Authors: Janet Sanders
“Are you sure? Do you want to talk it out? ‘Cause I’m there for you, if you need to talk.”
Sarah had to smile. Her father tried hard, he really did, but nurturing wasn’t his strong suit. Her father had always tried to be a rock, an impenetrable wall that protected his daughters from the rest of the world, and for the most part he had succeeded. Sarah couldn’t remember a single time in her childhood when she didn’t feel safe, because she had always known that her father was there to protect her. Conversation – real conversation, about feelings and other difficult things – was not his strong suit, but now he was trying his best to give her what she needed. Of course, that just made her love him all the more.
“Thanks, Dad. Right now, though, I think what I need most of all is some time to myself. I should just get away and clear my thoughts. Separate out what’s really important from what feels important just because it’s been in my face for so long. Does that make sense?”
“It does, and that’s part of the reason why I called. I have a suggestion. Why don’t you use the cabin?”
The cabin. Sarah had forgotten about the cabin. It was so many years since she’d been up there, it had receded into a part of her mind that no longer connected with her active memory. “Oh,” she said. “That’s an idea.” It was an idea, and not necessarily a bad one, but still she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“It will be perfect,” her father continued. “It’s quiet, and there’s no one up there to bother you. It’s the complete opposite of that place you live now.” He had never liked San Francisco – too fast, too crowded, and far too cold in the summer. Her father was better suited to the dry heat of Arizona, where he had moved as soon as he was able. “Usually I’d be up there myself this time of year, but with the trip I won’t be able to make it up. Actually you’d be doing me a favor to check in on the place and make sure there aren’t raccoons living in the stove.”
Slowly Sarah began coming around to the idea. She hadn’t been up to the cabin since she was what, sixteen years old? Seventeen? In any case it had certainly been more than ten years ago, but she used to love the place.
And her father was right, there was nowhere else on earth that Sarah could think of that would present such an opportunity for quiet contemplation. The only person who might disturb her there was her father himself, and he was a few days away from taking off on a seniors’ tour through Europe that would last several weeks.
“You’re right. The cabin will be perfect. But the keys…”
“I’ve already overnighted them to you. You’ll get them tomorrow morning. Take all the time you need. And baby, know that I love you, and I’m proud of you. This is just a bump in the road.”
Then the tears, which she had been holding back so long, finally started in earnest. “Thank you, Daddy. I love you too,” she said, managing to choke out a goodbye before she hung up and collapsed into tears of anger and hurt.
She had a good cry, then, which left her feeling drained and exhausted, and so it wasn’t until late at night that she began to wonder what to bring with her to the cabin. She remembered the town as small and rustic, with mountains to one side and a river to the other. Certainly not a place for nine-tenths of the clothes she had hanging in her closet, and with the exception of the Nikes, her shoes would be a disaster. Well, the stores were all closed, so there was nothing to do but pack the few casual clothes that she owned and buy the rest when she got there.
What else? She looked around her apartment. It was spotless, as usual. Sarah did not have a gift for cleanliness, but she was self-aware enough to know when she needed help, and so she had arranged for a cleaning lady to come by once a week. (Which reminded here: she’d have to call Clara and tell her not to come by for a while.) She spent most of her time in the office, and so the apartment remained spotlessly clean – and, for the most part, empty.
Looking at the place now, Sarah had to admit that she wasn’t even sure that she liked it all that much, though she had lived there for more than two years. The brown leather couch was an impeccable match for the brown and white pillows, of course, and it fit into the overall décor nicely, what with the brown curtains and the brown, white, and tan carpet on the floor. With the bamboo flooring and the hardwood dining room table, it looked like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine, and Sarah felt that Martha Stewart herself might feel right at home there. Sarah, though, didn’t feel nearly so comfortable there. The couch looked terrific, but it didn’t say, “Come over here and take a load off.” Sarah knew from experience that the tightly packed leather cushions were not very comfortable, and so she rarely sat there. The potted fern by the window was a nice touch, but she couldn’t remember how it had arrived there – had she bought it? Was it a gift? Maybe it had just appeared there out of thin air one day, like some sort of modern-day miracle, and Sarah hadn’t noticed because she was holed up in her office. Was there anything here besides her clothes that she wanted to take with her? Was there anything here that she even really wanted to own?
Well, there was her iPhone, of course, and her iPad. Those Sarah liked to keep with her at all times, and they would definitely be making the trip. And she should definitely bring her laptop, too, so she could jot down notes on new business ideas and check her email. Though now that she thought about it, the cabin probably didn’t have an Internet connection. Her father wasn’t much of a computer guy, and he was the sort of person to think that the lack of connectivity was actually a good thing. To Sarah, it sounded a little barbaric, as if she was traveling to a land where everyone went around barefoot. So she should bring her mobile hotspot with her, too. She could easily burn through her phone’s data plan in no time if she wasn’t careful about it; she’d have to portion out her online time very strictly, or find a coffee shop in town that offered free wi-fi.
The more she thought about it, the more Sarah grew concerned that she’d be isolated, bored, and out in the middle of nowhere, so she spent the next couple of hours downloading movies and books and loading them onto her iPad. Maybe they’d just sit there for the duration of the trip, but better safe than sorry. This way, if she decided that she wanted to spend her time fully immersed in trashy novels – and why not, she deserved a bit of an indulgence after everything that had happened – she’d have an ample supply on hand.
The next morning, the cabin’s keys jingling in the pocket of her jeans, Sarah packed her Volkswagen convertible – the Blue Beetle, she liked to call it though she knew it made her sound like a comic book geek – and set out on the road. The GPS on her phone had already plotted out a course, so she knew that she had hours on the road before she even made it to Oregon, and then hours more before she arrived in Tall Pines. The trip offered plenty of time to think about her situation, which was both good and bad. She had many things to think about, but almost all of them were depressing. Not for the first time, Sarah seriously weighed the idea of turning around, parking her car in the garage, and booking a flight or train ride to Oregon, but she kept driving. The sun was out, the top was down, and with sunglasses to shield her eyes Sarah was enjoying the feel of the wind in her hair. She began to feel free, and she could feel a weight lifting slowly from her chest.
“I’m free!” she yelled into the wind, but that didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears. What was she free to do, exactly? Was she free to run away with her tail between her legs? Free to be humiliated by a little weasel of a man? Free to drive to Nowhere, Oregon so she could gaze at her navel and try to figure out what she wanted to do with her life? After only a moment her feeling of exhilaration was gone, and Sarah was left feeling depressed and dispirited. She was approaching middle age with no husband, no children, no job, and no plans for the future. She was free, yes, but if you looked at it a certain way, freedom kind of sucked.
The drive north was a long haul. Sarah thought about stopping over somewhere on the way, but she wanted the trip to be over more than she wanted the rest. With the exception of a few pee breaks in rest shelters and a quick burger for lunch, Sarah logged as many miles as possible in as little time as possible, speeding over those sections of road where she felt secure that the police were not watching. By the time the highway signs announced her arrival on the outskirts of Tall Pines, the sun was nearing the horizon, she had long since put the top down on her car to protect against the cold, and her butt was shouting loudly that it had logged enough miles in a car seat for one day and was ready for a change.
Driving into town, she found Tall Pines to be like a 3-D photo with one scene imposed on top of another, slightly different version. On the one hand, it was just like she remembered, full of quaint, two-story buildings that had either been constructed in frontier times or had been built to look as if they were. The sidewalks were filled with pedestrians ambling slowly along as if they had no particular place to go. This was quite a change for Sarah, who was used to the Type A, hard-charging pedestrians who populated downtown San Francisco. Tall Pines was still the sleepy, slow-paced city, that she remembered from the last time she visited ten years past.
On the other hand, though, there was no denying that the city had grown and changed in the intervening years. For one thing the streets were wider than she remembered, and appeared to have been recently paved. Main Street was prepared to accommodate a full four lanes of traffic, though Sarah had a hard time believing that they had anywhere near that number of cars in town. Likewise the national chains had made their way to Tall Pines; Sarah saw a KFC and a McDonalds, their parking lots dotted with shiny new SUVs. If there was a Starbucks in town she hadn’t yet seen it, a fact that filled her with a sense of foreboding. What was the coffee going to be like? She could make her own, but would she be able to buy a French press and some decent beans out here? Clearly she’d have to investigate further.
She checked the GPS on her phone to plot the last few turns before she arrived at her destination. She felt lucky to have the new navigation technology at her disposal; there was no way she would have been able to get to the cabin by memory, and she was glad that she didn’t need to stop for directions. Directions would require conversation, and conversation might mean questions that she still wasn’t ready to answer.
She arrived just as the sunlight was beginning to dwindle, and leaving her stuff in the car she walked on creaky legs up to the cabin’s front door and let herself in. Flicking on the lights, she took a moment to take it all in. It was all very … red. There were red curtains in front of the French doors that let onto the patio and red and green cushions on the couch. Even the wood-panel walls had a hint of red in them, though Sarah didn’t know if that was the wood or the stain that had been laid on top of it. Some of the décor was familiar to her – and the musky, stale air certainly was – but much of it appeared new, as well. For the last decade or more, this place had been her father’s private retreat. He came here to fish, hike, and do whatever it was that retired men do when they’re by themselves. If the decorations seemed a little tacky, all Sarah could do was tell herself that this was apparently the sort of thing that her father liked. In a way, that made it all a little endearing, like one of those mannerisms that are annoying in a stranger but tolerable in a close friend or family member.
It didn’t take long to bring her luggage into the cabin – she only had two pieces, and one of those wasn’t even completely full. After unloading the car Sarah was left with the vexing question of what to do next. Should she unpack? Should she distribute her things throughout the cabin to signal that this was her place now? That thought made her feel a little uncomfortable, and so instead she performed her usual ritual when checking into a hotel room. She hung her clothes in the closet (which held a strong cedar smell – apparently moths were a problem), she arranged her toothbrush and toothpaste beside the sink, and then she sat down on the couch and tried to get comfortable.
That didn’t last long. She’d have to do something about the dust before she could start feeling comfortable in this place. Clearly her father had not hired a cleaning lady to take care of the place, and every surface had a noticeable layer of dust on it. While she was hanging her clothes Sarah had noticed a feather duster on the top closet shelf, and so she returned to the bedroom, took it down, and started attacking the dust wherever she found it. Soon a cloud hung in the air, which made Sarah sneeze, and she felt good about the progress she was making until she wondered what would happen to the dust when it settled again. Was she cleaning, or was she just moving the dust around? Tomorrow she’d need to get in here with a broom or maybe a vacuum cleaner, but for now she only had the energy for making things a little more presentable.
A television sat on a stand before her, and if Sarah knew her father there was a full cable hookup, too, but after the long drive she didn’t feel like sitting down again to watch something. She was tired, sure, but it was the sort of tired that says, “Get out and stretch your legs, you’ll feel better if you get a little fresh air and exercise.” Grabbing the keys and a black sweatshirt from her bag, she headed out into the night.
Outside it was dark, much darker than she was used to. The nearest lights were from the next house down the road, which was about fifty yards away, and there were no street lights. Immediately Sarah felt vulnerable out here, without a flashlight or a good sense of her surroundings. She made a mental note not to stray so far that she lost sight of the cabin, and then set off down the road.
The night air was cool enough to be refreshing but not enough to feel cold. It was hard to notice anything besides the aroma, however. A strong smell of pine filled Sarah’s nostrils and infused every breath that she brought into her lungs. The air felt fresh and clean, and she breathed deeply, as if to cleanse herself from the inside out.