SERVE

(Peak Wilderness, Day Thirteen)

Dear Mom,

1. (I love you forever but) fuck you for doing this to me.

2. After two days of feeling relatively normal, I started my day by screaming myself (and everyone else) awake from a nightmare, and I am a wreck again. Months and months like this. How am I supposed to keep going, Mom?

Bonnie, Tavik, and I were there in our sleeping bags, her and Tavik groggy and probably still full of adrenaline from the horror-movie wake-up, while I was curled up in the tightest ball I could make, and crying.

“Is this related to what happened with Peace?” Bonnie asked.

“That fuckface,” Tavik murmured.

“No,” I said. Although being assaulted by him certainly hasn’t been a help, either.

“All right. I realize this is a personal matter, Ingrid,” Bonnie said, “but . . .”

“Yes . . . ?”

“It’s obvious to all of us that you’ve suffered . . . some trauma.”

For some reason this comment helped shut the tears off, and suddenly I found myself laughing.

“What’s funny?” Bonnie said, looking confused.

I kept laughing. I couldn’t stop. But I didn’t have an answer for her, Mom.

Trauma. Such a small word, only two syllables.

I can’t go to bed for a year, if that’s what’s supposed to happen next. And I can’t cry my way through school when I get to London, either. I am not giving up the one thing that can give some meaning and purpose to this crazy life of mine. Which means somehow I have to pull myself together. Again.

Love, et cetera,
Ingrid

Tavik, I suspect, thinks I’m crazy.

And kind of likes it.

And wants to confirm it.

I first realize this when we set out for Day Thirteen’s hike, which is the last before we start canoeing, and he lines up right behind me, and says. “I think you might have a multiple personality disorder.”

“Very funny,” I say, starting onto the path behind Melissa, who has taken over as leader.

“No, really,” he says, following. “You started the day screaming, then you were crying, that changed to laughing, and now you’re not talking at all.”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“Not because you want to.”

“Those aren’t personalities, Tavik; they’re expressions of emotion. I’m messed up, sure. But it’s not like I turn into someone who calls herself Betsy.”

“If you say so . . . Betsy,” he says.

And it does cause me to smile, a little.

“So . . . ?” he says a few minutes later as we head up the side of a long, steep ridge overlooking the lake.

“So what?”

“It’s pretty here.”

“Yes,” I say, keeping my face forward, mostly because I don’t want to fall on it.

“You crying?”

“No.”

“You going to tell me the rest of that life story of yours?”

“Not today, Tavik,” I say, reaching up to rub my temples, which are aching, and pausing to catch my breath. “Why don’t you tell me about some bad guys instead? Or, no offense, but I wouldn’t mind just . . . hiking.”

“What—you want to listen to the trees? Or, you know, the voices in your head?”

“Ha-ha.”

“That’s cool,” he says, like he totally doesn’t care.

But I can tell he’s offended, because when we set off again, he goes way to the back of the line, and that makes me feel like crap. More like crap, that is.

The good news is that this final hike is only four hours, and we therefore arrive at camp in the afternoon. Even better, neither Bonnie nor Pat forces us into any organized group activity, which means we finally have the day I’ve been wishing for—one in which I can wash my stuff, lay it out in the sun, and try to regroup.

Harvey lends/gives me his bar of soap—he’s clearly doing his best to go feral, though not in a creepy, Peace-Bob sort of way—and it takes me over an hour to get everything lathered up, scrubbed, rinsed, and wrung out to my satisfaction. When I’m finished, I climb onto one of the heaping stretches of orange, pink, and gray granite that surrounds our beach, where I lay each piece of clothing out, and anchor it carefully with stones I collected and set out in advance. The rock is warm, the sun is hot, there’s a gentle breeze . . .

And I am screwed if it rains, because I washed everything except the bikini I’m wearing.

As it is, getting the sleeping bag completely dry is a dodgy proposition.

Below me, a few other people are also washing clothing or airing it out; others are playing cards, swimming, or sitting around having earnest-looking conversations.

I consider joining them.

But then I’ll be expected to talk, and Tavik is only biding his time before coming after me again for my life story. I should never have started telling it to him. What is it with people anyway, expecting me to want to talk about things, as if talking will make them better?

So, instead of rejoining the group, I lie back on the warm stone, my clean clothes drying around me, close my eyes, and stare at the inside of my eyelids, pretending to be asleep so no one will bother me.

Seven more days. I only have to survive seven more days of this.

Serve them, more like.

And then, everything will be perfect.

Sure.