“Ma! Why are you so obsessed with that stupid anthropomorphized-seagull book?”
Me as a high-schooler, badgering her. Embarrassed that she had chosen Jonathan Livingston Seagull, of all books. Anthropomorphized was one of my favorite new words and I used it frequently back then. I asked again—“What’s with you and that seagull?”—but she remained silent. So I stole the book from her nightstand one Wednesday night, when she was at choir practice, and I read it myself to see what the fuss was about. At first I was looking for a hint—a friendship, a romance, a mystery, something funny, something sad, something, anything—to see what kept her so riveted.
Now I thought, You were looking for her. You were trying to figure out your mother.
All I knew back then was that the book made no sense. It was about a seagull who could travel anywhere he wanted, at any time he wanted, by the sheer force of his mind. A seagull who believed that if he just thought hard enough and long enough, if he focused all his powers, he would transform.
I read it all that one Wednesday night, and then again the next Wednesday night, and a final time a week later. Searching for a clue. A trail of bread crumbs to follow.
Now I thought, She was looking for a way out.
She wouldn’t have expressed it like that. She would not have wanted me to think she longed for a way out of her life. She wouldn’t have wanted me to feel bad, as if I were holding her back. And I didn’t. I didn’t question my mother’s life. The life she was living must be the life she wanted to live, was what I assumed. Back then I didn’t think anything could stop a person from living any life he or she wanted. It was up to the individual, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it up to you and the power of your mind to focus your thoughts and make your life unfold the way you wanted?
Now I thought, Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a beautiful, heartbreaking book.
Now I thought, What this book says is that there is a way out if only you work hard enough.
Now I thought, My mother worked so, so hard.
* * *
It was the day before the procedure and I got up early. One more day. Twenty-four hours. I placed the folder that held my will—all my money to the care of my mother, and all my earthly possessions to Sunshine and Brown, and my silver earring to Chris, and The Velveteen Rabbit to Eli Chamberlain—on the first rung of the ladder that led to the sleeping loft and my bed of books, and then I turned the key in the lock.
One last hike. Bald Mountain. The fallen leaves were coated with frost that looked like dried salt. Half an hour on the trail and the feeling began to spread inside me, the same feeling that hiking always brought to my body, a flickering sensation that grew until it was me and I was it.
Climbing.
Leaving the world behind.
The sound of trucks and cars on Route 28 receded. The sound of the wind intensified. The bare limbs of oaks and poplars were leafless, and the higher I went, the stronger the wind blew.
Be fearless, Clara. From now on, be fearless.
Long ago I used to hike this mountain with Asa, back when we were teenagers. He used to run down the mountains we hiked up. I would watch him disappear ahead of me on the trail. He laughed when he ran. The way I made my way down was the way most people did, by bracing my knees a little with each step. Fearful, then and now, to run down mountains.
There was so much to fear in this world. Avalanches, sudden blizzards, car crashes, bridge collapses, tunnel cave-ins. Death by freezing, death by fire, death by madmen with assault rifles. Failure. Heartbreak. Gene mutations.
Once, when I was eleven and beginning to understand the world of fear and loss, I looked out the kitchen window of our house in Sterns to see a big black bird on the lawn. The word raven appeared in my mind, like a message from poor dead Poe, and fear swarmed up in me. Something bad was about to happen. Someone I loved was in great danger. Was it Tamar? All that day I waited, consumed with worry. Where was the danger, and how could I make it not happen; what were the signs I needed to look for, and where was I supposed to look for them?
Inch by excruciating inch the day passed. Tamar came home from work and we ate beans and corn and pickles out of cans. She was alive. She was alive, and tired, and hungry. She was not hurt.
But you were hurt, Clara. That was my thought as I made my way up and up and up, through the bare and muted trees. You were hurt. All that worry hurt you, and all that fear. All that wondering how you could possibly stop whatever was going to happen from happening. A foreshadowing of loss to come. But loss came to everyone. The bus careened around the corner, the sheet of plywood fell from the overhead stack, the gene mutation revealed itself.
“It’s best to have low expectations,” I said once to Sunshine.
“It’s best to have no expectations,” she countered. “Best, but impossible.”
I thought about that sometimes. Like now, where the final part of the trail turned to rock. Almost at the summit now. Not far to the Rondaxe Fire Tower. Asa had been with me the last time I climbed the tower. We had stood at the top—it was rickety back then, rusty and neglected, not restored the way it was now—and watched the sun sinking against the western sky. A mile back down to the trailhead but neither of us wanted to leave.
No one else was out today. Too late in the day, too late in the season. Tomorrow they would thread the wires through my veins and into the heart of my heart, and then they would set it on fire.
The summit. That vast expanse of sky and mountains and trees stretching all around me. The valley spread out below. To the west were the Adirondacks, my home, and to the east, beyond the smoky purple-blue horizon, were the Green Mountains. Beyond them were the White Mountains, where I had gone to college.
Be fearless, Clara.
I turned and started back down. Daylight was fading and by the time I reached the trailhead the sky would be a red glow. I pictured my heart the way it would look tomorrow, lit with fire from the inside in that one tiny, misfiring place. I pictured Asa all those years ago, running ahead of me down the mountain. I heard the sound of my own voice calling to him, laughing but also afraid. Of what? Falling? He had run; why hadn’t I? How hard could it be?
Not at all, as it turned out.
Maybe running down the trail felt to me the way flying felt to a bird. I remembered that first airplane flight, back when I was seventeen, from Syracuse to Ohio, how I had looked around for someone who felt the way I did and found the businessman looking at me with recognition in his eyes. It’s a miracle, isn’t it? That was what he had said to me, and all these years later I could still hear his voice in my ears. I flew down the last slope of the trail, arms held out to touch the trees as I passed, and then I signed my name in the ranger’s book and called Chris. Heart Surgery for $1600. The Daily Double.
* * *