Never Grown Up

When I was a little kid, my dad ate Wasa every morning for breakfast.

I'd sit, with my fruity loops or charms of luck, sugary sweet in my bowl, milk turning a sickly pink, kicking my legs back and forth, as they wouldn't touch the ground for several years. I'd watch him eat Wasa and wonder, how anyone could eat such a dry looking, tasteless cracker, and nothing else, every morning. Well, Wasa and the foul smelling dark, bitter liquid known as coffee. What sort of strange mind-control could possibly posses someone to choose a stiff sheet of crusted bread over sweet marsh-mellows and rainbow colors, to choose the taste of burning beans over the smooth and chocolaty goodness of flavored milk?. My breakfast smiled at me with big joyful eyes from a box every morning, but his hid behind brown paper packaging and four lonely letters, Double Ew, Ayyy, Ess, Ayyy.

What was clear to me was that adulthood was the process of finding boring things, interesting. It meant choosing a monotonous drone about the weather over a colorful cartoon about medieval monsters living in New York City. Taking a walk around the neighborhood instead of climbing rocks and digging up salamanders in the backyard. Spending a Saturday afternoon snoozing instead of adventuring in made up castles, battlefields and space ships. Going to the beach, but never going into the water.

I knew it wasn't that adults liked boring things. I understood there was something I just couldn't see. Why did the man who listed numbers on the TV hold such rapt attention of the tall people around me?

So when my dad came home at night and turned on the business news, I joined him. He asked if I liked the show and I said I did. I did. The stream of up and down arrows, numbers and figures nearly put me to sleep, and the fat man talking reminded me of a stinky uncle, but I liked watching the business news. I pretended to be an adult, with my dad. We were being adults together.

When I turned 6 and a half, (a tough part of becoming an adult means forgetting the importance of half birthdays. At that time, I had not yet forgotten.), two things happened. Celebrating by now very advanced age, I resolved to try Wasa. It was crunchy cardboard. In spite of the smile I put on in attempt to mirror my dad's face, I never tried it with him again. Clearly, adulthood was still a far off dream.

The second thing that happened was an announcement from my parents. I was a big sister. My baby brother or sister would come a month after I turned 7, so we could think of the baby as my birthday present. That's what they said to me, anyway.

We all changed with that announcement. My father gave the unborn baby a name; Philip, a male name. That was when I found out he had done the same with me. I was to be Joseph, after him. Sadly, his namesake-to-be didn't turn out the way he had planned as a girl, but now was a new chance for a real boy.

"How is my son?" he would ask my mother, in spite of her protests that it could just as easily be his daughter she carried.

"SHE, is doing fine," she'd say and they'd both have a laugh.

"Why do you want a boy?" I asked my father. "Don't you like girls?"

"Of course, I love you," he replied, unhesitatingly, "But there are some things I can do with you, and some things I can do with a boy."

"Like what?"

He smiled, perhaps not realizing the sense of insecurity I suddenly had, "When I was a boy, I would go fishing with my father. We'd build treehouses and he taught me chess."

"I want to play chess too!" I shouted.

"Helen, you never had any interest in chess. Remember when I tried to teach you checkers? You wouldn’t stop fidgeting. Chess is a lot harder. You need to concentrate."

"Can a boy concentrate better than a girl?" I asked.

"That's not what I meant." End of conversation.

By chance, dad had been right and the baby was a boy. He was a chubby baby that looked to me like a sack of potatoes. His arms didn't work right and he couldn't even walk. Not like me, I thought. I could walk, talk and not poop my pants. I knew the whole alphabet and could read up to Level 2 books! Philip couldn't do any of those things, but my father disappeared to his side, nonetheless.

Dad still ate Wasa but we didn't watch business news together anymore. He spent that time with the baby. Maybe this was another level of adulthood, I thought. Not only could they find boring things interesting, they found fussy, stinky babies charming. Being an adult must really mess up your head, I concluded.

Philip learned chess, eventually. He also built a treehouse with dad, and they went fishing. I wanted to go fishing too, but I never asked. When he got older, dad sent him to some “Young Programers” camp, a hundred miles away or so. The Bay Area wasn't what it was like back then. The Silicon Valley of my childhood is a memory when the internet was still nascent but bathed in an era of the revolutionary optimism; of dot-coms and start ups. But some people remembered the area when the idea of a “computer on a chip” was revolutionary, including my father. Dad knew saw how much the area was changing the world, and he wanted his son to be a part of it.

Philip was 9 the first time. He returned with a hero's welcome from both of my parents. Somewhere along the line dad had sold to mom the idea of a future that included a wildly successful child who would shape the future world. At 16, I never made the mistake of thinking they talked about me.

But Philip had a different opinion. Next summer, as dad was preparing the car I caught my brother in his room, alone and face down on the bed. It looked like he was whimpering, but when he turned around to my touch I couldn't see tears.

“I hate camp.” Philip admitted to me. “They make you sit in a classroom for 6 hours a day. All my friends from school are going hiking or playing baseball. I don't want to go back. Can you tell them something? I'm sick. Something. Or break my leg?”

“Then you'd be going to camp in a cast,” I joked mirthlessly. Philip scowled.

“Phil gets really homesick when he goes to camp.” I lied to mom.

“Oh that's so sweet. Your brother really loves his family. Joe, did you hear that?” My dad had just entered the kitchen where my mom was packing lunches.

“What's that?” my dad responded.

“Phil really misses us when he goes off to camp.”

“Maybe this year he shouldn't go,” I offered, calling upon my couple of summers' experience as a lifeguard to inject the maximum amount of authority allowed in a 17 year old's voice.

I had not even finished speaking when dad responded to mom. “What a great kid. There's nothing more important than loyalty to your family.”

It was time to go and Philip flashed me a betrayed look. I gave him a sympathetic shrug that got forgotten as my mother started on about how they'd send him care packages every week.

I went off to college the following year. Needing space, I had only applied to out-of-state colleges, which was something that would pain my wallet years later. But at that time, going to Colorado State was one of the best decisions of my life. I joined the Rams Cycling Team and I made some amazing friends I still keep to this day.

But the most important thing I gained at CSU was a sense of confidence. I quickly fell in love with my biology classes. Truly, the boring had become interesting to me and I knew I was arriving at adulthood. Charts and scans held my undivided attention. Sitting still for hours going over slides and cultures were exhilarating. Coffee started to taste good as it kept me up long nights in the lab. Wasa, an easy way to get breakfast on little time, became delicious. I might have put jelly or cheese on it from time to time.

So started my career in medicine and neuroscience.

Philip kept going to camp though. Later, a 4 year stint at UC Berkeley gave my parents what they had always wanted: their son in computer science.

I stayed in Colorado, did a residency but ended up back at the university as a full time researcher, studying memory, but I visited California often. Christmas dinners were full of conversations from the political to the philosophical, but nothing held the attention of my parents so much as Philip's technological mumbo-jumbo. I say that affectionately. I'm sure I'd lose him just as easily if I had brought up medical mumbo-jumbo.

Three years ago was the last Christmas with my parents. Philip had been in mid-conversation about his work in semi-conductors when he casually mentioned that Melinda had been berating him for coming home so late in the past few months. Luckily, my sister-in-law was not present.

“What an ungrateful woman!” My mother shouted, “She doesn't know how lucky she is to have such a high earning, high achieving husband like you. You should divorce her!”

Phil and I were shocked. The fact that my father was not, concerned me. He had gotten up and gently patted her on the back soothingly.

“It's alright, dear. They are fine. Don't worry about it.” Within minutes my mother had calmed back down to her usual cheery self.

I waited until my brother had left before cornered my father.

“How long has this been going on for?”

“What?” he mumbled, pretending to no know what I was talking about.

“Mom. How long has she been having outbursts?”

“Give your mother a break Helen. She's been having a lot of stress lately with your grandmother in hospice now. She didn't mean anything by it.”

“That's not what I mean, Dad. This could be serious.”

“She got really angry the first time three months ago or so.” he finally conceded, “Which, I will remind you, is when your grandpop died and grandma entered the nursing home. She's just stressed. That's all.”

“Please. Get her to see a neurologist. At least.” I didn't want to voice my biggest concern, but the words brain cancer stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“You worry too much. Don't be over dramatic.”

“Dad, please.” I pleaded. Visions of my mother spiraling down into mental infancy flooded my mind. I tried to put myself as if I were in front of any patient or research subject and make my next words as clinical as possible. “This is my professional opinion.”

I knew before the end of the sentence I had failed. In the atmosphere around my father, my every word transformed into that of a whiny 12 year old.

“I'll take her tomorrow.” I offered.

“You won't. Your flight.” he replied firmly.

“I'll change it. This is important.”

For all his failings, my dad was a fairly calm man. I can only recall him yelling at me once, courtesy of my poor decision to sneak away in the family car to visit a boyfriend as a teen. I was instantly transported back in time to that Christmas. His voice rose in crescendo.

“You will not. You are making a big deal out of nothing. The only thing you will do is stress your mother out even more. We are not speaking about this anymore.”

Five months later I got a call. Not from my father. From Philip.

“Mom got diagnosed with cancer today.” he informed me. “It's too late to treat.”

“How much time does she have left?” I asked, not sure which was stronger, a life-time of indignation, or the sadness of the impending loss of a parent. My concern for my mother won out. I didn't have a useful target for the indignation anyway.

“Doctor said a couple of weeks, at most. You should get over here soon.”

“What about dad?”

“He's in total shock. This has been a real surprise for all of us.”

My thirst for indignation made a stunning comeback. “He didn't tell you what I told him.” It was a statement, not a question.

“What?”

“I'm done, Phil. Sorry.”

Within the week I had made arrangements to see my mother, one last time, but I told no-one except my husband. She was unconscious and the doctors told me she probably wasn't waking up again. I held her hand and said my goodbyes mentally. I said them to her. I said them to Philip. But to my father, I said nothing. His goodbye had already been said to me, long, long ago, about the time a little girl tried to eat Wasa and like it.

Hope

The first thing I remember is looking at the rock.  It's pitted surface was now glazed with congealing blood that filled its mini craters with ponds of crimson.  Poor little Rebs. To her credit, she said not a word, which at any other time, would have been unusual.  She was always quick to run home, telling Grandma Evelyn what a bad boy Owen was being.  Now though, she packaged away her 7-year-old smile when she pursed her lips firmly shut.

"I need to go away." I said, and she murmured an unintelligible sound as a response.  I knew she understood.  I had to run, to take myself as far away from that place as swiftly as possible.  Maybe I could outrun my guilt, my fears and my thoughts that turned poisonous on me.  I couldn't bring myself to look at the body, crumpled in the distance between the patches of sweet smelling sage.  I didn't want to believe what I did.  If I didn't look at it, I wouldn't have to face the hopes and dreams I ended with one blow.  I didn't want to contemplate the thousands of happy futures I ruined in my one act of selfish thoughtlessness.

 "You run home now." I commanded in the most adult voice I could muster, but she shook her head ferociously, clinging to her tattered little skirts with white knuckles.

"You can't come with me." I pleaded with her to leave and forget about me.  "Let me wander out and become a wild man like they said old Uncle Eddie did."  I knew they were lying.  Uncle Eddie died after the mine collapsed.  But it sounded better than the truth, and I think Rebs still believed it.  I hoped she believed it.

"I'm leaving!" I screamed at her, in her face.  She brought her little cherubic face down and pulled her skirts even tighter, as if she was turning herself into a ball of iron; immune to my anger.  I put my back to her, put my back to the sun, and sprinted.  Dead twigs of buckbrush and artemesia crunched beneath my feet as I tried to outrun just as much the accusations and guilt of the dead body, as the unquestioning loyalty and unconditional love from little Rebs.  Both were equally painful.

I already knew what I was capable of.  Murderer at age 12.  What other horrors would await my cousin if she stayed by my side?

I stopped and turned around, hoping to see that she had decided I was never coming back for her.  I hoped now she had the sun in her face, and the bright future she always deserved on her path.  Of course, she hadn't made a move.  I knew she wouldn't.  She'd called my bluff before I took my first step into the darkening east.  She knew I wouldn't leave her out here all alone.

"Fine."  I yelled to her.  "Come with me."

Hours ago, she was skipping around patches of dead, yellowed grass, landing on bare soils so dry that every step produced a tan cloud at her feet as we played tag and chased each other.  I took that away from her when I threw that rock.  I stole the spring in her steps.

I waited for what seemed like a lifetime as she slowly paced through the desert following the steps I had run in haste.  Her hands still stayed by her side, not moving at all while she gripped those dusty skirts.  By the time she had gotten to me, the sun had already engulfed the top of the mountain with an orangey halo.

Her left hand released her tattered skirt, and caked with sweat and grime, the skirt kept its crumpled form.  Forcefully, she grabbed my arm with her free hand.

"I did it." she whispered.

"Don't be stupid." I rebuked her, more forcefully than I intended.

"Owen, I did it.  I killed that little boy."  I winced.  Rebs couldn't have stabbed me worse.  I didn't want to know.  Dead bodies weren't human; they weren't boys and girls.  They were rotting flesh, nothing more.  Dead bodies won't run and play in the sun, they won't tease their sisters, they won't climb trees and get read bedtime stories at night.  Little boys will.

"Rebecca, listen to me," I turns to her, knelt down and looked her straight in the eye, "You didn't do anything wrong.  I threw the rock over the cliff.  The rock that hit his head was mine.  Not yours.  None of this is your fault.  You never touched it.  You didn't do anything."

"I laughed.  I told you to throw the rock as far as you could.  I bet you that Lily's brother could throw it further."  Tears were streaming down her face down, but she didn't make even a small whimper.  "

I pulled her into my scrawny arms and hugged her tightly.  She didn't resist, but she didn't melt into my embrace either.  Everything in her little frame told me she needed love and support, but she was too deep in guilt to think she deserved any of it.  I didn't care.

I let her go and looked into her eyes again.  "I love you Rebs."  I wiped the tears from her eyes with my dirty fingers, but I knew she wouldn't mind.  "And I am going to take care of you.  I'm never going to let anything happen to you."  Rebs' eyes looked unfocused, as if she were dwelling in another, distant world comprised of her own imagination.  I knew she was getting scared by the quiver of her fingers so I squeezed her hand gently, just to remind her that I was there.

She sniffed. "We are in this together, right?" she asked, but really it was more a statement than a question.

"Yeah." I sighed as I placed her tiny right hand into my left,  "I guess we are."

The second thing remember, when my mind floats back to this time, is the campfire ablaze against the blackened sky.  The sparks flying off of the brittle desert sage branches joined their sparkling cousins the stars in the sky for brief moments of orange brilliance.

This was when I could no longer run away from my thoughts - when the clarity of the cloudless sky couldn't obfuscate my sin to god, to myself.  And I found myself staring deeply into the glowing coals of the fire, hoping for some kind of purifying burn to cleanse my heart of my deed.  I hoped in vain.

Murderer.  It was a cloak I now donned.  It was a word that yesterday could not be used to describe me, but today my name was irrevocably carved in stone next to its definition in the encyclopedia of the universe.  I was so many things before today.  I was the second baseman last week, the catcher on Saturday.  I was a student, I was cowboy in training.  But now I would be nothing but murderer.  Even if I could return, even if nobody knew of the crime, the world would silently condemn me.  I'd never just be a student again.  I'd be a murdering student, a murdering cowboy.  It was inescapable.

Perhaps this was simply somebody else's story I was living.  I could believe that, so long as I didn't have to look at the face that killed that boy.  What questions would that mirror reflection have to answer?

"Owen?" my own cousin whispered quietly, shaking me out of my reverie.

"Yeah Rebs?"

"I'm hungry." yet even then my thoughts returned to that boy who would never be hungry again.  A boy who would never get to satiate that hunger with a savory bite of chicken leg, or grilled rainbow trout.

"I know." I admitted to her eventually.  My own stomach growled at me angrily, though I was too consumed in guilt to care for it.  "We'll find something tomorrow.  I swear it."

Surely, I knew my promise was a hollow one, but I had to make it.  I had to convince myself more than I had to convince Rebs, or I'd not be able to lie to her so easily.  But reality doesn't follow the whims of the deluded and neither the next day nor the following did we find so much as one morsel to share.  It was mere luck that we found the snow melt stream or we would have died.  Though perhaps the greater luck would have been to die quickly and die together.

"I think," Rebs muttered to me in a fugue state that night, "I think we would have been friends."

"Go back to sleep, " I shushed her, re-positioning her small body along the rocks of the cave we had called home that night.  She looked so uncomfortable, but she wouldn't move a muscle on her own.  She couldn't anymore.

"A friend in exchange for a rock.  We exchanged a friend for a rock." she continued, delirious.  I don't know if it was her stomach, or her heart that was talking.  "I think I would rather have the friend.  I think I'd rather have the friend, than the rock.  It would have been better than this life."

I wish I could have answered her, but I was never strong enough to speak plainly to her.  I couldn't comfort her, so I said nothing.  I couldn't be her armor, so I didn't want to risk hurting her.  I was too afraid to see her cry.

But mentally I screamed.  There are no take-backs.  There is nothing we can do now to bring that boy back!  But there were so many points, so many junctures that day where a different choice could have meant the difference between life and death.  All I had to do was say I wanted to eat lunch on the porch instead of suggesting we play by the boulders that afternoon.  I could have offered to play cops and robbers, one of Rebs favorite games, instead of showing off my throwing arm.  If I hadn't thrown that ball to third base, if Robbie hadn't been able to tag Jeff out, if we hadn't won that game Saturday, I wouldn't have been so full of bravado.  I wouldn't have shown off to Rebs.  We'd be begging Grandma for a bedtime story right now instead.  That little boy would be tucked in bed, sleeping soundly as his mother looked on.

My mind reeled back to the minutes and hours before I threw that rock.  We were laughing.  How is that even possible?  We were running and playing, smiling only moments before it left my hands.  What gave us the right to smile?  Ten minutes before I killed, I was no better a person than ten minutes after I killed.  Ten minutes before, a little boy played in the desert, living the very last moments he ever would live.  Blissfully unaware that his existence was about to come to a violent end.  How could I have been so callous?  How could I have let my selfishness roam so unchecked?

The third thing I remember are words I never thought I'd hear escape her lips.  The creaked out of parched lips and blew through emaciated cheeks.

"Do you want to die?"

I panicked.  "Don't give up on me Rebs.  I know you are hungry.  I'll find you some food.  I'll go back to town tomorrow and get help.  I promise."

Her little head shakily turned to me.  "Not me Owen.  You.  Did you want me to go home so you could die?"

What was a 7 year old speaking of life and death like this for?  Was she yet another victim?  Did I murder a little boy's body and a little girl's spirit?

"I never intended to die." I told her, and it was the truth.  I never wanted to kill myself.  I never wanted to again take a life, any life, and I certainly never wanted to face my own mortality.

But I did want to stop living.  I wanted to quietly quit life.  It was the only way I could stop being a murderer.  I wanted to stop thinking of that boy, but as long as I was living, I didn't deserve to bury my guilt in forced amnesia.

"Ok.  Don't die then.  I would rather be friends."  As if she were reading my very thoughts she added, "You can't change your mind if you die."

Those were her last words to me.  When I woke up the next day, she didn't respond.  I shook her gently, but her eyes remained shut.  I whispered in her ear to get up, but she didn't stir.

The last thing I remember was me laying naked in the snow.  The high altitude sun was shinning on this late spring day, so my body couldn't have been that cold, but I wouldn't have felt it anyway.  I didn't remember climbing this high.  I don't know how I did it, being so hungry and tired and worn, but I remember the perfect indent my body made upon the old snow.  On occasion, I gently tested the confines of my iced mold to see how much effort I'd need to make to break this outline of my body.

I was exposed, ready to let the sun purify my soul and bleach my bones.  Let the crows take bites of me and fly to away spread this murderer to parts around the world.  I destroyed a unique human being and all the promise he offered the world.  I took away the future husband of the mother of his future children.  I robbed his parents his love and affection as they grew to old age.  Let me offer myself in sacrifice, to honor his loss, I thought.

I thought to close my eyes one last time, to let the sun blanket my body while I left it quietly.  I thought to let the cold wet moisture of the melting snow creep through my skin and slow my blood to a standstill.  I thought of worlds beyond to shut down my ears, my fingertips, eyes nose and heart.

That is probably why I didn't hear the grunts she made.  It is probably why I didn't hear her boots hit the rock fall, even though she did so with little grace.

First her head went to my heart.  I am sure she heard something; a slow, faint beat, growing weaker by the second.

Next her fingers went to my head, examining for injury and blood, but settling on my eyelids, which she pulled open to examine my dilated eyes.

"Wake up." she commanded and slapped me in the face, hard, but I didn't respond.

She pulled a thick woolen blanket out from her pack, and began to wrap it around me.  She brought forth her waterskin and brought it to my parched lips, and finally, I felt her presence.  The cool water flowed down my warm, dry throat, pumping new life where hope had all but been abandoned.  I coughed, and opened my eyelids as far as I could.

I saw my rescuer.  She had dark, taut olivine skin etched with faint creases and raven black hair which she bound in a simple braid.  And her black eyes bore through my delusion and my mental fog, but offered no judgement.

"Don't bother." I croaked, "Don't waste your time with me."

She shushed me, harshly.  "Your daddy thought you'd been murdered, boy.  Don't make me make it so."

She picked me up.  I must had lost a lot of weight because she bore me with little trouble.

It was nightfall by the time we made it down.  A lone horse served as my welcoming committee, upon which she unceremoniously foisted my weak body upon.

"Don't make me go home.  I killed them.  I killed them both.  One with my hands, Rebs with my words.  I don't deserve to live.  Rebs.  I can't take you back." I started mumbling before I finally, mercifully, lost consciousness.

-----------
The first thing I remember was the eyes of Rebs' uncle on me, scanning my body in the hospital bed with concern.  He grabbed my limp hand and held it tightly.  The warmth of his palm spread through my fingers and shot up my arm.

Father, I wanted to say, I'll never be the man you wanted me to be.  I am a murderer.  But I couldn't.  Every time I tried to get the words up, my body failed me.  Every time I felt my lips move, I lost the words.

The second thing I remember was turning my head away from my dad, in shame.  Instead, my gaze was forced to fall on the twin bed at my side, and the tiny blonde body that occupied it.  The white sheet rose and fell slowly, but rhythmically.  Her eyes were still closed, but I could see the color in her cheeks.

That little boy was never coming back.  His family would have to mourn him, and I would have to spend the rest of my life honoring his memory.  Nothing was going to change that.  But across from me, lying peacefully on that bed, I realized, finally, that hope still lived.

Lentz of the Wolf - Beginings (UPDATED!)

"Grandpa!", the little girl squealed as he picked her up and placed her into her hammock hung bed.  "I'm not tired anymore! I need a story!"
The boat rocked gently, naturally and smoothly rocking the little bed, which normally put little Haref to sleep quickly.  In high summer, the coast rarely became violent and all the children of the fleet would usually sleep long and soundly.  The brazier gave the little girl's room a warm glow to ward against the coolness of the night sea.  Yellow and orange hues reflected off of every object in view; even the dog who slept soundlessly.  The grandfather was glad it no longer stared him down and howled in sad submission, as it seemed to do whenever he entered the room.
"And so you shall have it!" the wrinkled, but otherwise fairly fit, white haired man declared.  And she would have it for many nights hence; always with the same mirth and enthusiasm in his voice.  In time, she would repeat it along with him.  Other times, she would demand a new story, to which he would comply, but no other story in his vast knowledge of stories would get the encore performance this one would.
"Do you know of the world that lies between this one and your next life?" he always began.
"No?" the curious little toddler would reply.  "No!" the excited young girl would reply on cue.  "No." sarcastic young woman would reply on the rare occasion she'd ask for the story.
"The world that lies beyond this one is an interesting place, full of everything we have here in life, in spirit form, but there is only one of each of them," the old man continued, "There is only one fish,"
"There is only one shark!" she would chant as she begun to know the story better and better.
"There is only one boar."
"There is only one baboon!"
"There is only one panther."
"There is only one dolphin!"
"There is only one wolf."
"There is only one human!"
"No!" the two would shout, smiling and giggling together, the child and the old man, as they both knew what came next.
"There was a time when there was no human in the world beyond.  Before our people grew up, we did not need another human to represent us.  The ape of the world beyond did well enough, gathering our souls when we passed and trading them to other animals to be reborn anew."
"Yes Grandpa, but over time, the Wak changed, and left the form of the ape." the youth would chime in.
"That's right Haref.  And our people needed someone in the world beyond to guide us in our new role.
"Then, as is now, we were a seafaring people, but during those days we also lived on the land."
"Did we build boats on the land?" she had once asked when she was quite small.  When he shook his head no, she wondered, "Then where did we sleep?  Where did we smoke fish?"
"We had places called houses, we bound the wood of trees together into circles, not boat shaped ovals, and used thatched roofs with willow branches and reeds before we knew how to forge the tin and bronze above us now."
"That sounds so strange!"
The elderly man smiled.  "The memory of those days are long forgotten among us.  But maybe one day we will see them again.
"But back to the story."
"Yes!"
"You see, this was a most cherished and noble cause.  He who was sent into the world beyond would live forever, or as long as he kept to his role, but he was also the one responsible for all the souls that were or would become the people he represented.  Do you know why we see so few panthers when we take our shore trips to mine and get lumber?"
"Nef!"
"Yes, Nef of the panther is a solitary woman who is not interested much in the world of the living.  To her, the souls of panthers departed are precious, and are more like to remain untraded, and to become panthers again.  She has no desire for the souls of mere wolves, or humans like us.  And that is probably a good thing, since they are dangerous and would kill you or I easily.
"So the eldest of the Wak, the most sagacious and wise among us came together to determine how to choose the best of the Wak to represent us in the world beyond. They decided there would be a competition to ensure he who represented the Wak in the world beyond would be the strongest..."
"The smartest!" she would pipe in.
"The bravest"
"The most capable... !"
"...among us to go.  And they determined that they should send someone young, someone not already burdened with the wearies of the world.  So they held a contest among all the youths.  Villages, (that is what they used to call fleets of those houses on land!) sent their bravest lads and most cunning young women from near and far.  They ate and drank.  They sang songs we all knew but had forgotten over the years.
"Then, finally the day came that they announced the challenge."
"To build a boat!"
"Yes.  In those days, they did not travel to deepsea, as we can now.  The Wak stayed close to the safety of the shoreline.  So the youths were charged to build small boats that could get them the furthest in the dark of deepsea.  Designing the boat challenged their intelligence.  Building it tested their strength.  Making it float challenged their capability, and traveling to the dangers of deepsea challenged their courage.
"For two months, it is said, the youths toiled, first with charcoal and parchment, later with timber and iron.  Many full moon nights were filled with the sound of tinkering and hammers pounded hundreds of iron nails into boards of oak.  Even more youths became discouraged and tired.  They left for their villages and did not return.
"Finally, the day of the launch was upon them.  Earlier that morning, nobody had slept; the whole coastline was awash with bonfires and torches as the village celebrated the remaining youths.  The Wak ate well that night, roasted boar braised with a hickory glaze.  Endless fluffy loaves of maple acorn breads.  Wine and mead was given to all in generous portions.
"But by the time the sun was high, half of the youths who had launched at dawn had already turned around, hungry and scared.  The village saw more return as the sky turned a hazy purple.  When the stars began to poke out, only 5 remained and 3 of them soon headed back, feeling the cold of the night on their skin.  Well after they were out of site, Tor, the youth called out to Myr, the maiden.
"'Let us both turn around now,' he exclaimed, 'We can claim the prize together as the best of our age.  We will both be hailed as heroes.'
"Left unsaid was the story they would have to concoct to convince their family and friends that they had seen the beyond.  Implicit in his plea was that humans would remain unrepresented among the spirits.
"But Myr would entertain no such options.  She meant to win for herself and prove herself the best of everyone.
"When she didn't respond, Tor grew afraid and lonely in the open air.  He no longer competed with a human; he knew he was already racing with a spirit.  He stopped rowing and sat in his boat for a full hour before her form finally disappeared from the horizon in the sunset.
"Nobody knew what happened to Myr after that.  Tor had arrived home at dawn, saying only that she was no longer in the mortal world.  He was right.
"But about the same time Tor was reaching the shores of his home, Myr was reaching very different shores.  On the beach she saw a horse sitting besides a duck.  A little further down, a shark flopped belly down onto the sands, before changing to give himself legs to meet up with his friends.  The three were talking excitedly as any human would, enjoying the sound of the waves with the dawning of the sun.  They were startled to see the boat floating on the horizon coming towards them."
"Grandpa, don't forget the part about the change of the boat!" the little girl would have to remind him from time to time.
"Of course not!  See, in the world beyond, where there is only one of everything, everything must be the best, biggest of what it is.  When Myr passed to the world beyond, she became a full grown woman.  And her boat, it was no longer a mere boat, it was a huge ship!  It would take fifty of our frigates to fit in the ship she steered that day.
"And in those days, they did not have steam engines in our world, but Myr's new ship was propelled on its own anyway."
"It must have been magic!" Haref would interject.
"Haha, we know there is no such thing as magic in any world.  But it was an unexplained wonder.
 "So imagine, little girl, you are a horse..."
"Neeeiiiiggghh!" she would interrupt as a child,
"Minding your own business with your friends on the beach," he would continue," when you see this huge object coming at you.  Kez of the Horse got up and ran far and wide, warning everyone in the world beyond of the monstrosity that was approaching their home.  By the time Myr landed, everyone in the world beyond was there to meet her.
"She descended the plank to a huge host of every animal you can think of in the world of the living.  Parrot and junglefowl, raccoon and guinea pig, and at the head of them were the three loudest, most arrogant and proud of the spirits of the world beyond.  Ishis, of the baboon, Hetiz of the boar, and the alpha male of them all, Lentz of the wolf.
"Now, there were not many women in the world beyond.  And those who are there often hide in the shadows.  Nef, she keeps much to herself.
"But most of the animals of the world of the living see their strongest and best in the men of the species.  Before Myr even touched a foot on dry ground, the animals saw her as female, they saw her as the weaker, the less clever, the more cowardly.
"'What is this?' Ishis of the baboon screeched, 'A soul still with a body here?  Are you a sacrifice by your people to our desires?'
"Hetiz of the boar was less kind, 'If you desire your next life, we can grant that to you.' and he snarled and bore his tusks at Myr..
"'I am neither sacrifice nor despondent.  I am Myr, of the human, and I have come to claim my role among you and your council.' the human yelled, loud enough for all to hear.
"All along the beach, animals erupted in laughter, this puny human, weaker than those of the Ape to begin with, and weaker still due to her sex.
"'Let her come to me, I shall make a new little clucking hen out of her, to attend to us roosters naturally.' spoke out the junglefowl.
"'No I think she would be better to be born again, with my piglets soon on the way.  She would make a nice fat sow." declared the boar.
"And the animals went on in this way.  Nef sniffed, and stalked away, offering no help to the newcomer.  Finally, Lentz of the Wolf silenced them all with a mighty growl."
"'Idiots!  I know exactly what to do with this female human.  She is not unlike any other bitch of my kind, let us treat her as such.  And let us take this strange contraption from her.  Obviously she cannot know how to use it if she got herself lost here.'
"Surrounded by all of those animals what could Myr do?"
"She could do plenty." would reply and older Haref.
"Indeed she could.
"'This is my ship, I created it with my mind and my heart.  It obeys only my commands and it will suffer no one who disrespects me!'
"'We shall see about that mongrel.' replied Lentz of the Wolf.  He snarled and arched his back in loathing and animosity.  Not asking her permission, or even giving her a look in the eye, he made his way for the ramp to take her ship away.  Perhaps it was because he was too foolish to even look at her that she was able land her kick so precisely and so hard, but I believe she would have send that wolf spirit howling regardless of how well he was able to prepare for it.
"'I repeat, this is my ship.  You will ask for my permission to board,' she gave him another kick down the ramp.  And you will know us as human, as strong, smart, brave and capable.'
"Myr stayed in the world beyond for some time according to legend.  And she did more than just her duty.  She tamed Lentz of the Wolf so that from then on, he was known as Lentz of the Dog.  She took him to husband and bore him a child and it is said that child has taken on the mantle for humankind forevermore.
"But eventually she tired of the responsibility and left the world beyond and returned.  They say she took Tor, her old rival, as a new husband and gave him a child as well, but I doubt that.  She was far too fiery for a man who would quit so soon.  She did ensure that her people would continue and thrive, and I suspect many in the fleet are the spiritual children of Myr.  We have thrived, haven't we?"
"Yes, our boats and ships are many, our people happy, "Haref recited when she was younger,  "We get everything we need from the sea and we are given mastery of the sea from what we steal from the land."
_____________________________________________
These days, the tellings of the story were becoming fewer and fewer, and she was thinking of other things; that practical woman she had become.  Mostly she was thinking of betrothals and her ship, and though she loved her Grandpa dearly, he was becoming less and less the center of her life and more an eccentric fool who at best served as entertainment, and at worse, a nuisance.
Tonight was going to be a good night though, the best prospect by far had invited her aboard his parents' ship for a dance and a sauna sweat.  That was how important his family was - they had a full working sauna on-board their vessel.  Haref was not in a bad position herself, thanks in part to tragedy.  Before she could remember, her parents had both died, leaving her the ship, and since she had no siblings to share, it was a fine dowry.  Her date for the evening was second son; she could offer him a chance for a life of his own.  She knew she was going into this meetings with a great hand and she wanted to savor victory.
As she sat down to her fine oak vanity, staring through the looking glass and mixing adornments on her ears and in her hair, she hummed softly.  "Fitzar", she whispered to herself, trying to make the constants and vowels sling to her head and heart favorably.  She had never met the young man, but she was determined to like him.  Haref was already tired of courting and wanted to move on with her life.
She had tried her hand at love, twice, and twice those boys had broken her heart.  Schoolchildren though they might have been, betrayal is betrayal, and she needed none of that.  She just wanted help on her ship, she just wanted somebody that would hoist the rigging when needed, pull in the catch when the nets were overfull or repair the sails from time to time.  She was not interested in being the prettiest, or the most flirty anymore.  Let those games stay with the little girls.
"My little Haref, you can do better than this.  You know you are stronger, smarter, and better than any man in the fleet.  Why limit yourself so?" the old man muttered, startling Haref from her revere.  He stood in the doorway, gnarled hands resting on lacquered door frame.  As he had recently come from the boiler room, his white bound knee-high leg warmers were now black, but his hands and face were freshly washed.
"Grandpa, I'm developing options for myself, not limiting myself.  How else can I claim my full right to citizenship and a voice on the council but through marriage?"
"That is a foolish law.  Myr would never have approved." the old man grumbled, knowing full well his granddaughter would dismiss him.
"Yes, grandpa, but we don't live in a fairy tale world.  This is reality.  It makes sense, really." she rationalized to herself,  "What good is it to listen to someone whose line will end with them?  You need to show that you are not just one individual, but that you are looking out for the future of our fleet as a whole." the girl huffed.  Much as she cherished the memories she had with the old man and his bedtime stories, she was a woman now.  She really wished he would treat her as such.
The old man walked around the cramped wooden room to the porthole and starred into the twilight sky.  The seas were calm but the sky was ominous.  Such is life upon the open waters.
"Have you ever wondered, dear, why I have no voice on the council, though I have a hand in the future, through you?" he asked softly.
"You told me you don't like the council.  That you don't play well in groups where you aren't in charge." she said.
"Heh," he grunted, "Yes I suppose that is true too.  But I could never join the council, even if I wanted to."  He lifted his hands and with his fore finger, absentmindedly began to trace the outlines of the brass bolts that held the porthole in place.  "This ship," he whispered wistfully, "may be mine to command until you come of age and marry, but she was never mine, and I was never hers.  I may be your grandfather, but neither your mother nor your father was my child."
Haref turned her attentions to a deep sea blue pendant, seemingly unaffected by the news.  She merely nodded.
"You knew?" the old man asked, incredulously.
"Not for sure, but I think I did." she said.  "There aren't any shadow slides of you and my parents together, or of you and me any time before I turned 2."
"The year your parents were lost."
She turned around and looked the old man in his hazel eyes.  "Yes.  So tell me then, who are you, and why are you here?," she asked, adding a repentant, if sweet smile, "Grandpa?"
It worked, of course, and the old man smiled back.  Neither of them doubted that it would.  "I was escaping the mainland when I came across your parents.  I was scavenging but the wolf presence became too great.  I had to take flight as the first of the hurricane hit land.
"I was one of the lucky ones.  By the time I reached my dingy, I was in the eye of the storm.  The winds and waves were relatively calm.  That was when I came across your parents' fishing dingy; or rather, what was left of it.
"Your parents were not the only ones to pass that day, and I had to navigate through wood debris and bodies.  Your father was long dead, likely one of the first.  I never saw him, but the seas were harsh and likely swallowed him whole in one gulp.
"But your mother clung on to some of the wreckage, along with 2 other survivors.  Two young boys, ship-hands I suspect, were knocked out cold and were afloat on debris thanks only to the good will of your mother.  I didn't have a lot of room in my dingy; why would I have brought out a big ship?  It was just supposed to be a simple day with a simple catch.  I lived on my own back then, and I've never really needed much to survive.
"So it was either your mother of both of the boys.  I offered to let her take my place, but she refused. I swore at her, saying I could swim along side the boat.  I asked her if she wanted to abandon her friends and family in the fleet.  That was when she told me about you.  'Protect my daughter' were her final words that day, but she needn't have said a thing.  It was becoming clear to me that the spirits had guided me for this very purpose.
"But still I tried, I implored she climb into safety.  Surely all four of us could make it.
"All she could do was respond to me with a moan.  It was the first time I noticed the faint hint of red in the water around her.  Slowly, with great effort, she brought her hand down to her stomach.  She had been near impaled by a splintered part of the mast.
"Could she have been saved?  I don't know, but I knew there I couldn't move her without fatally dooming her.  We needed stronger men and better doctors than one old man and two unconscious boys.
"She gave me your family crest before I sailed off, rushing to beat the rest of the storm to the fleet.  It was the same crest I will give to you on your wedding day.  She made me promise to care for you and I was not about to refuse a dying woman's request.  I told her that I would send for help to return as soon as I could, but I think she knew she was out of time.  We made it to the fleet just as the eye of the storm passed, and by the time I could venture out again, there was no sign of the sloop or your mother.  I'm sorry."
Haref considered what she heard.  Nothing contradicted anything she had read, but he certainly filled in a lot of gaps to her family history research.  "The boys, I am guessing they were the twins Joraf and Jepsah.  That would explain why they always seem to just happen to be in this part of the fleet when they have a huge over catch or when we have a leak or boiler malfunction."
"Yes.  When those two boys returned home, their parents had already begun burning the incense and singing songs to the spirits.  They thought us ghosts.  They thought me a spirit myself!  But when they saw my flesh and blood, their prostrations stopped, and their gratitude began to flow unceasingly.
"As an old man, there are too many things I could not do for you.  I had never been a ship master.  When I told them of your parents, and how I saw it as my duty to raise you to become the fine young woman you are today, they insisted they help.  If I saved their sons once, that family has saved us a hundred times over.
"Why are you telling me this now?" Haref asked.
"Because this is your ship, and soon you will have that crest.  And you will know why there is so much hope and promise in you, and why I want to make sure that it is not squandered.  Please, do not be hasty.  Choose a man that will be a true first officer.  Take a man to husband that will help you to go far, not one who merely wants a cushy life.  Choose a man who won't let you down, and who will not let you let yourself down either.  Only a man such as that is truly worthy of you."
 “Thank you grandfather.” Haref nodded calmly, “You’ve given me a lot to think about.  I will consider it.”
The old man signed and took a step back, closing the door ever so gently.  Always so clinical, his Haref was.  He knew what her words really meant.  She would think on it, but her mind was already made up.  She might change the details, but her goal was still first to become Matron of the ship, in whatever way was the fastest, and take the burden of sailing off of himself - whether she was prepared for it or not.  Intelligence breeds confidence and confidence breeds more confidence; his granddaughter was a prime example of that.  She was sure she had already taken into account all the most important factors in her decision to marry.  What an old man had to say was for the details only.
As he was only the acting ship master, the decision would ultimately come from the council elders.  She might come to him for a symbolic blessing, and at her wedding, he would symbolically pass her family crest down, but he was expendable in the process.
"So much promise," he muttered, "I had such hopes for you."  Turning down the hall he amended, "I still do."
________________________________________________________________________________

Lentz of the Wolf - Relationships

Four blue-black towels draped over four glistening bodies cast shadows against the slick walls from the window of the charcoal stove in the center of the room.  Above the stove of steel hot pumice stones glowed, waiting to be doused again by a serving of water from a nearby pail. Thez Turak, ship master and father of Fitzar, obliged his wife, son and guest every now and again by pouring the tepid water on the rocks whereby it sizzled into the steam of the sauna.

Jukla Turak, his wife, sat comfortably with her town around her waist, and eyes closed, but mind awake and active.  “So tell me Haref, what interests you about our young Fitzar?  You must know we are training our eldest to one day take over our sloop.  Kelra beat out her twin by mere minutes.  Ironic, considering how motivated Lurel is.  So you know, there will be no room more a new wife here." 

"Yes, Lurel was a classmate of mine last year.  A beautiful young woman if I may say, and smart. 

"We spoke briefly about our future plans at the end of schooling.  As I am sure you know, her ambitions are quite impressive indeed.  A fleet admiral?  Land colonies?  That will be a tough dream, but if anyone can do it, she can."

"Yes, Lurel has quite the future for herself." Jukla laughed opening her eyes just as her husband found his way back to his seat.  "You know she too is nearing the end of courtship.  We've secured a contract with the first son of the Bohut, Heztre.  He visited us just as you are now only a fortnight ago.  Of course you know of the Bohuts..."

"Mother!" Fitzar protested, "We are not here for Lurel."  The young man clenched his fits nervously.  He, like his parents and his suitor, sat with nothing but a towel around his waist, but he might as well have been naked.  The blonde youth sat against the oak sauna walls with the grace of a wooden plank, nervous as he was with this meeting.

"Easy Fitzar," Jukla retorted, "She might as well get to know her prospective in-laws if a solid contract is to be struck."

"I am not familiar with the family.  The outer fleet does not get much time to interact with great families." Haref admitted, sheepishly "Please go on."

Jukla offered the young woman an skeptical, barely derisive glare, but after a moment of thought to herself, she continued, "It is a very old tale, but surely familiar enough to you.  Do you remember being told of the story of Myr and her travels to the world beyond?"

Haref suppressed a smile she only ever intended for her grandfather, "Yes, of course."

"Legend says that she named her first boat the Kalmut.  A bold statement when she left the docks on that mythical day.  'The first among the living'"

"Ah," Haref quickly realized, "'The last among the spirits'.  Bohut means 'the last among the spirits'"

Thez, Fitzar's father smiled in approval, "You know Classical Waak well."

"They say, when she returned, she left the Kalmut in the world beyond, and came home with the first steam powered vessel known to the Wak.  That, she called the Bohut.  But there is an alternate translation of the word."
"Last among the stars." Haref quickly amended and was rewarded with a patronizing smile.
 "Now, make no mistake," warned Jukla, "any ship from those days surely is long gone.  But the family would have passed down that name to each successive boat they built."

"So it is possible that Lurel's suitor is related to such a woman of myth and legend?  That is quite impressive."

"Oh dear," Jukla laughed again, loud and openly, "  I'm sure all of us have a drop of the blood of Myr somewhere.  He's not merely related, he is the sole heir of Myr and her works!"
"If the myths are even true, mother." Fitzar growled in a low voice, eager to be done with the topic.

"Well," Haref reclaimed the conversation after moments of silence that she hoped were interpreted as deference, "My ambitions are not so astronomical, admittedly.  As you may know, I am heir of my own vessel, the Veshja, the 'Myopic Traveler', and I search for a solid and successful life.  I am the only child, last of my line, and I want to be sure that as the world turns, that line will live on."
"So you wish children?" Thez chimed in with a deep but pensive voice.

"Yes.  As soon as possible.  And a father that will help me to raise them to be proud Wak."

Nobody said anything for several seconds, but Fitzar blushed a radish red against the orange glow of the stove.  Hoping to break the tension, Haref continued, "Lurel told me of Fitzar.  She mentioned that we might have a great deal in common, and that our goals are the same.  She suggested we might be a good match."

"A good match for a woman of the outer fleet?  My boy is hardly the laborer.  Look at him." Thez muttered derisively, but he was promptly ignored by both his wife and his guest.  His son, however, cast his gaze downward in embarrassment.

"Fitzar, go ahead and say something," his mother prodded.

The boy collected himself and straightened his back. "I am Fitzar, third son of the ship Turak." he recited as if he had practiced it all afternoon.  "I have little to offer but my intelligence, strength, bravery and capability."

"Yes dear, all that.  But speak plainly." his mother nagged, irritated.  "Leave the ceremony for the wedding."

"I seek to be a helpmeet for the Matron of a ship, to be her first mate, to help her on her voyage as it too becomes my voyage.  I wish to be father to her children, to love them, to guide them and protect them, I..." Fitzar paused, clearly having forgotten his next line.  Instead, he turned sheepishly to the half naked Haref.  "Um... " he tried to find words in frankness, but his mind failed him and his practiced speech offered no back-up.   "That's all."

Haref smiled.  She got up from her oak wood seat in the sauna and bowed her head before youth she courted.  "Fitzar of the vessel Turak, I beg your permission to speak alone with your parents." she said with ritual perfection.  

The youth nodded and fumbled trying to stand up.  He lost his towel in the process and blushed hot with embarrassment before his mother collected him and escorted him out of the sauna.  It was several minutes before she returned.

"Lurel may have been a little liberal on her brother's behalf." Thez spoke quietly, "Ambitions of progeny aside, I see very little in common between yourself and my son."

"Thank you for your concern father," she mentally winced, hoping he took that as confidence and surety, rather than arrogance.  "But love, duty, family, can grow out of differences.  I'm sure that your son and myself will be able to find the path to a successful ship.  We will make you proud."

"My son is a good boy, but he will provide no leadership."

"I will provide it."

"He will provide no cleverness."

"I shall be clever enough for the both of us."

"He may tie you down."

"I will carry us both."

Thez sighed.  "It sounds like you and his mother are already convinced then.  What can a man say?  I'm just Master of my ship."

"I will make you proud, I promise." Haref asserted just as the sauna door swung open again. 
"That was never my concern." he interjected one last time.

"Come, come," beckoned Jukla before her husband and her son's suitor. "I've had the helm assistant begin drawing up the documents.  Let's talk over coffee and biscuits."

"Jukla, my dear, aren't you rushing things?" Thez bemoaned but Haref was already standing before the both of them, in a full bow.

"Master Thez Turak and his first mate Jukla, I beg to give your son the name and ship of Veshja, to make him my first mate and to forever sail under the fleet with him by my side, so long as we are on this side of the world."

Before her husband could speak Jukla interjected with a sultry smile, "Agreed.  Please accept our son into your crew, and care for him as you would your own.  Come now child, let us draw up those documents."

_____________________________________________________________________________

The helm's clock chimed five times and still there had been no word from the young woman who once begged for a bedtime story.  Lentz sighed while he looked onto the faded horizon of dimly lit eastern stars.  His bones were tired and old in this world when his life was never intended to know such pain.  He didn't know how much longer he could stay, yet he feared what might happen to his adopted granddaughter if he were to leave.

As he sat in his reclining chair, he felt the creases of the leather under his fingertips and snarled.  He had never met the boy Fitzar, but he already knew he wasn't good enough for her.  Nobody was good enough for his beautiful, intelligent Haref.  

Short story - The Shirt

Coffee still cooling in his hand, he greeted the mid-morning day alone on his porch.  The elevated deck was just high enough that his feet didn't touch the ground when he sat on the floor, but low enough that the chickens were able to nibble at his sandal clad toes, waiting expectantly for some scratch or a piece of fruit.  Those birds were her idea too.

It was dry and the air held vestiges of a cool starry night sky and the sweet aftertaste of desert sage and the caramelized pine needles from yesterday's sun-baked forest floor.  In a few hours the sun will have chased away the last remaining traces of the cool morning but even in this early hour, the clothes he had set on the line were already mostly dry.

They hung silently, wavering occasionally as they saw fit, but he was a man of simple tastes and his clothes refused to make a scene of themselves in front of him.  Plaid cotton long sleeved shirt, red with green and black.  Two pairs of his work pants, Carhartts, one a darker beige, the other a greenish beige pulled the line down with their weight.  Another plaid shirt, this one a simple blue and black.  Five white short sleeved shirts, some splattered with hues of blue and yellow, were the rowdiest of his clothing, letting the wind gusts billow them out like sails when it wished to.

He'd take them all down soon, before he got up and off to work.  But he'd leave the last shirt, the only dancer of the group, as he had left her up day after day.

It wasn't a terribly flamboyant shirt, nothing to radiate and essence of proud, sexual womanhood, but it said everything it needed to say.  A medium brown, sleeveless tank-top, a simple v-neck with the cloth below the V stylistically bunched up and sewn together.  While it wasn't her favorite shirt, he had considered having the morgue lay her out in it.  That was before he saw her, before they advised the closed casket.  She was too badly beat up, they told her.  Showing her to everyone else could only upset them.  He guessed they were less concerned with upsetting her illegitimate husband.

He told them to cremate her in the clothes she had died then, in snow pants so unused she had forgotten to take the tag off, in that drab, deep purple gore-tex jacket she said made her feel like a stuffed animal.  The boots would remain on her precious feet, those boots that cost him more than a few times her beloved embroidered clogs and sandals - boots that he loved in equal measure to her aversion to them.  He was only able to buy them through careful trickery, saying that the boots were for him.  The two shared a shoe-size though, and she hadn't seemed surprised when the boots mysteriously ended up in her closet.

While she never really took to the outdoors like he did, it goes without saying that he loved her.  That is why he shared his life with her.  That is why he got on his knee and proposed to her in that restaurant in Madrid, a year ago.  Even when they returned home and were told they couldn't get legally married, it didn't stop his devotion to her.  Nor did it stop her devotion to him.  She never told him she wanted another man.

He was just a stupid, confused little girl from Idaho when he first met her.  Back then he was perpetually frustrated with himself and he could never figure out why.  He grew up alone, the sole daughter of a ranching family's hard talking son and an evangelical real estate agent, but his emotionally distant father and stifling mother weren't the only sources of his misery.  He was only able to find peace from his discontented mind away from the busy eyes and expectant minds of his rural hometown, climbing the neighboring foothills and mountains. 

But even if it wasn't his parents who made him feel clunky in his skin, even if it wasn't the leers from the high school jocks he started noticing as his breasts filled out and his hips became uncomfortably wide who made him question the purpose of his life, even if it wasn't his fire and brimstone preacher who made him question the existence of god when he told him he would be raped by the demons and devils well after he had bled dry in hell, when he confessed that he felt "tingly" around his fellow cheerleaders, all of those factors did finally push him away for good when he announced to his mother and father that he was a lesbian.  Mere months shy of finishing high school, he was assaulted twice in the street by classmates, threatened, and disowned.

When he moved west, he knew he would never return.  He thought that should have been liberating enough, but his skin still did not fit.  His life still seemed a wasted repetition of going through meaningless motions, without purpose or guidance.

He found a lot of what he never knew he was looking for in her.  She was bold and exciting, fresh and new.  When she looked at him, he knew she didn't see him as man or woman, but as a person, a pure, unique personality built on a set of experiences and motivations. To her, he was divorced from prejudice and assumed predispositions that have been forcibly woven into into the fabric of society since the birth of man. 

It was her who first suggested the surgery, but not before she healed his head.  As they dated, he came to understand himself and the source of his malaise as he readjusted the pre-programed algorithms of his life to match his most earnestly held desires.  She helped him every step of the way with kindness and patience.  While his hips still felt too wide to function properly, his relatively small chest felt superfluous and heavy, she helped him at least escape the scathing judgment of dashed expectations.  In return, he wanted nothing so much as to protect her from every harm in the universe and give her a new world to dance and play. Skin like hers was made for caressing, lips like hers were made for kissing, and eyes like hers were made to draw him into her cocoon of compassion and caring.  He did not fail to oblige her body in every way.

Yet he still held on to his womanhood for the first few years.   They spoke of it together, the transformation, but her responses never satisfied a decision.  More, she worked like a gentle interrogator, drawing out his fears and hopes, little at a time, lest the splinter within his heart shatter and become unrecoverable.

Growing up he never felt particularly masculine or feminine.  He enjoyed playing tag football and playing with dolls, though his dolls were more likely to become explorers and mountaineers than fashionistas.  Initially he was worried that he was making a choice to bury a part of himself to favor another; losing a leg to gain an extra arm.

She had laughed at him for that, as she had often found it easy to laugh at him when he was being unreasonable.  She promised that if he went through the process, she'd be sure to remind him that he still liked to do "sissy things like painting" and that she wouldn't let him turn completely into a "mountain hermit".  She took away the fear that all he would do is add new expectations he never wanted to himself, and made the transformation a question of physical and mental comfort.

After surgery, he knew he made the right decision.  He wouldn't miss out on anything life had to offer.  She would safeguard and remind him not only her own femininity, but his as well, and he promised that he would treasure both his own masculinity and hers.  Well after surgery he was still climbing the Sierras and painting the flowers of her garden, but this time, he felt the present was right, and he could start talking about the future.  That was when he planned the trip to Spain.  That was also when the two started thinking about having a family.

A year ago they were still having these conversations on the other side of his proposal.  Even as she helped him escape the expectations of his community and family, the two of them could not escape the expectations of the state.  Idaho insisted he was female, and California declared that two women could have no legal marital bond.  She was in tears about that, and the only reason he wasn't was that he needed to be strong for her. 

Less than a month ago they had decided together to adopt.  While they prepared the paperwork and looked for candidates, they prepared their home, their hearts and their lives.  She said she wanted to do things she had not ever done, to understand him better and to do it before the responsibilities of the child prevented her from joining him again.  She wanted to be his mountain woman, even if just for a weekend.

Sitting on the porch, his coffee well drained he absently wondered what time it was, though he was sure he was late for work, again.  It didn't matter.  His work was a meaningless pattern of repetitive motions he wasn't willing to sacrifice for.  Not anymore. The rockslide had robbed him of that and the helicopter would never be able to return it to him.  In the garden, the flowers were wilting from neglect, his canvas went unused and the adoption papers had been abandoned. 

He had been in this rut for two weeks, since her death.  He could no more escape his reeling mind than take down that brown shirt from the line.

As the two fastened their seatbelts in the car, just before they left the house together for the last time, she had shrieked.  She had forgotten about the shirt she had handwashed and hung up to dry.  They were running late, he had told her, if they didn't reach the trailhead soon they wouldn't make it to base camp before nightfall.  It would be fine to leave it out a night.  She had relented of course, seeing the impatient excitement of a child on Christmas Eve in him.

Whenever he took his own clothes off the line he would stop now, and touch her shirt.  Two weeks later he could still smell her scent, underneath the soap of the laundering, but every day meant that she was growing weaker.  The smell of sage and pine sought to claim the shirt for their own and there was nothing he could do to stop it.  In a few days she would be completely gone.

He threw his coffee mug at a nearby rock, startling the chickens and they ran away.  As it shattered he put his hands up and started to cry.  He couldn't be strong for her anymore, he failed at that.  He failed at protecting her when she needed it.  He got up and ripped his plaid shirts from the line.  The Carhartts came down as well.  The white shirts he pulled off and ripped them with his bare hands.  Nothing remained on the line except for that brown shirt, dancing in the gusts of wind.

Again he searched for her scent in its folds, weak as it was, and cried into it, feeling as lost as he had when he was a little girl.  She had been everything for him.  His guide, the one who gave him purpose and meaning, while helping him to hold onto the things that mattered most.

Clutching the hem of the shirt, he hesitated, then pressed on the wooden clothespin , releasing the shoulders from the line.  Both shoulders bore an indent where the pins had been but that too would fade in time.  He removed his shirt, his now flat breasts exposed to gentle breeze and hugged the brown shirt one last time.

He put the shirt on, and went inside to grab his paints.