These few paragraphs, the short story in them, happened during a difficult time in my life, during the mid 80’s. Difficult times that were largely of my own making. I was making poor decisions, and blaming the outcome on other people. It took several more years and more bad decisions with bad outcomes before circumstances reached the point where I had to make a choice to change that behavior, or, well, I don’t know what would have happened for sure. But I have an idea.
This may read at first like a romantic adventure, but it really was the last act to end a chain of bad decisions. I just wish I had returned from that trip, and kept trying to make things better for myself and others. But at that time some lessons seemed to need to be repeated to really sink in.
Just sitting. Watching her breath as she slept. The blankets rise and fall. Staying awake as long as I can to keep the two small fire places stoked. One shallow fireplace on each wall of this very old, very small one room cabin. If I had to walk out to the highway tonight I would surely die of exposure. Temperatures had dropped even further after the snow stopped and the sky had cleared. But we didn’t see that happen. We had carried up an expensive bottle of scotch that had lasted until after sunset. And to open the one door to the porch meant giving up what heat had built up to the subzero outside. We had brought in all the firewood that was on the porch earlier while it was still snowing, and even through the hazy glow of too much scotch I knew we wouldn’t have enough wood to keep both chimneys hot.
Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, finally Canada and New Brunswick. We had just packed up all of her stuff into her suitcases, put them in the back of my ex-wife’s car, and just started driving north. Two days I think. I mostly remember Maine. Well, before that, driving across a bridge in New York, you could see the city. But Maine, so beautiful.
The pee in the bucket next to the door had frozen, probably not long after I tunneled under the quilts next to her. I don’t remember falling asleep. I do remember waking up. And when I looked at the fireplace, I remembered putting the last bit of firewood on the fireplace closest to us, and farthest from the door. Now, not even a hint of an ember in either fireplace. Just my breath, each breath as I got up and stumbled into my boots.
When we braved the outside there weren’t any tracks to follow back to the road, I had no memory of the direction we came from walking up here. I followed what looked the most familiar, deep snow all the way back to the car. A miracle I still had the keys in my pocket. When I look back on that hike up to that cabin, I shake my head, how many things could have gone wrong.
That morning we found some food, then she took me down to see the Bay of Fundy. Later we crossed a causeway in blowing snow to Prince Edward Island. This was the furthest north I’d ever been on the continent. I had met her on an Ice Patrol out of Gander, Newfoundland.
Cold there in Gander, yes, but not this kind of cold. I had an old pair of ski pants, some old leather hiking boots and several thermal layers but God the cold cut right through.
I left her at her Mom’s in Moncton. And then just drove back to North Carolina. Back to my rental trailer near the base I was stationed at. Just a stroll across the field to the enlisted club. I don’t remember the drive back to North Carolina. I remember returning my ex-wife’s car, all in one piece, full tank of gas. But I don’t remember much else.
I don’t think it was too long after that, the following summer maybe, when my ex-wife and 3-year-old son were in an accident, at a traffic light one weekend afternoon, at the base. That day I was diving offshore the Outer Banks, and a CG lifeboat was sent out to get me. The boat station officer of the day told me that my son was dead, wife critically injured. ‘Have a safe drive back to E-City’ he said. I got in my truck and headed inland. It was a long drive back.
The OOD was wrong. My ex-wife was beat up but OK. Travis’s skull was severely fractured, his brain severely and permanently damaged.
The next few months I wouldn’t be helped by faith or God or encouragement, or money, or friends. But I knew how to drink, and it worked to get me numb enough to get through each day, and sometimes to finally sleep, or just pass out.
1985, my divorce was final, my young brain-damaged son was tucked away in to one care facility, waiting to be moved to another, and the military transferred me across the continent where I had no family or friends, to be a newly-minted helicopter rescue swimmer in a new program that was developed after the Coast Guard had reached their limits, and failed miserably trying to rescue several mariners one dark, miserable night during a winter storm near Chesapeake Bay.
From one storm to another.
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