Daredevil’s Run

As the guides usually did during the quiet times on the river, Alex gave talks on the river’s history, geology, flora and fauna, although she felt self-conscious doing so now, with Matt there. He’d always been the better storyteller.

She said as much at one point, after forgetting a key point in the lecture she’d been giving on the role the Kern River Valley had played in the gold rush. Cory had smiled and said, “It runs in the family.”

“Really? How’s that?” Matt had seemed surprised.

“Dad loved to tell stories,” Cory had explained. “Used to make them up himself. That was before you were born, though. Before Vietnam.”

And it had hit Alex then, with a chilly sense of shock and shame, that this river run wasn’t even about her and Matt and whatever may or may not have been between them. She’d been so caught up in her own issues and emotions-how could she have forgotten what it must be like for him? Not just coming back to the river, and the life he’d once loved so much, but trying to get to know a brother he hadn’t known existed, a whole family history he didn’t know anything about.

Yeah, you’re one selfish bitch, Alex. The least you could do is quit thinking of your own issues and try not to make things any harder for him.

They took out for the noon break-a sumptuous spread of cold cuts, fruit and veggie plates, breads and cold drinks-nonalcoholic, since they still had more rapids to run that afternoon. Another of the cardinal rules of river rafting, right up there with “Watch for Rattlers” and “Leave No Trace,” was “Don’t Drink and Boat!”

After lunch, Sam volunteered to help Alex with the cleanup, while Matt and Cory went up the river-presumably to take care of personal and private needs. Alex was glad to have the help, and the company, since she wasn’t all that comfortable with the course her own thoughts had been taking lately. Not after her lightbulb moment on the river.

And besides, she genuinely liked Sam. Not being one who got close to very many people, and being an only child besides, Alex didn’t exactly know what having a sister would be like. But if she did have a sister, it would be okay with her if she was something like Samantha Pearson.

Which-combined with her chastened mood-was probably why, when Sam asked her how it felt, being around Matt again, she didn’t try as she normally would to evade the question. But she couldn’t answer it, either, thanks to the unexpected knot of emotion that came from nowhere to clog up her throat and make it impossible to do more than shake her head and give a meaningless little ripple of laughter.

“I do know how it is,” Sam said gently. “From personal experience.”

Alex cleared her throat, buying herself the time she needed to tuck her emotions safely away. “Yeah, you said that before. What…I mean, how do you know? From…what…”

Sam laughed. “What personal experiences, you mean? Okay, well, in a nutshell, Cory and I met when I was really young. He was a friend of my dad’s, and thought he was too old for me. Or, maybe that I was too young for him-because I was. Too young to settle down, anyway. Too young to know what I wanted. He was patient for a long time, willing to wait for me to do all the stuff I wanted to do, that I thought I wouldn’t be able to do once we-well, long story. Anyway, the upshot of it is, he got tired of waiting and we broke up. And then Cory got married to somebody else.”

Alex made a shocked sound. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. The marriage didn’t last, but I was devastated.”

“I can imagine!”

Sam’s smile was wry. “Stupid me. I always thought he’d be there for me, forever. And then one day he wasn’t.”

Yeah, thought Alex, I know how that is.

“I didn’t think I could ever forgive him for that. But then…a few years later, we met again under…let’s just say, difficult circumstances. Again-long story, but we came close enough to losing each other forever that it kind of put things into perspective for both of us. In the end, it wasn’t easy, but we just…had to forgive each other.”

She paused, then added, “And for Cory there was the other thing-this issue about his family.”

“Yeah,” said Alex, “he told me about that.”

“Well, he’d been keeping all that inside, and it was really hard for him to open up to me. Once he did-” She shrugged and Alex saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. “But what made it possible for us to get through all that was…” she brushed at her eyes and gave a small, self-conscious laugh, the kind of thing Alex could see herself doing if she got caught with her emotions showing “…we really really wanted to make it work. You have to have that. Otherwise, I think…it’s just too darn hard.”

Alex murmured, “Yeah…” Those emotions she preferred to hide were percolating dangerously.

Sam turned to give her a piercing look, weighing a plastic bag full of cut-up veggies in her hand. “So I guess my question would be…do you? Want to make it work with Matt?”

Oh Lord. Do I? Now Alex resorted to that painful little laugh as she muttered, “It’s complicated.”

“Always is, hon.”

Oh yeah. Especially right now. “He’s got a lot going on,” she said carefully.

“About his family, you mean.” Sam snorted-something else Alex wasn’t above doing herself now and then. “There’s always gonna be family issues. Now me-my dad disappeared from my life when I was ten.”

“Hah,” said Alex, “mine split before I was born.”

“Yeah, well, mine turned up alive and well when I was eighteen.”

“Okay, you win,” Alex said, laughing. “You definitely take the blue ribbon for father issues.” But she was remembering Booker T’s words: You never got to be any lovin’ daddy’s little girl.

Sam was smiling. “Not really. My dad and I get along great, now. Turns out it wasn’t his fault he was gone so long. He’d been shot down in the Middle East and was in an Iraqi prison all that time. Nobody knew he was there until Cory got himself kidnapped. He was this famous journalist, see, so they sent Special Forces to rescue him. And, whoops, they found my dad with him. That’s how I met Cory.”

“Wow.” It was the only thing Alex could think of to say. What did you say to someone with a story like that? Filled with a vast, inexplicable sadness, she became very busy arranging plastic bags full of food in the cooler.

“So,” Sam said casually as she passed the bags to her, “your mom never remarried? After your dad left?”

“Never married. Period. Nope, I think she’d about had her fill of getting her heart broken. She raised me all by herself, which couldn’t have been easy. I wasn’t exactly an easy kid. But…my mom was a tough cookie.”

“Was? So…she’s gone now?”

Alex nodded, staring down at her hands, guarding that private pain carefully. “She died-cancer. The same year I met Matt.”

The silence that fell was only in the small space between them. Beyond it, the river sang its usual song, scrub jays screeched in the manzanita and a hawk whistled high in a cloudless sky. And from somewhere out of sight came the rich harmonies of two brothers’ laughter.

Listening to it, Sam said softly and with a catch in her voice, “It’s meant so much to him-finding Matt. Both of his brothers. I can’t even-”

“Yeah,” said Alex, and cleared her throat. “I can imagine. Too bad he didn’t find him before-” She stopped, appalled, but Sam finished it for her and didn’t seem to find it terrible.

“Before his accident, you mean. Yeah. You know, I think Pearse believes if he’d been around it wouldn’t have happened.”

Alex smiled crookedly. “He’s not the only one who’s played the ‘what if’ game.” She shrugged. “It happened. Can’t be undone.” It is what it is, Alex.

There was a pause. Then Sam said, “You and Matt were close, though, right? Before he got hurt?”

“Close?” The question surprised her, not the asking of it, but because she realized she didn’t know the answer. Close. Were we close, Mattie? We were together a lot…worked together…played together…slept together…talked…quarreled…laughed…made love. But were we close? I don’t even know what that means. She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Yeah, I guess. If you mean, were we sleeping together.” Then, as realization collided with guilt, she threw Sam a look and added defensively, “Look, it’s not like I abandoned him, okay? I visited him as often as I could while he was in rehab. He’s the one who abandoned