Chapter Four

Being Led to the Flood

 

The first hints of sunrise cut scarlet gashes in the sky where Geoff and I sat in my parked car, locked in silence. An Alaska Marine Highway ferry cast a morning shadow over a line of cars, in which we were last. I nibbled on a cinnamon cookie and looked blankly across the calm waters of Auke Bay. This would be the last I would see of Juneau for a while. Perhaps forever.

I thought Geoff and I should be talking, but the words hadn’t yet come. A hollow lump of malaise had churned inside my gut for so many hours that it was self-perpetuating now. My cookie tasted like sand and I felt little but fatigue and boredom. I had just spent the past forty-eight hours staring apathetically at my office computer, carelessly stuffing random belongings in my car, and crying in the bathroom. Nothing seemed to have a purpose or a place. I was boarding that ferry because when life is most turbulent, often the only thing we can hold onto is our routine. My routine dictated that I head south. No matter what I wanted or needed, the only plan I had penciled into my calendar was change.

Geoff on I followed the procession onto the boat and wordlessly walked upstairs, taking our usual seat in the ferry’s dining room.

“Do you want breakfast?” Geoff finally asked.

“I just had a cookie,” I said.

“That’s not breakfast,” Geoff said.

“It’s breakfast to me,” I said with a scowl. Geoff had always been the cook in our relationship. I was the kind of inept food preparer who could ruin a bowl of cereal. If Geoff and I stopped living together, we both knew I was facing a long descent into junk food and Subway sandwiches. I wanted him to feel bad about that. I wanted him to feel bad about anything. But the peaceful look on his face revealed the freedom he was feeling at having finally come clean. I resented his tranquility more than I resented his leaving me.

Geoff stood up, walked away and returned several minutes later with a tray of eggs and bacon. I leaned over as he started to eat.

“Geoff, I’ve been thinking about our situation,” I said. “If we’re going to do this, I guess we have to agree that we’re going to try to make this work as friends.”

He paused with a fork in his mouth. “Is that really what you want?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t really picture what that would even be like, but it’s worth a try. At least, it will beat spending two months living in tight spaces and not talking to each other.”

He nodded. “I think it will be good. I think we can still have a fun summer.”

I feigned a weak smile. Fun didn’t really fit into the equation for me. Keeping our comfortable status quo alive long enough for me to start the Great Divide — that was a factor. Trying to help Geoff see that he was making a big mistake — that may have added variable or two. I certainly didn’t want to just be another friend of his, but I realized the decision wasn’t up to me. My only choices were hope or hopelessness, and two days into our separate-but-together separation, I still longed for the path of hope.

The ferry bobbed north and we moved to the solarium, where Geoff fell asleep on a lawn chair. I managed to unknowingly take the nearest spot to the boat’s designated ashtray, and inhaled large quantities of secondhand smoke while I shuffled through what seemed like an unusually high percentage of sad songs on my mP3 player. The sand-flavored cookie churned in my stomach. I couldn’t tell what was more nauseating — the situation or my reaction. I had never been so angry with anyone in my life, and there I was, handing him everything he wanted with a smile on my face.

The sky remained unusually clear when we departed the ferry in Skagway and continued north in my small red Geo. Geoff drove and I ignored a call from my mother, knowing full well that my cell phone wasn’t going to work the entire time I was in Canada. She knew vaguely about the breakup situation, but I wasn’t ready to explain the current plan, the asinine plan that had Geoff and I still driving south together and stopping to see all the friends we had planned to see before moving together into a cabin in southern Utah. My parents would tell me I was being naive and making a bad choice. And they would be right.

That evening in Whitehorse, I went for my first bike ride in nearly a week. Geoff announced he was going for a run and planned to go to bed early, so I didn’t expect to see him again that day. Our friends pointed me in the direction of the only viable mountain bike route in town, a plowed dirt road that snaked up a snow-covered mountain. The sun hung in the sky late into the evening as I began the climb, slowly turning the pedals in the booties I specifically brought to protect my frostbite-sensitive toes. The night chill settled in even as the sun clung to the horizon. I had forgotten my gloves, but I did not care. The cold wind breathed air into the stagnant pit in my gut, and the fatigue of the climb sucked up two days worth of malaise and pain.

I had told my friends I would be gone for just ninety minutes. I had a dim headlamp with me, but no other lights to cut into the encompassing darkness. I had no spare coat or hat to block out the deepening cold. But physical safety had become unimportant to me, and discomfort helped dull my emotional anguish. With every pedal stroke, my gray and hollow world faded back a little bit more, replaced by soothing endorphins and gritty determination. The road became steeper, and big rocks from winter slides littered the muddy surface. Sweat poured over my lips in the same way so many tears had, but instead of defeat, these salty streams tasted like triumph. The lights of Whitehorse glittered behind me. I pedaled harder. The unlit void of the sparsely developed North spread out in front of me. The peak of the mountain loomed, hidden behind six-foot-high walls of old snow, sliced away to make room for maintenance vehicles. But in its deserted state, the snow walls seemed to be a fortress of solitude built only for me.

A red light blinked from some sort of communication tower at the top. Whitehorse appeared as a shimmering island in a sea of night, but the last rosy streaks of sunset still clung to the western horizon. I breathed erratically. That eight-mile climb had taken a lot out of me. I thought with a flicker of comedic terror that in less than two months, I’d be asking my body to work just as hard for ten to fifteen times as long, every single day.

It seemed impossible in the dim fatigue of the April night, but this also didn’t mean much to me. My suspicion about my inability to ride the Divide was a vague theory, a fear of failure, nothing more. My reality, what mattered, was that I had ridden to the top of this one mountain, this nondescript Yukon mountain with a cell phone tower on top, and this single act proved that I could still embrace a world beyond the hollow, gray one that awaited me below. My refusal to quit a job that I believed was holding me back, my failure to make my relationship work, my isolation in Juneau, and my resignation to spend the summer with a man who did not love me — I did not have to let these things define me. I was still a cyclist, and I still had the physical power to seek new places where I could leave my mistakes behind.

But I was still uncertain as to what exactly did define me as Geoff and I left Whitehorse and turned onto the Alaska Highway. In the southern Yukon, there are only two roads, and only one fork. We veered right on the Cassier Highway, largely deserted and lined with five-foot-deep walls of snow. A sign read “South to Alaska: 664 kilometers to Hyder.” I thought about the southern tip of the Alaskan panhandle and shuddered at the realization of how far we had yet to descend. After two days of ferry travel and driving, we were still at the same latitude as Juneau, slowly picking away at the miles through an impenetrable silence. Winter lingered. It showed no signs of ending.

In Dease Lake, British Columbia, I slept in the second bed in a dark room of an otherwise unoccupied hotel. I set my alarm for 6 a.m., hoping to log a three-hour training ride before our scheduled 9 a.m. departure. The temperature was still well below freezing in the early morning. Geoff didn’t even stir as I applied my warm clothing layers: Tights, jersey, fleece pullover, light raincoat, gloves, wool socks and a hat. It didn’t seem like enough, but it was all I had. My pared-down possessions had been chosen with heat and distance in mind. Slow, uncomfortable progress through the last remnants of winter had never been factored into my training plan.

The morning was gray and coated in thick frost as I wheeled my bike across the empty parking lot. I pedaled south down the Cassier, because it made more sense than riding north. South was new territory. That was where I wanted to go. Small spruce trees and alders lined the road, their branches permanently twisted by hard winds and harder winters. The cold air bit at the skin on my neck and face as I pedaled; I had no means to ward it off.

I passed a sign that said: “Arctic Ocean/Pacific Ocean Divide, 889 meters.” I smiled. It was my first continental divide crossing, in a season where my only remaining ambition was to pass through a fair number more of those. I pedaled hard, trying to outrun the creeping chill and net some distance in what seemed like an unreasonably short period of time. Surprisingly, after the divide, the road continued to climb. I breathed heavy and dripped sweat, and focused on a narrowing tunnel of fatigue. I didn’t even notice the wall of snow growing higher and the alders and spruce growing smaller, until there was nothing left but twigs and a rolling, snow-covered meadow. I had climbed high. My clothing was drenched in sweat. And I was becoming deeply cold.

I removed my thin gloves and held my raw hands to my mouth, trying to breathe some life into my fingers. Shivers were rising up from my core and I shook my shoulders and hips to push them back. The long, wind-chilled descent promised to be painful, and I briefly considered running the whole way back. I didn’t have time. I pulled my gloves back on, jumped on my bike, released the brakes, and braced myself.

The cold tore through my body like a full-blast stereo with a broken volume button. There was nothing I could do but face the undulating waves of frigid shock with a steel-faced grimace as every single cell in my body writhed and screamed. Torture comes to mind, but torture isn’t the right word, because torture implies a state of extreme discomfort that isn’t your fault. This bike ride was my fault. The cold wind chill was my fault. It passed through my watering eyes and throbbing fingers and toes with serene indifference.

I returned to the hotel already past the point of shivering, my limbs half-frozen in place as I hobbled stiffly toward the room. The door was locked. I rapped my blue knuckles against the door, but nobody answered. I kicked the door with the dead weight inside my shoe, but I already knew that Geoff had either gone out for a run or he deliberately wasn’t going to answer. Which scenario it was, I did not care. I zombie-walked toward the lobby and placed my useless fingers against the coffee pot, hoping they would thaw enough that I could pour a cup. I needed hot liquid. I needed warmth. I needed love. And I really didn’t have anything. I had my bike. Only the bike.

When Geoff returned from his run twenty minutes later, I was slumped on the floor of the lobby, red hands clasped around a Styrofoam cup, returning from hypothermia just enough to at least be shivering again.

“Cold today!” Geoff exclaimed too cheerfully.

“You could have left the key outside the door,” I grumbled. “It’s not like there’s anyone else at this hotel. It’s still winter up here.”

“You got back early,” he said. “Anyway, does it kill you to wait out here?”

The days churned through the resulting silence. We rolled south. The walls of snow along the road grew shorter until winter disappeared beneath the brown grass clumps of early spring. Spruce trees grew taller and more varied. I sat in the passenger’s seat and watched the pavement curve and climb over the mountainous terrain. We passed darkened trinket shops and restaurants still closed for the season. Oncoming traffic was infrequent; vehicles traveling our direction nonexistent. The road was as cold and empty as the space between Geoff and me. My emotions felt muted and barren, like the landscape, clinging to the vague if inevitable promise of spring.

“So how do you want to work out the Great Divide?” Geoff said, breaking an extended silence. His face was still locked solemnly on the road.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m not going to be able to go with you to Montana. What do want to do with your car? Or do you think you’ll fly?”

“Wait a minute — now you’re not even going to drive me to Montana?” I hadn’t yet visualized when Geoff and I would actually make the physical split. But I envisioned him taking me at least as far as the race start.

“Well, it kinda cuts into my plans with Western States,” Geoff said. “I just figured you’d work out something else.”

“But our plan …”

“I know,” Geoff said. “But it’s really not convenient for me.”

I pressed my back against the seat, fuming. It was becoming more obvious that, to Geoff, I had become little more than a person with a car and the ability to split gas money. When he no longer needed a ride, he no longer needed me. But I still believed I needed Geoff’s help to prepare for the Divide race. I wasn’t sure I had enough passion or drive left over to do it on my own.

“To be honest,” I said through clenched teeth, “I’m not really sure what I’m going to do about the Divide. Since this all went down I’ve lost a lot of my interest in that stupid race; I really have. What’s the point? What’s the point of any of it?”

Geoff turned to face me for what felt like the first time in days. “Really? You’re thinking about not doing the GDR?”

“Well, you know as much as anyone, the Divide’s really something you can’t even begin unless you’re willing to give it everything you have, physically and mentally. There’s no way you can keep yourself in it without having it be the one thing you want so badly. I definitely don’t want it that badly. I don’t know what I want, but I do know that spending three weeks riding a bicycle by myself in the middle of nowhere does not sound appealing right now.”

“What do you think you’ll do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe instead of going with you to Teasdale, I’ll just head up to Salt Lake and visit my family for a while, and then go back to Juneau. The sooner I get back to my job, the better, really.

“Really? That’s what you want to do?”

“I told you. I don’t know what I want.”

“And all that leave you took at your job, you’re just going to give up?”

“Somehow I don’t feel like I’m the one giving up,” I growled. “I think even you’d agree that the Divide is pretty frivolous compared to our situation. Why should I focus on that when I have to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life?”

“But why the rush?”

“Why wait?”

Geoff shook his head and stared forward. It occurred to me then that Geoff and I weren’t actually going to be spending any amount of time living in a cabin in the Utah desert. He never had any real intention of that happening. I guess I was the only one who clung to this vacuous dream, although I couldn’t think of many places I’d be less likely to endure. No, Geoff and I were going to split apart as soon as the car could no longer take us where we both needed to go.

We made it to Smithers, British Columbia, and drove to the doorstep of the home of Geoff’s friends, Kelly and Adrienne. I had never before met the couple, and had already grown weary of the “smile and pretend everything’s fine” routine I had tried to project since the initial split. At least amid the heavy tension inside the car, Geoff and I didn’t have to wear suffocating masks. But the alternative — trying to explain eight years worth of rejection rolled up in a really long drive — seemed impossible. Kelly and Adrienne only knew us as a couple. Geoff and I suited up to go out for our separate pre-dinner run and ride, and they laughed about our matching base layers. I returned from the bike ride to a table heaping with lentils and rice and three people laughing over near-empty glasses of wine. Life was so normal in Smithers, and I hated it.

Darkness seemed to descend more quickly in the southern latitudes. When I mentioned this to Kelly, she laughed, because in her mind, we were still in the “far” north. When the bottles of wine were drained, Geoff announced he was going to bed. I sat up and chatted with Kelly and Adrienne until the phone rang at 11:30 p.m. Adrienne answered the call. His voice quickly turned low and serious. “Uh huh. Hmmm. Where. Are you sure? On the river? Oh no. Hmmm. Well, I’ll check it out. Let me know if they need any help.”

Adrienne hung up the phone and Kelly and I stared at him, wide-eyed. “An ice dam backed up across the river,” he said grimly. “It’s coming up quick.”

“On the flats?” Kelly asked. Adrienne nodded.

“Where is that?” I asked.

“About a block from here,” Kelly said.

As Geoff continued sleeping, we pulled on warm coats and gloves and strode out into the night. Flashing lights spun through the darkness and sirens wailed. “The neighbor told us they’re rescuing people from trees,” Adrienne said. “The water’s coming up that fast.”

I shivered in the cold stillness. “Do you think we should all evacuate?” I said.

“She said the cops will come knock on the door if we have to go,” Adrienne said. “In the meantime, we should probably think about grabbing our valuables.”

“I already have the emergency kit in the car,” Kelly said. “We just have to grab the cat and the computer. Nothing else really matters.”

I thought about my car sitting in the driveway with my whole life inside of it. My bicycle rested on the roof rack. If the river would rise high enough to engulf the car and carry it away, it would release me from this whole twisted situation. I wouldn’t have to keep up the charade anymore. I would be free.

We walked down the street. Three doors down from Kelly and Adrienne’s house, we saw boiling black water rushing across the neighbor’s long gravel driveway. It filled the deep embankment below the street like a canal. We walked another block until we could see a roiling tributary of the actual river, and beside it were mobile homes nearly submerged in water. The windows and street lamps were eerily dark, the rushing water frighteningly loud.

“We should go back,” Kelly said, sounding nervous for the first time. “This is coming up really fast.”

Back at the house, Kelly and Adrienne started collecting belongings. I woke Geoff up and told him what was going on.

“Did they receive an evacuation order?” he asked groggily.

“No, not yet,” I answered.

“It’s probably fine,” he said. “The cops would be here by now if they thought the water was going to reach this level.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just look out the window. There are fire trucks and cop cars everywhere. They’re probably too busy rescuing people to do door-to-door evacuations.”

“So what are you saying? Are you saying you want to leave now?”

“No,” I said. “I just thought you should be aware, that’s all.”

Kelly knocked on the door. “Just talked to one of the police,” he said. “They’ve blocked off the road into the neighborhood, but he said the flood has tapered and they don’t think anybody on this side of the river will be affected. I’ll wait up to make sure, but it doesn’t seem like the flood is going to hit us.”

“That’s a relief,” I said. I felt a sting of guilty disappointment, too. If the river didn’t interrupt our anguishing march south, then it would have to continue as planned. I felt a strong urge to cut the trip off right there, but if the river didn’t make that decision for me, I was going to have to make it myself. I resigned myself to the long and continued descent to the Lower 48, because I knew I wasn’t strong enough to stop.