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There's a layer of dust over everything as he wrenches the apartment door open, and for a second he can almost appreciate it, the way the light hits everything and adds an almost gold-grey sheen to everything.
Then the door slams shut, and the pit in his stomach makes itself known again.
Everything where he'd left it, before he headed to Wyoming. Before…
(Maybe you could come back to Boulder with me and figure it out down there?)
No. He wasn't doing this now. Not when he'd been doing it for the last 400ish miles.
He throws his meagre belongings down beside the door, kicks off his shoes (they reek of raccoon piss, despite his best efforts with a gas station hose). Down the corridor, second door on the left, he flicks on the light switch. Stark fluorescent light, it hurts his eyes but they readjust and then he can see himself properly for the first time in months.
(What do you look like?)
For another solitary, out-of-time second, he can honestly see the humour in the situation. He'd never laid eyes on her, wouldn't have been able to pick her out of a line-up, but he was having just as much trouble recognising himself. Then it goes and he has a look, a proper look, and he doesn't know if he should hate it or not.
A once-plump face, worn thin through hiking (a lot), stress (just as much) and crappy tinned food (enough for one lifetime). A dozen different sunburns, faded and renewed, a nasty curving forehead scar from when the rope snapped on Shitty Boss Is Going To Get Me Killed Hill. A bird's nest of a beard, even for his standards. And then there were his eyes.
(Tired.)
He's known a lot of sleepless nights in his life. When he was twelve and his sister had gone missing for a night, eventually coming back to a furious tirade from their parents followed by tearful hugs. When he'd had to decide whether to stay in Boulder or go east to study at another school, telling himself in the end that home was where the heart was. The night that mugger had jumped him and Julia when they were out walking Bucket, and he kept waiting for the door to burst open or a window to smash. All the nights since Julia got her diagnosis, only ended when he started having a few to sedate himself.
But as he stares back at the hollow-eyed man in the mirror, he's amazed he made it this far at all.
The shower is the best one he's ever had, and afterwards there's not much left to do but crawl onto the bed and sleep like a dead man. He gets fifteen hours, easy, pulled back to consciousness in a late morning fugue.
He remembers the last time he overslept like this and he swears he hears something break in his chest.
A week passes. He does little things, here and there, feeble stabs at the idea he could get his life going again. They feel as useless and foolish as he did when he was trying to look after Jules by himself.
But he does them. Updates his health insurer and his bank about his wife's condition, and the need for separate plans, separate accounts. They say they're sorry about her condition, and they seem to mean it. But maybe he's been away from people too long to know for sure.
The truck gets a wash, and they manage to get the raccoon piss stench out of the interior. The pine tree odoriser they hung from the rear-view mirror annoys him for some unaccountable reason and he chucks it as soon as he's round the corner from the carwash.
He constructs a home for Bucket Junior out of an old fish tank. It's not Five Mile Creek, but its something. Bucket Junior is far less lively than his namesake, but he's too cute to give up.
He goes shopping, restocks the fridge, cleans up when he can be bothered. He sees a case of Red Eagle at the liquor store and almost buys it. Then he realises the only reason he wants to buy it is out of some twisted nostalgia and he settles for Coors instead.
He applies for a few jobs around town. Summer's over and the out-of-towners (or FIFOs, as Julia's sister would call them in her broad Australian accent) leave many a vacancy, so it isn't as hard as he thought it would be. He works as a groundskeeper at the university for a while, then at the record store. Then he's back at the university because his boss at the record store is an asshole.
The pay isn't much, but the hours are decent and it keeps him busy enough - and there's a bench, on the western edge of campus, that gets the best rays of the dying sun as it slips behind the Flatirons. He sits there when he can, stares out towards the mountains.
He thinks he might head up there soon, when he has the chance.
The phone doesn't ring, except once by a telemarketer offering him a great deal on fax machines, and another by a befuddled old woman named Fern.
"No, I'm telling you, he doesn't live here," he says, into the phone, into the vast emptiness of his apartment.
"Nonsense!" She barks back, in that quavery-but-forceful way some old people have. "Think I don't know where my own son lives? What are you, some kind of practical joker? Put him on the phone now!"
"Lady, look, for the tenth time…" It goes on like that for a while. He's almost amused by the time she gives up and slams the phone in a huff.
He thinks about making a call of his own. There are no shortage of choices. Julia. Her family (though preferably Susan or Mick, not Madeline). Julia. His own sister, Lauren, living in Maryland with her husband and two rugrats. Julia. Even Dixon, working on the slopes and who'd hinted at a job the last time they'd spoke. Julia.
But in his heart of hearts, he knows there's only one person's voice he wants to come through the line, and while it sickens him the wanting doesn't go away.
He can't avoid the world he once knew forever and once one of his friends spots him on the street one day, the rest find out in short order. He's annoyed, and feels guilty for feeling annoyed. They're good people, nice enough. They invite him to come out with them on Friday nights. They've known him and Julia for years and years.
He doesn't really know them anymore, and that began before Shoshone. Behind the sympathetic facade, the platitudes, the "let me know if you need anything" and "we're here for you", he can sense the faintest thread of contempt. That he let things get as bad as they did. That he didn't do a better job as a husband and provider. That he just rolled over and let her family take her away, across the world and into a home.
The wisecracks the women make, about "if you put me in a home like Henry did with Julia I'll cut your balls off", are the worst of all. It's all he can do to not let the beer bottle shatter in his hand. Just gives a half-smile, absent-minded, agreeable. In the hubbub and clatter of the Dollar, their old haunt, it's almost doable.
"So, Henry, what was it like?" Richard speaks up from across the booth. He's slowly peeling the label off his drink, wrinkling it between his fingers until it becomes a congealed wet mess. "Living in the woods all summer, must've been boring as shit, right?"
(I'm glad you're here.)
(Me too.)
"It was quiet." He doesn't trust himself to say anything else. What could he possibly say?
"Quiet as you are right now?" Richard jests, and the rest of the booth has a good chuckle at his expense. They turn to another topic, someone's brother or cousin or whatever, but for Henry its too late, and the memories are seeping through the cracks.
When he gets home, stumbling and blurry-eyed and heartsick, he screams until his voice cracks and his throat burns.
He stops going out with them not long after that.
The university decides he needs some help, even though his job is mostly picking up trash and cutting grass, and that's how he meets Joe.
He's still wary around people (and that fact is utterly depressing if not entirely unexpected) but Joe is a lucky find. Helpful without being a kiss-ass, cheerful but not over the top. He's a fair bit younger but they get along pretty well, and he even rouses Henry out of his funk a little to talk about themselves.
"I was studying business down at UNM." Joe tears into his sandwich while they're on break, speaks through a mouthful of ham and mustard. "Two years in to a four year degree. Then one day I couldn't see the point. Packed my shit and headed to Colorado."
"You quit?" He's a little surprised. Joe seems the responsible, clean-cut type, not the type to skip out on college.
"Deferred. So if I change my mind, I can come back." He looks around at the campus, the grass still wet from last night's shower and the buildings looking resplendent in the sunshine. "Don't think I will. Boulder's nice."
"It is."
It's reassuring that there's no doubt when he says that. Even after everything, Boulder still feels like home.
"What'd your parents say when you left?"
Joe's smile flickers. "I don't really talk to them. Long story."
"Sorry to hear that." He means it.
"It's all good, man." Joe sweeps the crumbs off his uniform. "I got my scholarship, so I'm squared away if I do go back. And a job like this means I can get some time off, go travelling. You like to travel?"
"Uh, kind of, I guess. I was up in Wyoming this summer. Firewatch lookout."
Joe's eyes light up. "Whoa! That sounds like the best job ever."
He feels himself laugh, really actually laugh, as he remembers his first, frenetic days on the job. "It had its moments."
"I'm jealous. I love the outdoors, man."
Joe becomes his first friend since Shoshone.
It's been a month since he got back, and he hasn't called Julia yet.
Fall starts in. It's kind of pretty, actually.
He's getting better at being by himself, and why wouldn't he? He did nothing but when he was in Two Forks. He works five days a week, nine to five. In the evenings he walks through the streets framed by dimming light, kicks up masses of browning leaves. He walks until he's exhausted enough to not dream. Some nights he's out for hours.
On the weekends, he goes out of the apartment. Being there feels like being a ghost. He's torn between moving somewhere else and staying.
He finds time to do things. He missed some good movies while he was away - Back to the Future II, Dead Poets Society, Lethal Weapon II. He goes even when he doesn't feel like it, because staring up at that big, luminous screen, he can take himself away from himself for a couple hours.
He goes to the library, finds sequels to the books he read in the tower. Most of them are terrible, but he finds the place comforting, and the people working there are nice.
He sees a pamphlet for subsidised mental health counselling on a bulletin board at the university, and he takes one. It's still sitting next to the kitchen sink, the phone number undialled, but its a step anyway.
Life becomes almost routine. Regular.
He misses the woods and its burning a hole right through him.
The invite takes him by surprise.
"Only if you want to," Joe says. It's Friday and the day is drawing to an end. "My uncle's cool. Just some burgers on the grill. I promise."
Henry likes Joe, and one of the things he likes best about him is that he gets it. What its like to feel like an impostor in the most mundane situations. That's why Joe sounds so laid-back about this out-of-nowhere dinner invitation. It's fine if he goes, fine if he doesn't.
"Sure. Let me know the address."
It's a short drive out of Boulder, to Broomfield. The stars are out tonight, and most of the traffic is inbound, not outbound, so he makes good time. Racing down the road like a drifter in a Bruce Springsteen song.
Joe's uncle owns a little one-storey bungalow which has seen better days, but its nice enough on the inside. A ruddy-faced block of a man, he introduces himself as Vic with a bone-crunching handshake. "Get you a beer?"
They eat well that night, crunching greasy meat in big white slabs of bread. Its a beautiful night, not too cold and the air perfectly still. Joe and his uncle catch up, ribbing each other about little things, laughing along with jointly-remembered anecdotes. Henry's a little worried he'll be third wheeling but they draw him in as well with discussions of pop culture and movie stars.
"Oh Heather Locklear, all day, every day," Vic says firmly, in a tone that indicates he's given the matter some thought. "Body like that? No question, am I right Joe?"
Henry can't help but notice Joe's reply seems a little forced. Joe begs off to use the bathroom, and that leaves Henry alone with Vic.
"Good kid, ain't he?" Vic smiles after his nephew. "Wonder if he thinks I don't know."
"Don't know what?"
Vic raises an eyebrow, but waves a hand. "Ah, not my place to say. But he's a good kid. Never had any of my own. You got any?"
(I'm saying if you and I have some. A couple of little idiots.)
"No."
"Hm." Vic sips his beer.
He can't believe they ever thought of having children together. Not because they would've made bad parents, but because it feels like something from another life entirely. Someone else's. Not his, with the drinking problem, the empty apartment, the listless going through the motions, the wife with Alzheimers, and all the dreams about -
"Joe tells me you went up Wyoming way, stood a lookout on the firewatch towers. That right?"
One thing after another. "Yeah. For the summer."
"Huh, small world. I used to do the same thing. As a younger man."
Henry looks at him. "You were a lookout in Shoshone?"
"Certainly was. The Chimney Rock tower, rickety piece of shit. Swayed in the breeze, if you can believe that."
"How long were you a lookout?"
"Oh, through most of the 70s. Shit, I must've had hair back then. It was hell, the radios barely worked, trails were for shit. But you could get away from it all, just tune out the whole goddamned world. Hard to do that now. You find it that way?"
(You came out to put your memories behind you and they're still right there in front of you.)
"I…not really." God, why did his chest hurt?
"Yeah, just ain't the same. I decided to wrap it up round the turn of the decade. I was getting sick of shitting in a hole anyway. 'Sides, the younger ones were taking over back then. Hah, there was this one, real spitfire of a lady, we got to talking a bit before I left. Can't imagine anyone being bored with her."
(She's a record you don't gotta flip.)
"What - what was her name?"
"Ah, heck, I can't remember now. Sorry. All so long ago."
Did she ever exist? Did he conjure her up, the sarcastic, free-spirited, fiery woman whose voice wouldn't leave him alone? In his dreams, his waking thoughts, his memories? Had his heart and mind decided, after the wreck his life had become following Julia's return to Australia, that what he needed was someone else, never mind if she wasn't real?
What could he trust, after everything had gone so wrong?
Joe returns, and the conversation turns to hockey. Around 11:00, they say their farewells.
Henry doesn't sleep that night, and the worst part is that he can't even cry.
The wall of the alley next to the bar (not the Dollar, he won't be going back there) feels unbearably cold on his cheek, but its propping him up. Head spinning, he tastes vomit and a little blood.
The last few minutes are razor sharp, even if the last few hours aren't. He spent the whole day in a bad way, feeling the molten fury under his skin at every moment. The second it was dark he launched himself into this little hole in the wall and started drinking. Then someone bumped his elbow and from there it got ugly.
He got thrown out, none too gently. Who knows how long he lay there in the street, some groaning, old piece of shit. Nobody helped him.
He doesn't even blame them. Why would they?
He's nothing.
He was able to kid himself for a while, with Jules, and the life they made together, but then she got sick and she went away and he went right back to being nothing. Worse than nothing.
And then there was her.
He can't even bring himself to think her name, spell it out in his head, much less say it out loud. If he does that, he'll die. He's sure of it.
No.
He's already dead.
The worst part is that he kept living afterwards.
He wakes up in a cell at the police station.
He barely manages a few seconds of agonising awareness before his mind nods off again.
He wakes up in the same cell at the police station and while his head is still screaming at him to self-terminate, he can actually stay awake this time.
He's in the drunk tank, or whatever they call it on TV. He's sharing it with an older guy with a shaved head, who mutters Beatles songs to himself under his breath. Eventually a tight-lipped officer hands him a bottle of water and then escorts him out, out into the searing sunlight of a clear day.
He trudges home, somehow doesn't keel over or get hit by a car on the way there. Somehow he still has the keys to the door.
He goes in and falls face first onto the bed, willing it to swallow him whole.
He doesn't hear the phone ring.
"Fuck."
The answering machine is full of calls from the university, asking him where the hell he is. He's supposed to be working today.
By the time he gets wind of it, the day is almost over. Nobody at the campus office is responding. He curses himself, again and again.
The whole weekend passes with him worrying whether or not he has a job come Monday. It strangely eclipses everything else. Worrying about his job, he almost feels normal.
He won't say he savours it, but it grounds him, the same way starvation would a heartbroken man.
He's off the hook, for now. Joe vouched for him, spun a story about Henry being laid up with a really bad bout of flu and dead to the world. Its almost the truth. He's not sure if this bosses quite buy it, but he's still got a locker and an ID badge by the time Friday rolls around. He's relieved, and its a comfort.
It's been an alright week, and he decides its now or never. Besides, he owes his coworker big time.
"You wanna head up the trails this weekend?"
Joe flashes a pearly white grin. "You bet."
They start at the Chautauqua trailhead the next day, in the late morning. The weather's holding steady, for the moment, and they've got backpacks crammed with the essentials - water bottles, chocolate bars, apples, and the oh so important beef jerky. Joe's brought some banana chips to share, which taste like pencil shavings to Henry but he appreciates the gesture. "Your loss," he cackles, shoving them into his mouth as they walk.
The Flatirons are even more beautiful up close, majestic spurs of rock jutting out from the tree-lined slopes of Green Mountain. Towards the top, there's a light dusting of snow. Winter's coming.
Other hikers are out and about, they offer smiles and nods as they pass by. They chatter about elk and birds, what they've seen and where they want to go next. Henry feels himself lightening with every step. He should've done this weeks ago.
It's not a short hike to the summit, but there's still some of his old strength left from the summer, from climbing shale slides and rock faces. They make it there in decent time, stopping a few times along the way for a breather. Joe doesn't say much, preferring to take in the beauty. Henry feels the same way.
He sees the entrance to a small cave, one he and Julia went exploring in years and years ago. He doesn't stop to look.
The sun's almost directly overhead when they get to the peak, and the view is straight out of a postcard. Little wisps of cloud dot a perfect blue sky above, the trees sway in the breeze and Boulder is laid out in the foothills below. He can hear chickadees and finches calling back and forth, and for a moment, everything lifts from his shoulders, and he feels like he used to, before everything happened.
It disappears just as fast, the black stones settling back onto him, but he's glad.
"We made it!" Joe lifts a weary fist into the air, then collapses onto a well-worn log. He fumbles for his water bottle, takes a massive swig. He eyes Henry accusingly. "How are you not even tired right now?"
He laughs. "I am. Guess I just got used to hiking over the summer."
Joe huffs, but soon loses himself in another bag of banana chips. Henry shakes his head. "You're crazy for those things, huh?" He reaches for a Snickers in his backpack. It's not the same one he had as a firewatch lookout.
"Guilty. My cousin Amber's fault, she got me hooked, man."
"She a hiker too?"
"Nah, just a foodie. I tried getting her to come out with me a few times, but she wasn't the type for all this." He smiles around at the summit. "Thanks for inviting me up here."
"No problemo."
There's a pause, and Henry knows what's coming.
"So why'd you miss work last week?"
Up here on a mountain, he doesn't feel like he can lie. "I was hungover. Very hungover. Slept the whole day."
"Damn." Joe whistles. "Someone's stag night or…?"
He snorts a little, despite himself. "No way. All of my friends got married years ago."
"All of them? Like, every single one? That's impressive. Boulder Colorado, the city of love. Put it on a t-shirt."
"Sell like hot cakes. You gonna cut me in?"
"Mm, I dunno."
"Aw come on, I deserve half the credit."
"I will give you…seven."
"Wow. Thought we were friends." Joe laughs, and so does Henry. They return to the silence for a bit.
"So if not a stag night, then…?"
"I…it's a long story."
He remembers telling her, slowly, reluctantly, the words trudging from his lips the same way his feet dragged their way through the Shoshone those first few days. He remembers the guilt, of them both knowing why he was out there and neither of them daring to speak on it. He remembers not feeling better at all for talking about it.
(I think you should go see her.)
He remembers how its been three months and he hasn't called Julia. Hasn't even tried.
"I don't know if…"
He feels rotten because he can't trust Joe with this. Joe, who covered for him and saved him from getting fired.
"I get it, man." Joe's voice cuts through his thoughts, and Henry turns to face him. Despite the gorgeous sunshine, Joe's face seems almost shadowed.
"Everybody's got something they never, ever, wanna talk about. Doesn't matter if a person cares, or if they're trustworthy. You just don't want to find out what happens if you let it out."
Henry gets the feeling they're not talking about him anymore.
Joe sighs, the sound cutting through the rustle of trees, and gingerly rubs his face like its been held to the fire.
"We don't have to say anything else about it. Just enjoy the view, huh?"
And so they do.
It isn't till years later that Henry figures out what the whole Joe thing was about, but life is very different by then.
He's out walking some night in one of the less savoury parts of town and a woman propositions him from the passenger seat of a car. She's young, dressed in a fur coat. He's almost positive she's got a wig on.
At first he wants to say no, thank you, Ms Hooker, and keep on with his walk. But then he remembers how long its been. How goddamned lonely the bed feels with only one person in it.
The night is cold, so he hurries off before he changes his mind.
When he gets back to his apartment, he remembers the conversation on the night of the June Fire.
(What? What could we do? )
(Well. Let me tell you.)
He masturbates into the toilet bowl and the clash of pleasure and pain is like acid in his veins.
The clinic waiting room is the same as every single hospital he's ever been in, all stark lighting and faded magazines. A poster on the wall reminds him and all who pass by to approach things with a positive attitude.
He can just about manage to approach things today. Anything else costs extra.
The pamphlet's become crushed in the back pocket of his jeans. He finally did it. There was no final straw that broke the camel's back. One day the pamphlet and the phone were close enough for it to feel like destiny.
He wants to leave, but he makes himself sit in the red plastic chair until his name is called.
The counsellor is an older woman, Janelle. She's got the matronly manner down pat, and she gestures him to a leather couch, sinfully comfortable. His bed was never this nice.
"I understand," she says solemnly, one leg crossed, "that your wife is sick."
He bites back the retort, that nobody really understands, even if they say they do, nobody possibly can, except him and Jules, and she can't even remember what it is she's got, at least, not when he'd last seen her.
He nods, mumbles something like the affirmative.
They don't get through a lot in the first session, but Janelle lays out her approach.
"Acceptance and commitment therapy can be very effective for those in situations like yours. I really do think it could help."
He dares to hope, maybe, just maybe, she's right.
It's winter in Colorado and the streets are lined with an icy slush that makes walking difficult. He spends more and more time indoors.
Work is almost exclusively outdoors, clearing the paths and roads of snow. It's crappy and freezing, and he starts to hate it.
Joe becomes sullen, moody. Something about this time of year brings him down.
It's nearly Christmas. Festive decorations and lights liven up the gloom. Families stroll by, red-cheeked and laughing in their winter gear. The bars are always full of revellers. There's a palpable excitement in the air, as a new decade beckons.
He misses the woods.
Green, red or orange. In the chilly shadow-cut dawn, or sun-blasted heat haze. Under aspen branches or through cottonwood groves at the water's edge. Over rocky slopes and overhangs, cutting through stinging underbrush and march flies. From a splintered balcony and in the glades. As the sun rose, as it died in the fiery west. Even in the choking smoke and sweet-smelling cinders as the world burned around him on that last, awful day.
He misses her. Still. Still.
Potluck dinner.
Not one thrown by his so-called friends (he wouldn't have gone even if they had offered). It's more of a community initiative, down at a local church. A Christmas Eve dinner for those who don't have anywhere to be at this time of year.
Henry's fairly certain he fills that category and then some.
He has a casserole under one arm, far from his best effort. He doesn't really care, if he's being honest.
The church's function room is cold, despite the best efforts of the organisers to warm it. The small crowd of thirty or so inside seems not to notice it the way he does. Most of them are old, but there's a scattering of younger folks. No battle lines have drawn themselves; everyone intermingles freely. A large circular table hosts the various dishes, and another one off to the side is packed with plates, napkins, cutlery and cups. A stereo plugged in near the wall oozes Yuletide hits.
A smiling lady with bouffant hair and a blue dress named Fiona welcomes him in, gives him a name tag. He pins it to his lapel, but it doesn't quite sit right and he's adjusting it all evening. He grabs himself a drink, some kind of light beer poured into a plastic cup.
Nobody comes over to talk to him.
Some people here are homeless, he can tell by their threadbare clothes and worn expressions. One of them, a greying man in his sixties, breaks into hacking snarls and obscenities at random intervals, and all conversation stops as a few people finally lead him into another room, faces grave. A few minutes later they have to escort him out, gently but firmly.
The pity Henry feels for him motivates him, albeit briefly, to at least try and make some conversation.
The first attempt traps him with a wild-eyed man who won't stop talking about government cover-ups. "They're monitoring all of us, you know," he insists, hands gesticulating. "The entire city of Boulder. They've got whole secret bases out there in the woods, underground, watching us eat and go to work and what we read."
Henry remembers the last time he thought he was the subject of clandestine surveillance, and stifles a laugh. Maybe its the beer. "Really?"
"For real, dude. For fucking real."
The man ends up going to the bathroom and gives Henry a reprieve from the conspiracy theorist half-hour. Weirdly, he never comes back. Maybe he thought the feds were coming to arrest him for giving the game away and he jumped out the window.
The next attempt is with Fiona, and while she tries to make an effort to converse, she's way too stressed about not losing her deposit. Some people's table manners aren't the best, and crumbs and stray bits of potato salad end up on the floor. She swears glumly under her breath as she fetches the dustpan and broom again and Henry relents.
He gets luckier with Rosa and Franklin. Grey nomads, they've been on the road in their Winnebago for just over a year now. From the way they describe the life, it doesn't sound so bad. Henry wonders if he'll be that old someday.
Franklin practically disappears into his winter jacket, his diminutive size only making him look more frail. He leaves most of the conversing to his wife, who has a red dress and a booming laugh and makes everyone look over whenever she finds anything funny, which is most things.
"And then, as if our stay couldn't get any worse, our septic tank got a puncture! We couldn't get out of town fast enough, we didn't even care if floorin' the gas made the puncture worse, we just wanted to leave before everyone there realised we were leaving a trail of week-old shit right down the centre of the road! Like a trail of breadcrumbs! Shitcrumbs!"
Henry laughs along with Rosa, not just at the story but at Franklin's face, bright-red and embarrassed at her words. He gives a sheepish smile. "You'll have to forgive her, Henry, she's got a juvenile sense of humour."
"Ah!" She gives him a slap on the shoulder in girlish outrage. "The nerve of this man, the hypocrisy. Franky, dear, want to tell him about the sunroof in California?" She throws a wicked grin at her husband, who wilts in defeat.
He sticks with them for the rest of the evening, and they don't begrudge him. A few others come and go, but Henry feels secure next to his new elderly friends. He eats buffalo wings and roast potatoes and green beans and pudding and biscuits with gravy until he's full to bursting. Franklin compliments him on his casserole, and Henry puts that down as a Christmas miracle.
They talk, as the night wears on and others leave, and its such nice, mindless talk. Baseball. Movies. Seinfeld. Rosa's time in the Peace Corps. The time Franklin's brother joined a hippie commune and he went with his mother to drag him out of there. Their trips to England, France, Canada. The national parks they've been to, from Yellowstone to the Everglades. It all washes over him like a warm stream, and rather than stick fast, he submits to the flow.
Rosa's contributed a bottle of blackcurrant wine, rich and dark, and it gets him properly buzzed. He feels lightheaded, but without the stomach-churning quality that usually accompanies such trips to the bottom of a bottle.
"Howja feel about a nightcap? We're just round the corner."
"Sure."
They thank Fiona for a lovely night, and all three of them trudge off down the street, teeth chattering. Snow drifts from a sky tinted amber by the streetlights. Boulder looks beautiful and cold.
The Winnebago is cramped but cosy, and he sits across from the other two at the 'dining table'. This is what they call the little booth smack bang in the middle of their mobile domicile. Rosa produces another bottle of the same wine, turns the stereo on. Joni Mitchell's murmurs fill the air.
He looks around at their life that they've packed onto wheels. One whole wall is taken up by polaroids and postcards, jammed into a cork board with pins. Another wall has a great big map of the country, with more pins denoting places they've been. There are over two dozen that he can see, but so may spaces are left to be filled. He finds, without meaning to, Shoshone National Park.
Before his thoughts, whatever they are, can take him away, Rosa slides a cup of wine across to him and raises her own. "Here's to our new friend, Henry!"
"Hear hear," drawls Franklin, holding his with a pinky sticking out.
They keep on talking, but as phrases become half-finished, infected by mumbles and slurred tongues, it becomes clear that there isn't much left before its Christmas proper. Franklin surrenders first, stumbling out of the booth and bidding them both a drowsy goodnight before collapsing onto a little fold out couch down the way. Rosa rises, steadies herself, goes to make sure he's tucked in properly and got a glass of water next to him for the morning.
Henry smiles at that. "You, uh…you're good. Looking after him."
Rosa seems surprised. "Why, of course, darlin'. He's mine. I love him. You do for the people you love."
She says it so matter of factly, as if its gospel truth, that it leaves him a little stunned. Had he forgotten?
"I wasn't so sure of him at first, truthfully." Rosa stretches her arms above her head with a yawn. "Wasn't a spark or a thunderbolt, or anythin' like they've got in the movies. He was awful quiet and he didn't like to stand out, he barely had the courage to ask me out in the first place. I wasn't sure, till one day."
"What happened?"
"My brother fell offa roof." Her face is pensive, going back through who only knows how many years into the past. "He fractured his skull and we all thought that was it for him. I remember the waiting room, mom and dad yelling at each other, fightin' and all this strife. I wanted to get out, but I couldn't leave Matty alone." Her brother. "I stayed in the hospital for a straight week. Didn't see Frank at all, didn't give it a thought. All I could do was wait for Matty to slip away.
"Then on the eighth day, Matty wakes up. He's hurt bad but they tell us he's gonna make it. All of us cried, for hours. When I finally pulled myself outta there and went home, it was a whole other day before I remembered I hadn't told Frank a thing. I went over to his house, and…"
She takes a deep breath. "I'd gone with a coupla boys before that. All real nice, till I had to tell 'em something they didn't like, or didn't do things just the way they wanted. Then they'd turn, call me all sorts of names. I got to Frank's door, I told him the whole thing, why I'd been gone. I'm expectin' the same treatment, so I'm ready to turn and go.
"But Frank, he gives me the biggest hug I'd ever had, and he brings me in, makes me lunch, just sits there while I'm crying fit to burst over Matty. He just listens. He just…cares so damn much. Like nobody else had 'fore that."
She sums it all up with a happy smile. "And we've been together ever since. Nigh on forty years of marriage!"
Henry thinks of how he met Julia, all liquid courage and hammering heart. He wonders if he would've done the same for her if her sister's life had hung in the balance.
"Oh gosh, I do talk a lot, don't I?" She sips more wine. "How about you, you married, Henry?"
"I am, but…it's a long story. Not a very fun one for Christmas time."
She smiles gently. "Ain't that always the way at Christmas time? Go right on ahead. I don't mind."
He does, haltingly, reluctantly, miserably. He was right - its a long story, and he hates it, and he wishes, for the umpteenth time, it was someone else's.
But when its all said and done, and the last syllable fades from his mouth and there's nothing but the last chords of Joni Mitchell's song between them, he feels a kind of calm he thought he'd never feel again.
"Oh, you poor thing. You poor thing." Rosa's eyes brim with unshed tears, and she reaches across the table, takes his hand.
"You've gone through so much. I'm so sorry, Henry. I can't even imagine."
He's heard these same words before, from other people, but from Rosa they seem to mean a lot more. He can feel her wedding ring pressing into his hand.
He's drunk, and it's late.
"I just don't…" His throat closes over, and he bows his head.
It's late, and its Christmas, and he's so goddamned tired.
He's so goddamned tired.
He misses Julia.
"I know, darlin', I know. It's alright. You're alright."
He cries then, maybe, he's not sure. The rest of the night blurs into a reverie.
But he remembers her saying, soothingly, gently, but with all the firmness of a royal decree, a declaration as sure as anything:
"You should go see her."
It's that weird in-between time of the 26th through to the 30th of December, where time feels slowed down even as the year gasps out its last breaths. Nothing seems to matter, nobody's in a rush. He gets swept up in it just as much as the next person. Things feel lighter.
Christmas was a nothing day, but he's ok with it. There'll be others in the years to come.
Rosa and Franklin are gone, heading for California, but they stopped by to say goodbye, and they've promised to keep in touch. He's glad.
Joe seems to have recovered from whatever funk he fell into, buoyed by the proximity of a new year. He invites Henry to go bowling or to hang out at the bar. He talks about hitting the road to somewhere, anywhere. Henry hopes he doesn't go for long.
His old friends are still at a distance, but one or two of them seem to have gained some awareness, and maybe a little compassion to go with it. They call him, ask him if he's doing ok. He's not, but they know that and he knows that.
Bucket Junior is thriving in his little fish tank habitat, and Henry lets him out to explore the vast horizons of the living room every once in a while. Something in his beady little eyes makes him smile.
The university gives him a pay bump, he's not sure why. The extra three dollars an hour is really useful when he's slamming down beers.
The weather is still unforgiving, but that's always been the way in Boulder at this time of year. It's as familiar as the hand clasp of an old friend. He's a Boulder kid, down to his bones.
He calls his sister Lauren, long distance. She lays into him for not calling sooner, but she sends her love, as well as that of her family. She wrings a promise out of him to come visit, and warns him she'll come over there and beat him senseless if he doesn't live up to it. He laughs and calls her a brat.
He sees Janelle, who keeps normal hours despite the holidays. Acceptance and commitment are elusive, and he hates going some days.
He writes a little, not with the typewriter but with pen and paper.
He walks into a mom and pop shop to buy gum when he sees it on the television mounted on the wall.
"…and in breaking news, Park County law enforcement officials have arrested Ned Goodwin, a wanted fugitive, earlier today on the outskirts of the city of Cody, Wyoming. A former fire lookout with the National Forest Service, Mr Goodwin has been sought for questioning regarding the death of his son, Brian Goodwin, who was reported to have been killed three years earlier in the Shoshone National Forest. It is not known whether Mr Goodwin was directly responsible for his son's death but Park County officials have thus far refused to comment on the matter. Mr Goodwin is expected to be arraigned sometime next week…"
He found a photo of Ned Goodwin in the disposable camera he'd found, months ago. A lifetime ago. Craggy features, close-cropped hair. A real man's man archetype.
He looks nothing like the man whose picture they showed on the television. The man on the screen looks empty. Bereft of anything. Hopeless.
He stands in the store for what seems like hours, unable to look away, until the owner inquires if he needs any help. He buys his gum then gets the hell out.
He's tried, and failed, to forget so very, very much about the Shoshone.
He's only really succeeded with one thing: the debrief he'd gotten, straight after he'd been helicoptered out of the Thorofare lookout tower.
Still hurting after everything, still dealing with the fact that nothing had really changed, that they'd only gotten worse, the National Forest Service people he'd talked to had grilled him for hours. About the June fire, then the Wapiti Station fire, then his time before that, going all the way back to his first day. Whether he'd seen anything strange, whether he'd been doing his job properly. Terse, interrogative questions.
And then one of them had said, "We've had a report about a body."
Brian Goodwin. The poor, poor kid.
"Can you tell us anything about that?"
He'd briefly considered not telling them anything. Even though it was pointless, because they already had the report and he was no good at keeping secrets and he didn't owe Ned Goodwin a damned thing.
"We understand it's the son of one of our former lookouts?"
A kid who liked comic books, and high fantasy, and playing around with dice and sheets of paper. Who did his homework, and left thank you notes, and was bullied at school. A kid whose best years were still in front of him. A kid who still had so much time to turn things around for himself.
"Henry, are you listening?"
Dead, because he hadn't sunk his anchor properly. Or so Ned had said.
He told them everything, and they looked at each other, wrote some things down, and then thanked him for his time and then let him go.
The drive home had been enough time to put it from his mind.
Ned Goodwin had faded from the world like an afterimage in a photo and Henry had no reason to think he'd ever be found.
Until now.
It's 1990 and he's staring at himself in the mirror again.
He looks better than when he came back to Boulder all those months ago, but only to a casual glance. A pile of shit, compared to a mountain. He can't help most of it.
He's been thinking about Julia, and Ned. Specifically, something Ned said. On that recorded message he'd left to Henry. What was it?
He goes into the closet, switches on the lightbulb, and he finds his backpack from his time in the woods. In it are only painful things.
He finds the tape, plays it back. Ned's anguished tones come through. He waits for the moment.
"You know, I thought about going back, having to answer questions, and having to get him put in the ground, and…I didn't see the point."
He plays it again. Click.
"- Having to answer questions, and having to get him put in the ground, and…I didn't see the point."
Click.
"- And having to get him put in the ground, and…I didn't see the point."
Click.
"I didn't see the point."
Click.
"I didn't see the point."
Click.
"I didn't see the point."
He gets it, now, and he only understands because Ned Goodwin was arrested three months ago.
He never admitted it to himself, to anyone, but if someone had been able to draw the truth from him, about why he was still here, still putting off going to see Jules, he can think of no better summation than Ned's own words.
He can't see the point.
He can't see the point of some visit, far too little and far too late, to see a woman who doesn't even recognise him anymore. To see a person he'd loved with his whole heart, to whom he pledged himself to stay by till death pulled them apart, only to know its going to end whether he's there or not.
Death is one thing, but this?
He was going to make it last as long as he could, this he knows. He was going to work at the university and go hiking and drink himself to sleep and do that over and over and over until the sand ran out of the hourglass. Till the inevitable happened.
He knows he should hate himself for it, but he's hated himself for everything else that's happened since that day they found Jules crying in the stairwell, and it all gets lost in the murk. It's not going to get him to go.
So hate doesn't work. But…
He remembers a hot, horrible day, hearing harsh words down the radio, condemning Ned Goodwin as a murdering bastard who killed his son. He remembers his own replies, cautious, sombre, that the whole thing had been a horrible accident, that he'd never meant for his son to die in that cave.
But even then, as he found some sympathy for his predecessor at Two Forks, he knew revulsion. He knew that he never wanted to be someone like him. Too cowardly to face up to what needed to be faced, to do the right thing. So afraid, he'd looked the other way for three years.
Maybe Ned changed his mind, decided to square himself with what happened by turning himself in. Maybe he got caught when he was coming to look for supplies to ride out the winter. He hasn't said anything and he's not likely to.
It doesn't matter, because Henry realises what he has to do now.
He wishes this revelation was different. That he'd arrived to it because he loves his wife, and that love was enough to rouse him from his sleep and make him remember what truly matters, and all the things you'd hope would happen in a time like this.
And of course, he loves her. Like an eagle loves the open air, like Bucket Junior loves his fish tank, like Rosa loves Franklin. His love for Julia has been the one constant in a life torn asunder.
But overlaying it, dominant, is the desire to not be the son of a bitch he's been all this time. To not be like the man who left his son's body to rot at the bottom of a rockfall.
He looks at himself in the mirror, and thinks of all the days and nights since he first came back.
All of the wasted time, he thinks.
(Next year will roll around, then the year after that, then it's just a…I don't know. My Aunt Judy called it a pause in the hallway of time.)
Maybe she was right. But maybe she wasn't.
He looks out the small window.
The weather in Boulder is loosing its frigid bite. There's a hint of spring in the air. And after spring…
He makes another decision, at that moment, but it will have to wait.
"Hi, can I help you?"
"Yeah, hi, uh, I'd like to book a flight to Melbourne, Australia?"
"Ooh, long journey. You'll have to go via Los Angeles, then Sydney, then Melbourne. Is that ok?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Ok, I have some forms for you to fill out, so once those are signed, we can get the ball rolling."
"Ok, thanks. Uh, while I'm here - weird question, do you book flights to Santa Fe?"
"Yes, we can do that. Would you like to book that in today as well?"
"No, no thank you. Not yet."