All That We Carried Read online

  “Hello?” came Josh’s voice from just outside the tent. “Olivia?”

  “Go away.” She listened. No footsteps. “I said go away.”

  “How do you know I haven’t?”

  “I mean it.”

  “Yeah, here’s the thing though,” Josh said, undaunted. “Melanie is going to sleep in my hammock tonight.”

  “So?”

  A slight pause, then, “So I’m wondering if it’s okay to bunk with you.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t snore. Much.”

  “I said no.”

  Olivia could hear Josh shifting positions, and when he next spoke, the sound was closer to her ear, as close as that bear’s breath had been.

  “Would you rather have Melanie in there with you tonight?”

  “I’d rather have no one in here with me tonight.”

  Josh sighed. “I know. But here we are.”

  Olivia sat up and rubbed her burning eyes. “Fine. But no talking.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Wait. What do you sleep in?”

  “I thought I’d try a sleeping bag.”

  She unzipped the inside of the tent door so she could look at him through the screen. “I mean on your person.”

  “T-shirt and shorts?”

  “That’ll do.” Olivia zipped the window shut again. “Just stay out there until I say, all right?”

  “Right.”

  Olivia unzipped the door enough to reach into her pack and get her pj’s. She peeked through the small opening for Melanie, but she was nowhere to be seen. She thought of her sister’s clothes and cell phone and wrecked journal on the beach and almost told Josh to remind her to get them. Then she didn’t. Let her remember her own stuff. If she didn’t, that was her problem.

  Ten minutes later the light was dimming outside, and Olivia zipped herself into her mummy bag.

  “You can come in now.”

  Silence. Hushed voices. The sound of a long zipper twenty feet away where the hammock hung. Then footsteps. Josh unzipped the tent and carefully climbed over her in the twilight. He leaned over her to zip the door up again, then took a moment to slide into Melanie’s mummy bag and zip himself up into it. Olivia could hear his soft, regular breathing. As directed, he didn’t speak.

  Olivia tried to settle into the silence. Tried not to think of the fact that she was now sharing her tent with a strange man she’d stumbled upon in the woods. Tried not to think of her sister out in Josh’s hammock, exposed to whatever dangers might lurk outside the tent. What if the bear came back? What if there really was a cougar?

  She twisted in the mummy bag, but no position was comfortable. Her back hurt, her feet hurt, her hip hurt. The silence was so loud. She had to get her arms out or she was going to lose it. She contorted and pulled at the zipper, but it didn’t budge. She sighed and pulled harder, but the stupid slidey thing would not move along the teeth. She grunted and sighed again and waited for Josh to ask her what was wrong.

  “Hey,” she finally said.

  He shifted but said nothing.

  “Can you unzip this thing? It’s stuck, and I feel like I’m in a straightjacket.”

  She heard his own zipper and felt him moving in the almost black next to her. His hands found the zipper, manipulated it a moment, and pulled it down from the spot near her left cheek to just above her elbow. She stuck an arm out and let out her breath.

  “Thank you.”

  Josh zipped himself back up.

  “You can talk, you know,” she said. “I mean, not a lot. But you can say things like ‘sure’ and ‘you’re welcome.’”

  “Just trying to follow the rules,” he said. “I know this is an imposition, and a good houseguest knows how to make himself invisible.”

  They were both quiet a moment. Olivia tried to fall asleep. But she wasn’t tired.

  “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” she said. “You’d understand if you knew the history here. But it was bad manners anyway, to fight like that in front of you.”

  “Not that it’s any of my business, but—”

  “Oh, I know you won’t let that stop you.”

  Josh laughed. “But I kind of got the idea that your sister was talking about the guy who caused your parents’ accident?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Hmm.”

  Olivia waited for more, but Josh said nothing else.

  “Am I out of line here?” she challenged. “Thinking maybe my sister shouldn’t marry the guy who killed our parents?”

  “Well, no, maybe not. It’s certainly not the normal way people might get together.”

  “Don’t joke about this, okay? If you want to sleep in this tent and not outside on the ground with the wild animals, you will not joke about this.”

  “Loud and clear,” he said.

  Olivia took a deep breath. “It’s worse than that. The guy was my best friend all through elementary, junior high, and high school. And then I went to college and he didn’t. I was going to be a lawyer and he was going to be a mechanic. And whatever, that’s fine. I have no problem with that. But he kept telling me I’d changed and I was too serious, and he was all jealous that I was meeting new friends and new guys at school. We had a big fight when I was home one summer. Then I went back to school. A week later I’m on a Labor Day weekend hiking trip with my college friends, and he takes a blind corner too fast and hits my parents’ car. Flipped it over down an embankment.”

  She paused to tamp down the emotion that was starting to manifest itself in her voice.

  “Then Melanie calls me to say they’ve been having dinner together and hanging out, and oh, by the way, she’s forgiven him? And she acts like I’m supposed to be okay with that and like I’m supposed to forgive him too.”

  She paused so that Josh could interject some appropriate word, like “Wow” or “Seriously?” or “That’s ridiculous!” But still he said nothing.

  “Then she forces me on this trip so she can corner me with the fact that Justin asked her to marry him? And she somehow expects me to give her permission or my blessing or some such nonsense. So you can see, she’s the one who’s out of line here, not me.”

  Silence.

  “Right?”

  Silence.

  “Say something, man. Anything.”

  Josh’s voice emerged from the darkness on the other side of the tent. “That’s tough.”

  Olivia waited for more.

  “That’s it?” she said. “‘That’s tough’?”

  “It is. What do you want me to say?”

  She sat up. “That it’s ridiculous. That it’s insane. That clearly this guy just gets off on manipulating women’s emotions and that he couldn’t have a more willing victim than my supremely naïve sister, who believes everything that’s ever said to her so long as she can put a positive spin on it.”

  “I’m not going to say any of that.”

  Olivia expelled a little puff of exasperation. “Why not? It’s true.”

  Josh unzipped his bag again and sat up. “You don’t really want to hear what I think.”

  “Yes, I do,” Olivia said, though she wasn’t sure she meant it.

  “Look, clearly there is a complicated history here. There’s a lot of hurt. Real hurt. It’s totally valid that you’re angry. But have you ever looked at it from his point of view?”

  Olivia bit her tongue to keep from shouting at Josh to get out of the tent.

  “If you were friends that long, he must have known your family, known your parents. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Spent a lot of time at your house? Maybe even at your table?”

  “Yes,” she conceded. Indeed, their house had been a second home to him, especially when his parents were going through a nasty divorce.

  “So—and I’m not saying this to diminish your pain in any way—he lost your parents too. And he had the double burden of being the cause of that loss.”

  This was irritatingly similar to what M
elanie had said to her on the phone all those years ago. And what her friend-but-maybe-someday-hopefully-more Eric had said later that year which drove a wedge between them, leading to the end of their relationship before it even had a chance to begin. What her roommate had said, propelling her to find her own apartment.

  Four witnesses, all with the same story.

  But she couldn’t be wrong about this. This was easy, wasn’t it? This was a crime that had never been paid for. This was the scales of justice all out of balance. Did people just expect her to forgive him?

  “It’s hard, I know,” Josh said. “Don’t think I haven’t had to forgive plenty of people who didn’t actually deserve forgiveness. I mean, at the end of the day, who does? Everyone falls short. Everyone crosses lines. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes restitution can be made and sometimes it can’t. Justin can’t bring your parents back, so you’ll never be satisfied with any length or intensity of punishment for him. There’s no such thing as justice in a case like that. Unless you think he should be executed. Life for a life. That would be a certain kind of justice.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Olivia said. “Obviously I don’t think he should be executed. It was an accident. I know that. But is it so wrong for me to want him to stay out of my life? Out of my sister’s life?”

  “Probably not. But you can’t live your sister’s life for her. You’ve got one life to live. Yours.”

  Olivia sighed and lay back down. Her arm was cold. Her chest was cold. Her heart was cold. And sad. And lonely. “I can’t do this. I just can’t do this anymore.”

  She felt Josh’s warm hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to.”

  She shrugged it off. “What is that supposed to mean? Just let it go? Pretend it’s not happening? Live in some delusion like my sister? A problem doesn’t just solve itself if you ignore it.”

  “Did I say you should ignore it?”

  “Well, no. But . . . I don’t even know what you said. ‘You don’t have to.’ Don’t have to what?”

  Josh took a deep breath and let it out. “Let me ask you this: have you been carrying your pack around in the woods for three days?”

  “Obviously, yes.”

  “Have you been carrying your sister’s pack?”

  “I carried it some of the way.”

  “The same time you were carrying your own pack?”

  “No, that would be practically impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would be too heavy.” She almost added “duh” but refrained. “What’s your point?”

  “I think you just made it.”

  Olivia sat with that for a moment. “Has anyone ever told you you’re super annoying?”

  “I have my detractors, yes.” Josh chuckled. “But when people take the time to get to know me, they generally come around to see that I only have their best interest at heart.”

  Olivia sighed. “I don’t know why you care at all. You just met us. You’ve been stuck sharing your food and watching us act like jerks to one another. And after a day or two that will be it—you’ll never see or hear from us again.”

  “I hope that’s not true,” Josh said as he settled back down into his sleeping bag. “I’m kind of fond of you two.”

  She scoffed. “We’ve certainly done nothing to endear ourselves to you.”

  “It’s nothing you’ve done, that’s for sure,” he quipped. “It’s just who you are.”

  Olivia thought for a moment. Who was she, anyway? Apart from what she did. And if she met herself somewhere along the way, would she want to be her friend? Would she even give herself a second glance? She couldn’t avoid the fact that the answer was a resounding no.

  “Josh?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why are you so nice?”

  Josh yawned. “Just my nature, I guess.”

  “I wish I was nicer,” she admitted.

  “Well, practice makes perfect, as they say.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good night, Olivia.”

  “Good night.”

  A moment later, Olivia heard Josh’s breathing deepen and slow in sleep. She lay in the dark, trying to unravel a decade of sadness and anger and resentment, trying to discover what she was without that tangle of bitterness squeezing in on all sides. She couldn’t carry both her pack and Melanie’s. Carrying just her own load was exhausting enough.

  As she drifted off to sleep, the thought occurred to her that it would be nice if there was a God after all. Someone who could deal with the justice that needed meting out so she didn’t have to. Someone who would carry the load once in a while. Someone who would calm her spirit and challenge her intellect and just be there alongside her in the dark.

  Maybe someone like Josh.

  twenty-four

  MELANIE HAD LAIN AWAKE half the night. Though she was warm enough and far more comfortable in the hammock than she had been on the hard ground, she couldn’t get her brain to turn off after Josh went into the tent. For a while she could hear voices murmuring in the dark, though she could not make out any words. She could imagine what Olivia was saying. Melanie only hoped her sister hadn’t won Josh to her side.

  As they went about their morning tasks, she tried to read his face and his mannerisms. Had anything changed? Did she detect a bit more brusqueness? A little less eye contact? Or were those her own doing as she looked down at the ground and answered questions or responded to comments with as few syllables as possible?

  They ate breakfast in shifts as sleeping bags, tents, and hammocks were packed, water was filtered, and teeth were brushed. Olivia never looked at her, never handed her anything, never spoke. When they started down the trail, Olivia took the lead, with Josh next and Melanie bringing up the rear. So angry, Mel thought, that Olivia couldn’t even bear to look at her back.

  The wind was cold and the sky still clouded as they walked along the lakeshore. A gull hovered silently over the water in an invisible air current, body quivering, wing dipping slightly to stay balanced. Waves reached their fingers onto the shore and rattled the rocks, knocking stone on stone, wearing each other down bit by bit. Melanie squatted awkwardly under her pack, picked up two stones, and rubbed them together. They looked almost identical. But if one was comprised of harder minerals than the other, that would be the one to survive the eons of constant clashing. The softer one would succumb, grain by grain, until nothing was left of it but some sand scattered by the wind.

  Melanie tossed the stones into the lake one at a time.

  Their party soon hit the mouth of the Big Carp River where it drained into Lake Superior. The trail came to a bridge crossing and made a sharp right to follow the river upstream.

  “That’s our turn,” Josh called up to Olivia. They were the first words anyone had spoken in an hour.

  They crossed the bridge and picked up the Big Carp River Trail on the other side. This path would take them inland—away from the lake, away from the cold north wind, and ever closer to the end of their hike and the beginning of the drive home. Olivia had originally planned for one more night on the trail, but Melanie was sure that once they reached the parking lot at the Lake of the Clouds, they’d be hitching a ride the rest of the way to the car.

  For the next half mile, the river rambled over rocks to Melanie’s right, but the sound held no pleasure for her. Where just a couple days ago she had stopped and leaned in close to hear what a creek had to say to her, now she was sure she was utterly deaf to such things. After years of reading signs and messages in everything, Melanie felt like a sojourner in a foreign land where she didn’t speak the language. The rustle of the leaves, the call of a bird, the whisper of the breeze—she could interpret none of it. Maybe the Universe wasn’t trying to speak to her through these things. Maybe the Universe wasn’t sending hawks into her skies. Maybe they were all just vultures. Maybe there was no Universe at all. Just a universe. An infinite black void made up of nothing more than chemical reactions, where life was an accident. Just
as death sometimes was.

  Maybe her parents weren’t out there somewhere. Maybe they were just . . . gone.

  Melanie was so lost in these bleak thoughts that she didn’t realize Olivia and Josh had stopped until she was practically on top of them. They were looking at the river, where a series of small ledges and inviting pools created a little paradise. A nearby sign said “Bathtub Falls.”

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Josh said.

  Melanie nodded.

  “You should get your phones out,” he said. “The next half mile or so there are more than a dozen cascades and falls—all unnamed but worth remembering—culminating in Shining Cloud Falls. One of the best spots in the park.”

  Melanie took out her phone and pressed the power button. After one heart-stopping moment of nothing, the screen lit up. She waited until all the little icons appeared, then tapped the camera and held the phone out toward the falls. But where normally she’d experience immense pleasure capturing a moment—one that would never come again in exactly the same way—she felt nothing as she hit the button. She turned her phone off and waited for Olivia and Josh to start walking again. Olivia, she noted, hadn’t bothered to get her phone out at all. Of course not. She wanted to forget this trip ever happened. Just like the last hiking trip they’d been on.

  The scenery for the next twenty minutes or so was achingly charming. But Melanie couldn’t enjoy it. She took no more pictures, nor could she do so very easily if she had wanted to. Olivia walked so fast she was soon out of sight, and Melanie’s heavy steps had her lagging so far behind that she often lost sight of Josh as well.

  She should have been using this time to think through what to say when they were alone again in the car. She cared about Justin. Deeply. When they spent time together, she felt understood, known, loved. In the time she had spent with Olivia the past few days, she had often felt misunderstood, occasionally felt that she was only barely tolerated, and certainly felt judged at every turn. The choice should have been easy.