“Which is exactly why you should have told me.” Tamsin rummages in her handbag, withdraws a pack of tissues. “Joel, is this why Callie left?”
In my arms, Harry does a great impression of an earthworm angling for air. “Sort of,” I tell her, because of course I can’t give her the full story. “But it wasn’t her fault.”
We carry on talking well into the evening, until Harry makes it clear that he really would like us to wrap things up.
Tamsin hugs me hard when she leaves, assures me she’s here for me. Insists she’ll always love me. She tries to say, too, that she’s sure I can work things out with Callie.
It’s the only point in almost three hours at which I nearly lose it.
But I don’t. I wait until she leaves before I let myself break down.
•••
It’s been nearly a year now. I knew that night in the restaurant had to be the last time we saw each other. But, somehow, I still can’t believe it actually was. That I can’t now roll over and touch her arm in bed. Kiss her on the sofa when she says something lovely. Feel a high-five in my stomach when she doubles up with laughter over a joke I’ve made.
I still give all our haunts a wide berth. I can’t risk running into her, jeopardizing my resolve. Warren’s suggested that if I’m craving a way to feel close to her, I should book myself into the wellness retreat she gave me a voucher for two years ago. It’s expired now, of course. But perhaps he’s right. Maybe if I went there, it would be a comfort somehow. A quiet connection to her again, like hands linking up in the dark.
But I know I’m not ready. Maybe one day I will be. But not yet.
Still, wellness comes in many forms. A couple of months back, Steve asked me to try training with him. He suggested I start with one of his odious riverside boot-camp sessions (using telling phrases likeAll levelsandYour own paceandNo judgment). After some pestering, I agreed. Because I had to do something to stop myself thinking about her.
It was the boxing drills I got the most from. Punching out my anger, swinging my fists with frustration. I’d think about the impossible waste of it all while I was punching.Why, why, why, why, why?Then, when I was done, I’d have to crouch to the floor so the person holding the pads wouldn’t see that I was close to tears.
Spotting my slightly dysfunctional preference for using my fists, Steve invited me to the gym proper. So three times a week now I’m one-on-one with my old friend, punching the whole thing out. Steve just stands there, pads raised, sturdy as steel.
It helps, a bit. Not just to unleash my anguish, but to feel I’m not alone.
77.
Callie—eleven months after
Late in the afternoon on my first full day in Lauca National Park, I’m crouched covertly low to the ground, my guide Ricardo at my side. I bumped into him last night in the lobby of my hostel, binoculars around his neck, explaining to a couple of other travelers what was so special about the park. To my dismay they quickly glazed over, but I was enthralled.
So I caught him as he was leaving, asked about the bird I was desperate to find. I could hire him as a guide the next day, he said, instantly animated. I might have to work in with a few other sightseers but, yes, he could take me to see that bird, and whatever else piqued my interest along the way. He high-fived me before he left, which would have utterly convinced me if I weren’t already sold.
The temperature’s sliding now, and even wrapped up in my coat and hat, I’m on the verge of a shiver. Though that could just be excitement, the thrill of anticipation.
We’re gazing over the boundless rocky moonscape of thealtiplano, across rambling hummocks of vegetation and a theatrical skyline, the air growing earthy as it cools.
“There,” Ricardo says, lowering his binoculars so he can point. “You see?”
A gust of wind jerks my hands as I raise the binoculars Ricardo’s lentme, train my sight on the diademed sandpiper-plover perched atop a clod of earth in the cushion bog.
Finally, it departs the branches of my imagination. I’d know it anywhere—that white belly with the faint black barring. The fawn wings and black head, patched red at the back, like a blotch of rust.
After all these years.
My heart is soaring, helium-high. I am spellbound, breathing gasps of joy, my eyes laced with tears. To be looking at something so scarce, so precious—to have such a rare experience—is unmatched by anything I’ve encountered in the natural world before.
“You see it, Callie?” Ricardo says again.
“I see it,” I whisper, my voice shaking with delight. “I see it.”
“Shall I take a picture?”
I think of Dave and smile.If you ever get a picture, make sure you send it to me.“No,” I tell Ricardo, fumbling for my camera. “No, I’ll do it.”
We sit together for nearly twenty minutes, taking pictures and exchanging observations as the bird begins to move, lowering its beak to forage for bugs and grubs in the bog. My mind is buffeted by the sight of it, dwarfed beneath this towering panorama—the formidable volcanoes with their snow-dipped peaks, a crayon-blue sky where condors soar. A landscape that feels almost cosmic, extraterrestrial. I am surrounded by the vastness of nature, and I take two or three rich breaths, trying to reel in the moment like a prize.
