Part 8 (2/2)
”I've done fifty miles.”
Leigh looked to Rae and raised her eyebrows.
”Where's her father?” she asked, glancing out the door at the small rental car.
”Not with us. Todd left me right before she was born,” June explained plainly. ”I got these mood swings . . . I guess I was kind of a beast.”
”a.s.shole,” Rae exhaled.
When Mack returned, he saw them and beamed beatifically; he had a way of smiling that brought a whole room to transcendence. Caleb had pulled himself away for a run in what was left of the mountain snow. Afterward, he looked for the woman and the baby.
”How long did they stay?” he asked Leigh as casually as he could.
”They're still here. They've been in Mack's room for a while.”
Mack possessed the only private room, next to the bookcase. Walking inside his room he felt as if he had stepped into a warm bath. His sore body began to feel stronger. June and Mack lay on a soft white rug that Mack used for private reiki sessions. They looked up at him.
Caleb stared helplessly. And saw that the baby's pale body lay between them. Mack was holding his hands just above her chest, while June cradled her head. June was crying.
Mack looked up harshly. To come here without an invitation was unthought of.
Caleb was overcome by a desire to join them. ”Can I help?”
”In the morning, you take June out. See what she can do.”
”All right.”
Like a servant taking his leave, he had backed out of the room. After he closed the door he stood in the hall, breathing, for a long time.
That first run with June was a morning that would replay itself, on other runs, at night, during his dreams.
He had led her toward the steep open road up to Boulder. Along the tapered trails he would have been forced to lead or follow single file, but here they moved side by side, as he wanted. The wide mountain road steepened, and he inhaled deeply, enjoying the burn through his legs.
”Wow, I feel like Superwoman or something,” she had laughed. ”This alt.i.tude's so much lower than Taos.”
No one had told her that he did not speak during runs. It was so foreign to him that he had forgotten how to do it.
”This is actually the first run I've been on since Lily was born,” June went on nervously. ”I was crazy guilty about leaving her with someone when we left, but this feels good.” She hesitated, glancing at him. ”So, am I being judged by you?”
Caleb grinned. ”I wouldn't know how to judge anybody. What happens is, you can't build enough kinetic energy to heal like we do if you aren't running around eight hours a day. People always try to join us, but that's the part they can't do. Usually we'd take you out on a group run to see and let the trail do the judging. But that's been embarra.s.sing for people. It's better just one-on-one like this.”
June laughed. ”I'll tell you right now I can't run for eight hours.”
”That's all right. I'm not wearing a watch or anything.”
”It must be so nice, to have a house full of people who get you.”
”It's perfect.”
”Are you from Boulder?”
”Seattle.”
”Seattle. So how did you hear about Happy Trails?”
He almost told her, but instead he simply described his years in consulting, the depletion in his bones. June had listened, amazed. Other than the occasional customer at her bar, she had never met anyone who had earned what Caleb had, let alone who had walked away from it, to run.
”Where are you from?” he asked.
”I live in Taos, but I'm from Arizona. Outside Phoenix. Not a lot of anything, you know, kinetic, going on there. My parents were always in and out of work. My stepbrothers, they were big into crystal, Xanax, shooting guns. I started running to get away from it.
”I did some 5ks, then tens. Then I started to get super into it. At a 15k I met a woman, she was from Taos. She told me it was mystical. And that word stayed with me, mystical, for like a year. In my mind it meant that Taos had like unicorns and castles, you know?” she laughed.
Caleb listened as if her words were rare fabric brus.h.i.+ng his cheek.
”After I saved enough for a good start, I drove there in my beater. You know what? I never ran into that woman, anywhere. And Taos is small.”
”What did you do there?” he asked, so unused to this expulsion of breath while moving. But June had no concern or issues with talking and running.
”Let's see, I worked in a ski shop, a dying travel agency, I mean who uses travel agents anymore? I house sat. And then I started as a server at the Gorge. It's a bar, near the mountain. A year later I graduated to daytime bartending, and then I got some of the good apres-ski s.h.i.+fts. Which is where I met Todd.”
”He worked there?”
”When he wasn't working on mountain crews. He was super thin, with this beard, and this super-wiry energy. People like him. Being with him, it came with a whole circle of friends, and stuff to do, and I wasn't lonely anymore. I ran for a couple of hours every morning, in the open fields and trails. Todd, with his cigarettes and drinking, he was never encouraging. He came to the finish line when I did my first marathon, but that was it. Three years ago, I signed up for the Jemez Fifty, down in Los Alamos?”
”Did he come to that one?”
”Todd wouldn't even drive me. He said running fifty miles was crazy. But there was a bus of locals going, and the ride was actually so much more fun than I was expecting. People were singing and whatnot and being goofy. I finished way in the back, but I was totally excited that I made it. I rode back with my arms wrapped around strangers. At home, Todd was smoking his Newports, staring at the computer. I told him I finished, and he just mumbled something and left for the Gorge.”
”Not everyone understands,” Caleb offered.
June was silent for a spell. They turned up to the top of the road, where Rocky Mountain National Park sloped west. A t.i.tian sliver slipped into the sky, and they plunged straight into the trails.
”I got pregnant by accident. Todd, he told me to stop running. He was really worried about all the jostling. But having this life inside of me, it made me want to run more. I stayed away from rocky trails, but I kept going out every morning.
”'You're going to kill that baby,' he'd shout at me, finger in my face.
”And then in my third trimester, the snow and the tourists. .h.i.t, and I got kind of super clingy with him. I kept waking him up at night, and calling him at work. And he said he needed to move out, just so he could sleep. But he never came back.”
Caleb said nothing. The park was humid; mosquitoes swarmed. He wondered at how well she was running.
”Now, I wonder if Todd was right. Maybe all that running while I was pregnant, like, dislodged something? Or sent some adrenaline into me that did something to Lily?”
”I don't see how it could.” He hesitated. ”Did she always breathe like this?”
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