The carrot sticks were what got her. Not baby carrots, but regular carrots peeled and cut into strips. He’d put them in waxed paper bags, just like her mother had used for their school lunches. He said he’d found the bags in the Latino supermarket in Mount Pleasant, where he liked to shop. Pru had been in there once, when she and Rudy were out walking and he’d wanted a bottle of water. Rudy had pinched his nose and said “pee-yoo” as soon as they’d walked out. It was true that the Latino market had a funny smell, but Pru had pretended she hadn’t noticed. Surely it meant something, that John had gone to some trouble with the carrot sticks? Had he been thinking of what might please her?
“Lila called me this morning,” he said, while they were eating. It took Pru a moment to realize he was talking about his wife. She’d forgotten that such a person existed.
“She’s got a new boyfriend,” he said. “After six weeks, she’s dating again. And I’m still sleeping on one side of the bed.” It was true, Pru knew. She’d seen his bed. Half of it was still made.
“That’s harsh,” Pru said. “I’m really sorry.”
They put the lunch things back in John’s knapsack and continued up the path they’d been hiking. John’s sad looks were back, and he didn’t say anything, so neither did Pru. She was vaguely aware of the time, as she always was, and there was a little anxiety in the back of her mind. The sun had gotten very low in the sky. But surely John knew that. Just when she was about to say something, he seemed to come to his senses. He looked up at the setting sun and said, “We’d better find our way back, huh?” They turned around and started back down the mountain. In a matter of minutes, though, it had gotten visibly darker. They began to hurry through the woods. Suddenly John stopped, at the intersection of two trails.
“Do you remember if this is right?” he said to Pru.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” she said, trying to swallow her nervousness.
He frowned, and they kept going. “I think it’s right,” he said.
There were only traces of the sun’s rays left. In another moment, she realized, they would be plunged into darkness. They were running so fast now that she stumbled. He reached back and grabbed her hand, pulling her along the brambled trail.
That was the next telling moment, after the carrots in the wax paper bag. The hand. As soon as it was holding hers, she had a feeling about it that didn’t fully make sense. It was a nice enough hand, dry, with sensitive fingertips. Through it she could feel his worry, and his wish to reassure her, and his heartbeat. She was glad to have it guiding her along, in the darkness that at last had begun to close in on them. But it gave her an eerie feeling, too, of something familiar, something she had forgotten but now remembered. Like when you looked under your bed and there was your watch, which you hadn’t even noticed was missing.
“Look!” shouted John. Somehow, they had found their way back to the ranger’s station. Pru was discombobulated from the setting sun and the hand-holding. He dropped her hand when the van came into sight. They got in and both started laughing. “That would have been really smooth, huh?” John said. “I take you out and get you lost in the woods.”
He put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing. He tried it again. Still nothing. They looked at each other. On the next try the engine rolled over once, gagged, and fell silent. Even more silent, it seemed to Pru, then before. Then the dashboard lights flickered, and faded. When John opened the door, the overhead light didn’t come on. He went to pop the hood while she rooted in her bag for her cell phone. She could see him out there, the white of his T-shirt standing out slightly against the other gray forms.
“I can’t see anything, and even if I could, I wouldn’t know what to look for,” he said, getting in the van. “You getting anything?” She had taken out her cell phone and had turned it on. It glowed blue, but she couldn’t get a signal.
“No,” she said. “Nothing.”
John sat back in his seat. “Shit,” he said.
“What do we do?”
They were at the park ranger’s station, in the absolute dead of nowhere, with no phones, no food, and no bathroom. Just stay calm, she told herself.
Then John said, “Wait here.”
He got out of the van and Pru watched him try the doors of the ranger’s station. He walked all the way around the outside of the building, searching for a call box, a stash of emergency flares, she didn’t know what. He went back to try the doors again, and all the windows. Then he came to the van, his hands shoved in his jacket pocket, a scowl on his face.
He got in and said, “I think we better hunker down and wait for the park ranger to come back.”
She tried to keep her voice steady. “When do you think that will be?”
“I don’t know. I guess it could be tomorrow morning.”
“Someone has to know we’re here, right?”
“Okay, listen, don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking. I’m just thinking, I’m just saying, that someone had to have seen the van, and realize we were still out. They wouldn’t just leave while we were still out, would they?”
“I’m afraid they have.”
“And listen, you don’t have to say ‘panicking,’ like I’m some hysterical female or something. Honestly. You hardly even know me, so how do you even know what’s panicking and what’s, you know, regular concern? I’m just
