Page 58 of Big & Lily

“That’s true. The last thing anyone out here wants to do is take down an animal. This is their home first. We do everything in our power not to use our weapon. They’re insurance on the trail, especially when we’re leading a group of Lower Forty-Eighters. But if you are still nervous, hold your walking sticks in the air and bang them together. Or sing your favorite song at the top of your lungs.”

“That’ll scare anything away,” says Lily. “I’ve been to karaoke with her.”

“She’s not wrong,” I belt at the top of my lungs in a very bad opera voice.

Lily puts her hands over her ears. “See?”

I let myself forget about the charging unseen dangers and the stinging caterpillars and the towering vegetation scraping by myface, and soon we are out of the overgrowth and into an open and hilly meadow. The trail flattens and continues through a grassy patch. Purple flowers and thick, fuzzy ferns pop up out of the landscape. The air is warmer than in the dark woods, even with a breeze. Above us are more mountains, mocking my already too-tired legs. Up ahead, the rest of the group is sitting on an outcropping of large rocks, digging into their backpacks, pulling out granola bars and water bottles.

“Bridget!” the group shouts in unison as if I’m Norm fromCheers. My reputation for plodding along has preceded me. I’ll miss my traveling companions when we go home. Yes, even Dane. Everyone sought out Alaska hoping it would give them something they were missing in their lives—connection, determination, strength, answers, and, I suppose in Dane’s case, a fresh start. I hope they all found it. Especially Lily.

“I made it!” I laugh, waving my walking sticks in the air. I’m damn proud of myself. I might have been the last up here, but I made it all this way without stopping to rest. A first.

“Hey, Big.” Lily taps me on the shoulder. “Turn around.”

I’d been so busy watching my feet, scouring the woods for my fox, inspecting the ferns and the green berries that I was told will be bright blue and delicious in a month or two, and checking for rocks and roots waiting to trip me up, I missed the main event. Behind me, a wide, great valley stretches for miles. A silver river snakes through it, a thick forest of trees hugging it on both sides. Off in the distance is Denali, and all the mountains in her family. The closest of the mountains are dark gray and streaked with snow; beyond them the range is pure white. The sky that threatened us this morning is now a piercing blue. Brick is right, everything in Alaska changes. It’s breathtaking.

A vibration in my jacket drags me out of this moment and into an old, familiar one. The dopamine hit of an incoming call; a connection to home, knowing someone needs me. I slip my hand into my jacket pocket and feel the ringing, and the dopamine is replaced with a tinge of loss. This is my moment, up here among the clouds. I worked so hard to get here, it was a huge physical challenge, and I bested myself. I want to enjoy the spoils, not be hauled back to my real life just yet. I pull out the phone and look down at the screen. It’s Tim. How can I ignore him? Service here is few and far between, usually only at the top of mountains, where you want it the least. But if I don’t answer now, it could be hours, maybe a whole day, before he can reach me again. And what if he really, really needs me?

“Tim! You won’t believe where I am!” I put my free hand on my beating heart. “I’ll take a photo, but I don’t think it will do it justice!”

“Bridge, are you all right?”

The concern in his voice does indeed pull me off this mountaintop. “Tim, are you all right?” I counter.

“Your mother said you hung up on her.”

That’s what this is about? Ruth not getting the attention she requires. And now she’s called out the cavalry.

“I did.” I didn’t tell my mother and I’m not going to tell Tim that we were moments away from getting our heads squashed like pumpkins by an angry mama moose. “I was busy, that’s all.”

“Well, she’s been out of her mind worried. She said you sounded panicked. I tried to call right away, but I couldn’t get through. So that got me panicked. But if you are sure...”

“Honey, you have been spending too much time with Ruth.” I laugh. “We’re totally fine.” It’s time to go back to my mountains and valleys and blue sky.

“Okay, if you are sure. Wait... hang on. Cam wants to talk to you.” I look over at Lily, sunning herself on a flat rock. She waves to me and pats the open space next to her.

“Mom, Mom, this is bad.” My son’s voice is shallow and rushed.I am not only off the mountain, I’m no longer in Alaska. I’m home, where I should be. It’s ten, fifteen, twenty years ago when a little boy with a cowlick and smear of peanut butter and jelly sandwich on his cheek cries for his mother. I feel a thumping at the base of my throat, a whoosh of anguish as I curse my decision to follow my sister when my son is in distress; an anger like that mama moose protecting her calf from strange women in the woods. If I had a hoof I’d stomp and paw the ground.

“Cameron, honey! Tell me what happened,” I insist as I calculate the route off this trail and back to New Jersey at sonic speed. Lily, hearing her nephew’s name and my side of the conversation, sits up and mouths,What’s going on?I flap my hand at her and turn my back, no time for a game of telephone right now. My sister comes to me and presses her cheek to mine to listen in.

“Mom, I can’t find my kitchen clogs!”

“Excuse me,what?” I feel a burning in my face. Lily must feel it too, as she moves her cheek from mine and holds her hand over her mouth. I swear to God, if she starts laughing right now.

“I looked everywhere, Mom. Literally everywhere! I’ve been wearing my Vans to work, but Chef said if I show up in them one more time, I’m going to be washing dishes for a week. Mom, where are they?”

I know exactly where his work shoes are. In the foyer under the bench, where all shoes that are worn on a regular basis go. “I have no idea where your clogs are, Cameron.”

This didn’t need to be ascare the shit out of Mom while she’s three thousand miles awaycall. It is a problem that, with a little sharper detective work, my grown son could have solved on his own. I feel a smile curling on my lips. I’m glad we aren’t FaceTiming; I don’t want Cam to see me and take it the wrong way. But I feel a lightness I haven’t felt in ages. It’s just hit me, I’m done. I don’t need to be the problem solver every time, everywhere.

“No, Mom. You’re kidding, right? This is an emergency.”

“Cameron, I have every confidence that you can solve this riddle.”

“Riddle? What riddle? You’re not making any sen—”

“I’ve got to go, Cam. I love you. Bye-bye, sweetie,” I say in my most supportive mother voice. And then for the second time in twenty-four hours, I hang up on a family member.