Chapter 2
SIERRA LEARNED SHE’D arrived at the Crossing in the middle of some serious cleanup. A skinny old guy named Frank was cleaning and stocking shelves; his wife, Enid, was giving the kitchen and pantry a good scouring; Sully was cleaning the rain gutters and when he was done with that he’d begin repairing and painting picnic tables. Maggie was going to hose down the porch, and then she was intent on raking up the patch of garden behind the house so they could get planting.
But everything stopped when Sierra arrived. They gathered on the porch. A table was wiped off, warm buns and hot coffee were brought out for a little visiting, getting to know Sierra.
“Don’t you do too much,” Cal said to Maggie. “Just take care of the bump.”
“We don’t let her do too much,” Enid said.
“I got my eye on her,” Sully said.
“Don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Frank said. “Women been doin’ it since Eve. Exercise is good for her. What?” he asked when he noticed everyone was glaring at him. “I just speak the damn truth!”
“That’s a first,” Maggie said. “I agree with Frank.”
“And I bet Frank just stays in trouble, don’t you, Frank?” Sierra said.
“Young woman, I been working like a farmhand every day it don’t rain,” Frank informed her.
“’Bout damn time,” Sully said. “Tom Canaday is rounding up some boys from that county road crew he works with. Some fellas who need a little extra cash and can bring their own equipment. They’ll give the grounds a good grooming, clean out my trench for the runoff from the snowpack melt and cart off some heavy trash when they leave. I can fix and paint the picnic tables, spruce up the lavatory, showers and laundry room. And while the yard crew is here, I’ll get ’em to till up that garden.”
“I always thought running a campground would be easier than this,” Sierra said.
“Mud season,” Maggie informed her. “When the snow melts and the rain plagues us, there’s a lot to do to restore the place before the campers start showing up again. We’re coming up on spring break and Easter weekend and from Memorial Day through summer, it’s full almost all the time.”
“Maybe I can help out,” Sierra said.
All eyes turned to her. It was quite a while before Sully spoke. “Could you use a little extra money, girl?”
“I was thinking of being helpful,” she said. “I have a job, but it’s only part-time. I’m happy about that—I want some time to explore and...you know...get settled in. I’d be happy to help out.”
“That’s very sweet,” Maggie said. “Are you going to stay with Cal and me?”
“In the construction zone?” she asked. “Thanks, but I have a place.”
“Oh?” three people said at once.
“A hostel in town,” she said. “It’s very nice. It’s next to a bookstore. It’s across from the diner, where I’m going to work a few mornings a week.”
“Midge Singleton’s place?” Sully asked.
“That’s it,” Sierra said.
Sully leaned forward. “Girl, that woman will stack bodies end on end, stuff as many people as she can in that place.”
“It seems decent enough. She seems very nice,” Sierra said defensively.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t nice,” Sully said. “I’ve known Midge over thirty years. She opened up that place when her husband died a long while back and she means to make a good living on it. You got extra beds in your room?”
“Just one,” Sierra said. “For a female in my general age range. She promised to let me have the room alone as long as she could and that’s just how a hostel works. I’d like to think she means that...”
“I’d like to think that, too,” Cal grumbled.
“Here’s another option,” Sully said. “You go ahead and try that hostel, but watch your stuff. Let Midge lock things up for you—she’ll do that. If you don’t like it so much, I have empty cabins. There’s a shower and bathroom in each one.”
“That’s awful nice, but—”
“You can have one of ’em if you want,” Sully said. “I ain’t gonna put another camper in your bed with you, no matter how full up we get.”
Cal laughed and Maggie winced. “What’s the rent on one of those cabins?” Sierra asked.
“Well, let me think,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Bathroom needs regrouting. Picnic tables need paint. Porch on the store and at the house need sealer painted on. Garden needs work and tending. And there’s stocking daily in the store. Fifteen or twenty or so hours should cover a week. Easy. Then there’s always the rumpus room, which is free. But you’d have to share a bathroom with an old man.”
“Rumpus room?” she asked.
“Our old apartment,” Cal said. “It’s in the basement. The pipes clang sometimes but it’s comfortable. And no roommates.”
They visited for almost two hours when Sierra noticed that Sully was getting a little fidgety. Very likely he wasn’t used to sitting around, swilling coffee and yakking. “I think it’s about time I got Cal back to the barn and to work or Maggie will never get her house. And, Sully, give me a couple of days to figure out my schedule and the town and I’ll come around to lend a hand.”
“I’m capable if you have better things to do,” he said, standing up from the table and giving his jeans a yank up into place.
Out of habit, Sierra picked up cups and napkins along with Maggie, carting them back to the kitchen. She stopped to look around a little bit, intrigued by the supplies that ranged from food to ropes to tools. There was even a bookshelf full of secondhand books.
“This place is a popular stop off for campers and hikers,” Maggie said. “Through-hikers who have taken on the Continental Divide Trail count on this place to restock and rest for a day or two. There’s even a post office—they can pick up mail here.”
“Are there a lot of them?” Sierra asked.
“All summer,” Maggie said. “They’re amazing. It’s quite a conquest, the CDT.”
“Is it a long trail?”
“It’s 3,100 miles from Mexico to Canada.”
Sierra gasped. “Are you kidding me?”
Maggie shook her head. “It’s a pretty interesting group that passes through here in summer—everyone from hikers and rock climbers to families camping for vacation. There are quite a few RVs and fifth wheels here from spring through fall—lots of people enjoying the wildflowers and then later, the autumn foliage. It’s a beautiful place.”
“You’re so lucky to have grown up here,” Sierra said.
“I didn’t grow up here. My parents divorced when I was only six. I didn’t see my dad for years, then only as a visitor. I lived for some time here. I’ve always loved this place. And now, I’m going to raise a family here.” She absently ran a hand over her stomach.
“Pretty soon, too,” Sierra observed. “I hope you get the barn remodeled in time.”
“Hopefully before the first snowfall on both. I’m going to have to make sure Cal gets a plow...”
* * *
Sierra went back to Timberlake and continued her exploration of the town. The hostel was right next door to The Little Colorado Bookstore and, like everyone in the Jones family, she felt the promise of books pulling her in. Books had always been their salvation, their only means of learning while they traveled, the only real entertainment they had.
This store was tiny and packed to the rafters, specializing in books about Colorado—livestock and ranching, wildlife, history, mining, plants, crops, insects, anything and everything Colorado and its history, including lots of maps. They also carried fiction pertinent to the state. She learned that it wasn’t a busy store, but the customers were steady. The owners were the Gibsons—Ernie and Bertrice, a couple in their fifties. They were more than eager to tell her all about the store, founded by Ernie’s father a long while back. They liked to work the weekends when tourists were around because they were experts on both the state and the merchandise.
They also did a big mail-order business—people contacted them from all over the world to find specialty books and other collectible volumes, valuable maps and papers that the owners had curated over the years.
The store had four leather armchairs spaced around the stacks where people would sit to page through special books and there was a long table in the back of the store where patrons could look at maps or loose papers. She noticed a man tucked back in a corner with a big book of maps balanced on his lap. He must have been in his fifties or maybe older, but he had a familiar look about him. His hair was sparse on top but he had a ponytail. He wore a T-shirt with a peace symbol on it, the popular local fashion of khaki shorts, hiking boots with white socks and a pair of glasses balanced on his nose. With a start she realized he looked a little like her father, at least in style—he had that aging hippie aura about him.
Growing up with Jed had been filled with challenges, but Sierra loved him deeply. He was like a lost boy at times and while he could go off on manic delusions for days on end—complex theatrics in which he was the star physicist or inspired prophet—she had always found him amazing. She was a teenager before she understood that inside his mind must be a maze of confusion. But Jed had always been a gentle man. They were all so lucky that way. He was nonviolent and, if you ignored the fact that his behavior was crazy as a loon, highly functional. And he was sweet to Sierra. She was the baby of the family and Jed and Cal both doted on her. It was kind of magical in a way. Jed was nuts and Cal was like the white knight, always making sense out of chaos.
The man in the chair looked up at her. Grumpy. So Sierra did what she did best—she smiled at him. He smirked but she knew she had melted him a little bit. Since she was a little girl she’d known how to charm her way out of a bad situation.
She walked around town a little bit, stopping in at the diner for a midafternoon ice cream. She chatted with the waitress Lola, a fortyish woman with two kids. Lola had been working in that diner for years—when she was married with small children, when she was divorced and a single mother, now still single, working two jobs and trying to finish her education by going to school part-time. Lola gave Sierra the gossip on the diner—what the boss was like, which fry cooks were dependable, who on the kitchen crew would back her up. She also told her where to buy the khaki shorts and white golf shirts that would be her uniform at the diner.
Sierra wandered the town after that, dropping in at the drugstore, checking out the small grocery. She noted two law offices, a small storefront clinic, a hair salon and barbershop. There was a furniture store—custom designs. There were three small art galleries, one liquor store, one jewelry store, a bank, a consignment shop that tied up some time as she browsed, two churches and the fire department. The guys were washing down one of the rigs in the drive—nice eye candy. The police department was just across the street from the fire department.
The next day she drove to Leadville to buy her uniform and spent the day looking around that town. She found a bigger bookstore and a great little grill that served wonderful burgers. She then drove out to the barn to check in with Cal who was up to his eyebrows in what appeared to be crown molding. There was a lot of hammering and sawing going on upstairs and Cal was painting the molding. She told him all about Timberlake and Leadville as if he didn’t know for himself. Maggie came back from Sully’s, dirty from gardening, and informed Sierra she would be joining them for dinner, then went off to shower and change.
The next few hours proceeded like a beautifully choreographed dance. Sierra ran the Shop-Vac around while Cal cleaned up his paintbrushes and folded up the tarps. Tom and his son came downstairs covered with sawdust and Sierra laughingly vacuumed them off. Tom and Cal had a beer, and some corn chips and salsa were put out. Sierra had a Diet Coke with Jackson while Maggie, refreshed, fixed herself orange juice. Cal began to putter in the kitchen getting chicken ready to put on the grill. Tom and Jackson left and the three of them were like a small, cordial family. Maggie told Sierra to be sure to check on Cal while she was in Denver working. The dinner of chicken and vegetables, casually thrown together, was delicious and nutritious. Then the dishes were cleaned up. It was like the fantasies Sierra had. Fantasies of a family, of feeling normal, of belonging.
She watched as Cal was kissing Maggie’s neck and rubbing her belly. Then she remembered it wasn’t really hers. It was their life and she was a guest.
Sierra borrowed trouble and darkness. It was a bad habit. A dirty little secret she kept. Deep inside you’re very lonely and unhappy, her inner voice reminded her.
“I have to get going,” she said. “Thanks for dinner and everything.”
“Don’t run off,” Maggie said.
“Don’t you have to get up early and head for Denver?” Sierra asked.
“Not that early,” she said.
“Get some sleep,” Sierra said. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
As she drove back to Timberlake she asked herself, Can I make this work? Must I always feel like some weird outsider? She knew that Cal and Maggie weren’t doing that to her.
When she got back to town, still early in the evening, there seemed to be a lot of activity in the hostel. Sure enough, a group of young girls had come in and they were loud. There was lots of laughing, shouting, talking at the top of their voices. She got to her room and saw a duffel on the second bed in her room, but the rambunctious girls were just a room or two away. Well, Sierra wasn’t going to undress for bed in that case. Most of her belongings were in her car and she had only her backpack with her. She’d go back to her car in the morning for fresh clothing and shower and change then. This was the downside of staying in a hostel—it was a busy young people’s kind of place and one traded privacy for cheap housing.
She sat on her bed and dug around in her backpack for something to read. Out in the car she had several books on recovery that were nearly memorized by now. She didn’t feel like that tonight. She pulled out her copy of Pride and Prejudice. It was battered all to hell. Sierra carried three novels—Pride and Prejudice, Forever Amber and Gone with the Wind. That pretty much established her as a tragic but hopeful romantic. It had been hard to leave Wuthering Heights behind and that was telling. No happy endings for Sierra. Not yet.
The noise escalated and Sierra hoped someone would complain. Mrs. Singleton didn’t stay the night in the hostel—she had her own small house in town. The young man who was left in charge for the night was pretty social; he might not mind the noise. Or the girls. When Sierra had checked in there were no single rooms and Mrs. Singleton said that chances were good no one would need a bed in a double and if anyone did, it would most certainly only be let to a woman.
She opened her book, midway, hungry for a little of Mr. Darcy’s evolution from aloof snob into a real hero. She put her smartphone on one of her music downloads, her earbuds in her ears and settled in to ignore the noise of girls having fun. She didn’t last long. Less than an hour passed when she went downstairs and told John, the young man in charge, he’d have to do something about the noise.
“I’ve talked to them a couple of times,” he said. “College girls. I don’t want to ask them to leave if I can avoid it.”
A little bit later one of the girls stumbled into the room. She looked about eighteen. And she was drunk.
“Roomie!” she greeted with a slur.
“Crap,” Sierra said. “You’re drunk!”
“Jes a little,” she said, then hiccuped. She held out a fifth of whiskey. “Wanna little?”
Before Sierra could even answer, the girl fell on the bed. Facedown. Dropping the fifth so it spilled onto the rug.
“That’s that, then,” Sierra said, looking back at her book.
But the girl stank. The room smelled of whiskey. And she was, of course, snoring like a freight train. The odds were good she’d end up sick.
Sierra packed up her things. She went downstairs and right out the door without saying a word to John. She’d work it all out later, ask for a refund. Right now she was feeling like this whole idea, all this bloody do-it-alone crap, was the biggest mistake of her life. She was on the verge of tears, but Sierra never cried. She punished herself by holding it fiercely and stoically inside. She could call Cal and Maggie, but she didn’t want to. What would they think? That Sierra the emotional cripple was going to hang on to them forever and they’d never be free? That three days in Timberlake and she was falling apart? So much for independence! She’d always be the baby to Cal even though she was thirty and had done some hard living.
She sat on a bench outside the dark barbershop and called her old sponsor and former roommate, Beth. The phone went straight to voice mail. She said, “Just me. Everything is fine.” Then she disconnected.
Well, so much for that.
Her phone rang immediately. Beth.
“It’s late,” Beth said. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just a little screwed up. My head is on wrong. I’m staying in a hostel and got a drunk roommate—she can’t be twenty-one. Not that that ever stopped me. But I can’t be in that smell. I’m sitting on a bench on the main street of this little, dinky town and the only action is down the street at the only bar and grill and I can’t think. I can’t move. I don’t want this to be a mistake. Maybe I’m not ready. Jesus, it doesn’t take much to send me off the rails, I guess.”
“When did you last go to a meeting?” Beth asked.
“It’s been a while,” she said. “I’m not really settled in yet...”
“I guess you’re not if you’re staying in a hostel. Weren’t you going to be with your brother?”
“I never intended to stay with him,” Sierra said. “He’s just married six months or so and they’re pregnant. I’d be in the way. I want to see him a lot, not live with him. I have to figure this out.”
“Here’s what I want you to do. If there’s a meeting tonight—go to it. Then I want you to go to a motel. Worry about money later. Hit the first meeting of the day tomorrow. It might even be a two-meeting day. No more hostel business—you don’t want to be living with a bunch of college kids on a vacation bender...”
“The lady said they were strict...”
“Uh-huh,” Beth said. “Another thing that never stopped you. Talk to someone at a meeting about a sponsor. You shouldn’t fly solo in a new town. You should have someone you can call if only to go for coffee in the next few hours. Are you hungry? Tired?”
“Nothing like that. Just depressed. Why, I have no idea! My brother and sister-in-law pulled me right in, this place is beautiful, some drunk girl stumbled into my bedroom and stank up the place. That’s a good reason to be irritated not depressed!”
“We don’t need a reason,” Beth reminded her. “Find a safe, warm place tonight and call me in the morning. Find a meeting.”
“I will,” Sierra said.
“I’ll wait while you look,” Beth said.
Sierra gave a heavy sigh. She checked her phone app—a meeting locater. She did a little clicking. “Looks like I missed the last one...ten o’clock in Leadville, a thirty-minute drive. Midnight meeting in Denver—a long drive. But there’s a seven o’clock in the morning. I hate being the new kid.”
Beth laughed. “Come on, there’s a long list of things to hate.”
“I want to be strong,” Sierra said.
Beth laughed again. “Good luck with that. That one never works.”
We don’t pray for control, Sierra recited silently. We are powerless.
“Think you can make that early one in the morning?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Can you find a place to stay?”
“Yeah, there are places around. And there’s always my brother. One night wouldn’t kill him.”
“Or you?”
“Or me,” she said. “Okay, I think I have a handle on it now...”
Beth asked her to recite exactly what she was going to do. The little grocery was still open. She’d get some snacks, maybe a premade sandwich if they had some. Chips and a soda, maybe a cupcake or something. She’d find a warm, safe place to stay for the night, hit an early meeting, but by morning she’d feel a lot better and have a good plan.
It was amazing to her how fast that feeling of hopelessness could come over her. It was usually like this, a stack of relatively small issues—being the third person at a table, the odd one; her brother kissing his new wife and the envy she had that he had somehow managed to rebuild his life. She suddenly thought, I will never have that. Then the noise of partying in the hostel; the drunk girl. Any one or even two of those things wouldn’t have screwed up her head. Sierra was, if anything, resilient. She knew how to hunker down, breathe deeply, offer up a prayer or two, get through it. She worried that maybe she was given to some mental illness. Not the same as Jed’s—she didn’t have imaginary friends. But she believed she leaned toward depression.
She’d voiced that in a meeting once and at least five people said, Duh.
Impossible as it was for her to comprehend, she was still grieving the loss of her crutch, her best friend, her savior. Of course that crutch broke under her weight, that friend betrayed her, the savior cast her into hell.
She pulled her sleeping bag out of the trunk and put it in the pumpkin’s small backseat. Then she went to the grocery; they were just closing up so she turned on her fake smile and begged a favor, a few snacks if she could be quick.
“Got the munchies?” the clerk asked snidely.
A huff of laughter escaped her. “I’m not high!” she said, incredulous. “I’m staying at the hostel and there’s nothing to eat!”
“Make it quick,” he said. Clearly, he did not believe her.
“Sorry for the inconvenience,” she said, heading for a refrigerated section that contained a few deli items. She grabbed a sandwich, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, a large Kosher pickle, and added a soda and bag of chips on her way out. As an afterthought, she added a couple of candy bars. She wasn’t even hungry, but she’d be damned if she’d be caught with nothing on hand. Just having some supplies made her feel more secure. There was no way she was going to Cal and Maggie, though she knew they’d be happy to find her a space. It was so important to her that Cal and Maggie think she had it together.
She decided to go to the Crossing. That Sully, he seemed like a pretty simple, straightforward guy. He wasn’t too deep or complicated, she could see that. And it was a campground. She’d camp. It wasn’t too cold, given her sweatshirt and sleeping bag. Her flashlight was charged, she had food and drink, there was a public bathroom... She’d snuggle up in the backseat, read her book and snack and if she ran into any trouble, like a bear or something, she could outrun it in the pumpkin. Or she could lay on the horn until Sully woke up.
That’s right, Sierra. Wake up a little old man to fight off your bear.
But nothing would go wrong. In the morning she’d just tell him the hostel filled up with college kids and she wasn’t the partying kind. She was more the kind to have a quiet and private night. Best to ask about that cabin; she’d be more than happy to work around the Crossing for a room.
Her first surprise was that she could even find the Crossing—it was awfully dark on these back country roads. It was after ten and she didn’t pass a single car. Fortunately there was a bright moon and Sully had some lights on at the grounds. There were a couple of small campers and a car parked by one of the cabins and even in the dark she could see progress had been made on the cleanup in just a matter of days.
She parked right between the store and Sully’s house where he would see her car first thing. She didn’t want to shock or worry the old guy. Then she crawled into the backseat, snuggled into her sleeping bag and looked at her phone. She still had plenty of charge for the night. She pulled out her nifty little book light that fit around her neck like a necklace shining in front of her. Her bag of groceries sat on the car floor on one side of the bump, her open backpack on the other. If nature called in the night the light on her cell phone would get her to the loo.
She pulled out Pride and Prejudice again. Just like her other favorite romances, the hero was very masculine and a little cruel. Just like real life, Sierra-style.
Her throat hurt a little as she fought the release of tears. She denied herself tears. It was her penance for all her sins—the pain of holding in the tears. Someday, when she’d suffered enough, she imagined the floodgates would open and she’d cry till she drowned. But not tonight. She drank some soda to take the ache away. It wasn’t long before she nodded off in her book, cozy as a bug in a rug.
She was roused in what seemed like seconds by a tapping on her window. Startled, she woke to see Sully tapping with his flashlight. It was still dark. Was he frowning? Beau, the yellow Lab, had his forelegs up on the door, panting excitedly. Beau seemed to be smiling. She opened the window a crack.
“Coffee’s on,” Sully said. He walked into the store.