on one side of the road, then crosses beneath
it. A mile from the junction of Canyon and Pinehurst Roads are a post
office and a K–8 school under the trees. The residents maintain their
own roads and water system and take pride in composting, recycling,
and solar power. They feed their kids organic produce and Niman
Ranch beef and teach them Zen meditation.
This is where Teddy and Jeanie once tried to make a life together.
I drove across the WPA bridge above the creek into the school’s
gravel parking lot. Pulling over to the farthest, most shadowy corner
of the lot, I put the Rabbit temporarily out of its pain. I didn’t know
why Teddy refused to buy a real car. Jeanie used to drive a Lexus while
they were married. I cracked one of the remaining beers. I’d meant to
get out and walk along the road, clear my head, but instead I let the
seat back as far as it would go, about forty-five degrees, and lay there
taking small sips of beer as the night sounds of the forest reasserted
themselves. The outside world and all its cares and problems drifted
further and further away.
I fell asleep with the beer propped between my legs and immediately
slipped into a dream, in which it turned out that Caroline was
still alive, that we’d been mistaken all these years. She had just been
standing very still, pretending to be a statue. Look, I said to my father,
turning him physically to face her, she’s alive, she’s breathing, feel her
breath. Lawrence was in despair, and I was trying to convince him
what he’d done was not irrevocable after all, that there was still time
to make amends, there was always time. The past was gone, washed
away, and we were prepared to forgive him. At first he didn’t want to
see that she was alive. Look, we kept telling him. Look at her.
Never had I dreamed of Caroline so vividly as I did that night, dozing
in Teddy’s car under the redwoods. I used to dream about her, but her
face would always be turned away, or it would become another face
when I tried to hold it in my gaze, so that it seemed she was running
away from me. Now she held still. Now, sixteen years after her death,
I was able to see her as she’d been when she was alive, the way her
brown hair faded to downy wisps behind her ears, the softness of her
skin, the smell of her, which I’d forgotten and which was like rediscovering
a lost self, a younger self, me as I had been before my childhood
was uprooted by her absence, me as I might have been if she’d lived.
The roar of a motorcycle hitting ninety on Pinehurst awakened me.
My face felt cold in the night breeze. The beer had not spilled, and I
swallowed the rest. I hadn’t been asleep long. A few minutes, maybe.
I lay there staring at the ceiling of the car, getting myself together.
Then I straightened the seat, started the engine, and pulled out of the
parking lot.
I drove slowly, because the turnoff was easy to miss, just a rough
gravel road heading up a steep grade through the trees, not much more
than a fire trail, the entrance blind from this direction. You had to look
for a reflector stuck to a tree. I put the Rabbit in low gear and drove
up, ignoring private road, no trespassing signs. My destination was
about a mile up, past a geodesic dome and a ramshackle structure with
bay windows that resembled a crouching grasshopper.
Teddy’s house was set back among the trees with a view through
the redwoods, just high enough that on cloudy nights you could make
out Oakland’s orange glow. I left the key in the ignition the way Teddy
always did and walked down the footpath toward the house. A motion
light came on, but even without it my steps would have been guided
by the sound of plastic sheeting flapping in the breeze. The redwood
needles made a soft carpet underfoot, and the scent of them filled my
lungs as my feet stirred them up.
Teddy was an idiot about this house: I will say that now, so that no
one thinks I was blindly on his side. It had been his idea to live
it. A mile from the junction of Canyon and Pinehurst Roads are a post
office and a K–8 school under the trees. The residents maintain their
own roads and water system and take pride in composting, recycling,
and solar power. They feed their kids organic produce and Niman
Ranch beef and teach them Zen meditation.
This is where Teddy and Jeanie once tried to make a life together.
I drove across the WPA bridge above the creek into the school’s
gravel parking lot. Pulling over to the farthest, most shadowy corner
of the lot, I put the Rabbit temporarily out of its pain. I didn’t know
why Teddy refused to buy a real car. Jeanie used to drive a Lexus while
they were married. I cracked one of the remaining beers. I’d meant to
get out and walk along the road, clear my head, but instead I let the
seat back as far as it would go, about forty-five degrees, and lay there
taking small sips of beer as the night sounds of the forest reasserted
themselves. The outside world and all its cares and problems drifted
further and further away.
I fell asleep with the beer propped between my legs and immediately
slipped into a dream, in which it turned out that Caroline was
still alive, that we’d been mistaken all these years. She had just been
standing very still, pretending to be a statue. Look, I said to my father,
turning him physically to face her, she’s alive, she’s breathing, feel her
breath. Lawrence was in despair, and I was trying to convince him
what he’d done was not irrevocable after all, that there was still time
to make amends, there was always time. The past was gone, washed
away, and we were prepared to forgive him. At first he didn’t want to
see that she was alive. Look, we kept telling him. Look at her.
Never had I dreamed of Caroline so vividly as I did that night, dozing
in Teddy’s car under the redwoods. I used to dream about her, but her
face would always be turned away, or it would become another face
when I tried to hold it in my gaze, so that it seemed she was running
away from me. Now she held still. Now, sixteen years after her death,
I was able to see her as she’d been when she was alive, the way her
brown hair faded to downy wisps behind her ears, the softness of her
skin, the smell of her, which I’d forgotten and which was like rediscovering
a lost self, a younger self, me as I had been before my childhood
was uprooted by her absence, me as I might have been if she’d lived.
The roar of a motorcycle hitting ninety on Pinehurst awakened me.
My face felt cold in the night breeze. The beer had not spilled, and I
swallowed the rest. I hadn’t been asleep long. A few minutes, maybe.
I lay there staring at the ceiling of the car, getting myself together.
Then I straightened the seat, started the engine, and pulled out of the
parking lot.
I drove slowly, because the turnoff was easy to miss, just a rough
gravel road heading up a steep grade through the trees, not much more
than a fire trail, the entrance blind from this direction. You had to look
for a reflector stuck to a tree. I put the Rabbit in low gear and drove
up, ignoring private road, no trespassing signs. My destination was
about a mile up, past a geodesic dome and a ramshackle structure with
bay windows that resembled a crouching grasshopper.
Teddy’s house was set back among the trees with a view through
the redwoods, just high enough that on cloudy nights you could make
out Oakland’s orange glow. I left the key in the ignition the way Teddy
always did and walked down the footpath toward the house. A motion
light came on, but even without it my steps would have been guided
by the sound of plastic sheeting flapping in the breeze. The redwood
needles made a soft carpet underfoot, and the scent of them filled my
lungs as my feet stirred them up.
Teddy was an idiot about this house: I will say that now, so that no
one thinks I was blindly on his side. It had been his idea to live
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