The Distance from Me to You (6 page)

“That guy will never change,” Mike said, and then drained the last of his beer.

Mike was interested in how Sam had made his way here—“You
walked
?” he said, incredulously. Sam told him how he had partly survived on food that grew on the trail, like berries and mushrooms and assorted wildflowers. The fishing was decent and sometimes he'd stop in a town to work for a day or two—offering to mow lawns or paint fences, so he could afford supplies. There were also plenty of people on the trail who were willing to share food around the campfire.

“Girls,” Mike said with a crooked smile. “I see nothing's changed in that department.”

“Marianne seems cool,” Sam said, redirecting the subject, and right away he saw he'd made a mistake.

The barest bit of anger passed over his brother's face, like he didn't want anyone complimenting her. “She's all right. The kids are a pain in the butt, but it's a free place to live.”

Sam didn't say anything. He accepted the second beer Mike handed him even though he'd barely taken a sip from the first. He reminded himself that Mike was the only person in the world who might offer him a place to stay. He thought
of the girl he'd been going out with before he left, Starla, and how he hadn't gotten in touch with her because he thought she might tell his father where he was. Turns out it didn't matter. His father hadn't been looking.

Over the past few months on the trail, Sam hadn't let himself think much about Starla or any of the other kids from his class. He hadn't pictured them graduating without him, going to work in the mines, or switching from part-time to full-time at whatever job they already had. Some of them would get married. A few of the especially smart ones, like Starla, would head to West Virginia University. Knowing Starla, she was probably already packing to leave.

Marianne poked her head out and said, “Dinner's ready, guys.”

“All right,” Mike said, scraping his chair noisily on the deck. “Let's see what she oversalted tonight.”

Marianne was already back in the kitchen giving the girls their plates of chicken and Brussels sprouts. Sam hoped she hadn't heard Mike.

Mike grabbed another beer and started to hand one to Sam.

“No thanks,” Sam said. “I'm good.” Mike shrugged and gave it to Marianne instead.

“These things again?” Mike said, spearing a Brussels sprout.

Marianne slid into her chair apologetically. “Sorry,” she said. “It's something green the girls will eat.”

Sam quickly took a bite so he could say, “Wow, this is amazing. Thank you.”

He wanted to be nice, it was true, but also the food
was
amazing. Usually he wasn't a big fan of Brussels sprouts, but these were tender and crunchy at the same time. Salty, sure, but in a good way.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Sam has a special way with the ladies,” he said. It was probably supposed to be a compliment, but it didn't sound like one. Mike gave Sam's head a weird little shove. Sam could see the little girls leaning closer to each other.

“What do you think, Marianne? You think my brother's a good-looking kid?”

Marianne laughed uncomfortably and took her first bite of food. Clearly there was no right answer to that question.

Mike cocked his head and pulled on his earlobe. “Got a hearing problem?” he said. “You think my brother's handsome? Blond hunk of muscles over here?”

Sam could see it on Marianne's face, the same look their mother used to have, measuring and calculating. Strategizing the best way to calm this uncalmable person.

Then Millie piped up. “I think he looks like Prince Eric.”

“Prince Eric has black hair,” Susannah said.

“Except for that.”

Mike stared straight ahead, probably trying to remember which movie Prince Eric was in. Sam had no idea, either.

“Thanks,” Sam said, with what felt like the first real smile he'd cracked in a long time. “That's the nicest compliment I've ever had.”

The girls smiled back, but Sam knew right away they'd all made a mistake. In fact they'd passed the point where they could make anything
but
mistakes. Mike stood up angrily and got another beer, reaching into the fridge with such intensity, you'd think he was grabbing a weapon.

After dinner, Mike marched out of the kitchen while Sam tried to help with the dishes.

“You know,” Marianne said, “it would actually help me more if you kept them occupied.” She jutted her chin toward the girls, and Sam knew what she meant: keep them out of Mike's way. He picked up Millie and brought her back to the table to sit with her sister. Then they went to work finishing the note from the bottle.

“Okay,” Sam said. “We already wrote that we found it in Temple Stream. Right? That's what it's called?”

“That's what it says here,” Susannah said, pointing to where Sam had written it down earlier. “I can see the
T
.”

“
T
,” said Sam. “Like my last name.”

“But not our last name,” Susannah said. “Mike's not our father.”

Marianne paused for a second at the sink behind them, then turned the water higher. Sam knew it was to drown out their conversation so Mike wouldn't hear. Hopefully he'd already stumbled upstairs and passed out. The one good thing about mean drunks is eventually they pass out, and nothing can wake them. It was a familiar feeling, hanging on, tiptoeing across glass, until that breath of relief.

“I have to put my address,” Sam said. “Do you think this person will write back?”

“Maybe he'll come visit,” Susannah said. “Like you.”

She recited their address for Sam, who filled it in. Mike appeared in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb.

“What's that?” Mike said. “You living here now?”

Millie echoed the words in a different tone. “You're living here now?” she asked, excited. “I thought you were just visiting.”

“He
is
just visiting,” Mike said. He reached over and took the sheet of paper off the table, crumpled it, and tossed it in the general direction of the garbage. Millie burst out crying as it landed on the floor. It made Sam sad to see the expert way in which Susannah stood and guided her sister out of the kitchen, using the other doorway. Sam waited until he heard them reach the top of the stairs before he spoke.

“Sorry,” he finally said. “It just feels so much like home, I guess I forgot myself.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think it means? Want another beer, Mike? Or would you rather I pour you a shot? You can scare little kids much faster if you go straight for the hard stuff.”

Mike leaned across the table and pointed a thick finger in Sam's face. “You shut up,” he said. “Just shut up.”

The steady rush of water shut off. “Mike.” Marianne's voice was quiet.

“YOU.” The word was so loud, it made it seem like he'd been whispering. “YOU STAY OUT OF THIS.”

“It's her house,” Sam said, his voice very low. He was remembering the way his father had felt in his hands, all that soft flesh that would have been so easy to pound. Now for the past few months he'd been walking twenty miles a day, sometimes more. He had walked over mountains, over a thousand miles. While Mike had been bagging groceries, drinking beer, getting soft. Sam was taller, younger. It would be so easy to just stand up, take him by the collar, and give him what he deserved.

Upstairs, he was sure, the girls were cowering. Sam pictured them, tiny ears pressed against the floorboards.

“I guess it's a good thing you don't smoke,” Sam said, motioning toward the row of round scars on Mike's arm. Mike looked down and swayed on his feet—he'd lost the brace of the doorjamb when he'd stepped toward Marianne.

“Forget this,” Mike said, and started to retreat. Then he turned back, this time pointing at Sam. “You're gone in the morning.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Sam.

Mike nodded as if he'd accomplished something, then walked out of the room.

Marianne came to the table and sat across from Sam. They both sat quietly, listening to him make his way upstairs, their breath held to see if he'd start in on the girls. But all they heard was a door close. The whole house breathed a sigh of relief. The drunk was down. At least for the night.

“Why would you let him stay here?” Sam asked. She looked so tired, but she had kind eyes. Her hair looked like it had been
bright red like her daughters' once, now it was a soft chestnut. Sam wondered if she had a father like Mike. When Sam was little he used to think of his father as two people, Daytime Dad and Nighttime Dad. He tried to remember how old he'd been before he couldn't look at one without seeing the other.

“It's your house,” Sam said. “Why don't you kick him out?”

“He's not always like this,” Marianne said. “I think it's just bringing up a lot, seeing you again after so long, and . . .”

Sam held up his hand. He couldn't stand it, listening to her make excuses.

“Maybe,” Sam said. “He may not
always
be like this. But you know at the same time. He always
will
be like this.”

Marianne nodded, her eyes filling with tears. Part of Sam wanted to reach out, take her hand. Comfort her. But another part knew that even though she knew he was right, and even though there were two little girls upstairs listening, nothing Sam said or did would make any difference.

• • •

Hours later, Sam lay on the couch under the quilt Marianne had given him. It was the first soft place he'd slept in months, so you'd think he'd be dead to the world. But his eyes had been open long enough to adjust to the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. Even though he'd only had one sip of the first beer, the taste lingered at the back of his throat. It made him feel sick, like somehow he had something to do with the way Mike had acted.

Mike hadn't been as bad as their dad. But then, their dad
hadn't always been that bad, either. When Mike and Sam were little—more or less the same ages as Millie and Susannah—it had gone pretty much the same way. A steady stream of beers led to their dad getting slowly meaner; the things he said, especially to their mother, meant to provoke a reaction that he could get pissed about so he could then blame whatever he did on everybody else.

Sam knew there was a good chance Mike wouldn't even remember telling him he had to leave. If he wanted to, he could stay. Either way, his brother would wake up hating himself, full of apologies.

Sam pushed the quilt aside and got up. He would've finished doing the dishes in the sink, but he didn't want to wake anyone. Instead, he fished the crumpled paper out of the trash and smoothed it out. He hunted down a clean piece of paper and a pen, along with an envelope and a stamp, and copied everything down carefully:

Who are you? Your name and address and phone are optional.
Sam Tilghman. I don't have an address or phone.

Being as precise as you can, where did you find this bottle?
In Temple Stream, below my brother's girlfriend's house in Farmington, Maine, tangled in some reeds in a little curve by the shore.

On what date?
Somewhere in June. I lose track these days.

In what circumstances? That is, what were you doing when you happened on the bottle?
I was taking a break from leaving the world behind. That turned out to be a mistake.

Add any notes or information you'd like:
Just, thanks for this. Now you've got me thinking about the poetry of streams. That's a good thing to think about. Better than anything I could've come up with.

Sam slid the letter into the envelope. Outside, first light was stirring, along with a cacophony of birds, their different songs battling. For the thousandth time he wished he could tell one birdsong from another. Weird that you could sit here in a house, in a kitchen with running water and a refrigerator full of food, and listen to the same noises you'd hear in the deepest thicket of forest, with nothing but a crappy canvas tent between you and the world.

Damn
, Sam thought. Life was so much easier on the trail. On the trail, there were never the unhappy events of last night, knocking around in your head and gut.

He thought about leaving a note for Marianne and the girls, but that might piss Mike off. So he just grabbed his pack, now
full of clean clothes, and headed out the door. He put the envelope into a neighbor's mailbox, pulling up the little yellow flag. When a car came rumbling up the road, Sam stuck out his thumb, but wasn't surprised when it zoomed right by. If he got a ride a little closer to the trail, great. If not, he'd just walk. He'd walk as long and as far as he needed to get back on the AT, then he'd head south, all the way to Georgia.

What he'd do when he got to Georgia he couldn't say. Maybe he'd turn around and start walking north again, spend his whole life walking up and down the East Coast, staying out of the world's way. He could grow his hair long, grow a tangled beard. He'd be like that crazy guy Walden, that vagrant the thru hikers were always on the lookout for.

Another car whooshed by and Sam just kept walking. The sunlight widened into morning. The birdsong died down.

One foot in front of the other. There were worse ways to spend your life.

Sixty-five miles
into the 100 Mile Wilderness, McKenna stood by a logging road, seriously thinking about getting off the trail.

To say that things had gotten easier since that first day on Katahdin would be true, but also misleading. Because things had by no means gotten anywhere close to anything that could be described as
easy
.

For example, at the moment, afternoon storm clouds were gathering. She hadn't been able to text her parents as promised last night, or this morning, because she couldn't get any reception. Her legs were covered with mosquito and blackfly bites despite daily and liberal dousing of bug spray—so liberal she didn't think her little bottle would last until the 114.5-mile mark, the paved road that would take her to the town of Monson to resupply. Back at Baxter State Park, on the morning of her second (and first successful) attempt to climb Katahdin, McKenna had snapped a picture of the sign with her phone:

IT IS 100 MILES SOUTH TO THE NEAREST TOWN AT MONSON. THERE ARE NO PLACES TO OBTAIN SUPPLIES OR HELP UNTIL MONSON. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS SECTION UNLESS YOU HAVE A MINIMUM OF 10 DAYS SUPPLIES AND ARE FULLY EQUIPPED. THIS IS THE LONGEST WILDERNESS SECTION OF THE ENTIRE AT AND ITS DIFFICULTY SHOULD NOT BE UNDERESTIMATED.

GOOD HIKING!

ATC

Strictly speaking, it was true that Monson was her best bet. But McKenna knew that, just over fifty miles in, some of these new, unofficial logging roads led to little towns. Her guidebook cautioned against going off the trail, though. Some of the logging roads petered out in the middle of nowhere, or worse, splintered off before ending up in the middle of nowhere, so you couldn't find your way back once you realized you'd hit a dead end.

Still, she took off her pack and dug out her phone, raincoat, and guidebook before sitting down to think. She turned on the phone, which had about half a battery bar left—she'd only been turning it on every couple days for a few minutes at a time. From the map in her guidebook it
looked
like this might be one of the roads that led to a town, but she couldn't tell for sure. There was no marker, just lovely clusters of Indian pipe, their white flowers bowed as if preparing for the rain.

She clicked on the compass app to see if it was any easier to
use than her actual compass, which so far had only sent her into paroxysms of confusion. With the iPhone compass, all she had to do was swirl it around to calibrate. The logging road headed east, which she believed should bring her out of the mountains and trees to something resembling civilization, maybe a little town with a country store where they made sandwiches, and possibly stocked calamine lotion. Maybe there would even be pizza?

A fat raindrop landed on her phone's screen with a
splat
. McKenna held the phone to her chest protectively, wiping it off on her quick-dry T-shirt. Then she tucked it into the dry bag in her pack, put on her raincoat, covered her pack with the rain guard that was turning out to be only mildly helpful, and hoisted the weight back onto her shoulders. Tempting as the idea of a hot slice and a cold Coke might be, she couldn't risk getting lost. She had three more days' worth of supplies, which should be enough to deliver her safely to Monson. The only thing that could screw her up now would be going off the trail and into possible danger.

Eight days on the trail. Ten rainstorms—one that included actual hail. Blackfly season was supposed to be slowing down but nobody had bothered to tell them that. They particularly liked the spot right where her neck met her shoulders, and countless times a day McKenna found herself slapping one in mid painful bite.

Although it was chilly at night, the days were sweltering, and sweat already stained every piece of her clothing. Except
for splashing her face and arms with water, she hadn't had a shower since the Katahdin Inn and Suites. And there was a persistent soreness in literally every part of her body, especially her shoulders, where the straps of her supposedly ergonomic pack dug in all day, every day.

Am I having fun yet?
McKenna asked herself.

But her answer was always, unequivocally,
Yes. In spite of and sometimes even because of all the rustic, grueling discomfort.
She was having the time of her life.

• • •

A couple miles after “The Logging Road Not Taken,” McKenna knelt at what she guessed was the east branch of Pleasant River. Back home, she'd read a blog by one regular thru hiker who said he never bothered purifying water from running streams in Maine. But a bacterial infection like giardia could destroy her whole trip, and that was another chance McKenna wasn't willing to take, no matter how pristine and cool the water might seem.

She carefully used her filter to purify a fresh supply into both water bottles. Then she spent a few minutes hunting around for a good strong walking stick. She'd hoped to find one she liked well enough to keep with her, but that hadn't happened yet—the last stick she'd been very confident with had broken mid-ford, almost sending her and her pack downstream with the current. So far, crossing rivers was the scariest part of the trip. When her stick had broken, her feet lost their grip on the rocky bottom, and something like panic had risen up in her.
Knowing that panic was a hiker's worst enemy only made her freak out more. Truthfully she wasn't exactly sure how she had righted herself and continued to the opposite bank.

Now she found another decent stick—a gnarled birch branch that was half wet. Possibly someone coming from the opposite direction had used and discarded it earlier today. She took a mental inventory of the people she'd passed who were walking northbound. She ran into at least a few people every day, and she had yet to reach an empty campsite. Everyone was friendly and openly concerned about her being alone on the trail. But at the height of summer, there were enough people around that she didn't
feel
alone, not really. Even now, in the thick of wilderness with no human in sight, she felt sure that if she were in trouble and called out, people would come running from both directions.

When she leaned on the stick to test it out, it held firm, with just enough springiness that she doubted it would snap. So she traded her hiking boots for her more water-friendly Keen sandals, loosened the shoulder straps of her pack, and pulled it back on, leaving the waist belt unbuckled. Then she placed the stick into the water and started to wade across. The water rose around her to about mid-thigh, and she planted the stick firmly, remembering that she'd made it across a much faster river than this one.

One foot in front of the other,
she told herself,
same as on the trail.
She just had to be a little more careful.

She was almost to the opposite bank when the rubber sole
of her left sandal lost its grip on a flat, mossy rock, pitching her forward, landing her right knee on a rock that was so sharp, McKenna wondered if it was in fact an arrowhead.

“Ow!”
she said aloud, tears of pain springing to her eyes. She was close enough to shore that she could reach out her hands and grab hold of the dry ledge, pulling her legs carefully after her. Miracles do happen, because her pack had managed to stay dry—at least from stream water. The jury was still out on whether the steady, misting rain had managed to infiltrate the interior.

Safely back on shore, McKenna threw off her pack and inspected the damage. The rock had made a triangular flap of flesh on her knee, blood bubbling beneath it. She touched it gingerly and winced. If she were home, she guessed her mother would make her go for a neat round of stitches. Now she had to settle for butterfly bandages and probably a lifelong scar.

“Ow,” she said again as she pulled out her first-aid kit. She swallowed a couple ibuprofen before getting to work patching up the damage. From where she sat she could see the East Branch shelter, but injury or not, she was determined to make it at least a couple more miles before stopping for the day.

Anytime anything interfered with the mileage McKenna planned to cover, she was overtaken by a surge of adrenaline, making her more determined than ever to keep going. Back in her old life, a cut like this might have taken her out of the game for a day or more. Here on the trail, there was no time to be lost over a flesh wound. As she got back to her feet, she
assured herself that yes, she was still having fun, and a part of that fun was even this: getting hurt, taking care of herself, and continuing on in spite of everything.

• • •

It was nearly dark when she limped toward the Logan Brook lean-to. A troop of Boy Scouts were gathered in the shelter, watching the approaching weather. Just as McKenna dropped her pack onto the dusty floor, a shower of hail began pelting the rickety roof above them.

“Good timing,” said a dad-aged man, who must have been the scoutmaster.

McKenna nodded, glad that the hail wasn't raining down directly on her head. She stood away from the group—as much as she could in the small shelter, anyway—and stared forlornly out at the weather. There were several tent sites, but there was no way to put up her tent as long as it was hailing like this. Her clothing was soaked, but she didn't know how she was supposed to change in front of ten fourteen-year-old boys and one grown man.

“You leave someone behind in that?” the scoutmaster asked her.

By now McKenna was used to this question. In one form or another, she'd had this conversation every day for over a week. “No,” she said. “It's just me.”

“Hiking all on your own?”

“Yup.”

This answer was usually followed by more questions, like
if her parents knew, or if she needed help. How far was she going? Was she sure she could make it all that way? McKenna had always looked a little young for her age, a fact that had never bothered her as much as it did on the trail, running into concerned adults—men, mostly—who immediately labeled her as a damsel in distress.

“I'm Dan,” said the scoutmaster. He rattled off the kids' names, which McKenna would never remember in a million years.

She waved. “McKenna,” she said.

“That's a nasty cut.”

She looked down at her knee. Blood was trickling through the gauze square she'd taped over the butterfly bandages. The injury ached with a sharp, pulsing rhythm. Since she couldn't change out of her wet clothes, she decided to re-dress the wound. Hopefully now that she'd stopped walking the new bandage would hold long enough for it to scab up a little.

“I fell crossing the river,” she said.

“Long way to walk with a cut knee,” Dan said.

McKenna wished his voice would sound a little less sympathetic. This distress was minor. She had it all under control.

“I'm okay,” she said, and smiled at him, not wanting to be rude, but also not inviting him to be her stand-in dad for the evening. She had left her own dad home for a reason.

She scanned the room for a bunk that didn't already have a sleeping bag on it, and seeing none, dragged her pack to a bench and sat down sideways, with both legs in front of her.
She tore off the gauze and raised the knee toward her, inspecting the damage. The hail continued to pelt the roof, making it feel like they were all inside some kind of child's percussion instrument. It was weirdly cozy.

“Want some help with that?” Dan called. Apparently ten kids weren't enough for him to take care of.

“No thanks,” McKenna called back, pulling off the old butterfly bandages. “I'm good.”

She swallowed a few more ibuprofens, slathered the cut with Neosporin, then plastered on a fresh butterfly and gauze bandages. The dressing looked so perfect, so professional, she almost wanted to get out her phone and take a picture. Of course if she posted it on Facebook or Instagram, everyone would have the wrong reaction—worrying about the cut instead of admiring how well she was taking care of it.

In a few minutes the hail stopped, almost as abruptly as it had begun. McKenna gathered her things to set up her tent.

“Hey,” Dan said as she stiff-leggedly exited the shelter. “Come back and have dinner with us. We're doing beef stew and corn bread.”

Now,
that
was the kind of help she couldn't resent. Or refuse.

“Thanks,” McKenna said. “I definitely will.”

• • •

The next afternoon, her knee throbbing, McKenna decided to stop a little earlier than she'd planned, at a campsite by Chairback Pond, instead of going an extra three miles to the shelter. Thanks to the light rain—not as persistent but still making
everything damp—she had the whole place to herself. As she pitched her tent, she reminded herself that it was early still, and other people might join her. But so far, the campsite stood empty. She managed to get her tent set up, change into warmer clothes, and get water. A couple hikers passed, waving to her as they continued on, probably looking forward to a dry night in the lean-to. By the time the sky had cleared and then darkened, McKenna sat cooking noodles on her little stove, and she was pretty sure: after nine days on the AT, this would be her first night completely alone.