Rescue
My son is buried somewhere on a western slope of the Cascade Mountains. The officers told me they can’t find his remains because the avalanche that consumed him and seven other volunteers was too massive. They said it happened during the same storm that doused the wildfire he was fighting, out there in the mountains, far from the comfort of his family. His family--his wife and two daughters--they were with me for a few days after we got the news. They’re gone now, because I’m miserable company.
None of this would have happened if I hadn’t moved us away from Middling, Illinois, so many years ago. But I guess you could say that about any decision, looking back.
My son, Ron, hasn’t come to visit me yet, in the spectral hours, to explain. Probably because he’s floating among his family now, trying to make things right. Or maybe he’s looking for his mother. Lately, she’s appeared in my room at night. She stands encased in the wall--neither inside nor out--and tells me to be patient, that they’ll find him and we’ll have peace. His grandmother comes too, usually just before dawn, only her head above the lampshade, saying that they’ll never find him and it shouldn’t matter anyway.
Why do I believe in these things? What is it about tragedy that leaves us groping for superstitions we know are absurd?
I sleep so much these days I’ve lost common sense. For a week I couldn’t get warm. I piled on every cover in the house-- down comforter, wool army blanket, tattered quilts. I felt the tremendous weight of all this fabric and filling, but still I shivered, old bones and loose ligaments clanking like kindling.
I only got up when I heard the thump of a bird hitting the window. Not long after the fires, the varied thrushes came down from the foothills and found refuge in scraps of forest spared in our village for the dying. There are too many clean windows here for these quiet forest birds. They fly when the light is most deceptive. When they hit the glass it makes your heart jump and you imagine you can feel the shudder of the house.
The days are long and wet but the smoke still hangs among our rooftops, carrying the stink of the smoldering mountains. Everyone is irritable. My elder neighbor Earl says don’t worry what people are saying. This makes me wonder what people are saying and he obliges me. He tells me that they are asking, What was Ron doing out there? He wasn’t a proper firefighter. These do-gooders, these radicals, they just cause trouble. And think about his family! They say these things about my son, according to Earl, who says he disagrees.
This story is part of the collection Under the Moon in Illinois, which will be released soon in print, ebook, and audiobook. To learn more (and read the rest of this story), sign up for my newsletter. Just use the form at the bottom of this page. Thanks!
