Sugaring off, p.10
Sugaring Off, page 10
“Town plows leave the mountain for last. During a bad storm, they can’t even make it past Knee.” Cody’s look is blank. “The pass a mile up from the base. Shaped like a bent knee.” The information only leaves him looking incredulous, borderline belligerent; Wallace might not be the only one nursing a hangover this morning. It helps, his attitude, leaves her free to give it right back, grinding the wings of her anxious butterflies underfoot after what she ventured last night. “Don’t try taking the keys. I know more about winter driving up here than you.” Drops the shovel against the shingles.
He lets her navigate the snowy road at a slow and determined pace, and doesn’t tease her with the cigarettes at all while they check the taps, possibly because the work is much more strenuous this morning with new drifts to wade through, covering the crust. Breathless, she sees him moving through the trees, his cheeks flushed crimson in the cold, giving him an almost wholesome Christmas caroler look, incongruous with his smoker’s cough.
The sap has slowed, as she knew it would, and they only need to make one trip from the sugarbush, not putting enough in the storage tank to justify running the evaporator. What’s left is packaging, boxing up the glass maple-leaf bottles, sealed and waiting in a row, now wearing foil grade a: amber stickers, as the syrup has darkened with the changing sugar levels as they moved into March. It’s nearly noon when Owl realizes that Seth has never come out to join them.
Once they’ve carried more firewood inside and swept the floors, Owl leaves without a word, too self-conscious to look directly at Cody yet, heartbeat and pulse high as she walks to the cabin, wondering why she had to open her mouth last night, why she let Wallace’s confession spur her into going anywhere with Cody. This is rare free time she could use to check on the foxes, hike alone, work on her sketches, the usual. Yet here she goes, in search of Seth.
The living room is lit only by the gray poststorm sky above the ruffle of the curtains, and it takes her a second to pick her uncle out in the recliner, legs propped up, ice pack in place. His face is turned away, and she hesitates, never having seen him like this so early in the day. The words feel so foreign being passed from her to him instead of the other way around: “Everything okay?”
He turns drowsily, and the pallor of his skin surprises her, more dark stubble along his jawline than he usually allows. “I’m good. Just taking a breather.”
She shifts, her air sealing off before asking—because, god, what if he says no? “We’re all done.”
“Oh, yeah? Okay, Cody can head—”
“We”—she rushes to speak, bumping into his words, and the first spark of alertness shows in his eyes—“I thought I’d show him Tillman’s Lament. Just so . . . he can see.” Her gaze won’t settle, ticks around like a liar’s, and each second of Seth’s silence drags nail marks through her resolve. “If you don’t need us.”
“Oh.” He boosts himself with his elbows, catches the ice pack before it slides to the floor, focuses on adjusting it. “If you’re done, it’s your time.” Hesitates. “How’re you planning on getting there? Hiking in or—?”
“Two-up. If that’s okay.”
“Yup, yup.” Nodding, but this is unprecedented, no getting around it; they both struggle, unsure where to place their next steps. “Helmets, yeah? Both of you.”
“Okay.” She bolts, snagging her hiking pack from one of the Adirondacks on the deck and bringing it with her, already stashed before he and Holly got up this morning.
She drags the tarp off the Ski-Doo Grand Touring, their two-seater snowmobile, grabs a gas can from the shed, and fills up, seeing Cody emerge from the sugarhouse to watch. She stores extra fuel in the caddy, shifts into neutral, and hits the start button, slowly opening the choke until the idle sounds healthy, actually glad for the five minutes or so where she can’t hear anything but the engine. Cody doesn’t question her, instead looking down at the machine as if she’d walked a two-humped camel out of the shed.
She puts her helmet on, then holds up Seth’s, from the passenger seat. He doesn’t take it. She huffs, calls out, “I won’t tell anybody you rode bitch.”
She pushes the helmet into his chest until he grabs it, then she climbs onto the driver’s seat, feet on the rails, gripping the handles. Cody glances around—no one watching—curses soundlessly and, with a rough scrub of his hair through his cap, jerks the helmet on and slides into the space behind her.
They drive through the clearing and into the woods until they hit Yellow Trail, so called for the yellow markers painted on occasional tree trunks years ago, pointing the way down the five-mile route to Tillman’s Lament, which lies on the outer edges of the town of Dermott, about three-quarters of the way around the base of Waits Mountain.
It’s intimate, more than she anticipated, being pressed between his legs like this, and it’s a relief not to have to talk over the sound of the Ski-Doo. She’s ridden with Seth or Holly many times, but Cody is bigger, taking up way more space in the back than any of them do, and he obviously doesn’t trust her navigating skills. He won’t put his arms around her, but a couple times, when she has to throw her weight into the curves, his knees squeeze her hips with a viselike intensity that makes her suck in her breath.
After parking the snowmobile and hiking a steep seven-minute trail that gives the impression of leading nowhere, they arrive below Lament. Owl rests on her heels, giving Cody time to take it in.
The thick, bluish-toned ice floe burgeoning from the eight-hundred-foot-high rock face is massive, with tiers of icicles dangling from the overhangs, some well over six feet long, creating the look of a sculpture both honed and hacked, nature’s dual identity captured at once: beauty, brutality.
Cody manages silence, five full seconds of it, as he paces toward the rock, staring up.
Owl took a calculated risk—it’s a favorite weekend destination for climbers, and there’s almost always been other parties here when she’s come with Seth and Holly. Today’s no exception, two ice climbers working their way up a column on the left, balancing some thirty feet above the talus below, their helmets and parkas incandescent against the floe.
“How are they not falling?” Cody doesn’t pull his gaze from the climbers.
“Ice axes and crampons, those metal spikes they strap on over their boots. They kick the toe spikes into the ice to make footholds. Watch.” Owl points to the highest climber, now in the process of working her axe free. She pauses, then swings it into the ice above her head, ducking slightly to let a spray of ice deflect off her helmet. “That’s tripod position. See? Her body’s a triangle. Legs wide, arms narrow above her. Most stable shape in nature.”
“Okay. You just pull that out of your ass?”
Owl shrugs. “Seth taught me.” As if it weren’t the turning point of her life, somebody filling the empty vessel inside her that needed this, something tactile, cold air expanding her lungs, and muscles burning, and an unshakable solid sense of presence and place.
“You do this?”
“No. I go bouldering. But Seth does ice climbing, rock climbing. Did. Before his knee really got bad.” Hesitates, venturing a bit more: “It always ached after we went, but he said it was worth it. Pay for a day of getting out there.”
“Wow. Special ops and extreme sports.” Cody snorts laughter and dabs his cold nose with the back of his hand. “And he looks like just a regular old shitkicker.”
“I never said special ops.” She has no idea who Seth was over there, feeling an innate dread of the sun-and-sand-bleached memories locked inside him, what it’s like to have a homemade bomb go off under the Jeep you’re in, feel your knee blown half off your body. Truth of what war really does to you. “And he didn’t have to hire you.”
Cody turns on her instantly. “Hey, he was looking, so was I. That’s how it works. Don’t act like he did me some charity and I owe him. Fuck that.”
Owl presses her lips together until they’re bloodless, imagining the pure satisfaction of kicking him directly in the ass, but instead she forces herself to brush past him like he’s done to her, not breaking his gaze until she’s made it clear that he didn’t win; she just isn’t going to waste any more words on him.
She walks to the base and watches the climbers on her own for a while—a breathless moment when the lower climber seems too tired to continue, hugging the floe for so long her climbing partner calls down to check on her—but then the woman nods and tugs her lead crampon free, using mostly the strength of her left quad to support herself as she drives her spikes into the ice and boosts herself upward.
Cody studies Owl longer than she knows, then paces away, turns a few pointless circles—mutt that can’t lie down; entertains himself by stepping up onto a couple of the larger boulders to survey the view. Things get lonely fast. He false-starts calling to Owl—a jab, anything to spur conversation—but knows she won’t hear. He pegs a rock into the snow by her feet hard enough to raise a puff of white.
She spins, staring darkly—a scowling little kid with pigtails sticking out from under her hat. Christ. “Let’s see some bouldering.” He calls it from the top of a slab of rock, putting on a grin. “You got skills, show me.”
Owl lowers her chin. “This is a five-eleven.” When he obviously doesn’t get it: “Rating system for climbing? This is one of the hardest on the mountain.”
“What you got in your bag, then? Jerky?” Kicks off the snowcap and plunks down to sit on the rock, legs hanging down, hand mining his chest pocket for smokes, the pack a touchstone, not bringing them out. “I’m staying right here till you prove you ain’t all talk, Bird Girl.”
Her helmet’s in the pack. Her climbing shoes, roll of tape, left there from the last time she went out. She also brought a couple bottles of water and some granola bars, out of habit—just in case, all of it, she’d told herself. But now faced with Lament, she admits her eagerness to get up there, grab a piece of the rock for herself. “I can’t do ice,” she says slowly. “I don’t have the tools.” And her chalk bag and the crash pad are at home. She’s never climbed without them. Or Seth. And she knows he wouldn’t want her to. “You have to spot me.”
Her fingers protected with white tape, boots swapped for her Scarpas, she fastens her helmet and sizes up the only section of rock low enough for bouldering that isn’t covered by the floe or too close to the other climbers. Immediately sees a crack she can slot her foot into, an edge within fingertips’ reach above it.
She gets herself stabilized, then checks to make sure Cody’s still beneath her. Wonders if she has a death wish, trusting him to break her fall if she loses her grip. No ropes in bouldering, no harnesses, just your own strength and judgment, which is why Seth always says never go any higher than twenty feet. And always with the crash pad below to catch her if she fell.
She won’t go far. Just a quick climb to show Cody who’s all talk—across the angled slab to the overhang above. Top out there, then back. Twenty-foot traverse, no more. Do it.
Owl slides the rubber soles of her climbing shoes along the cut in the wall, working her fingertips along a dime edge, following it as far as she can before she starts looking for the next handhold. There’s a good jug—a deep, wide hold—about three and a half feet above her head to the right, the direction she needs to pull herself in. She wishes she’d done more stretching before she started. Rushing things. Stupid.
She reaches one hand up for the jug, clings on, adds the other, then pulls perpendicularly, hauling her body over while bracing her toes against the slab. Already breathing hard—she’s forgotten what a workout bouldering is, every part of your body thrown into just staying on the rock, searching for the next edge to hold your weight.
Cody calls something—she thinks—and she hazards a glance toward the ground. When did he get so far away? He says it again; she reads, You got this?
Turns away, teeth gritted, determined to top out, stand straight up on the roof to look out over everything, make him small.
Grunt of exertion as she swings herself slowly, gaining momentum, her right foot out to touch the edge of a broad flake; over time, a slice of rock has broken away, leaving a gap a few inches wide that she can use to make the final stretch.
Tries to slot her foot, but there’s nothing—no gap—and she gasps as her toes slip, her right leg dropping, jerking her hard enough that she pulls a barn door, her right side swinging out into space. Dangling, body twisting out, left side doing all the work, no chalk, hands grimy and sweat-greased—shit.
It’s not in Owl to cry out, all chaos trapped inside, eyes wild as she grimaces, trying to swing herself back to nab her handhold before her left arm gives out.
She gets it, but barely. Breathless, she cranes her neck to see how she missed. Ice, frozen down inside the flake, filling most of the gap, shadowed and preserved during the last thaw. No room for her foot, barely an edge for her to balance on that won’t be slippery, treacherous. It’s that or surrender, inch back down and drop to earth, where Cody’s laughter is waiting for her.
She wants that overhang. Face screwed up, extends her right leg all the way out, toe feeling for the edge of the flake. Bends her knee, flings her right arm out, bringing her hand down with a smack onto the overhang. Digs her fingers into the craggy, uneven surface, and pulls herself across the divide, lingering only a second, right hand and foot braced, before throwing her entire upper body into dragging herself onto the overhang.
Muscles throbbing, Owl manages to slowly unfold herself into a standing position on the corner of the roof.
Below, Cody applauds.
12
In the musty quiet of the cloakroom, Owl brings out her list, written carefully on notebook paper, in case she’s accused of not taking enough time with the assignment.
Ms. Z sits with her forearms resting on the desk between them, fingers entwined as if physically grounding them from signing, watching Owl center the notebook in front of herself. “You seem ready. Go first. We’ll take turns.”
Owl clears her throat, shifts in her seat, looking down at the paper. “Number one: I want to move our desk.” Takes a quick check of her teacher’s expression, goes on: “I can’t see your face with all the light behind you. It makes things harder.”
For a moment, Owl wonders if Ms. Z will confess to blocking her lip-reading, but instead she unclasps her hands, pushes her chair back. “All right. Where would you like it?”
Shrugs uncomfortably. “Doesn’t matter. Just . . . not in front of a window.”
Ms. Z stands, takes one end of the desk, waiting for Owl to grasp the other, and together they walk the desk toward the opposite end of the entryway, Ms. Z positioning her chair beneath the list of rules hanging on the wall. “Better?”
Owl nods.
“All right. My turn.” And Ms. Z’s hands snap into action: I need us to sign everything together. Emphasis on together, fists meeting to make small circles. Watches Owl stiffen, straightening in her seat. “I understand how you feel about speaking vocally. It’s important to you. But I’m a teacher of the Deaf. It’s my goal to help you see ASL as a skill, not something that sets you apart. So we’ll both speak aloud as we sign. Fair enough?”
“I’m not fast like you. I lose what you’re saying.”
“Then give me one of these.” Signs, Slow down, drawing her right hand gradually up her left arm to her elbow. “Let’s try to make this practice for you, not torture. I don’t expect you to be perfect.” Holds Owl’s gaze. “Truly. If you’re having trouble, tell me.”
Owl exhales slowly, nods.
“Okay.” Ms. Z rests back against her chair, signs, Next.
Owl’s gaze returns to her list, hesitating before reading the biggest risk she took on this page. “Two: What do you want me to talk about other than school?” Forgets to sign, labors through it, needing to redo school because she left out the two “claps.” “You said that I’m giving you nothing. Not like your other students.”
Ms. Z. hesitates, searching for diplomacy. “You’re more closed off than they are, yes.”
“How?” It’s a question that’s bothered her over the weekend, how these other nameless, faceless Deaf kids know how to naturally provide something Owl doesn’t. “What should I say?”
“That’s up to you. It’s nothing I guide them in. I suppose the signing helps them feel more comfortable with me, so they talk a bit about themselves, their lives, as we go over their work. Say what you feel.”
“I feel like I don’t know you.” Owl pauses, flipping through mental flash cards, images of the signs she needs next, some of which come up blank, and she has to fumble. “Mr. Duquette lives down the street. Mrs. Montrose-Perlman lives in St. Beatrice. They’ve been here ever since I came to this school.” Hesitates. “Can I ask things about you? You always ask the questions.”
“Within reason.”
“Where do you live?”
“North Conway, at the moment.”
“Do you have—?” Tangled, Owl drops the verbal word children, focuses on the sign, which she thinks is something like patting an invisible kid on the head, one in front, then one off to her right.
“No.”
“Then why do you want to teach Deaf kids?”
Ms. Z looks back steadily. “My older sister was born profoundly Deaf. I learned sign before I spoke my first English word.” Smooths her hair back in a swift movement, pearl earring reminding Owl of an insect’s tiny egg, found beneath a green spring leaf. “Her Deafness defined who we were as a family.”
“How?”
“A million ways. Some big, some small. We relocated from Rhode Island”—checks herself as Owl signs for her to slow down—“to Connecticut so that she could attend the American School for the Deaf. When she went on to Gallaudet, we moved again, to be close.” Hint of something—amusement, exasperation—crosses her face, disappears. “Ironic, with how hard my mother worked to make sure Mari would always be self-sufficient, she was the one who had difficulty letting go.” She visibly pushes aside the memory. “You must at least have someone in your family who speaks a second language?”
