How I Came to Sparkle Again (31 page)

“I’m on it, Uncle Howard,” she said, looking forward to some solace up there. “Maybe I’ll get a vision while I’m up here and know where to go next.”

Uncle Howard looked confused. “Go next? What do you mean? I hoped you were going to take care of the library one day when I leave this world.”

Jill shook her head slowly. “I haven’t announced it yet, but I’m leaving,” she said regretfully. “I can’t stay here.”

Uncle Howard looked surprised. “Why?”

“Well, for starters, it seems that you are the only person whose growth hasn’t been stunted by living here.”

“You’re confusing Sparkle with the Kennel. No disrespect to the Kennel boys, but I think if you got out of there, you’d see Sparkle differently. Look at Mike. Has Mike’s development been stunted?”

“No,” Jill said.

“There are a lot of ways to live in Sparkle. You don’t have to work on the mountain. You could work in the clinic. You could be a life-flight nurse. You could work for the doctor that rebuilds or replaces everyone’s knees. No one dies on his table. You could buy your own house after the settlement and live any way you want to.”

“I just feel like I’m avoiding reality by living here.”

“What’s reality? Misery?” he said with a smile.

“Well, part of reality is that I’ll need to support myself after the divorce. I couldn’t support myself on what I’m making now.”

“Well, you know I support you wherever your heart leads you. I just encourage you to be really clear between whether it’s your heart leading you somewhere or whether it’s just old patterns leading you back to something more familiar. Following old patterns isn’t quite the recipe for happiness that following your heart is.”

“Thanks, Uncle Howard,” Jill replied. She rested her head on his shoulder.

They were quiet. She looked all around her, at the unlimited space and infinite peaks, and wondered where in this big world she really belonged.

*   *   *

From the top of the mountain, Jill could see the keg parties starting up in the parking lot. Lots of people were sitting in lawn chairs, a few even barbecuing. The last day of the season was unmistakable. Jill organized some things in the Pneumonia Shack and took a few runs on the easy cruisers where most of the drunk people were skiing. She was tired of drunk people.

At the end of the day, Tom found her in the Pneumonia Shack, packing up first-aid supplies for the season. “Hey, Jilly. Take the last sweep with me.”

“Sure thing,” she said.

“Hey, Coach Ernie was just in the FAR. Looked to me like he shattered his tibia. He had been skiing with Howard. Howard said he hucked off a little drop and ran into a tree just after he landed.”

“Oh, no,” Jill said. “At his age, that’s not going to heal fast. Wait, I just went back to the part where Coach Ernie was hucking off a little drop. That’s crazy. At his age? Good God.”

“He asked if you would take care of his dog while he’s in the hospital and getting back up on his feet again. She’s a golden retriever. Nice dog,” Tom said.

“Tom, I don’t know. My plans are uncertain.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean … I don’t know. I love Coach Ernie. I’d love to help him.”

“Well, how about you take her and if your uncertain plans take you elsewhere, I’ll be her foster dad until Coach Ernie can take her again.”

“You would do that?” she asked.

“Oh sure. We could always use another dog in the Kennel. We need to get the dog–human ratio back to one to one. And dig this. Lisa’s going to die when she hears this. The dog’s name is Amber. Haha! Now you have a dog named after beer in the Kennel, too! Hahaha! She’s going to freak. You’re one of us now, Jill.”

She laughed and said, “That which you fear the most will meet you halfway.”

“You’ve been hanging with Howard,” he said, and chuckled.

She smiled and collected her things. “All right, well, say good-bye to Roger.”

Tom knocked on the wall and shouted, “Good-bye, Roger! See you next year!” Then he turned to Jill and said, “I’m going to miss that rat. Maybe we should get one at the Kennel just to make it feel homier.”

“No,” she said definitively.

They hiked across the top of the ridge above the Super Bowl. There were a few other skiers and snowboarders hanging out, not quite ready to go down and end their seasons. Jill and Tom were in no rush, either, so they planted their skis in the snow and sat back against them. Neither of them said much for the longest time.

The sun shone on them, but it was getting low in the sky and losing its heat. Soon the soft corn snow would be setting up again. Jill hoped the guests would go before the top of the snow hardened into crust.

When she was young, the end of the season always felt like so many things, but this year it felt like all those things times a hundred. It felt like the end, like dormancy or even death.

“I hate the end,” Tom said.

“I know,” Jill replied, not knowing what the future held for her, assuming this was the last time she’d sit at the summit in the sun.

Finally, the rest of the guests dropped for their last run. Jill and Tom watched them.

“Well, shall we?” Tom asked.

Jill took a big breath and savored the moment. “It’s nice to be the last people up here,” she said. Then she stood up and put on her skis.

“We’ll go earn turns until July. I’ve got my own high-speed quads right here,” Tom said as he slapped his thighs.

She only laughed and didn’t tell him that she might be gone by then.

He stepped into his skis. “Ready, little sis?”

“Yeah. But wait,” Jill said. “I want say thank you for everything this winter. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Her eyes started to water.

Tom stared at her for a long moment and then just opened his arms. “Come here,” he said as if he were humoring her, but she knew he understood.

She gave him a quick hug, the kind where you slap each other on the back, and then said, “Ready.” She said good-bye to the mountaintops, dropped off the edge, and passed through her winter world one last time.

*   *   *

That night, Eric and Hans were getting wasted at the Gold Pan and Tom was at Lisa’s, which left Jill at the Kennel by herself. She turned off the TV, and just as she crawled into bed, rain began to thunder on the roof. It was almost like Sparkle itself was sad to be closed. She peeked out her window at the dark ski hill and felt lonely like she hadn’t felt in a long time.

She called the dogs. Amber had been nearby, just waiting for the chance to get up on her bed. Stout ran in and joined them. Bud Light, meanwhile, moved his old creaky bones at a much slower pace. Jill had to help him up onto her bed. Ale stayed in his own bed, where he felt comfortable.

Jill looked at herself in the mirror on the ceiling snuggling with the dogs and thought how funny it was that she had gone from thinking of dogs as stinky, shedding agents of fecal contamination to having them on her bed and simply finding them comforting. Bud Light liked a spot near her feet, but Stout snuggled right up against her belly. Amber stretched out on her other side so they were back to back. Jill liked how they sealed her in tight. When she used to sleep with David, it always felt as though there were a wind tunnel between them. She was always cold. Now, all sealed in and cozy, she began to see the wisdom of sleeping with dogs instead.

She took another look into the mirror above her bed—Travis’s mirror. He would be back next fall. Things would return to normal. The Kennel would be all male again and she would be a nurse somewhere again.

She knew that she would likely receive a settlement after the divorce that would make her financial situation more comfortable, but it might be contingent on the sale of the house, which could take a while. Plus, whatever the settlement was, it wouldn’t last forever. She needed to get her career back on track and prepare to support herself again. No matter how much she loved Cassie, she had to be pragmatic. Tomorrow, she would start her job search.

But until then, she gave herself permission to simply be in that moment with the warm dogs on her bed and the rain thundering on the roof. She remembered something Uncle Howard said around the time she was graduating from high school—that she didn’t need to worry about her future, that it would come, and that she would know what to do in any given moment.

chapter twenty-nine

SNOW REPORT FOR APRIL 5

Current temperature: 34F, high of 37F at 3
P.M.
, low of 33F at 4
A.M.

Mostly clear with occasional showers. Winds out of the south at 10 mph.

96" mid-morning, 108" at the summit. 0" new in the last 24 hours. 0" of new in the last 48.

The next day, Eric threw a few last things into his suitcase. He stepped over Scooter’s extension cord on his way to Tom’s car. Tom put a ski patrol vest on Ale, complete with a photo ID tag, so that Eric could bring Ale on the airplane with him instead of putting him in a kennel, where the baggage handlers would put him below with the luggage. Tom walked out to the car with the dog.

Eric came back into the Kennel, looked around one last time, and then paused in front of Jill. “Well,” he said.

“Well,” she said.

“It’s been quite a winter.”

She nodded. “It has.”

“Well, I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too, sweet guy,” Jill said, and kissed his cheek.

He gave her a big hug, and they stayed like that for a moment. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Come out for a visit. My mom makes the best raspberry-rhubarb pie.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and let him go.

He let go, too, but kissed her cheek. “I’m going to miss you, Jilly,” he said before he walked out.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Jill said.

*   *   *

Mike stared at the ceiling of Sleep Country and wondered if this was a stupid idea. The memory foam was nice. It was undeniably better than the futon. The futon. He and Kate bought it in the late eighties. The day they upgraded was a good day. How he ever slept even one night on it, he was not sure now.

No, this was a good idea. Even if Jill left them, his parents could sleep in it. But he hoped Jill would not leave them. He hoped this would help Jill know how much they valued her. He hoped her own space would make her feel she belonged.

But he also worried that her own space might make her feel it was her only space. He didn’t want that. Sometimes he imagined her in his bed, holding her, finding comfort in her, allowing her to find comfort in him. Would that really be a huge mistake? Or would it be one of the greatest things that could happen to him?

He shifted on the bed. It was even nicer than his. He wondered how this move would be seen by her, what she would make of it. He walked over to the counter and set down his credit card.

Back at the house, Ben helped him move the desk downstairs. They went back up for the drawers. Mike carried the one that held files. Files of purchases Kate had made. Files full of her medical bills. A file with her death certificate. All those files. He felt the heaviness of them in his arms. Would it be impossible to start a new chapter in his life with all of this weight in his arms?

Next, they moved the futon out to the curb with a
FREE
sign on it. His first bed with Kate. The bed where Cassie had been conceived. They had bought the new bed when Kate was pregnant. There was a lot of love in that old futon, and now it sat on the curb like worthless junk. “Someone will be glad to get this,” Ben said as they set it down. Something about that helped. He wasn’t throwing it away. He was sending it out into the world. Still, he felt his attachment to an era that the bed now represented. He knew the importance of not giving in to those feelings. He had been in the homes of people who kept everything because everything represented something. They were buried. They were stuck. They could not move forward. No, falling into that trap wasn’t an option. He had to be strong enough to let go of things. Things were just things. He wouldn’t forget the love just because he gave away the futon. He knew this.

So he turned his attention to the new bed, still in the back of his pickup. He and Ben untied the rope that held it in place and then carried pieces of the frame upstairs and assembled it. When they carried the new mattress into the house, Mike walked backward up the little stairs, glancing up at the futon on the side of the road, knowing it was the right thing to do but still feeling a bit as if he were betraying Kate, just leaving her on the side of the road with a
FREE
sign. As if the new bed were Jill, being brought into the house to replace Kate. And it was stupid, he knew. Stupid thinking. Untrue stupid thoughts.

He walked Ben out, thanked him, and sent him off with a six-pack of Alaskan Amber.

The futon seemed like such a personal item to have on his curb. Such a personal item to give to a stranger. He turned his back on it again and went upstairs to put sheets and blankets on the new bed.

She needed a dresser in here. The closet was cleaned out. That was something. But she needed a place to put her things. She needed a drawer in the bathroom. He moved the little reading table back, the lamp, and the alarm clock.

He found a paper and pen to write her a note since he would be at work when she arrived the next night, but he couldn’t figure out what to say. Everything he could think to write made it sound either like a grand gesture for which she should be indebted enough to stay, or like a casual thing of no importance. Neither was true. What was true was simply that he liked her. Maybe loved her. And he wanted her to be comfortable. He wanted her to stay. But he couldn’t write that, so he put the paper and pen away.

*   *   *

As Cassie stuck her head in the room that used to be the office, what struck her was change. A change had happened. A room that was one way when her mom was alive was now another way. The change involved making space for a new person. It seemed so permanent.