Comfort & Joy

“May I help you?”

“The flight to Hope . . . is there a seat?”

She frowns. “It’s a charter. Just a second. ” She looks down at her computer screen. Fingernails click on the keys. “There are seats, but they were purchased in bulk. ” She glances around, catches sight of a heavy-set man dressed in camouflage fatigues. “Go talk to him. ”

Now, I’m not the kind of woman who strolls easily up to strange men, especially when they look like Burl Ives on a big game hunt, but this is no time for caution. I’m desperate. One more second in this town and I might start screaming. For all I know, Stacey is still in my driveway, waiting for me to return so we can “talk” more. I clutch my purse under my arm and go to him.

“Excuse me,” I say, trying—without much success—to smile. “I need Hope. ”

He grins at this. “There isn’t a whole lot up there. For a city girl, I mean. ”

“Sometimes just getting away is enough. ”

“You don’t have to tell me that twice. Well, we’ve got an extra seat, if you want it. Say one hundred dollars? But I can’t promise you a way to get back. We’re a play-it-by-ear bunch. ”

“Me, too. ” Normally, I’d laugh at that, it’s so far from the truth, but just now it feels right. Besides, I’m not even sure I need a way to get back. Who knows? This is a tear in the fabric of my ordinary life. All I have to do is step through. And I have my Christmas money with me. “Do I need a passport?”

“Nope. Just your driver’s license. ”

I can leave here, make a quick stop and plane change in Seattle, show my identification, go through customs, and be in Hope by midnight. I make a decision to leave my own country in less time than it usually takes me to decide between packages of meat at my local Von’s.

I whip out my wallet and find the cash. “I’m in. ”

A n hour later, I am at the gate, holding a ticket to Hope. All around me, men are talking, laughing. There is an inor

dinate amount of high-fiving going on. They are trophy hunters I discover, the kind of guys who decorate with hooves. This is their big hunt, away from kids and wives, and it’s clear that the party starts before the plane takes off. They’re completely uninterested in the quiet, tired-looking woman in their midst. I sit down in one of the empty seats. Beside me is a magazine. Hunting and Fishing News. A librarian will read anything, so I pick it up and flip through the pages. An article on duck blinds leaves me cold, as does a series of how-to taxidermy photographs. Finally, I turn the page and find a pretty picture of an old-fashioned resort. It’s called the Comfort Fishing Lodge and it welcomes me to come and stay awhile.

Stay awhile.

It’s a lovely thought. I fold the flimsy magazine in half and shove it into my bag. When I get home, I’ll file the article alongside my other dreams, alphabetically. Someday, I’d like to visit the Comfort Lodge. As I’m fitting the magazine in the cluttered bag, I feel the pebbled leather of my camera case. My fingers close around it, pulling it out of my purse.

No newfangled digital camera for me. This is the real thing. A heavy black and silver Canon SLR. I take it out of the case, slip the strap around my neck, and remove the lens cap.

If I’m finally taking a trip into the unknown; there ought to be photographs to document the momentous event.

I focus and snap on the gate, on the other passengers, on the view of the runway through the dirty windows. I even try to take a picture of myself. All of it occupies my mind for a while, but then the real world creeps back into my thoughts.

Stacey is going to marry Thom and have his child.

It hurts almost more than I can bear. Tears sting my eyes again; I wipe them away impatiently. I am so tired of crying, so tired of feeling like half a person, but I don’t know how to change things. All I know is that for more than three decades, my sister has been the bedrock of my life, and now I’m standing on sand. I have never felt so lost and alone. If I could simply blink my eyes and say a prayer to disappear, I would.

They call my flight over the loudspeaker; men surge forward like a flannel-clad centipede, legs all moving at once. I follow quietly behind them.

On the plane, I find an empty seat in the last row. My armrest practically touches the restroom door, it’s so close. I try not to see a metaphor in this placement. Instead, I sit down, strap myself in, and peer out the tiny oval window at the falling night. The men are all in the front of the plane, laughing and talking. In no time, we’re cleared for flight and up we go, into the now black sky.

I flip through the hunting and fishing magazine again. An article on the Olympic rainforest grabs my attention. It’s in Washington State, apparently tucked in between hundreds of miles of coastline and a jagged mountain range. The trees are gigantic, primeval, the greens absolute and somehow soothing. A woman could get lost in a place like that. I could take hundreds of glorious photographs, maybe even—

“You okay back here all by yourself?”

I look up.

It’s Burl Ives again. He smiles at me: the movement bunches up his cattle-sweeper moustache and shows off a row of oversized dentures.

It’s the last half of his question, the “all by yourself,” that gets me. “I’m okay,” I say, though it’s miles from true.

“I’m Riegert, by the way. Riegert Milosovich. ”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Joy. ”