Peter Heller - Celine

He told them how he’d died, how he’d studied and carved bear tracks out of wood and picked a night of coming storm, and cut his own wrists for blood. He knew it didn’t have to be perfect, because he knew the agency would want him dead and would go to great lengths to put him there, at least in the official records. He did not speak of the bigger decisions except to say, “Gabriela needed a life. Needed out from under the Woman. Needed to inherit. I needed out of the work. With them. They knew I had the photographs and they knew my personality—that I was impulsive and rash and maybe, ah…”

“Self-destructive?” prompted Celine helpfully.

He nodded. “Right. That if they even tried to threaten me with say, Gabriela, I would blow it all open. So if they couldn’t find me after I disappeared, maybe they didn’t try all that hard. Probably relieved to have it all go quiet. But then—”

“Then we traipsed through the ashes. Made everybody sneeze.”

He almost smiled. His face, Celine thought now, had been chiseled by sadness. Now it nearly smiled. She wondered if the muscles even knew how anymore.

Celine set down her fork and said, “You had a beautiful family and you screwed it up and caused immense pain.” His eyelashes fluttered and he looked down at his plate. “Especially to your daughter. You made bad choices and you were weak. You suffered terribly when Amana died.” His hand touched his own cheek, reflex, as if to make sure he was still living. “I get that. But many many people suffer terribly and go on to live lives of grace. You know, I am terribly fond of Gabriela. She’s an extraordinary young woman. She’s made a good life despite losing her mother, despite the wrecking ball she had for a father. I think she is going to want to come to see you. Soon. I think you ought to get another chair and another coffee cup.”

The man turned on his stump away from them, to face the little window. He leaned forward. His elbows went to his knees and his hands went to his face. Celine let him be. Finally, she said, “Will you walk us to our truck now? We’re exhausted and it’s getting truly dark. We could use a guide.”

She could see him nod. “Of course,” he said huskily. “Of course.”

Celine and Pete were reluctant to leave their new hermit-crab home and they decided to camp for a week in Polson, at the southern end of Flathead Lake, and then move down along the Swan River. It was the best time of year. Frost at night and warm, sunny days, when the yellows and oranges of the aspen and cottonwoods did something to the blue of the sky behind them that an artist might never mimic. They took long walks along the lake and the river, and they read, and drank tea in the evening at the side dinette, while the sounds of water came through the screen.

On October 7, Hank flew up to Helena and they drove to meet him. He was between assignments and relished a few days in the mountains in early October. He would help them drive home. He offered to put them on a flight and take the truck back himself, but they seemed reluctant to leave the camper they called Bennie, which amused him. Hank thought he could use a trip away from home in any event. They picked him up at the little airport late on a Thursday morning, and Celine found it amazing that even with a broken marriage and the uncertain future of a freelancer he was cheerful. He was a big strong kid, an ardent fisherman and canoeist, and Celine noticed that under his loose flannel shirt he’d put on some weight, probably beer weight. Well.

Gabriela flew in a few hours later. They met her in the outer concourse that boasted a mammoth grizzly posing full height and growling. Now that they’d found Lamont, the bear was a little less potent, thank God. Gabriela’s hair was back in a ponytail as on the first night, she wore a fitted down jacket, and her cheeks were flushed. Her smile when she saw them was instantaneous and bright. Celine was struck again by the fresh contained energy of the girl. And by how easily, after an introduction in which they both seemed shy, she and Hank fell into conversation—excited but relaxed—almost like two old friends. Well, they were both artists in precarious vocations, and they both loved what they did and reveled in the outdoors. He asked about her son and she said, “Oh God, Nick wants to be a writer! He is a born storyteller. Do you think you can dissuade him? Tell him about all those awful jobs you had? Your mom told me about them, you know.”

Celine thought Hank’s laugh was easier than she’d heard in a long time. “I don’t know,” he said. “I secretly think pizza delivery and short-story writing are the way to go. Go figure.” He slipped Gabriela’s carry-on from her hand just the way Bruce Willis had taken Celine’s that time. Hmm. Celine thought life was ever more surprising, and never less strange. Who knew anything?

They decided to take an easy walk along the Missouri, which had a split-rock canyon downstream and meadows of tall auburn grass and cut banks that caught the last sunlight. They walked slowly on the wide dirt path. The evening was not cold. Pete and Celine held hands, let the younger ones lead. At dusk they all climbed into the truck and returned to town and ate steaks at Nagoya. The conversation never flagged. Gabriela and Hank asked repeatedly about the case, the succession of events, but Celine and Pete were reticent. Hank could see that they were experiencing the faintest postpartum letdown, the depression, maybe, that mixes with the euphoria after finding their man, or woman. So mostly the kids talked, about where they lived, their jobs and failed marriages, and mostly Pete and Celine listened closely and held hands.

Gabriela would rent a car the next day and drive up to Glacier, to the cabin under the mountains. Several times over dinner, at natural breaks in the conversation—with the serving of a course, the clearing of plates—Celine noticed Gabriela staring, abstracted, at the tablecloth, or into the middle distance of the dining room, and she knew that the girl was thinking about her father, preparing herself somehow for their meeting. She couldn’t imagine. Or she could, and it constricted her chest. Once she couldn’t help herself—she reached across and touched Gabriela’s hand, and Gabriela startled and met her eyes and they shared a look only the two could share, and that’s when Celine knew the case was truly closed.

They reserved three adjacent rooms at the Trout Creek Hotel, ground floor with parking spaces in front, but Pete popped the top: He and Celine would sleep in Bennie. Hank couldn’t get over it. They wouldn’t think of sleeping in the stuffy room. Hank watched his little mother step down out of the camper to survey a night full of stars before sleep. She had taught him almost everything he knew about moving through the world with some semblance of grace, and he tried to live it and bumbled often and tried again. She had taught him courage in the landscapes of the imagination, and to find the joy in things when he was afraid. But she brought him pain, too. She wouldn’t share with him the one story he cared about more than any other.

He had a sister somewhere. Whose heart pumped with his mother’s blood, and some of his own. He imagined that his sister would have an affinity for the vulnerable and the lost that surprised the people around her. She probably had a quizzical humor, and a delight in things that were mysterious and didn’t quite fit. He wanted to know her. He wanted to make her a package at Christmas, to call her out of the blue and say, “Hey, it’s your bro, what’s up?” But his mother had stonewalled. Years and years. He had felt the intensity of her pain and had tried to respect her wishes, and backed off. But here they were, under a river of stars in Montana, and Celine had just given Gabriela her father. Gabriela was about to embark on a new life and Hank could sense the excitement, and the strength she would find there.