All That We Carried Page 26
“Now you’re in for it,” he said. He dribbled up the driveway, spun to the right, then the left, then passed the ball between his legs before going for a right hook. But the ball bounced off the rim and into Olivia’s waiting hands.
“Ha!” she shouted. Her laugh echoed in the August night. “You’re always trying that fancy stuff, and it never works. It never works, my friend!”
“Oh, you mean this?” He hit the ball out of her hands and proceeded to dribble it step-by-step through his legs as he danced around her. “Or this?” He spun it on his finger and popped it up with his elbow.
“Or this,” Olivia said flatly, hitting the ball out of his hands.
It bounced onto the grass. After a beat, they both tore after it, jostling, pushing, shoving. Then they both had their hands on it, trying to wrench it away. Justin pulled with his entire body weight and they crashed onto the lawn, legs tangled, both still hugging the ball. Olivia gave it one more giant twist, and Justin let go.
“You win! You win!” he said.
Olivia could hardly breathe she was laughing so hard, lying flat on her back, smelling grass and dirt and summertime.
Justin lay next to her, his chest rising and falling. “You win,” he said again. “I’m done.”
Olivia sat up. “The game’s not over. You just have P-I. You need your G or you’ll never be a real pig!”
Justin put his hand on his stomach. “I’m done.”
“Quitter.”
He popped the ball out of her hands again, and it went rolling back onto the pavement, hit the garage, and reversed course, rolling faster and faster down the driveway and into the street.
“You’re going to go get that,” Olivia said.
Justin didn’t move. Olivia lay back down next to him. A few of the brightest stars had appeared as the sun retreated beneath the gentle curve of the earth. The grass felt prickly beneath her bare legs and arms. Summer was coming to an end. Soon she’d be leaving for her freshman year of college. It was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Rockford to Ann Arbor. But she knew in her heart she would not make it often. Nights like this were running out.
“You know you can use this hoop whenever you want, right?” she said. “And you can still come over here for dinner any night of the week. You can keep an eye on Melanie for me.”
Justin looked at her for a long time. Too long. Then he stood up and walked across the street to get the basketball. Olivia tamped down the tears that wanted to come, thankful it was too dark for him to see her face anymore. Then he was standing over her, offering a hand.
“Get up, O. It’s your turn.”
thirty-three
IN THE TWO AND A HALF HOURS it took to get from the crystal waters of Kitch-iti-kipi to the gravel ride-share lot next to the Shell station in Indian River, Olivia tried to prepare herself to see Justin Navarro for the first time since she’d spotted him at the cemetery ten years ago. She looked again through the photos Melanie had saved, pulled those good memories to the front of her mind, silently practiced what she would say to him. She deliberated between a hug, handshake, or hands-free greeting. She breathed in, breathed out. When Melanie pulled in to the station, she thought she was ready.
She spotted him immediately, leaning against the wall outside. His hair was longer, and he’d exchanged his stubble for a neatly trimmed beard. The tattoo sleeves that had made him look like a drug dealer back when he was wearing oversize basketball jerseys with baggy jeans made him look like the quintessential Millennial entrepreneur now that he was sporting slim-fitting pants, a button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and brown suede loafers with no socks. But he wore the same guarded expression she’d known so well. The one that had only ever relaxed into a smile when he was with her.
Melanie stopped at the gas pump. “Are you going to be okay with this?”
Olivia nodded, though she suspected it was a lie. Melanie got out of the car, ran over to where Justin stood, and gave him a long hug but no kiss. Then she disappeared into the store. Olivia pretended to be busy with her phone to avoid eye contact with Justin as he walked up to the gas pump, slid his credit card in, and lifted the nozzle.
All at once Olivia felt tremendously childish and realized that she needed to get out of the car. To use the bathroom, yes, but also because when she did finally say hello to him, she wanted it to be at eye level rather than him standing and her sitting. She removed her seat belt and opened the car door, but the apparatus keeping her knee immobilized meant she could not get out without help. She closed the door and decided to wait for Melanie, but almost as soon as it was shut, somebody opened it.
Olivia looked up to see Justin looking down at her.
“Need a hand?”
She muscled down her pride. “Yeah.”
Justin took her elbow. Leaning the weight of her upper body in his sure grip, she twisted enough to get her leg out and let him lift her gently out of the car. Much smoother than when Melanie had gotten her out earlier that day. The moment she was stable, Justin dropped his hands and hooked his thumbs on his pockets. They looked at each other for one pregnant moment. Olivia felt her heart rate tick up, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, deliberately.
She pointed into the car. “Can you grab those crutches? I need to use the bathroom.”
“Of course.”
He sprang into motion, and a moment later Olivia was hobbling toward the door. Inside, the clerk gave her a long, hard look. It was the same woman who had sized her up five days earlier. Olivia turned away.
In the bathroom, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and wished she hadn’t. Her hair was in a greasy ponytail beneath her sweat-stained baseball cap. Her chin was scraped. A long purple bruise stretched from her temple to her jawline. A zit was brewing at the corner of her nose. She’d have to go to work like this. To explain to everyone what had happened on her big hiking trip. She wondered if her new look would work for or against her in the courtroom.
A few minutes later, Olivia gathered up her wounded pride and her crutches and headed back out into the store. Melanie was at the counter, buying iced tea and a bag of salted cashews. Olivia grabbed a Coke and plucked a newspaper from the rack near the door. Above the fold was an aerial shot of the fire in the Porcupine Mountains, accompanied by the triumphant headline “CONTAINED!” Olivia scanned the article for names, hoping she wouldn’t see hers, hoping she would see Josh’s. But the only people mentioned by name were park rangers. Everyone who had been in the park was accounted for, the cause of the fire was still under investigation, and the old-growth portion of the forest remained unspoiled.
“You gonna buy that?” the woman behind the counter asked. “’Cause this ain’t a library.”
Olivia plunked the paper down on the counter next to the Coke.
“Crazy, isn’t it,” the woman said, indicating the paper. She rang up Olivia’s items, then fixed her with a look. “What happened to you?”
Olivia wordlessly tucked the receipt in her pocket and reached for her items, but Melanie, standing nearby, beat her to it. The woman behind the counter turned to the next person in line as they made their way outside, where Justin was now gassing up Olivia’s car.
“I gave him your keys,” Melanie said. “He’s already got the packs in the back—I took my stuff out of mine. So I think you should be all set.” Melanie put a hand on Olivia’s arm. “Listen, I haven’t told him yet.”
“Does he know I know?”
“No. Let’s not make this about me and Justin. This is about you and Justin. You’ll get a few hours in the car to talk, he’ll get you settled back in at home, then he’ll stay the night at a hotel and fly home tomorrow, and I’ll pick him up in Traverse City. He’s already bought a ticket.”
Olivia started toward her own car, which was dusty and covered in maple seeds. Melanie helped her into the passenger seat, handed over the Coke and the newspaper, then stood in the open door.
“Hey,” she said. “I know this didn’t turn
out like either of us planned. But believe it or not, I think things are going to get better from here.”
Olivia nodded. “They will.”
Melanie frowned. “Promise me you’ll call your doctor first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Promise.”
“And keep me updated.”
“Okay.”
Melanie shut the door. Justin closed the gas cap and came around to where Melanie stood. Olivia couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see them in the side mirror. They ended the short conversation with a tight embrace and a quick kiss. Then Melanie knocked on the window, blew Olivia a kiss, and walked away.
Justin got into the car and started it up. “Where to?”
“East Lansing.”
He indicated her University of Michigan ball cap. “They let you in there with that?”
“I don’t wear it during football season.”
“Ah.” Justin pulled out of the parking lot and onto I-75 South.
Olivia stared out the window and tried to think of something appropriate to say, but nothing was coming to her. How did you talk to a friend you’d abandoned? How did you talk to the man who’d stolen away your parents and hoped to marry your sister? How did you begin to dig yourself out of a decade of bitterness?
She waited for him to break, to say something first. But he didn’t.
“What do you do in Petoskey?” she finally said. Inane, but safe.
“I do custom bodywork on cars. Restore them, soup them up. Engine work. Detailing. Stuff like that.”
“You have your own garage?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at her. “It’s a good living.”
She nodded. “I’m sure it is.”
The agonizing silence set back in. There was no way to start this conversation. Not without sounding like the prosecuting attorney she was.
“Get to the beach much?” Olivia tried.
“Just say it,” Justin said.
“Excuse me?”
He looked at her. “Just say it.”
“Say what?”
He looked back to the road. “Whatever it is you’ve wanted to say to me all these years. Just say it.”
Olivia scowled. “What do you think I’ve wanted to say to you?”
He didn’t answer.
“You think I had anything good to say to you? Any words of forgiveness or reconciliation? ‘Let’s let bygones be bygones’?”
“No.”
“Then what the heck do you think I should say to you?”
Olivia sighed and shifted in her seat. Her foot hit something on the floor of the car. The shoebox of memories. Of course Melanie would put it right there where Olivia would see it. She rubbed her forehead and softened her tone.
“I’ve had a lot of time to be angry. A lot of time to wish things had been different. But they aren’t. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
She reached into her pocket for the used napkin from her breakfast to blow her nose, but her fingers found something else. Something hard and round. She pulled it out. Josh’s compass. How did that get there?
So you can find your way in the wilderness.
Forgiving Justin had never been part of her plan. She was off the path she’d marked out for her life, slogging through the muck and the underbrush, directionless. She opened the compass. The needle swung around to point north, back where they’d just come from, back where, for a moment at least, Olivia had allowed herself to imagine that there might be a God after all. One who called on people to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. She’d been all hung up on the first part, had made it central to her identity. But she’d never been very good at the other two.
She flipped the compass closed. Despite all of their missteps and mistakes while hiking, they had made it out alive. More than that, if the doctor was correct, Olivia might have that hiking trip to thank for saving her from cancer. That wasn’t really justice. She and Melanie were unfit in the Darwinian sense and should have been eliminated from the gene pool. If it hadn’t been for Josh—guiding them along the river, sharing his food and his shelter, dragging her back up the escarpment and out of the woods—they might still be out there. Maybe caught in a forest fire.
Josh had put his own life on the line, for her and for others when he went back in with a search party. The paper had said everyone was accounted for. No one had been left to fend for themselves amid the flames. He’d found everyone he was looking for—including the people who must have been responsible for the fire. He loved mercy.
“Listen, Justin,” she began tentatively. “I know it was an accident.” She swallowed down the emotion she felt rising in her throat. “I know you lost them too.”
Olivia could see his jaw clench beneath his beard. Did he give himself headaches that way like she did? Had he been as tightly coiled all this time?
“I haven’t been a very good friend through all of this. Or a good sister.” She pushed the reluctant words past her teeth. “I’m going to try to do better.”
Justin nodded a little. “It’s been hard—knowing you were out there hating me all these years.” He glanced her way. “You were my best friend. My only friend.”
“I know.”
“When you left it really sucked, you know?”
Olivia pressed her lips together. “Yeah. I know.”
“And then the accident and everything fell apart . . . and I had no one.”
“You had Melanie,” she offered, and for the first time she truly understood what her sister had been trying to tell her all those years ago. Justin had needed forgiveness. And Melanie had needed to forgive.
“Yeah, she helped. A lot. I don’t think I’d still be around if it weren’t for her.”
Olivia tucked the compass back into her pocket and took out the napkin she’d been after in the first place. “She told me you asked her to marry you.”
Justin looked at her, the question he was afraid to ask written across his brow.
“I’ll admit I didn’t take it so well,” Olivia said.
His face fell.
“But I’m slowly coming around to it. It makes sense.”
Relief washed over Justin’s face, but it was quickly replaced with concern. “She hasn’t told me yes or no.”
Olivia smiled. “She told me.”
He waited for more.
“It’s not my business to say,” she said. “And Melanie didn’t want this ride to be about the two of you. Though, I don’t know what we’re supposed to talk about if we can’t bring her into it. She’s the only thing we really have in common at this point.”
Justin passed a semi and returned to the right lane. “We’ve got practically twenty years of history together, just you and me. That’s two-thirds of our lives.”
“We did have some pretty good times.” Olivia stared at the road ahead. Those times were all behind her now.
Just like the accident. Ten years in the past but still fresh, still raw. Still permanent. Why did that hang on, a parasite on her soul, when the good stuff faded like mist beneath the heat of the sun?
“Melanie said you’ve been going to church.”
Justin nodded.
“You believe all that stuff?”
“Yes, I do.”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, but his face relaxed so that Olivia saw something there she’d never seen before. It wasn’t just happiness like in the old photos in the box at her feet. It was something more. It was peace. It was serenity. In fact, it wasn’t unlike Josh’s face.
“What do you think they’ll say to you if you see them again?” she mused. “Do you think they’ll forgive you?”
“Your parents?” He shook his head. “They won’t have to. When my life ends, I’ll be carrying nothing with me into the next one. No sins, no mistakes, no guilt. There’s nothing to forgive in heaven.”
“So that’s it, then? All the transgressions of our lives on Earth are just gone and no one has to pay? How is that fair?”
“Careful.”
“Just like it wasn’t fair that my dad beat me and spent the grocery money on drugs and alcohol,” he barreled on. “You’ve got to stop thinking in terms of fair. Fair is the bare minimum of happiness. It’s zero. It’s not positive, it’s not negative, it’s just zero. You want to live your life striving to achieve zero?”
Olivia shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
Justin softened his tone. “When has something being fair ever made you happy? When Melanie said it wasn’t fair that you took both drumsticks when your dad brought home fried chicken, he took one of them from you and gave it to her. Did fair work for you then?”
“It worked for Melanie,” Olivia quipped.
“When the two of you couldn’t agree whose turn it was to pick the Friday night movie, what happened?”
“Mom picked.”
“And what did she always pick?”
Olivia sighed. “Dead Poets Society.”
“Which you hated.”
“You hated it too.”
“What about how angry you used to get because your parents were so much stricter with you than they were with Melanie? That her curfew was later than yours was at the same age. That she got her kitten when they wouldn’t let you get a husky puppy. That you had to get a summer job at an office while she got to babysit kids at the country club pool every day.”
“What’s your point?”
“That your obsession with things being fair hasn’t brought you any joy. All it’s produced is bitterness.” He glanced her way. “And by the way, I never said that no one had to pay.”
thirty-four
MELANIE SAT by the stone fireplace in the lobby of the tiny Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City and watched the spot where she knew Justin would appear. The day before, she’d gotten home, taken a shower, and collapsed into bed. She’d woken up at six o’clock, savored a hot cup of tea, and sat down with a blank journal, thinking she’d process some of the events of the past week. To her surprise, she could not quite bring herself to write anything down.