Dave Eggers - Heroes of the Frontier

Josie told the woman she didn’t in fact have phone access, and she and Ana were led to the principal’s office in the school. On the counter where tardy slips were usually handed out, there was a phone at the ready.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” the woman said.

Josie dialed, got a wrong number and dialed again.

He answered.

“Carl?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Josie.”

“Oh hey. Where are you? How are the kids?”

His voice was upbeat, casual.

“You don’t know where we are?”

“I know you’re in Alaska. Sam told me. But where?”

“You do know. You sent a guy after me.”

“Wait. What?”

“Didn’t you serve me papers?” she asked.

“Serve you papers? What for?”

His voice was so bright and amused that she had to realign everything she expected to say.

“Someone served me papers,” she said, her mind racing through just who it could have been. Evelyn?

“What kind of papers?” Carl asked.

“I don’t know. I never touched them. I took off.”

Carl laughed out loud. It was a big belly laugh, the laugh of a contented man. Josie heard a distant squeal through the line, the sound of a gentle crashing wave. Was he on a beach? He probably was on a beach. “Oh wait. Your lawyer buddy called me, looking for you,” he said. “Maybe that could have something to do with it.”

“Elias? What did he say?”

“He said he wanted to give you a heads-up. I called you a few times about it. You probably didn’t bring your phone. Am I right?”

“I didn’t want you tracking me.”

Again Carl laughed, but this time there was something hurt and uncertain in his mirth. “Anyway, remember the power company you sued? Well, they countersued all the lead plaintiffs. Elias said it was a standard scare tactic, said he’d handle it.”

Josie’s heart spun. She hadn’t thought of that lawsuit in weeks.

“So the kids? They’re good?” Carl asked, switching back to a tone of brightness and levity. Was he drunk, too? Who was this happy carefree man?

“They’re good. Sorry about Florida,” she said.

“It’s okay. I understand. It probably sounded like a weird request. But the kids should meet Teresa at some point. They’ll like her, I think. She’s a child psychologist. You know that?”

Josie did not know that. But now her interest in Carl made sense.

“So you guys are in Alaska!” Carl let out a loud exhalation that admitted his own foibles and forgave Josie’s dramatics. She was still squaring all this: Carl had not gone after her in any way — he was not following her, suing her, nothing. Instead, it was a power company. They’d sent some random server to scare her.

“From the news, it looks like the whole state is on fire,” Carl said.

“We actually just fled one,” Josie said. “We’re in a shelter.” She recounted the day, the school she was calling from. She looked around her, remembering she was in a principal’s office. A sign on the wall said I’M A PRINCIPAL. WHAT’S YOUR SUPERPOWER?

“And you’re okay?” he asked.

“We’re fine.”

“Okay. Stay safe. Give a shout when you get back.”

She hung up and left the office, realizing Carl hadn’t asked to speak to the kids. He hadn’t asked when they were coming home. Even the idea of seeing his children, bringing them to Florida to present them to Teresa and her family, that Goebbelsian photo-op, was a casual notion, not a big deal either way. His interest in them came and went, like his passion for economic equality or triathlons. But he was harmless. This was so crucial and freeing to know.

—

“Let’s get out a little,” Josie said. She was standing over the cot where Paul and Ana were playing cards.

“Go where?” Ana asked.

Josie shrugged. “The river?”

This town was about the size of Cooper’s, and they meandered through it, noticing that it was largely empty. Most of the residents were either helping at the high school, Josie figured, or had left the state for less flammable lands. They passed a truck repair operation, a real estate office, a frame shop, all closed, and found themselves at the Yukon, gray and moving slowly. They sat down, Josie suddenly feeling too tired to move. She lay back, staring into the white sky, and could feel the sun beyond it, still oddly warm.

“This one’s heavy,” Paul said, and a loud thunk followed.

Her children, stripped of all possessions, were throwing stones into the river. The clicking as they sifted for the right one, an almost imperceptible wind as they threw the stone high, the bass note as each hit the water.

“You want me to put one on your foot? It’s hot from the sun.” It was Ana, standing above her.

“Okay,” Josie said, her eyes closed. She felt the hot weight of a large rock placed on her instep. It felt wonderful. She murmured her approval.

“You want another?” Ana asked, and Josie said she did.

Ana placed another rock, a lighter one, on Josie’s stomach, and Josie felt the heat of it through her shirt. Choosing to keep her eyes closed, she allowed Ana, and soon Paul, to cover her with stones. There were a dozen on her chest and stomach, and a key few in her lap, feeling very right, and finally a large flat stone on her forehead, smaller, rounder stones covering each cheek. The warmth of these stones! It slowed her breathing. She couldn’t move. Covered like this, minutes were days, and she heard the voices of her children as they tried to find more places to cover their mother, their voices delighted though nervous at the edges. What were they seeing? Their mother covered in stones, so far from home.

Josie allowed herself a moment of doubt. There was a possibility, she admitted, that she and her children should not have come to this state on fire. But the doubt did not last. Instead, at this moment, she thought she was right about everything.

That we can leave.

That we have a right to leave.

That very often we must leave.

That only having left could she and her children achieve something like sublimity, that without movement there is no struggle, and without struggle there is no purpose, and without purpose there is nothing at all. She wanted to tell every mother, every father: There is meaning in motion.

As the sun fingerpainted lurid colors on her eyelids, Josie felt a surge of belonging. She had love for everyone. She knew it wouldn’t last, this outpouring of gratitude and forgiveness, so she named names: She loved Jeremy, and Sam, and Raj, and Deena, and Charlie from the cruise ship, and Grenada Jim, and Carl, of course Sunny, and had something like love for Evelyn, whose dying filled her with rage, and Josie knew rage, and so she loved Evelyn. With a shudder she knew she loved her parents, too, and that she wanted to tell them this, and felt she must tell them this, that it was time to tell them that she knew them to be no better and no worse than herself.

“We’re taking them off now,” Paul said. There was a tone of finality in his voice, hinting at his growing discomfort with his mother covered in stones. When Josie’s chest was free from the weight, she sat up and her children looked at her quizzically, as if they expected her to have become someone else. But she was only their mother, sitting up in the bright sun. They continued to remove the stones from her lap and legs.

“How heavy do you think this is?” Paul asked. He put one of the rocks in her hand. It was warm.

“Was that on my chest?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Maybe a pound?” she said.

Paul made a disappointed sound.

“Maybe two, three pounds?” she tried. His face brightened slightly, but then soured again as he stared at the rock.