The next day, Maud headed to Mexico with Jess’s ashes in a little red balsa-wood box on the passenger seat. She’d told Stuart, I’m doing this my way, and he had not argued. It had been a long time since they’d argued, anyway. Nothing to argue about anymore. In Calexico, she stopped for gas. She watched the sun glare off the hoods of the cars in line for the border. Exhaust fumes wavered off the asphalt. The gas station was too far from the ocean for her to smell it, but she thought she did, a tangy, humid brine.
Two hours later, Maud pulled the truck into a tiny beach inlet off the rutted track to their secluded spot near San Felipe, Mexico. She hadn’t seen another car on the road in over an hour. Nothing for miles but ocean on one side, desert on the other. Sparse cardón cactus and ocotillo dotted the bone earth, too spindly to offer shade. Sweat soaked her tank top and the waistband of her cotton shorts. She could feel it pooling under her breasts, soaking the bathing suit she wore underneath. She wiped her damp forehead, patted her curls, put her hand on the red box. The vise grip in her chest loosened as she stared at the expanse of the blue-gray Sea of Cortez. She murmured, “We’re here, J-bird.”
At the water’s edge, Maud stripped off her shorts and tank top and kicked off her flip-flops, down to the one-piece she’d dug out of a drawer as she packed, the elastic shot at the straps and legs. She cradled the little red box. She couldn’t see anything but land, sky, and sea. The water, warm in the shallow part around her ankles, grew colder as she waded deeper. She stumbled into the waves with a gasp as the water hit her overheated skin and stiff muscles. She turned onto her back, the box propped on her chest, and started kicking toward the horizon.
She stopped and floated, closing her eyes against the trumpet-bright glare. The salt water held her up, took her weight. After days of little sleep, and after the long, dusty drive, she breathed deeply.
I wish I could write you a poem, J-bird. To really tell you how I feel. How hard this is. How hard it is to let go.
All right, Starshine. All right, my blue-winged girl. It’s time for you to go now.
Maud sat up, treading water, holding the box above the surface. Then she set the box on the water and gave it a little push. The balsa wood floated away, a sad and listing ship. Eventually, it took on water, the gritty ashes inside growing heavier, and it went down. It sank out of view, the quick flutter of a fish, the strange flash of a firefly.
Maud climbed to the beach in a worn swimsuit that gapped around the thighs. She returned to the hotel. She stripped off her suit, showered, and then went outside onto the balcony, wrapped in her towel. Here she was, in her safe place. She thought of her nice counselor, trying to get her through it. What do you see for yourself, Maud?
She saw herself standing on a hotel balcony in Mexico. Not the balcony she’d stood on during her honeymoon, when she was young and slender and wide-eyed, reaching for the sky. No, she saw herself now, an hour or so after she had let the little red box sink.
She dropped the towel and stood naked, facing the water. There she stood, sagging at the breasts and belly, gray up top and down below and wrinkled and with a fat varicose vein blooming on the back of her thigh. She lifted her arms, the skin beneath drooping—flying squirrel wings, Rachel called them, flappity-flap. She saw a glint, a flicker of light in the distance. And what do you know. There was the whole wide world. It was still there, waiting.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the University of Montevallo for financial support during the writing of this book. Enormous thanks also to Poets & Writers and Maureen Egen for the Writers Exchange Award and the Jentel Artist Residency, where I completed the first draft.
Different versions of two chapters first appeared as stories in literary journals: “The New Girl” in The Fourth River and “Say You See the World” (as “In My Former Life”) in Cutbank. I remain grateful for those first publications and for lit journals everywhere.
To my agent, Henry Dunow: Thank you for your belief, encouragement, patience, sharp eye, advice, and good humor. To everyone at Harper who shepherded this manuscript, especially my editor, Emily Griffin, a brilliant reader with a wicked eye and a gigantic heart: Thank you for your love of books and for putting mine into the world.
Thanks to the members of the Faculty Workgroup at the University of Montevallo, who plowed through the first messy pages and helped me find my way. Timothy Winkler and Elizabeth Wetmore, whom I trust with my life as well as my words, read from top to bottom repeatedly and saved me from myself. All flaws are mine, not theirs.
My writing path has been forged through invaluable mentorships and friendships. At Vanderbilt, I thank my lucky stars for Lorraine López, Tony Earley, Nancy Reisman, Peter Guralnick, Kate Daniels, Mark Jarman, Rick Hilles, Mark Schoenfield, Dana Nelson, Teresa Goddu, and Margaret Quigley; big love to my MFA classmates for their talent, humor, and kindness, especially Meredith K. Gray and Alex Moody. I owe so much to the remarkable teachings of Ron Carlson, Maxine Clair, Pam Houston, Jill McCorkle, Richard Bausch, Bret Lott, and Ann Cummins. Boundless thanks to the wondrous Tayari Jones, Joy Castro, Kevin Wilson, Toni Jensen, Matthew Pitt, Mike Croley, and Mare Biddle. Side Hugs Forever to Marjorie Sa’adah, Justin Quarry, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, Nina McConigley, Derek Palacio, Jennine Cápo Crucet, Alejandro Nodarse, Stephanie Pruitt, Lee Conell, BG Cross, David Roby, Amy Arthur, and Robie Jackson. I send bouquets of thanks to my superb students, colleagues, and friends from UNC-Charlotte and the University of Montevallo, with extra love to Stephanie Batkie, Matt Irvin, Betsy Inglesby, Jen Rickel, Glenda Conway, and Steve Forrester.
To the old-school crews: Nikki, Missy, Gigi, Brando, Beth, Jorge, Tiffy Sue, Rick, Case, Dr. JJ, and all the kiddos in between: Look at all these years, friends. Miss and love you always.
To all my families, born and made: the Chancellors, Winklers, Cowans, Dozemans, and Skaggses. I always feel you with me. To my mom, Cathy: You’re my shining beacon. My late father, Alan, is always in my heart.
Again, and always, to Timothy Winkler: You make this whole wide world go ’round.