IT WAS PAST 7:30 when the waitress finally came around with the bill. Even though Olivia had her credit card ready, she still had to all but shove the little plastic tray back into the waitress’s hand to get her to run it immediately. At the rate they were going they wouldn’t make it to Ontonagon until after ten o’clock. Had they been going to a big hotel in a major city, it wouldn’t have mattered. But only a few cities in the Upper Peninsula even had big chain hotels, and Ontonagon wasn’t one of them.
What awaited them was not room service and down pillows and streaming TV but a tiny one-room cabin with beds that had probably been there for forty years. Or rather, bed. They would be sharing, like they used to do on the hide-a-bed in the family room when Mom and Dad let them have a “sisters’ sleepover” and fall asleep watching a movie.
Olivia explained their weather delay to the owner over the phone, and he graciously said that he’d be up until at least ten but that his wife went to bed at nine. If he was too tired to stay up, he would just leave the cabin unlocked with the key inside. Olivia also called the park headquarters to ask about the trail conditions after the rain, but she had to leave a message.
The deluge had let up some while they were eating, and the dash to the car parked on the street outside was easier than the dash inside had been. Melanie’s hair was curlier than ever in the wet air. As Olivia checked the rearview mirror for traffic, she saw that hers was flat and lifeless. She’d meant for both of them to take showers tonight so they’d be fresh for the morning and get out of the cabin as early as possible, but the long day of driving had taken a toll on her energy reserves, and she was sure she’d fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
As they left Marquette, the sky ahead was dark with clouds obscuring an early sunset.
The next two hours on the road were quiet. The rain was light yet persistent, and Olivia found it impossible to relax. She sat upright away from the seat back, gripping the steering wheel in both hands and scanning the edges of her headlights for eyeshine that would indicate a deer that might leap out in front of the car. She was used to city driving, which was never very dark and where the largest animal you might hit was a raccoon. Here in the sparsely populated western UP, even her brights couldn’t illuminate enough for her tastes, and any time an oncoming car appeared, she had to turn them off.
She tried and failed to avoid thinking of her parents. It had been dark and rainy then too—for them at least. When it all happened, she and Melanie were far away, sleeping in tents along with four other friends, out of reach and out of touch on the backcountry trails of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It had been warm and dry on the trail, and they were on their second of three planned overnights on the long Labor Day weekend. That day they had explored caves in the sandstone cliffs that had been carved out of the rock by the wave action on Lake Superior. They had splashed in the frigid water, baked in the warm sun, and marveled at the clear blue of the sky and turquoise of the lake. Everything was perfect.
It was sometime after they had roasted marshmallows over the campfire, Olivia figured later, that the accident occurred. That was when the six friends had coupled up—which had been Olivia’s plan all along—and edged away from the firelight for a little privacy. She’d carefully chosen the group to include three potential couples with similar interests. She and Eric were both heading into their senior year of college and were into all the same bands. Melanie and Keith were both going to be sophomores and were artistic. And her friends Bryce and Lisa were both junior-year fitness nuts.
She’d never played matchmaker before, but like almost everything else she tried, she found she had a knack for it. It was all about taking what she knew about each person and projecting it into the future. What was cute and quirky now but would get nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying later? Which strengths could balance out which weaknesses? Could at least one person in every couple be reasonably expected to make a decent living? She’d thought of everything.
Before she could see her plan come to full fruition, she was found by a ranger and taken aside along with her little sister. She was startled at first to hear a perfect stranger ask her if she was Olivia Greene, but then she remembered that all of their names were on the campsite registrations for particular nights. All a ranger had to do was look for her on the right part of the trail, which could be easily deduced by where they had slept the night before and where they planned to sleep that night.
She couldn’t recall later exactly what the ranger said. The details were erased by the numb shock. All she knew in that moment was that her parents had been in an accident, that they had been taken to a hospital, and that she and Melanie needed to get home. The six of them silently followed the ranger down a two-mile access trail to his truck. They piled the packs in the back and squeezed seven people into seating for five, then he drove them back to Eric’s Explorer.
The logistics of getting Olivia and Melanie home to Rockford and getting everyone else back to campus in Ann Arbor were ironed out with a few phone calls. The hikers would meet Olivia and Melanie’s Uncle Craig in Lansing, and he would take them the rest of the way home. The others would continue on back to the University of Michigan. What no one told them until Uncle Craig had delivered them back to their house, where Aunt Susan and Grandma Ann were waiting, was that both of their parents had died from their injuries before they reached the hospital.
They were just . . . gone.
In the week that followed, the gray haze of grief colored everything. It obscured the faces of friends and family, dulled the sounds of conversations and eulogy and hymns. It settled into Olivia’s spirit until her dreams, which were inevitably nightmares, felt more real than her waking hours. She felt as though she was slipping silently into a still pond and if she went all the way under she might never resurface.
Her solution was to get back to school as soon as possible. Her classes offered the distraction she needed. Melanie had gone the other direction. She dropped out of school, spent two years emptying and selling their childhood home with Aunt Susan’s help, and then fell into a pretty severe depression that Olivia had never truly known the scope of, though Aunt Susan kept sending her emails that hinted at it and suggested that Olivia may want to get in touch with her little sister.
But getting in touch with Melanie meant having to face all of the emotions she had been avoiding. And it meant dealing with her rage over the fact that Melanie had betrayed them all by forgiving the guy who’d caused the accident and who’d walked away unscathed. Using law school as a convenient excuse, Olivia managed to avoid her family and her memories for years. Until Melanie came after her.
The move north to Petoskey helped Melanie begin to break out of the hold depression had on her, but even Olivia had to admit that it was starting a blog that really made the most difference. A blog that became a YouTube channel that became a life coaching business. Melanie got better and had apparently made it her mission in life to get other people better too.
Olivia knew that was what this trip was about. Melanie had arranged just the right combination of things to force Olivia to face the past—a long car drive, a remote hiking trip, music from their childhood in the CD player. In the end, Olivia had acquiesced to Melanie’s harping. But she put her foot down on the location. Melanie had wanted to return to Pictured Rocks to finish the hike they had started ten years before. But there was no way Olivia would ever set foot on that trail again. She knew she’d recognize the exact spot where that ranger had appeared out of the trees to tell her the worst news she would ever receive. She would go hiking if it would get Melanie to leave her alone. Just not there. Never there.
They pulled up to the main-office cabin at 10:08 p.m. Though the rain had been lighter much of the way there, they’d hit another downpour a few miles from the motel.
“Stay in the car,” Olivia said. “I’ll check us in and get the key.”
She dashed out, arms above her head to fend off the torrent, then yanked on the front door to no avail. A man of about sixty wearing a robe was rounding the front desk. He hurried to the door and turned the lock, ushering her in.
“Oh, come in, come in! I’m so glad to see you made it.” He tugged lightly on Olivia’s arm and shut the door behind her.
A woman, also in a robe, came out from behind the counter. “We were so worried.”
Olivia wiped the wet hair from her face and was about to speak when she found that she couldn’t. A lump had risen suddenly in her throat, and she felt—absurdly—like she was about to cry.
“Oh! You’re soaked!” the woman said, rushing into action. She snatched a towel from the cupboard beneath the coffee maker and handed it to Olivia as the man pulled her farther into the room. “And you’re limping, you poor thing.”
She was?
“Where’s your sister?”
Olivia pointed out the door. “Car,” she managed. What was wrong with her? She stood in courtrooms with people who had done despicable things to their fellow human beings—deceptions, beatings, rapes, murders—and had never had a problem controlling her emotions. Why was it so hard to check into a stupid little cabin?
She took a deep breath. “We’re here. And ready for bed.”
“I bet you are,” the man said. “Willa?”
The woman pulled a key from the wall behind the counter and pointed. “It’s the third one down. The lights are on for you. Wanted you to be able to see it in the dark.”
Olivia nodded. “I’m so sorry we kept you up. It wasn’t my intention to arrive so late. I had it all scheduled out and—”
“Nonsense,” the man broke in. “You can’t schedule everything. Weather will have its way.”
“Bernie, what about the road? Don’t forget that,” Willa said.
Bernie shook his head. “No, these girls are going west, to the Porkies, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Olivia said, surprised to realize that she wasn’t at all upset about this man referring to her as a girl. “What road?”
“It’s nothing,” Bernie said.
“It’s not nothing,” Willa protested. “Up in Houghton they’ve had roads washed clean away today by this storm. Had no rain all summer—dry as a bone out there—then all this rain all at once. Ground can’t keep up with it.”
“But they’re not going to Houghton, they’re hiking the Porkies,” Bernie said. Willa seemed about to speak again, but her husband cut her off. “The road out there is fine. The trail may be another matter. But maybe it won’t be so bad. It certainly was a dry season. Now let’s let these girls get some sleep.”
Willa gripped Olivia’s hand. “Do be careful out there. I worry so much about hikers, especially if you don’t have any men in your group.”
Olivia laughed at that. “Oh, don’t worry about us. We’ve managed so far without men. I’m sure we’ll be just fine.” She gave Bernie a wink, which he returned. “Well, I better get back out to my sister. Oh! When do I pay? We’ll be getting out early tomorrow morning.”
“We’re up at six, dear,” Willa said. “Now go get some sleep.”
“Thank you, again, for staying up so late.”
“No problem,” Bernie said. He unlocked the door for her, and she rushed back into the car.
“Everything okay with the room?” Melanie said. “You were in there a long time.”
“Yeah,” Olivia said. “We just got talking. They’re a nice couple.”
At that moment she knew why she’d found it so hard to speak at first. Bernie and Willa looked to be about how old her parents would be now, and they had been up late, worried and watching for her and her sister to come in out of the storm.
Olivia quickly pulled the car away to where the floodlight could not illuminate her face and then idled slowly toward the third cabin on the left. She parked as close to the door as possible, glad she’d packed a separate bag for this overnight stay so she wouldn’t have to lug her pack in through the rain. In less than a minute, she and Melanie were inside with their things, shaking the water out of their hair and taking in their new surroundings.
The room was small, only about the width of a double bed and two nightstands. Along one wall was the door to a tiny bathroom. Another wall was lined with a small refrigerator topped with a microwave, a narrow sink, a two-burner stovetop, and a petite table with two chairs, above which was a laughably out-of-place flat-screen TV. So maybe they did have streaming up here.
Olivia dumped her stuff on the table and turned on the TV. She didn’t have to search for the local news and weather channel. It must be what everyone watched before they left for the day’s adventures. Footage of the flooding up in Houghton was terrible, but it wasn’t what she was looking for. She scanned the ticker for anything that included the Porcupine Mountains. She heard Melanie moving about behind her—using the bathroom, brushing her teeth, changing into pajamas. The ticker repeated itself three full times. Nothing new.
Finally, Olivia turned around to find Melanie snug under the covers, writing in a journal. She could read no anxiety on her little sister’s face. In fact, Melanie smiled contentedly as she scribbled away.
“What are you writing?” Olivia said.
“Oh, just notes about the day.” Melanie looked up. “Did the news have anything on that motorcycle accident?”
Olivia had nearly forgotten the accident. “I don’t think so.”
“I tried to see if I could find anything before we left Marquette, but the only articles about accidents were years old. And you know there had to be more than the one accident in all that rain. I don’t understand how search engines work. Maybe there should just be one website where all accidents are reported and then followed up on, so you can find out what happened after the accident.”
Olivia wished she would stop saying the word accident.
“It could be like the Weather Channel. But, like, the Accident Channel, you know?”
“I’m getting ready for bed.” Olivia disappeared into the bathroom. Since she was already all wet, she might as well take a shower. The tiny stall was tight quarters for someone as tall as she was, and the well water smelled faintly of sulfur, but the towels were soft. She slipped into clean pj’s and took a moment to savor the feeling. Soon she’d be grimier than she had been in many years.
When she came out of the bathroom, Melanie had switched from her journal to a book. Olivia got into bed and tried to look surreptitiously at the cover.
Melanie tipped the cover toward her. “It’s about a man who hiked the Appalachian Trail solo after he lost his wife to cancer,” she explained. “It’s really good.”
Olivia turned away and switched off the lamp on her side of the bed.
“Do you want me to turn this off?” Melanie said.
“No, you can read.”
“Do you want me to read to you?”
“No. I’m going to sleep.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t stay up too late,” Olivia said. “I have my alarm set for seven o’clock. Enough time to check out, eat, and get to the park headquarters to check in when they open at eight. If you have to take a shower tomorrow morning, make it quick.” She kneaded her pillow, laid her head down, and closed her eyes. Tomorrow would come quickly.
Sleep would not.