Chapter 18: expecting him; eyes of the doe

Manhattan, Sunday, end of December, 2016

Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...

As he approached the house Reese could see smoke rising from the chimney, and he smelled pine and hardwood – oak – in the smoke drifting down from the roof. For a little bit it took him back, back to his home in the mountains. That same smell would hang in the air above his grandfather's cabin and for the moment he was back there walking in from the woods. In one hand was a thin rod, and in the other a line of fish dangling down; a good day of fishing at his favorite stream. It made him smile inside to remember the crunch of gravel under his feet and the smell of smoke in the air. No better memories than growing up in the mountains where days were long, and life felt pure and simple. Woodsmoke welcomed him again as he walked in, but instead of gravel on the old rutted road up at the cabin, green lawn spread out under his feet.

Reese looked up to see Jules waiting for him at her front door. It warmed him inside to see her there – she always knew, somehow she always knew when he was on his way. She'd meet him like this at her doorway, that look in her eyes, expecting him. Inside him, in a place he hadn't even known was there, something clicked. It felt good to be expected.

It felt like he could walk inside her door, and more would be waiting, smiling up at him with her same smile. They were all expecting him. Something deep and warm spread through him. He'd never really thought about it like that, and he'd closed his eyes for a moment to let it sink in.

And when he'd opened them again, he could see she'd noticed. She was good at that, noticing the small things. Like so much about her, he couldn't explain how she did what she did. In her hands he felt like she could shine a light into every corner of him. But it didn't make him want to hide. There was something about her, something that made it safe for him – to be that visible. And instead of turning the other way, escaping like he'd always done before, he'd kept coming back for more.

Then he was there at her door; she was wrapping her arms around him in a welcoming hug, and he was leaning down, pressing his lips to the top of her head. She'd slipped her arm around his coat and led him inside. Right away there was the smell of pine and oak again from the fireplace. And as he breathed it in, Reese couldn't help that memory of home again, so strong that night, coming back.

She'd walked ahead down the hallway, asking something – but he hadn't heard. His thoughts had gone back to her face at the door, expecting him like that. It made him think again of going home, back to the mountains and his own people – walking up the snowy path with the wind quiet and snow falling already, high in the mountains. Yellow light would glow from the windows, and he could see them gathered around a fire inside. When the door swung open he'd see their faces, smiling, expecting him; he could feel their arms around him. He could feel it like a heat rising in his chest. Home. Home from all his travels. He was home, at last.

In the next breath, though, it all went cold inside. And there was a pain there like a stabbing: that scene would never happen.

There was no home for him there – just a run-down wreck in the mountains, abandoned for decades. He never went there anymore. And his people – all gone now. No one left there who even knew his name. Father and grandfather long gone after all these years away. He remembered standing there, at attention, saluting as each was lowered in the ground. He'd never returned to their graves. No peace could come of it. What was done was done. On this cold, clear night, with the stars shining like bits of diamond in the sky, Reese had had his own moment of clarity.

He was alone.

It had stopped him in his tracks right there in her hallway and before he could stop it, a sound had come up from inside, a sound she'd heard. He could see it in her eyes when she turned around – she knew – and he remembered her coming back for him, pulling him down the hall, past her kitchen and down to the room where her table was. Her eyes were on him, shining that light inside him like a spotlight. And he'd let her. He hadn't realized it yet, but he was done hiding himself from every living thing on the planet. He needed to trust someone.

There was something about that room where she'd taken him. So quiet inside. When you crossed the threshold, all the sound disappeared, like back in the deep woods when he was a boy. The carpet of leaves and deep green moss, it swallowed the sounds just like this. The darkness and the high lofted ceiling made it feel airy – like he was high up in a mountain glade. He could breathe up there. Reese tried to will himself to be there, high in the mountains where he could smell the pines and feel the mountain mists again.

So long ago. So far from here.

He felt a sharpness in his chest just thinking of it. That one place on earth where he could go to remember who he was. The sharpness pierced him like shards of glass in his heart. He had to stop.

He didn't want to feel this. He tried to empty himself. If he could just stay empty inside, he wouldn't have to feel anything.

She sat him on the table and pulled off his jacket, and the sweater underneath; then she swung him flat on his back on the table. She got him settled there on the padding and he closed his eyes. Empty. He had to concentrate on empty. That sharp feeling kept coming back if he didn't.

He could hear her at the cabinet, sliding one of her CD's from its case, and moments after, the music started. He remembered the sounds of water flowing, a paddle swishing and birds calling in the trees. Just like evening time high in the mountains. The paddle dipped in and took the canoe gliding through. He could hear birds calling, and he was sure he could feel the air, smell the pine as if he were really there.

He started to tremble inside. This wasn't what he'd wanted. He didn't want to feel this tonight, how far he'd strayed, how far from home he'd gone. And that it was too late for him now – home wasn't there anymore. There was nothing to return to.

Something wet slid down his face. There was a sound then, and he knew it had come from him – a sound, mournful, then quickly absorbed by the floor and the walls. Her hands were on him, and that touch and the sound of the water flowing all around him, they carried him like the canoe in the river.

There was the flat rock where he used to crawl out and sun himself above the pool. He could hear the water flowing down the rocky ledge, feeding the pool. And peering over the edge of the flat rock, he caught sight of his own reflection, young again, staring down at the water.

There were small sounds of stones and soil sliding down the bank on the other side. And when he looked up, she was there, stepping down the bank in the soft soil, stopping to test the air, her ears flicking and her nose twitching. On either side a young buck, his fur still speckled. The white-tailed doe and her young, were heading for the pool to drink. Reese watched her from his rock; still, so he wouldn't spook her.

She was so small and delicate as she stepped along the bank, nothing like the big bucks he'd brought down hunting with his father. She had those huge brown eyes that stared out around her, watching for danger. Reese watched her nose wrinkle and her ears swivel one more time, until she was satisfied that all was well and stepped to the water's edge. The young bucks crowded her at the edge, anxious to drink, and unaware of any danger. He could see the tiny ripples on the surface as they sipped from the stream.

He remembered all this from his dreams. So often he'd fallen asleep to this one. The doe would look up from the stream, checking for danger, and she would catch sight of him on his rock across the stream. She never ran. She stared at him, sniffing the air, and flicking her ears his way. He held his breath, watching. He didn't want her to leave.

And she would watch him, too, with her soft brown eyes; until she seemed to bow to him, her head lowered in his direction, like a greeting. He always felt that he should do the same, and he was careful to do it slowly, so she didn't startle.

He watched her turn her head to one side, staring into his eyes, as though she had said something and was waiting for his reply. And every night, when he had had this dream, it was the same ending. He didn't know how to understand what she'd said. She'd wait for him, and when nothing happened, she'd backed away with her young, heading up the bank to disappear into the trees.

Leaving him alone again.

Colorado, November, 2016

So late in the season, it was cold in the mountains. Snow had already fallen and covered the grass, the rocky outcroppings. Dry snow had filtered down through the trees onto the carpet of thick leaves beneath the canopy, spongy now below his feet. He could see his breath in the air, and the dampness made the cold air denser, heavier in the woods as he walked.

Reese was hiking in from the road where he'd pulled off. It was mid-afternoon, overcast, the sky heavily clouded, so that the light lit the sky in a white glow. If he remembered correctly, he'd be able to get into the spot he wanted to see and back again before dark.

The smell of the trees, pines mostly, and the work of walking through the dense underbrush made him aware of the calm and quiet inside. His thoughts turned to the new memories from his trip to Bellingham. Everything had piled up in his mind, everything so new and strange. He'd barely had time to catch up with the idea that he had a family; living, breathing people who cared about him, liked having him around, wanted to share the loving, messy details of their lives with him and make him a part of it.

It felt good – and yet terrible – at the same time. He could feel a certain uneasiness with it, an impermanence, as though it could just evaporate at any moment. It felt tenuous, and a part of him didn't want him to count on it, lean on it with his full weight. He knew why. If it should suddenly disappear out from under him now, the feeling would be – Reese didn't let that thought finish. He moved his shoulders up and down to loosen them instead, aware that he'd gone tight there.

He thought instead about the ceremony for his new nephew, Jake. All the kids were lined up in a circle, with Paula and Matt in the center. Matt had said a prayer out loud in the large room with the vaulted ceiling and the sun beams flooding through tall windows looking out on the North Cascades. They'd presented Jake with a rose, the flower tightly closed, as Matt had said, to signify the potential in Jake to flower as a human – and with all its thorns pulled from its stem, to signify the protection and nurturing he needed in this part of his life.

Reese remembered the singing and the little speeches welcoming Jake to the greater family of the congregation. He'd kept his eyes on his brother, saw the emotions in his face, the look in his eyes as he drank in the deep feelings from this simple ceremony. Reese just observed; to get through it himself, he'd switched into Protect mode, scanning and observing, rather than feeling everything – like his brother.

Reese could see the smiles, observe the genuine feelings of well-wishers packed into seats and standing in the back of the church to watch; and then Reese remembered his surprise as they filed out later on, and he'd learned that Matt was their Pastor. His brother was a man of the church, ministering to the needs of his beloved town at the foot of the mountains. Reese recalled the words carved above the door as they left – "Peace to All Who Enter Here."

Nearby, he could see the dedication stone built on Church grounds, acknowledging the Lummi, who had settled this land long before white people had ever come.

Back home that last evening, he remembered how the little ones had crowded around him like puppies, leaned in against him, comforted by the low vibration of his chest as he read their favorite bedtime stories. He remembered helping Matt carry them, sleeping, up to their bedrooms and tuck them into their beds. He remembered the smell, even now, of their freshly-washed heads resting on his shoulders. And he recalled the quiet time he spent with the three older kids: Katie, Samuel and Jenny. That last evening Katie had pulled out a favorite book and read it to all of them nestled together on the couch. It was a book about the Lummi, about a grandmother patiently teaching a young girl, Tani, the ancient wisdom of her People. The older kids, too, had piled in on him and rested against him as they listened to her soft, strong voice tell the story.

Later still, he had sat with Jake on his chest, swaddled in a soft striped blanket, asleep after nursing late in the night. Matt and Paula were there, too, speaking softly with him as they lingered in the quiet light of the living room. They'd stayed up late that last night, none of them wanting it to end. But it had.

Hard to drive off, hard to leave them, all gathered around his car after a late breakfast of pancakes and bacon the kids had made for him. They'd decorated his pancakes with big smiley faces made from blueberries, and poured cup after cup of strong coffee for him. He was full – filled up with food and drink and something else he could not even name.

Up ahead was a clearing, a drop-off at the edge of the woods. As he got closer, he could hear water moving, and he recalled the sounds of the stream bending around both sides of the huge boulder sticking up from the stream bed. It was where the stream split, flowing around the rock and then joining again, further down below the deep pool where his favorite flat rock was half-submerged. The water was crystal clear today, and it looked cold. The light was still milky white, and the air was so still now that he'd stopped walking.

He looked around him. Everything looked a little smaller than he remembered. Then he smiled to himself. He'd been smaller then, too; twelve, when everything had happened here. He looked across the stream toward the bank, where the doe had come down to the water with her two fawns to drink. There was snow on the bank now, covering their tracks if any deer had come down here recently. Reese looked up the bank to the edge of the trees from where she'd always appeared.

He waited, his breath showing in the cold, damp air.

Nothing was up there at the edge.

His thoughts turned to that night at Jules' house. It seemed like so long ago. She had met him at the front door, and when he went into her house, he'd been blind-sided with a feeling that had stopped him in his tracks. She'd read him and taken him back to her table; and then she'd played the music that had brought him here to this place from his past.

It was so real. The doe, and her fawns.

The doe had spoken to him, and he'd understood what she'd tried to tell him so long ago. He'd learned her secret that night – that he was not alone.

His pulse quickened and there was a feeling rising in his chest as he remembered Harold giving him the news. It started to tumble out in his mind, the phone call, those first hesitant words as he said his name, and then told Matt he was the brother Matt had been searching for.

Matt had a family, but Reese was not prepared for what that meant. They had welcomed him into their lives, so trusting, so eager to touch him in so many ways.

He remembered how the little ones had been drawn to him, laying against him on the big couch in the living room, accepting him. And the older ones, too, leaned into him, pressed against him, filled up with him while he'd been there.

And Jake, his special gift. He remembered holding his tiny blanketed body on his chest, listening to his soft breathing, smelling that smell of milk, and baby skin, and soap. What was going on here? How was all this happening to him?

Silence. No answers came to him from the trees at the top of the bank. He was thinking about the doe, about her eyes, how unafraid she'd been that time when he'd waded through the stream to the bank. She'd waited for him there, and moved forward toward him, waiting for him to reach out to her. Then she'd come up next to him, touching his face with hers. He'd wanted to understand, all these years.

Then, at the top of the bank, he caught sight of something moving slowly at the edge of the woods. He could hear the footsteps in the spongy soil beneath the trees. The sound echoed in the dense air up there among the trees, rolling down to him on the far side of the stream. He strained to see what it was. And then she was there.

He saw her face and her dark eyes in the shadows at the edge of the woods. She saw him, too. She walked out to the bank, standing high above him, but this time she didn't make a move to come down to the water.

Reese looked for her fawns. But she was alone this time. She regarded him with her soft eyes, and a tightness began to form at the base of his throat – he needed to say something to her.

"I found him. I found my brother," he said to her, and she didn't startle. She stood there, regarding him, and then lowered her head to him, acknowledging.

"Where are your sons?" Reese called to her. She turned her head to one side, and he saw her look at him like he should know what she was saying. Inside, he did.

"Long gone from me, now. Long gone," she'd said. She watched his reaction with her soft eyes. She began to back into the trees, disappearing from his view, and he called after her.

"Can't you stay?"

"Goodbye, my son," and she was gone.

He watched the treeline, certain that she was gone for good. But something more happened. Maybe it was the fading light, or a trick from the shadows. A figure appeared where the doe had just been, tall and slender, with long black hair and the eyes of the doe.

She regarded him with those eyes. And in a little bit, she bowed forward to him, acknowledging.

Reese could hear a buzzing in his ears, and feel it in his body.

After a little while, he reached for it. His cellphone. He opened his eyes all the way, and swiped the screen.

The name that appeared on his phone: Matt.