‘Some have more straps and are more complicated, but with these ones all the hard work is done for you. You just have to tighten the one strap and away you go. OK, let’s see how you go. Take a step.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Don’t watch.’
‘Why not.’
‘I’ll either fall flat on my face or be a complete natural.’
‘Or maybe somewhere in between?’
I pulled a face. ‘I doubt it. I tend to be an all or nothing kind of gal.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured me. ‘If you fall, I’ll catch you.’
‘Bad idea. I’ll probably take you down with me.’
He laughed. ‘It would be an honorable way to go.’
‘OK, here goes nothing.’ I took a step, then another. ‘Hey, this isn’t so bad,’ I declared with glee, then promptly almost fell over. Jonah caught me before I did, steadying me with his strong arms.
‘Hang on,’ he said, letting me go and reaching into the back of the truck again. ‘I forgot to give you these.’ He fished out a pair of poles. ‘These will help you balance.’
I took the poles and tried walking again, going around the truck first, then widening my circle and doing a lap of the rest area.
‘You were right,’ he said, watching me with an unreadable expression, but one that made me feel like I glowed from within. ‘You’re a natural.’
18
JONAH
She was like a child taking her first steps. Absolutely delighted with herself, as she clomped around the rest area testing out the snowshoes. I felt something in my chest as I watched her. A feeling. Kind of like… pride? But who was I, to be proud of her?
‘Widen your steps a little,’ I called out. ‘I know it doesn’t feel natural, but it stops the snowshoes from knocking into each other so much.’
She tried it. ‘That helps, thanks.’
I clipped into my own snowshoes and locked the truck. ‘Ready?’
She nodded. ‘As I’ll ever be.’
I smiled. ‘That’s the spirit.’
I’d hiked this trail hundreds of times in my lifetime, and Iknewit was beautiful, but seeing it through her eyes made it feel like I was seeing it for the first time again myself. The first twenty times she gasped out loud, my heart stopped, because I thought something had happened or she was hurt. But I soon learned it was because she had seen something. Sometimes it was something so small I’d have never looked twice at it, like an icy cobweb glittering in the sunlight. Or a line of water drops,frozen in time, dangling from underneath a leaf. Another time she grabbed my arm and when I looked at her, her face was wide eyed with pure joy.
‘Look,’ she whispered. ‘Over there, between those two trees. Is that…?’
‘A red fox,’ I confirmed. ‘Young one, by the look of it. Just as curious about you as you are about it.’
‘It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen,’ she sighed wistfully.
‘You know they eat baby birds, right? And baby hares?’
‘Way to ruin the moment.’
‘It’s nature, right?’
‘So,’ she asked, after we’d been trekking in silence for a while, the only sounds the crunch of our snowshoes on the snow, and birdsong from the birds in the trees. ‘Is there, like, an actual destination to this hike? Or is it more of a “the journeyisthe destination” kind of thing.’
‘It’s both. And we’re almost there.’
