The Forest Where I Knew You (2018)
Rocks jut up from the endless sea like grey haystacks. I row to them for refuge, finding their waists clad with a rainbow of starfish and deep blue mussels. Seagulls call from above. I squint at the sun. In the distance is an island. Massive bluffs rise from the sea, obscuring its top, and a narrow strip of beach wraps around its base. The bottom of my boat scrapes against the rocks of its shore with a wounded moan.
I release the oars from my callused palms. The only sound is water pulling at the rocks and the gulls. The water bites into my skin and I gasp in a foreign voice. I drag my body onto the shore and pause, faintly swaying, while the sea releases me to the land.
At my feet is a palette of granite, jasper, and quartz sparkling in the sunlight. I turn and walk. The sun drops lower as I trace the empty shoreline back to the beginning where my weathered boat waits. Next to it a white mug is rolling gently to shore, tinkling against the rocks. I halt, then inch closer. My heart sputters when I find the single black star on its body. I tear it from the water’s edge, the ceramic slick under my fingers, and hurl it back into the sea.
The bluffs rise above me with their same unscalable height as the rest of the island. A faint line of switchbacks is etched into its face. I start toward it when a soft scratching sounds from behind. The mug is listing against the shore again. As I hook my fingers through the handle they cramp and I double over, squeezing my eyes shut.
Wood smoke burns my nose. I shiver.
I wince and open my eyes. I am standing in our backyard, adding another log to the firepit, as snow gently falls. The fire spits at me. She stands across the flames, eyes fixed at the sky and smiling, as the firelight dances over her face. She holds the mug, her favorite, its white glaze colored orange by the fire. Steam curls up from it into the night air. The snow dots her hair like tiny stars.
A wave crashes against the beach. I grab my head with both hands, trying to push the memory back into the darkness. The mug slips from my fingers and breaks across the rocks. I drop to my knees and claw at the pieces, pulling them into my hands as the tears return. I cradle the ten pieces of her. The air fills with wood smoke and sea salt.
With the hem of my shirt I make a pocket and tuck the fragments inside. The wind pushes against my face and I turn my head back to the switchbacks on the bluff.
My bare toes dig into the narrow ledge as I cut my way up through the wind. At the top is a flat expanse of golden Scotch broom. It burns in yellow and red flowers that melt into the red horizon. I take a step then sink to my knees between the waxy brush. I open my shirt. The scent of coffee drifts into the air.
I carefully set the pieces aside and begin to dig. The crust is dry and my nails fill with grit. I lower the pieces into the hole and brush the dirt over them, putting them to rest. When my tears subside, I rise and begin to wander the open field.
Cracking sounds from behind. I pause and turn slowly. A seedling is rising from the fresh earth. It grows as I blink, expanding and stretching within minutes, rising into a slender sapling with a white trunk. The air burns with the smell of wood smoke. I rush to it and place my palm against its papery bark, then jerk it away with a gasp. I shiver and touch the icy bark again. It is snowing. She is standing next to me, holding her mug, gazing upward as the fire crackles. A fragile smile spreads across my face and I kneel before the tree, filling my lungs again and again until they sting.
***
On today’s search I found a jar of her favorite peanut butter: Adam’s Crunchy. I smile when I see it waiting for me in the morning tide’s wrack line, curled in a knot of eelgrass next to a lifeless crab. The label is as dry and crisp as if it had just come off the shelf, not washed ashore with the slick kelp. I steady myself before collecting it. When I do, I am standing in our kitchen again, watching her make a PB&J at eleven o’clock at night in only her old green t-shirt with the worn collar. Her hair is pulled back in a sloppy bun and she is humming softly along with Roy Orbison’s In Dreams. I take a deep breath, hoping to smell her again, but the air is too full of salt and rot.
I cradle the jar and carry it back with me, retracing my steps quickly to the bluff and up the trail. This part of the ritual is always the worst. I tighten my arm around the jar as I climb the switchbacks, balancing against the eroding clay every few steps. Puffs of chalky dust curl in the wind and small pebbles pop out, tumbling down to the shore below. I pull myself up over the top where the mug tree waits, the landmark welcoming me each time.
The forest spans before me. There are too many trees to count anymore, but I know them all. They stand in a blend of white, red, yellow, and deep brown, with branches twisting into the yellowing sky. I grin as I weave between them, moving through the understory of delicate yellow and red flowers. With each breath the air floods my heart, thinning the loneliness, forcing oxygen through my veins. I pass the cedar tree as red as her Dutch oven. The tightness forms in my belly again but there is no time to eat. I pass the white birch that peels like sheets of her crossword puzzles.
I reach the bigleaf maple that faintly buzzes every ten minutes like her alarm clock’s snooze button. My oar, now a worn shovel, leans against the trunk where I left it yesterday. I set the jar down and curl my fingers around the thinning wood handle.
The first few shovelfuls are always stubborn. I cast the oar aside as soon as the hole is deep enough. On my knees, I lift the jar with both hands and press my lips against its yellow lid before planting it. I pat the earth and wait. From deep within the forest drifts the voice of Roy Orbison, singing the lullaby introduction of In Dreams. The staccato rhythm erupts, and his voice begins its octave crawl that she had loved so much. I listen with her.
The wind blows gently against my back and the golden understory ripples to life. Above me, the branches dance with an invisible partner and release a soft rain of leaves and pine needles. The surface cracks open and the seedling emerges. It rises, pushing its way ever higher and wider without pause. With the last words of the song, it is done. The faint smell of peanut butter drifts in the air. Smiling, I stand before the madrona and press my hand against its smooth, tan skin. We are standing in the kitchen again and she is humming.
And I am with her.
***
I shuffle through the dark forest. No light penetrates the knitted canopy. My breath is shallow, my shoulders slumped.
Last week the alder stopped humming and now I cannot remember the full tune she used to sing in the garden as she dug with her green-handled trowel. Now the black walnut only smells of her banana bread when I am within inches.
I pause at the only remaining clearing, just above the trail down the bluff, to gather my strength while the sun rises. The sea spans before me like an endless pane of glass. I pick my way down the switchbacks until the clay slumps near the base and I fall onto the beach. I land next to my little boat, half-buried under sand and driftwood. Clumps of grass skirt its edges.
The shore is littered with fresh driftwood and seaweed. I rush along the wrack line as the waves roll in stronger. I cannot remember when I last found something. I gnash my teeth as I search. Rain speckles the stony beach and a dusty petrichor fills the air.
I return with nothing. The wind is casting the ocean against itself, forming stiff peaks like her lemon meringue pie. I ascend the bluff with a growing hollowness, digging my fingers into the wet clay for balance. At the top I pull myself over the ledge and crawl forward into the clearing at the top of the ascent, waiting to catch my breath. The pangs erupt again and my cough returns.
My hand brushes against something jutting up from the dirt. My heart races. I dig at it and find broken pieces of a white mug. Did she give this to me? Did I give this to her? I squeeze a broken handle and shut my eyes, desperate to remember. A fuzzy warmth seeps into me, a vague happiness without anchor. I scratch at my mind for the connection like an animal scratching at a wound.
Snow?
I claw at the dirt and rebury it.
The gulls call from the beach. Salt air weaves past me.
I trace a circle in the dirt over and over as my cough worsens and the sun lowers but the earth is unchanged. I reach into the dirt and tear out the handle. Snow. Something about snow. I cough and a constellation of blood forms on its white glaze. I stand and slip it into my pocket.
Her trees stare at me. I cannot remember how long I have been planting them. I cannot remember when I last planted one.
The wind stills. My body sways gently and I close my eyes, listening and breathing in what is left of her.
I cannot lose her again.
I cough, shoulders so weak I lose my balance and stumble to the ground.
I cannot remember when I last ate. I cannot remember ever eating here. Her memories were my food. And now, I am losing them. She is slipping away, taking her color and life with her, and I am once more the faded grey shape that washed ashore this timeless place.
I pretend to hear her call to me, like we were leaving to get groceries, saying it is time to go. Reminding me kindly, in the voice she reserved for quiet nights while we laid in bed falling asleep, that nothing lasts forever. I convince myself she will follow, the bits of her that have broken free from the trees and float heavy in the air, that these fragments of her will be my invisible companion as I row away from this private mausoleum.
I turn and drag my body away, leaving her forest of memories. I stumble down to the beach for the last time and exhume my boat. It moans as I pull it over the rocks and back into the sea. I pause, water lapping at my ankles, to gaze at the island. I pull the broken ceramic handle from my pocket, warm from my body, yet shiver as though it were snowing. A diffused happiness returns. I tuck it back into my pocket carefully and turn to go, air heavy around me and smelling faintly of coffee.