I recalled something Cal had texted me the night before. A meme that said if you stare into someone’s eyes long enough, your heart rates will synch up, and I decided to test that. I wanted to sit with October, to be with her without talking, the way we used to do at work. I refocused my gaze and didn’t say another word, and October stayed with me, our twin eyes in sync, our chests aligned. I breathed when she breathed, and I imagined that her breath was filling my lungs and mine was filling hers. It was exciting. Intimate. And when the chime went off a few minutes later, I let go of her hands but didn’t let go of her eyes, not until I stood to leave.
I exited the exhibit, walked up the maple steps and into the main lobby. Then I wandered out the front door and back to my truck, all the while thump thump thumping my hand against my chest, to keep the rhythm going, so as not to lose the beat of her heart.
TWENTY-EIGHT.
I’d stopped having conversations with Sam during my time in Montana. I can’t say why for certain, but I guessed it was because I had no references for him in that environment, no memories. I couldn’t feel him there at all. Likewise, I was a catastrophe when I got to Whitefish, and it’s hard to look for, let alone see, magic in the world when you’re broken inside. Beyond that, I allowed for the possibility that Sam was so disappointed in my pusillanimity, he’d thrown in the towel.
However, once I was back in Mill Valley, Sam returned. It was coming up on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, and I promised Ingrid I would do something special to honor his memory. Ingrid and I had observed the day annually for a while when I was young, but Bob had given us a hard time about it, chastising us for “celebrating” Sam’s death, accusing us of dwelling on the past, and eventually we stopped.
Nevertheless, twenty-five years felt like a long time, and I decided to go to Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve in Guerneville to pay tribute to my brother. Bob, Ingrid, Sam, and I had spent Sam’s sixteenth and last birthday there, hiking and making hot dogs on the grill in the picnic area near Colonel Armstrong.
Colonel Armstrong was the oldest redwood in the grove and Sam’s all-time favorite tree. Incidentally, Colonel Armstrong would have been my favorite as well, but when we were kids and I told Sam I liked Colonel the best too, he said, “I called it first, Joey.” That meant I had to come up with my own original answer or he’d deem me a copycat, and I went with Giant Tree.
Guerneville is a little over sixty-five miles northwest of Mill Valley. Allowing for some traffic, it would take me about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. My plan was to drive up that morning, hike around a bit, have my memorial for Sam, play a little guitar, and be home by dinnertime.
Before I headed out, I wrote a list of all the things I missed about Sam on a Glacier National Park postcard I found in my backpack. I’d purchased the card before Bob died, thinking I might send it to him, but of course I never did.
At first I imagined leaving the postcard at the foot of Colonel Armstrong, but for all intents and purposes, that was littering, and I resolved to burn it instead. I shoved it between the pages of the book I was reading and headed out to my truck, lugging my Martin, my backpack, and my coffee thermos, which I was going to fill up at Equator when I stopped to grab breakfast on my way out of town.
Over a month had passed since Sorrow ended, and I had neither seen nor heard from October. And not for lack of trying. I wandered around Marin more than necessary, frequenting all the places I knew she visited. I went to the farmers’ market in San Rafael three Sundays in a row. I hiked the fire road behind Casa Diez a couple times a week. I even drove to YogaWorks one Monday night, right about the time the 6:00 class she used to go to was letting out, even though there was nothing around YogaWorks I could pretend I was doing if I did run into her.
My last attempt at contact had been to mail her a manila envelope containing copies of the drawings I’d done of my light sculpture, with a short note explaining the piece.
She didn’t respond.
The weather app on my phone said the high temperature in Guerneville was fifty-three degrees, and before I left I threw on my fleece pullover, overkill in Mill Valley, which was unusually balmy that morning, but it would be necessary under the shade of the redwoods.
When I got down to town, I parked in the lot behind Mill Valley Market and ran in to get matches, a newspaper, and some wood to start a proper fire at the picnic site. I had some incense too, and planned on burning it with the postcard as an offering to Sam.
I took the bag of supplies back to my truck, dropped it on the seat, grabbed my thermos and the book I
