Ashleigh's Dilemma by J. D. Reid Page A

with you, not ever!” she called back over her shoulder. She was already making unshakeable plans how to get back to Ucluelet and, from there, Maryland and the safety of her home. She imagined that once safe within those walls she’d lock the door, disconnect the phone, and never talk to him again; he’d call and call but she’d rather be damned than answer! Argh! A sense of relief flooded through her and she almost cried but she held it in check. There was no way off this damned island and she knew it.
     
     
    Five days and four nights later found Patrick sitting on a rock high up on a ridge overlooking the sound: a string of snow-capped mountains disappearing into the haze of distance, the deep blue of the sound studded with islands carpeted in fir and spruce .  He could trace the route they had taken: first Gibraltar , then Gilbert, Turret, Willis, and now Benson where they were not allowed to stay the night. The Tseshaht’s oral traditions name the island as their place of origin from which the first Tseshaht man and woman were created. It was a place to linger and think but not to stay.
    There were totems on the beach looking out over the sound . They were old and weathered; they had been looking out over the same, always changing, body of water for longer than he had been alive, and possibly for centuries. There were other totems of same age mysteriously placed in the midst of the rainforest looking into the dark depths cut by beams of light originating from the high canopy and filled with a riot of dancing mots all in a sighing silence. “This is a holy place,” he had said to Ashleigh as he watched her reach up to trace the contours of the heavily weathered carvings and then smile back at him. It was holy to her too, he could see.
     
    Ashleigh was below and behind him preparing for her evening bath. She insisted he didn’t turn about and he intended to keep his promise. She wasn’t ready for that yet – perhaps tomorrow.
    It was a large pool held between the forest and the rocky shore. It was so urced from a mountain stream the surface almost invisible in its dark clarity – and it was very cold. Ashleigh had put her hand in and had quickly withdrawn it. Her hand ached from the contact, she said; it would kill her if she jumped in; her heart would stop. Patrick smiled and described what she was missing: the reckless abandon, the shocking, almost paralyzing impact; the sudden silence, the breath forced from the lungs, the encompassing numbness, the racing heart; the exhilaration of being suspended like in a dream above the rock and crags twenty feel below.
    “Okay, enough! I ge t it! If you think I’m going in you’re crazy!  I’ll smell and I don’t care. You might, but I won’t.”
    He suggested she might try the ocean if she thought the pool too cold; it would be warmer. She shook her head. There was absolutely no possibility. There’d be fish swimming about and dangerous and slippery rock and razor-sharp mollusks and strings of kelp that would tangle about her feet capturing her lifeless body in a wild tangle to float forever amidst the silent creatures of the sea - to say nothing of the killer whales and frolicking seals frequently exploring close in to the shore.
    “I get it, I really do, Ashleigh; you’re not going in.”
    “No, you don’t get it!  I am going in! I can’t smell like this for another four days!” 
     
    It took a few days on the stone beach but Ashleigh eventually discovered within herself what Patrick knew was there all along. He had seen the truth in the Emily Carr she hung in her hallway and in the National Parks calendar hanging in her kitchen. For all her edges she knew all about beauty. She felt it everywhere. He remarked on the beautiful scene for the month and she turned to follow his gaze. She lifted it down. “Look at this…,” she said while lifting each page to show him what had passed as well as what was to come; “…I just don’t what to say about