Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.
Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation!
(RUMI)
Bentley tugs hard on the leash, pulling Brenna away from Georgialee. They’re walking north along a trail that follows the winding Seymour River. Although they’re only a few minutes from Brenna’s neighborhood, it feels like they’re miles from anywhere, as the forest is thick and unspoiled around them.
“You can let him go off leash here,” Georgialee says.
Brenna unclips the leash and smiles at Bentley’s joy as he leaps away.
“So how was your hike yesterday?” Georgialee asks.
“It was hard. It always is.”
“I don’t want to know about the hiking part,” Georgialee says. “It’s the hiking-with-Ryan part I want to know more about.”
“There’s not much to tell. Honest. I’m his service project. When he was going through a rough time, my mom came along and helped him out. He’s paying it forward by trying to help me out.”
“Hiking the Grouse Grind is his idea of helping you out?”
Brenna feels a wave of defensiveness wash through her. “He says that if I get stronger physically, I’ll also get stronger in other ways.”
“And? Is it working?”
“All I know is that when I’m on the Grind and every muscle from the waist down is screaming in pain and I can hardly get my breath and I’m soaked in sweat, well, I forget about the other pain for a while.”
Georgialee starts to say something but stops herself. Brenna knows it took her a moment to figure out what the other pain refers to.
“Did someone die in his family?” she asks quietly.
Brenna nods. “His brother. A car accident.”
They walk along the trail in silence for a while.
“Can I give you some advice, Bren?”
“Yeah. What?”
“If you like this Ryan guy, you should find something else to do with him.”
Brenna frowns. “Why?”
“Because the image of you all stinky and sweaty with your face twisted in pain…well, it’s not too attractive.”
Brenna swats her friend’s arm. “I’m not trying to be attractive.”
Georgialee shakes her head.
They’ve reached the place where the river widens into a pool with a deep center before spilling over an edge of rocks to continue its winding journey to the ocean. The pool is a popular spot for swimming in the summer months, but it’s deserted today. Brenna walks across the rocky beach. She finds a flat-topped boulder and sits on it.
“Scootch over.” Georgialee sits beside her, their shoulders pressed together. They watch as Bentley paddles at the shoreline.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Brenna says, finally finding the nerve to bring up the topic that’s troubling her.
“What’s that?”
“I got a Facebook message from my biological aunt.”
Georgialee turns to look at her. Brenna proceeds to fill her in on the messages they’ve exchanged as well as telling her about Kia’s journal. “And last night I finally got up the courage to ask Angie about Kia. I want to know what’s going on in her life.”
Georgialee doesn’t say anything. After a few moments she climbs off the large rock and starts searching the beach for flat rocks. When she’s collected a few, she flings one into the center of the swimming hole, trying to make it skip. Bentley thinks it’s an invitation to a game of fetch and swims toward the place where the rock entered the river, but after a quick search he realizes there is nothing to retrieve and paddles back. Georgialee continues to throw rocks and Bentley continues his futile attempts to retrieve them. Brenna wonders what is going through her friend’s mind.
Eventually Georgialee returns to the boulder and sits back down. Bentley follows her up the rocky beach, and when he reaches Brenna he begins shaking the water off. “Bentley!” she screams, turning away from the spray.
Bentley simply looks up at her, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. It’s clear to her that he’s smiling. She shakes her head and smiles back. His presence is almost as good as the Grouse Grind for making her forget.
“So do you really want to reunite with your birth mom?” Georgialee finally asks.
“Who said anything about that?”
“Well, that’s where this is going, isn’t it? You’ve continued to write back and forth with this Angie. Why would you bother unless you wanted to reestablish ties with Kia?”
It was just like Georgialee to get right to the heart of things.
“I don’t know.”
“Then I think you should figure that out before you keep exchanging messages with Kia’s sister.”
“My aunt.”
“Yeah, she’s your aunt biologically, but she’s never been an acting aunt. You have good aunts. Women who care about you. Real aunts.”
“What makes them more real than Angie?”
Georgialee shoots Brenna a look. “You don’t need me to answer that question.”
Brenna doesn’t respond, but she remembers that Ryan asked her much the same thing, only in different words. He called it opening a can of worms.
Sept. 12
It’s easy for her to say.
She has a biological mom, alive and well.
She doesn’t know what it’s like to have a whole family out there, people she’s never met. An aunt, grandparents. A mother. A father. Maybe they’ve had more children, which could mean I have other brothers and sisters. They could live in my neighborhood—right next door—and I wouldn’t even know.
I love Dad and my family, but I can’t stop thinking about my biological ones. Do I have the same mannerisms as them? Do I like the same food? Who did I inherit my double-jointed fingers from? My long legs? Is my love of spicy food inherited, or is it unique to me? I want to know these things!
Brenna huddles under the overhang of the Ski Wee cabin. Grinder, followed by Coola, glances at her as they amble past on the other side of the fence.
“I know,” she says to them. “It’s gross. Go into your bear den and stay dry. No tourists are going to be crazy enough to come out today.”
As if they understand, they continue across the enclosure through the drizzling rain and finally disappear into the fog. Brenna shivers as a gust of wind drives the rain straight at her.
A human figure emerges from the fog on her side of the fence, carrying a cup in each hand. As soon as she recognizes him she adjusts the ballcap she pulled on when it started raining.
“Hey,” she says as Ryan joins her under the overhang. He hands her a cup. She can smell the hot chocolate even though the cups have lids. “You read my mind. I was just thinking I needed something to warm me up.”
“Yep, I heard your thoughts clear across the mountain.” He leans back against the building and takes a sip. “Where are the boys today?”
“They just walked by. With no tourists to entertain, they’ve probably decided to have an early nap. And maybe they wanted to get out of the rain, though I never really thought it bothered them much. Their coats are so thick.”
“Yeah, it’s a really nasty day. Only Grouse employees on the tram today. Lots of prep to get the mountain ready for the ski season.”
Brenna takes a long swallow. The hot chocolate is rich and creamy. She thinks about the approaching ski season. It will mean that the bears’ habitat will become smaller as the fencing is taken down and stored until spring. The bears will eventually go into their man-made bear den for winter hibernation, oblivious to the skiers, snowboarders and snowshoers.
“So what’s new with you?” Ryan asks after a few moments of comfortable silence.
Brenna continues to warm her hands on her cup. “I got up the nerve to write to my biological aunt and ask her what had become of my mom,” she blurts out.
“Kia.”
“Right.”
“And?”
“That was Wednesday night, and she still hasn’t responded.”
Ryan doesn’t say anything. He’s watching a whiskey jack that has landed on the fence beside them. It fluffs up its feathers, trying to shed the raindrops.
Brenna reaches into her pocket and pulls out a couple of peanuts. She stretches her arm toward the bird. He tilts his head, regarding her, and then flies off the fence, perches on her hand for as long as it takes to swallow the peanuts and flies off.
“Cool!” Ryan says.
“The tourists love it,” Brenna tells him.
“Did you train him to do that?” he asks.
“No, whiskey jacks are really bold. My mom used to feed them when we went camping. I was too scared to in those days.”
The memory is bittersweet. Every time a new one surfaces, she feels a pang of sadness. Will she ever stop missing her? It seems like the more time that goes by, the worse it gets. So much for the theory that it will get easier with time.
“You’re not afraid of them anymore?”
“No.” She smiles. “I can’t even remember why I was so scared of them.”
“So…” Ryan pauses and then says, “How are you going to feel if you never hear back from Angie?”
“Rejected. Again.”
“Again?”
“It feels like Kia rejected me by not staying in touch. Though actually,” she adds, “Dad told me that it was really me who rejected her in the end. I was too shy to go on outings with her.”
Ryan nods.
“But she was the grown-up. I was just a kid. She could have kept trying.” She takes a deep breath and sighs. “I guess I could call Justin, the minister, and see what he can tell me.”
There’s a movement in the bear habitat, and Coola reappears through the mist.
“I guess it isn’t naptime after all,” Brenna says.
They watch as the huge grizzly lumbers past. “He’s gotten fat!” Ryan comments.
“Yeah, they’ve been getting a lot more food these last few weeks. They need to put on a couple hundred pounds each before hibernation.”
“Whoa. That’s so cool.”
“I know.”
“What do you do when they’re in hibernation?”
“I’ll take the winter off and come back in the spring when they wake up.”
“Good thing you’re my hiking partner then.”
She glances at him.
“So that I still get to see you.” He glances at his watch. “I’ve got to go. Same time tomorrow?”
“Yep, and thanks for the hot chocolate. I really needed that today.”
He crumples up his cup and drops it into a garbage bin as he walks away. Brenna expects him to head back across the mountain, but he turns and walks toward her instead. He pauses in front of her and then pulls her into a hug.
“Angie may have good reasons for not wanting to talk about her sister. Try not to read too much into it,” he says.
Brenna is so startled by the hug that she doesn’t return it. After a moment he releases her but quickly kisses her cheek and then runs back into the bank of fog. He turns once to wave before he disappears.
Brenna sinks into the scented bubbles. She’s still chilled to the core from her day on the mountain, but the warm bathwater immediately brings relief. She sighs and closes her eyes. Her thoughts return to Ryan, and she smiles. She’d missed his tram on the trip down the mountain, but she’d seen him in the one going up, which was empty except for him, as the two trams passed each other. She’d waved and he’d waved back, and he kept waving until she couldn’t see his tram anymore.
Sept. 14
It was just a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
It probably means nothing.
I know it means nothing.
I haven’t felt this good in months.
Brenna checks her Facebook messages, hoping to find one from Angie that she might have missed, but there is nothing. She scrolls through the posts from her friends. Most of them contain links to other sites, and she can’t be bothered to open them. She’s about to shut it off when a new message appears.
Hi, Brenna,
Here’s my email address. Write to me here and then I’ll have yours, and we can communicate that way. angiehazelnut@hotmail.com
Thanks,
Angie
As quickly as she can, Brenna copies the address, opens her email account and pastes it in the To field. In the subject line she types My email and then hits Send. She sits back and stares at her inbox. Five minutes pass. Ten minutes. She realizes how fast her breathing has become. What if Angie doesn’t get back to her tonight? Not able to sit still any longer, she gets up and stretches, then bends into a forward fold. She raises her arms, stands and flows into a sun salutation. After five of them she glances at her computer, but there are no new messages. She drops to the floor, lies on her back and moves into a twist, first on the right side, then on the left. She holds them as long as she can. When she looks up at her computer again, she sees that there is a new message in her inbox. Scrambling back into her chair, she clicks on the message.
From: angiehazelnut@hotmail.com
To: brennayoko@gmail.com
Hi, Brenna,
This is better. Thanks.
So, you asked about Kia. She works for an organization called Aid-A-Child International. Her job is to supervise volunteers working in orphanages in Africa. She has a passion for children. Most of these kids have AIDS. She’s been in Uganda for over a year.
I should tell you, I don’t think Kia would be very happy to hear that we are connecting this way. I really only wanted to write to tell you how sorry I was about your mom and couldn’t see the harm in that. I didn’t anticipate that we’d stay in touch, but I’m glad we have.
Tell me a little about yourself, Brenna. What school do you go to? What do you like to do when you’re not at school? I’m finishing up my university degree this year. I took time off after high school to work and travel. I hope to teach high school in the near future.
Angie
Brenna reads the letter twice. Kia? Working with orphans? She quickly googles Uganda and brings up a map of Africa to locate the country. It is on the east side of the continent and straddles the equator. Kia couldn’t get much farther away. Then Brenna looks up Aid-A-Child and reads about the work it does. It would be difficult, in hard conditions. Working with orphans, especially the ones with AIDS, would be especially hard.
Brenna shuts off the computer without responding to Angie. She lies on her bed and stares at the ceiling. Eventually she picks up her journal again.
I should be proud of Kia.
I’m not.
She’s so far away, doing important work.
She’s probably forgotten me.
I know those children need her.
But I need her too.
Brenna lies in bed on Sunday morning, still trying to absorb the new information about Kia. She picks up her pen and continues to write.
Sept. 15
Why would she be unhappy that Angie has contacted me? That hurts.
She’s not going to step back into my life. I am so stupid.
Everything sucks. What’s the matter with me? And I am not going to be Ryan’s project. I’m so pathetic.
She picks up her phone and texts Ryan.
Hey, Ryan. I’m not up to hiking today. Actually, I don’t think the hikes are working out. Thanks anyway. I’ll probably see you on my next shift.