What I Carry: Chapters 16–21

I was caught off guard by how happy her happiness made me.
And how it incensed Katiana.

They skulked in the art room when Kira worked on the mural, and they stalked around the cafeteria like unfixed cats, marking their territory and glaring at anyone who did not fall in line, including and especially the four of us—Elliot, Kira, Sean, and me—eating together in the lunchroom once the mural was complete.

Of all the ringleaders I’ve met, these two had to be the least skilled. Their repertoire was either inelegant and bumbling (destroying Kira’s artwork) or Hallmark-movie cheesy...

Because...to demonstrate how beauty is fleeting, art is alive and fluid, it was a painting version of a sand mandala, time to blow it away...

“This is my penance,” she said.

“I am not being dramatic, I’m not self- flagellating; this is what I deserve.”

“Okay, well, first of all, full disclosure, I know basically nothing about karma, but wouldn’t this crap be punishing you for your bad intentions in a previous life versus a few semesters ago?”

The principal’s desk was bigger than it needed to be, super ostentatious, but I was grateful to have its weight between us.

My hackles raised, and Kira sat up and forward, both hands on the giant desk.

Now, ladies, I know it’s hard to believe, but Francine and I were both teenagers once, and I think we could tell some pretty harrowing stories about times when maybe there was a squabble or a misunderstanding between our gal pals.

There’s a lot of starting and changing schools midyear, and I’m wondering if the reasons for her erratic school attendance might explain her behavior today.

A family of logging moguls had produced a nature-loving, environmentalist son who bought the land, lived there in a manor house overlooking the water, then died and gave it all to the public to protect and wander at will.

Past the pond we continued to a wooden bridge, voices of some school choir kids in the dark singing my very favorite winter song, even though it talks about Jesus and his insatiable need for gifts, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

“It was,” I said, a little more obviously indicative than I’d intended, and sat beside her to pet the sleeping cinnamon roll.

Sean and I, still and forever happily Natan-free, guided groups of families on walks in the woods, where we spotted fledgling birds and baby squirrels and even fox kits.

We watched them drive away, and then sat on the porch and watched Terry Johnson make his careful way through the damp grass, gingerly lifting every paw before carefully stepping on it, licking water from the grass.

“Does a part-time job with no benefits really warrant an entire cake?” I asked, already reaching for my fork.

The attic was warm. Stifling.

Down on the lawn, directly below the window and the bat house where they dropped their poop, always oddly shiny from digested iridescent insect wings, was a crowded patch of the most beautiful wildflowers I’d ever seen.

Japanese American citizens, Kira’s family, suitcases in their hands, dressed in layers of their best clothes, even elegant hats, waiting on the dock, armed white soldiers lurking beside them and in the periphery.

You are not the sun and moon—we don’t have time to ruminate constantly on your life plans.

Black ink, simple, languid script, a beautiful, single word.

I was honing my avoidance skills like a petulant first grader and feeling more sorry for, and sick of, myself every minute.

Kira seethed. Sean was stone-faced. My stomach burned, but I could not let them do this to Zola.

We were all starring in a filler episode of Dateline where the producers forgot there was supposed to be a crime and instead booked an overwrought, forgetful lady being peak white at Zola’s expense.

“I am Muiriel’s mother.”
“Foster,” I said reflexively.

Because she’s a middle-aged white woman, and so am I, and I know we are very often the absolute worst. When you are a middle-aged white woman, never forget to call your brethren—sisteren—out...

“What does obfuscate mean?”
“To cloud. To confuse. To lie.”

Home is just a soft place to land in between adventures, or trouble, or what the hell ever. It’s a harbor, not an anchor. Be brave, see the world, every forest and mountain, and know you always have a safe place to rest and come back to. Muir, you can’t see the paradigm if you’re in it.

Being unremarkable has been the hallmark and savior of my existence.

“She’s an artist,” Kira said. “You should understand her pain. Getting you three to cooperate the rest of the summer will be my grand oeuvre.”

Only months before, travel for any reason, let alone for sentimental pleasure or adventure, was a dream I could never have imagined. Losing a penny of my small savings to frivolity was the death knell of my survival alone in the world, but now I could breathe.

All of us and a random NICU nurse Kira procured, smiling after a tour of the neonatal unit and a lunch of mac and cheese and lime Jell-O in the hospital cafeteria, everyone pointing at me in front of the John Muir Medical Center sign.

Sean held my hand into the grove of trees towering nearly three hundred feet, most of them five hundred years old, the oldest over a thousand. We walked together in silence and near darkness, the giants obscuring weak, overcast sunlight.

We came to a bend in the trail where a park ranger spoke to a group of enraptured tourists.