“When do you plan to pack it up?” Tom asked.
It was a simple question but it jolted Avery. She had been talking about that very thing with Jake while they were walking to Huntington and the conversation didn’t go well. She put her cup of coffee down on the table and glanced over at Jake who was looking at her levelly over the brim of his own.
Avery took her eyes off Jake’s and looked down. “I’m not sure yet, Tom. I’m still netting birds and I need to tie up some loose ends. Maybe by the end of the month I’ll have an answer for you.”
“Well, you can take your time. Now that construction is done at Kirby we won’t be disturbing your work and you can finish up what you started. Just let me know.”
“Place looks great now,” Frank chimed in.
Avery sat quietly eating her breakfast and recalled the unpleasant conversation with Jake. She had broached the subject of their relationship when it came time for her to leave.
“What’re we going to do come September?” Avery said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was thinking maybe you could come with me back to Vermont. Maybe sign up for a few classes at the University? Finish your degree?”
Jake was visibly annoyed. “Avery, we’ve been down this road before. You know school’s not for me. I tried a semester at Paul Smith’s College and got nowhere with it. It’s just not my thing.”
“What is your thing then, Jake? What’re you going to do with your life here in these woods?”
“Plenty.”
“Plenty of what?”
“There’s plenty to do here. I cut and deliver wood for people, maintain summer homes, work at the store in Raquette. There are folks that stay here all year you know. It’s not that desolate. Me and my friends snowmobile all over the place and the winter ski resorts keep people employed.”
Avery stopped walking. “But what about me? What about us?”
“What about us? Why does it have to end when you leave? We can still see each other. I’ll come and visit you in Vermont. You can come stay with me anytime you like. I’m not going anywhere.”
Avery stared at him. She was confused. This was not the proposal she wanted. “Forget it then.” She stomped off ahead of him.
“Hey, what’s with you?” Jake called after her. She took off in a jog down the path toward Huntington and snagged her foot on a protruding tree root, almost landing face-first into a tree. She caught herself in time, and bolted ahead of him.
Later that afternoon Avery sat alone in a big Adirondack chair on the front porch of Camp Kirby, with her laptop and Minnie’s diary beside her.
Jake had not come back after breakfast. He and Frank had work to do on a cabin at Huntington. And he didn’t say if or when he would see her back at Kirby. That was fine with her. She needed to think. She needed to get started on the methods section of her paper. Her abstract and introduction were complete. But the methods section was the most boring to write. It was just a tedious summary of all of the equipment, steps and measurements she took while netting owls in the woods. There was no poetry involved, no saga, and no emotion. Not like the emotions she was feeling right then.
A crackle of thunder brought her attention to the horizon just in time to see a dagger of lightning slash the distant sky. This was followed by a pick-up of the wind. The view across the lake was monochromatic. The cedar trees were clouded in a sheen of white mist. It slowly crept across the lake until it was upon her. A storm was coming. It started to rain, and a gray blanket descended over the lake blocking her view entirely.
The rain came in torrents, eating away at the soil around the roots of the hemlock tree in front of the porch. Avery thought darkly how the hemlock would eventually fall over, and could understand why the lake was dotted with so many upended trees. It would be difficult to be a tree along the shoreline of Raquette. It would be hard to take a stand.
She glanced at her keyboard, her notes, and then at Minnie’s diary. Now that had emotion. Maybe Minnie would be a good diversion from her anger with Jake and his noncommittal attitude toward their relationship. She picked up the diary.
August 10, 1893
I have not seen William in days. His guests have kept him busy. Nate and I are reading “The Last of the Mohicans”. Now I know why William has named our camp Uncas, after the main character in the book, and named the lake on which it sits Mohegan.
William loved this book when he was growing up. I can imagine him as a young boy in England, reading about the adventure of a war and the last Indian tribes that lived in the Adirondack wilderness. He must have had some romantic notions of what it was like to live here. Little does he understand how hard it can actually be when you don’t have access to the money and labor he does. I don’t think William understands this entirely although I know he is very loyal and generous to his workmen.
And as much as I love to read with Nate under our favorite tree, it is no replacement for my time with William. When will he come back? When will we move to Uncas? My father will start to wonder when I am coming home. I want to be able to tell him I’ve married. But William has made no commitment to me. I think I should go to Pine Knot and find him. But if I do that he will be very angry and it will only cause a scene.
Every night now when I go to sleep I imagine William beside me in bed, married, my husband. When will he leave Janet and come to me again?
Minnie
Avery finished the last line of the diary, watched the rain teeming down and thought about Minnie. The poor girl was trapped in her own ignorance. She sighed, went inside and tossed the diary on the couch. It teetered on the edge of the cushion for a brief moment then landed on the floor with a thud. She was too emotionally drained to care, she walked into her bedroom to type up her research methods on her laptop.