As we crest the top of the first hill, I take in the scenic expanse of pond lining one side with wildflowers on the other. The path is wide enough we can walk side by side with room to spare, and even though we’re not touching, there is something about the brisk morning air that feels like an electric current keeping our steps in sync.
“I come here to get away,” I say.
“Away from?”
“My parents. Bear Lake. The past. All of it.”
“And does it help?” he asks.
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s not far enough.”
Our steps slow as the questions get deeper. Miles trains his attention on the pond when he asks, “Would you go any farther?”
I nod. “I am. I’m leaving at the end of the summer.”
He pins me with a look of surprise. “Oh.”
When he doesn’t follow it up with another question, I give him an answer anyway.
“It feels like something I need to do.”
I can see him chewing on the inside of his cheek like this conversation is making him uncomfortable, so I turn it back to him.
“You go. What brought you to Bloomington Lake?”
I expect him to deflect the personal question, but then he says, “My dad.”
“Really?”
I didn’t know Shepard ever came up here.
“He has diabetes,” Miles says, and peers over at me to gauge my reaction.
I appreciate the gesture. That he doesn’t assume I already know when I confirm that I do.
Our steps are slow and methodical, and I try not to look at his face in hopes it gives him space to continue opening up to me.
“He’s had it for as long as I can remember, but my mom knew a time when he didn’t. The two of them loved to travel together. They grew up in Montpelier and were high school sweethearts. Both were tired of small-town life and dreamed of seeing the whole country, living life on the road.”
It’s hard to imagine Shep going anywhere farther than a thirty-mile radius. When he’s not at the trailer or helping a neighbor, he’s working at his shop.
“They used the money they saved from odd jobs during high school,” he continues, “and the summer after they graduated, they spent all they had on the trailer. My grandfather ownedundeveloped land on Bear Lake. He told them they could park it there for the summer while they worked more odd jobs to save more money. She got a job waitressing at an old pizza place that has since closed, and my dad worked at a little tackle shop that connected to a gas station. That same summer he started showing signs of frequent dehydration. When my mom found him collapsed one morning, they took him to be seen by a physician, and he was diagnosed with type one diabetes. Between insulin and shots, it’s an expensive disease. They were living in a small town on borrowed land with nothing but high school diplomas to their names, and they got stuck there.”
I fixate on the wordstuck. In the stubborn yet peaceful way he carries himself, I would have never pictured Shep as stuck anywhere, especially not in Bear Lake. It’s the only place I’ve seen him. When you know someone as one thing, it’s hard to picture them any other way. For me, Shep has been a small-town man with a kind heart. In the version of him that I don’t know, he could be someone longing for more. He could be someone like me.
“When enough years went by scraping the bottom of the barrel, seeing nothing but this side of the lake, my mom grew tired of the life we lived. She left when I was ten. When I got older I started running to clear my head, and my dad showed me this place. He felt like the trails were safer than the streets in town I resorted to.”
My heart sinks for the both of them. “I’m so sorry, Miles.”
I expect him to retreat inside himself, but instead his chest puffs up in frustrated gasps.
“You know what the worst part is?” He scuffs the ground with his shoe, sending a puff of dust in the air. “I don’t blame her for leaving. It broke my heart, but I get it now, feeling trapped by his diabetes.”
Trapped. The next word I fixate on. A word that I’ve come to know well.
“I was gone for a year, and the second I was able, I came back for him. But in all honesty, I wanted him to be okay enough that I wouldn’t have to. I just couldn’t do that to him.”
He catches my eye, and I want him to know that feeling that way doesn’t make him a bad person. He can want to leave and still be noble.
