“So you’ve had a lousy morning, and you need some sleep and a night off thinking about everything that’s horrible.” She stops, and one building ahead I see the sign for Legal Aid. She turns to me, putting her sunglasses up again and looking me straight in the eye. “So go home, get some sleep, and come back here at four to pick me up, because”—she breaks off and gives a dramatic sniffle—“because I’m not doing this walk again. And we’re going to go get sandwiches or burritos or a pizza and some beer, and then we’re going to do this ‘doors of the world’ puzzle I have, which will be nearly impossible even if we’re sober. And then tomorrow morning, you and me, we’re driving to Stanton Valley a day early, and we’re going to do the presentation there. We’re going to walk the tour, figure out the story. Okay?”
I don’t miss that she’s saidwe’re, and I know she doesn’t miss the smile that’s tugging at the corner of my mouth, a smile that would’ve felt impossible a few hours ago. Even now I shouldn’twantto smile, thinking of taking that walk, figuring out the presentation, smoothing out the rough edges that are all over it right now, despite the work I’ve been doing. “Allright,” I say.
“Fine,” she answers, and it’s a little funny, how clipped she’s said it, like she’s won an argument we weren’t even having. “I’m going now.” She turns to walk away, but stops and rushes back, shoving her bag at me before she leans down and starts undoing the laces of her boots. “Holy shit, I almost went in there in these boots!” she says, more to herself than to me, and I smile, watching her balance on one foot while she tugs a heel out of the bag. When she’s done, she grabs her bag back and gives me the boots. “Don’t lose these,” she says, as if I’m planning to just casually drop one between here and my car. Her cheeks are even pinker now, the cold plus bending over, and probably the lecture she just gave me.
And I think, despite what she said before, she might be a little nervous about going in there, about this leap she’s still taking.
“Zo,” I call to her, when she’s started to walk away again. I must look like an idiot, standing here holding a woman’s hiking boots in the middle of the sidewalk, but I find I don’t really care. When she turns around I tell her, “It does feel like that for me, a lot of the time. To solve someone’s problem. I don’t think that’s anything to feel badabout at all.”
When she smiles at me, I hold those damned boots a little tighter, and then turn to make the long walk back to her building, already counting the hoursuntil 4:00 p.m.
Chapter 15
Zoe
In the end, we don’t get drunk and do a puzzle. Aiden falls asleep on my couch after one beer and I sit next to him, resisting what feels like a perverted urge to curl myself against him, all his warm heat and solid strength, even when he started this day so defeated. From where I am, I can see the guilt vase, which I’d tucked onto a windowsill when Aiden had been showering this morning. Somewhere in there is the slip for Aiden’s parents, the slip that would’ve included him too, if I’d knownabout him then.
But there may be something you can do,he’d said to me, back on that first day, when I’d been ready to walk away from him and concede that the entire guilt vase project had been a vanity project that I hadn’t thought through, a half-drunk, all-weak attempt at getting unstuck. Now it’s not even two months later and I’m on my couch again, not alone this time, just starting to feel alive and like myself. It’s the first time I’ve felt I had a way forward since I walked out of Willis-Hanawalt on that last day, all my lottery promises swimming, indistinct, in my mind. It’s not the guilt vase that’s done it, though of course there’s been good to come out of my new friendship with Janet, my mentorship of Dan, and my way, way better manners in coffee shops and parking lots.
It’s been Aiden. No, it’s beenmeand Aiden, something about me and him together.
So how can I not help him with this, with his story, with this presentation, with everything he says he wants for the camp? How can I not give him the one thing he’s asked me for?
I’ll be adding slips, I guess, slips for Paul and Lorraine, for telling them this lie that gets to be less of a lie with each passing day, since I don’t fake anything with Aiden lately. And I’ll be adding a slip for Aiden too, though I don’t think he’d see it that way. But I don’t think it’s right for him, the camp—not this way, not in the way that means he uproots his life and starts all over again. I think he’ll miss his work, which even on bad days gives him a sense of purpose and control. I think he’ll miss Charlie and Ahmed, who he talks about with indulgent, grateful affection, more so now than when I first met him. I think he doesn’t reallywantto manage a campground as a full-time job. I think he’s doing it because it’s what it takes to win, because it’s what he’s promised himself and his family he’ll do.
And I think—Iknow—that promises like that can wear on you, especially when you’re grieving. It’s the same way my job wore on me—living out my father’s hopes for me, being the person I thought he’d want me to be.Becomingthat person so much that I hardly knew who I waswithout my job.
But how,howcan I not help him? How can I not give him what he’s asked me for? How can I not give his family that?
I must fall asleep eventually, but when I wake up in the morning I’m in my bed, under the covers, and Aiden’s beside me, lying on top of them—flat on his back, hands clasped loosely over his middle. It’s the closest we’ve ever come to sleeping next to each other, and I wish, with an almost physical ache, that I hadn’t slept through the feeling of him carrying me in here andlaying me down.
I slip out of bed, move as quietly as I can into the bathroom, and when I come back, Aiden’s sitting up, feet on the floor, scraping a hand through his messy hair. “All rightthat I stayed?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, watching the little notch at the corner of his mouth that tells me he’s on the verge of a smile. I did that for him, have done that for him, and I—I want tokeepdoing it, no matter the seed of doubt I have. I tell myself that this isn’t the same as it was with Christopher, me jamming myself into someone else’s problems to avoid my own. I’m dealing with my own. I’m moving on, and it’s okay for me to help him too, so long as I keephold of myself.
“I got coverage for my shift today,” he says, his voice still gravelly with sleep, the first time I’ve heard it that way outside of camp. He lifts his phone in the air, waving it a little. “Ahmed emailed.”
“Good. You need a day off.”
“Off of one thing, at least. You still want to go today?”
I take a deep breath through my nose, slow enough, I hope, so he doesn’t see my chest rise. “I’m in,” I say, and turn awayto pack my bag.
* * * *
“Sixty-eight minutes.” I tap my thumb against my phone screen to stop the timer from turning. When I look up at Aiden, he’s got his hands set low on his hips, an expression of frustration in his eyes.
“Goddammit,” he says, on a gusty sigh. “Where am I going to take eight fucking minutes off?”
“Relax. Let’s think about this.” I sit down on one of the benches of the outdoor classroom, Aiden’s copy of the presentation binder spread open in my lap. It feels better than expected to sit down, like all the muscles in my legs are doing a hallelujah chorus, and I’m pretty sure I make a small groan of relief.
It’s Friday afternoon, only a couple of hours before we expect Hammond and Val and Sheree and Tom to show up for the weekend. This is probably our last run-through of it, Aiden’s presentation, and I can’t say it’s been an easy go of it. Aiden and I are both tired, and the presentation itself isn’t easy to do over and over, no matter how much we’ve focused on not making it too heavy.
I look down at the tour map, at the typed notes Aiden handed me yesterday when we’d arrived. I’d been surprised, I guess, to see what he’d done for the presentation. For the last couple of weeks, he’d told me, since Ben’s party, he’s been collecting testimonials from patients who’ve been through the programs elsewhere, the ones in Colorado, New Mexico, California, Maine. Some by email, some by phone, one—on Tuesday, right about when I was doing my first call at Legal Aid—by video chat. They’d been easy to get, he’d said, because the program owners already know about Aiden, already know he’s looking to bring a facility here. They’re ready to get moving on a lease, so they give him what he needs, and what he needs—what I told him he needs—is a story. Or, in thiscase,stories.
It’s not that it isn’t good. Itisgood. It’s moving, it’s painful, it’s hopeful. Lorraine will definitely cry, and I won’t be surprised if others do too. Over the last day and a half I’ve helped him smooth it out, tie the stories he’s got more strongly to whatever location we’re at on the tour—how equine therapy worked for one of the patients when we’re at the stables site, how shared living spaces function for patients coming to rehab out of methadone clinics while we’re at one of the cabin sites. I do what I can do, to give him what hesays he wants.
It’s just that it’s got nothing to do with Aaron. Aiden doesn’t even say hisname, not once.
