doubt that Elton would have an answer for just about anything. And who am I to decide what's best for anybody? Maybe it's better that Peaches just keep ennobling Elton in his absence. Maybe he'll pull through. Stranger things have happened. Let her believe.

We begin to veer south and detour through canyon country, where the Firehole River roars through narrow channels of crumbling rock, and scorched pines cling to the basin walls for purchase. Peaches is asleep by the time we pull over on the shoulder to watch the falls rumble down their craggy chute and splash down forty feet below. Just as I kill the ignition, the Skylark eases past us, and rounds the bend. Immediately, Dot jumps out to smoke.

“You wanna get out?” I say to Trev.

“Nah, I've got a good view right here.”

“I'm gonna have a look.”

I climb out of the van, ducking my stiff neck gingerly under the door frame. Dot's standing at the rail, smoking, as she stares out over the river. I station myself beside her, and take in the view.

“Pretty,” she says.

“Yeah.”

She takes a drag, exhales. “So, how come you're always leaning into my cigarette smoke?”

“What do you mean ‘leaning'?”

“Like right now. You're sorta drifting closer and closer every time I take a puff.”

“Hmph. Didn't realize. Miss it, I guess.”

“
Th
en why'd you quit?”

“Wife made me. Before we got married.”

“
Th
at's lame,” she says.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Isn't that totally lame?” she says to Trev.

“I'm gonna stretch my legs,” I say.

I trudge up the road a ways. I can hear Dot's voice as she talks to Trev through the open window, but soon the roar of the falls swallows it. About fifty yards upriver from the van, I stop to take in the view, sidling to the very edge of the precipice. Above the chute, the river runs braided around moldering snags, and the crumbling hillside rises toward the ridge at twenty degrees, stubbled with dead pines. I'm almost certainly going to need Forest to wire me some money in Jackson. At least a couple hundred to get me home. What I'm going to do with my life when I get back is still a complete mystery. I'll have two weeks to make rent. I've got an eBay account, the Subaru, a lot of plastic containers. I've got this neck brace, these tight shorts, a headache, and a few Cortázar poems committed to memory. So I've got that going for me.

Part of me just wants to stop right here. What's calling me back, anyway? Why not get a job in West Yellowstone selling buffalo turds? I could make clocks out of them. I could lease that vacant kiosk three doors down from the liquor store—maybe we could barter! I could rent a cellar somewhere and forget I ever was. Or why not just drop out altogether, ford that river, scramble up that hillside, and disappear over the ridge? But who am I kidding? Backing away from the ledge, I thrust my bandaged hands in my shorts pockets and amble downhill toward the others.

Dot is back in the van by the time I return, kneeling in her new station behind Trev. Peaches is still sleeping, her head slumped against the window, both hands flat on her belly for protection. I ought to wake her so that she doesn't miss the sights, but I figure she needs the rest. We continue to weave our way south through the canyon, past lava flows and nameless cascades, past colonnades of jagged rock pillars clinging like stalagmites to tapered ledges.
Th
e Skylark picks up our tail again where the loop rejoins the main road, easing in one car behind us.
Th
e scenery flattens out as we drop into the Lower Geyser Basin, and the otherworldly Yellowstone of postcards begins to reveal itself in the cracked and steaming flats. As far as the eye can see, the whitewashed earth is venting, burping, bubbling up from within. A giant caldera. A supervolcano. Somewhere a tour guide is saying something about the dawn of the world. But someday this belching cauldron may end the world.

“Holy crap,” says Trev. “
Th
is is as almost as cool as the water tower in George.”

“Pretty close,” I say.

Dot is on her knees now, clutching the back of Trev's chair as she peers over his shoulder out the windshield. I've never seen her face like this, wide open in wonderment. For once, the world has exceeded her expectations.

Th
e traffic slows as we approach Old Faithful.
Th
e gigantic parking lot is a clusterfuck of crisscrossing corridors, all of them full to bursting with cars of every conceivable make, from every conceivable locale. Even the handicapped spots are occupied. Crawling down a single line, I spot plates from Oregon, Arizona, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Alberta, Rhode Island, New Brunswick, New Jersey, New York, and Florida. Somehow the Skylark manages to stick with us through the congestion, even finds a spot in the same row on the outer-outer fringe of the sprawl.

Dot begins unbuckling Trev as I lower the ramp.

Peaches finally awakens. “Where are we?” she says.

“Old Faithful,” says Trev.

“Why didn't anyone wake me?”

“You guys go on ahead,” I say. “I've got a few calls to make first. Meet you front and center.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” says Trev, who proceeds to execute a tight three-point turn in reverse, piloting himself onto the ramp, where he gives me the nod to lower him.

Once he's on the ground, the girls pile out after him, and together they make for the geyser. Watching them go, Trev rolling slowly down the center of the lane, shoulders back, head high, flanked by a girl on each shoulder, I don't have to see his face to know he's smiling.

Raising the ramp, I circle the van and fiddle with my cell phone for a minute, biding my time until the others are out of sight before I begin creeping purposefully up the lane in the opposite direction, stooping close to the bumpers to avoid detection. I have no intention of losing my temper.
Th
is may require some diplomacy. But I'm determined to get to the bottom of it. When I reach the Skylark, the driver is still in the car, rifling through a shaving bag. My knock on the window startles him, though his surprise turns quickly to alarm when he sees it's me, the guy who tried to tackle his car at twenty miles per hour. I must be even scarier with all this gauze and a neck brace. He reaches for the ignition, but I halt him with a one-handed yield gesture.

“Please,” I say.

I take a step back from the car, where I beckon him to roll down his window. Warily, he obliges.

He's even more stubbled than before, wearing a Mariners cap that looks like someone kicked it there from Seattle, and the same loose-fitting shirt with ukuleles and coconuts on it. At a standstill, I can see the sunbaked crow's-feet bookending the sides of his face, and I can tell he's led an uneven life—good times and bad but not a lot of middle ground. He looks like a sportswriter who overslept his deadline.

“Look,” I say calmly. “I know who you are.”

“She told you, huh?
Th
at's a surprise.”

“No, I just figured it out. It had to be Elsa.”

He looks at me blankly. “Who's Elsa?”

“
Th
e woman who hired you.”

“Nobody hired me.”

Searching his face, I find genuine confusion there. “Who sent you, then? Janet?”

“Nobody sent me. I sent myself.”

“Why are you following me?”

He squints at me, flexing his crow's feet. “I'm not following you. I'm following
her.
”

“Peaches?”

“Dorothy.”

My first thought is perv. “What do you want with Dot?”

“What do
you
want with her?” he says. “You some kind of pervert?”

“I'm giving her a ride.”

He gives me a long steady look, until he seems satisfied with the explanation. “I'm Cash Callahan.”

He gives me a moment to let the information sink in, but it doesn't.

“She's my daughter.”

My mind scrambles to make the connections. “Wait. But how . . . ?”

“I've been trailing her since she left Tacoma—she sure as hell hasn't made it easy. I've lost her twice already, and it's a miracle I didn't lose her in Missoula. I'm sure she's pissed as hell at me, but what's new?”

“She knows you've been following her?”

“She left me no choice, bro. I've got no control over her. Not that I ever did.” He climbs out of the car and leans against the Skylark. Scanning the huge parking lot, he heaves a sigh.

“You smoke?” he says.

“Nope.”

“Me neither. Sometimes I wish I did.”

“Me too.”

He scrapes absently at some rust under the door handle, stops himself, and jams his hand in his jeans pocket. “I can't tell her to quit smoking, bro—I've tried. She just smokes harder. I can't tell her who to date. I'm not even allowed to call her Dorothy anymore. All I can do is keep an eye out, and that's no small job. Christ, I slept in my car the last three nights. You got kids?”

“No.”

“Hmph. Well, lucky you. It ain't easy, bro. Especially not teenage girls. But who am I to say? I've got no control of what Dorothy does in Denver. But the hell if I'm just gonna let my kid hitchhike halfway across the country. Just because she won't ride with me, doesn't mean I'm gonna let her out of my sight.”

Cash kicks a little stone with the toe of his sandal.
Th
e pebble skitters a few feet across the pavement, takes a big hop, and clinks against the Range Rover parked next to him. He looks up at me thoughtfully, as though he's about to apologize for something. “So do me a favor, bro. Let me stick to you. Keep me on your radar, okay? I'll stay out of your hair, I promise. You won't even know I'm there. I don't wanna lose her.”

He looks back down at his flip-flops and shakes his head. Talking to the ground, he says, “If anything should ever happen to her, bro, I'd . . .” He trails off.

I don't know anything about this guy beyond the fact that Dot's mother called him a deadbeat and that Dot says he's immature. When you get down to it, I don't know anything about Dot, except that her mother died, and Dot doesn't dress warmly enough. All I know is that this guy is willing to drive to the ends of the earth so that he doesn't get stuck holding the groceries, and I'm not going to stand in his way.