The Urn Carrier (2 page)

“About three months. You could do it sooner, but there is no need
to rush. Whoever does it is welcome to take her 1968 truck and the camper. Then
Murphy can go with you. I’ll give you sufficient funds to make the first third
of the trip and then dispense funds as you need till you finish.”

He reaches in his pocket and hands her the very newest iPhone.

“It’s all paid for. Your Aunt Sadie is very detailed about the
route. Your mom has suggested that along the way you might want to visit some
family friends? Or whomever?” He looks at Mom.

“I just thought, if you are indeed going to do this for the
family, that there might be some places you’d like to go too, since you will be
near. Like Uncle Mark and Dolly’s.”

Uncle Mark really isn’t her uncle. He’s a best friend of her
mom’s. He taught Tessa how to fly a single engine Cessna 170 when she was
fourteen. He even coached her through landing the tail wheeled vehicle and
marveled at her natural abilities. Uncle Mark and Aunt Dolly had moved to an
airplane community in Florida. She’d never been. That would be fun to see.

Murphy sighs. As uneasy as she feels with the lawyer, Tessa loves
Murphy on sight. Murphy is totally bonding with her. He is following her
everywhere.

The lawyer looks at Murphy and Tessa. “You do seem the natural
choice.”

Tessa pets Murphy. “I’ll do it.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” 

The lawyer glances behind himself once, and then backs up a step.
He shuffles his papers. Tessa and her mom share a curious look and shrug. The
guy is blocking the door, they have to wait. Murphy licks his non-existent
balls. 

“If you successfully complete the task as written, your college
tuition is paid in full.”

Tessa’s mouth drops open.

“Excuse me?” her mom asks, her hand to her
heart, as if she is about to faint. “I didn’t think Aunt Sadie . . . I mean . .
. She seemed to live hand to mouth.”

Just like us.
Tessa could hear her mom’s unsaid words.

“Ahhh. Seemed.” The lawyer nods. He looks up. “Yes, well. It’s
what her instructions say. Tessa accepts the task, she finishes it, and Sadie
agrees to pay her tuition in full.”

He speaks as if Great Aunt Sadie is still alive.

“I know some of the male relatives asked about
her truck and trailer; however, those are already off premises being updated
for your future road trip,” he continues. “New tires, oil change, gone over so
you won’t have any trouble. The interior of the camper is being cleaned,
updated, and readied. Stocked for the first leg of your trip. Can you leave in
a month?”

Tessa nods.

“Good. It’s settled then?”

The hardest part for Tessa is shaking the old man’s frigid, cold
hand.

BEFORE THEY LEAVE the wake, Tessa takes Murphy out back one last
time. Over the door to the backyard is an industrial sticker. The kind posted
at the front of orchards, or maybe where there is asbestos in the area. It
reads: “Enter at Your Own Risk” in bright red letters. Aunt Sadie has all sorts
of cool stuff stuck everywhere. An artificial walnut with an animated fake
spider was in a nut bowl. It made Jill scream.

As Tessa hits the bottom step, a dark figure moves swiftly from
her left. Before she knows it she’s crouched into a defensive posture with her
hands balled up in front of her, ready to throw punches.

“Whoa, dude.” Her cousin Joe laughs. “You’d never be able to take
me.”

But Murphy is right there, his flag-like tail up and his body
between them. Joe looks down and backs up a step.

“Easy there, I was just gonna offer you a hit.” Joe shows her a
lit joint and looks around the corner of the house to make sure no one inside
can see them.

Tessa shakes her head. “I have to drive. Mom’s beat.”

“Yeah, that was one hell of an exciting episode in there. Sorry
’bout the old man,” Joe says of his dad.

Tessa waves him off. “He’s just always pissed at me.”

“Yeah. He blames you for everything.”

This is not news. She’s used to being people’s whipping post. She
wonders if it’s because she never hits back. She doesn’t want to become like
the people attacking her, so she defers her responses. She takes it out in her
running. She pets Murphy reassuringly and he goes off to do his business.

“Mom and Dad are dickheads. Aunt Sadie nailed
that one. Forget about them. You and Eli have always been my favorite cousins.”
Joe stubs out the joint on the fading grey of the cedar siding. “If I wasn’t in
nursing school, I’d take the gig.”

Tessa is strangely protective of the house and Joe sees her look
at the smudge. He wipes it clean with a thumb. His hands are large. His thumb
would probably cover half her palm. Cousin Joe has become quite handsome.
Standing six-four, he has the Jesus look all the girls fall for—the moustache,
beard, the shoulder-length brown hair, the high cheekbones that run in their
family and he has incredibly bright inquisitive brown eyes.

“How’s Eli doing anyway?”

“He’s okay.”

“You going to see him on your way north?”

“Yeah,” Tessa conceded. “If I can.”

“That’s where you gotta go first, right? North?”

“How’d you know?”

“Oh.” Joe waves a hand dismissively, as if
it isn’t important.

Murphy rejoins them, this time sitting squarely in front of Tessa,
facing Joe.

“Mom. She gets all the details,” Joe finally says. He stoops to
pet Murphy, but Murphy moves his head.

“Guess he isn’t real affectionate, huh? Not like Aunt Sadie, she
was one of a kind.”

Tessa doesn’t know what to say.

“So why are you doing this?” Joe asks.

“I dunno. I’m sick of school. I want a break. Why not?”

“Cool. I get it. Take a break. Road trip. Whatever.”

Tessa nods.

“Well, I best make an appearance before Dad comes around the
corner.” Joe reaches out to hug her but Murphy is immovable, so he clumsily
touches her half on the shoulder. “Be cool, cuz.” He jogs up the back steps.

Tessa looks down at Murphy, once the door closes Joe inside.

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

Murphy looks up at her and wags his tail against her leg, one,
two, three, four times.

They were going to get along just fine.

Chapter 2

Eighteen months
earlier.

TESSA WAS ON a gurney, surrounded by the privacy drape. Waiting. A
nurse came in and regarded her with a genuine smile.

“Your morning cocktail.” She held the syringe upward from her
elbow. “Which cheek?”

Tessa rolled to her left and the prick pain of the hypodermic was
immediate.

“That will start to settle quickly and everything is in order,”
the nurse reassured her.

Tessa rolled back and her mom took her hand.

“I am so proud of you,” her mom said.

Tessa’s eyes filled with tears. “I think I’ll be okay. That
surgery at sixteen had to be worse, right?”

Her mom nodded.

“That was three layers of muscle, right, so this should be a piece
of cake.” Already the drug was taking effect. Tessa’s fear was fleeing to some
recessive bank of clouds. Everything seemed brighter in the room, and lighter.
She was exhilarated.

“Oh my God.” She smiled. “I am so glad this is happening.” It was
the last thing she remembered before waking again. A man with dark golden skin
above his mask was standing over her, eyes smiling behind his glasses.

“Hi, Tessa, I’m Dr. McMan. I’m your anesthesiologist today. All I
need you to do is breathe deeply and count back from one hundred.”

Tessa didn’t even get to ninety-six.

She remembered the recovery room because there was a baby crying.
From her previous surgeries, when you could read the clock on the wall, they
let you go to your room. She asked if she could be moved. The baby’s wailing
was giving her a headache and making her nauseous. She could hardly see. The
attendant asked her to look at the wall and she just made out the time.

“Close enough,” he said and started wheeling her out, but wait,
the baby was coming too!

It was all Tessa could do to not puke as they rode the elevator
together, the crying baby and her. She tried to have empathy for the infant.
Why was it here? What surgery did it have to have? She was relieved when they
pushed her away from the noise and the racket.

Once in the room, her stomach began to settle. Now the regimen of
ice chips. And then there would be the dull ache of pain returning. She
remembered the drill. She could handle it.

Her mom was there waiting. Every time she woke, her mom was always
right there, reading a book, or just watching her. She grabbed Tessa’s hand
each time and gave it a reassuring shake.

“I love you,” Tessa said and fell asleep for hours.

The burning pain began as a dull ache and inched up toward bonfire
status. They kept her in the hospital to make sure she was peeing okay. They
wouldn’t let her out till she stomached a full meal and she walked down the
hallway and back, several times.

She was only slightly sedated now. No more pain shots. She began
weaning herself off pain pills. With sedation removed, the burning pain was
sharper but her muscles healed faster. She was not bedridden, or foggy. She
could see clearly and taste food. The surgeon came in.

“Knees up?” It was not really a question.

She froze at his casual flipping up of the sheet.

“Everything is looking pink. No sign of infection,” he said,
sounding as if he was down a deep tunnel and relaying the news back to earth.
“I couldn’t be more pleased.”

He flipped the sheet down, patted her gently on the knees, and
nodded for her to relax.

He read and wrote in the chart, and typed into the laptop. She
liked this hospital. They doubled down on everything, written chart and digital
so there were no mistakes.

“You’re very strong.” He smiled. “Weaning yourself from the pain
medication, are you?”

Tessa nodded. He reached down and affectionately held her socked
foot.

“I will see you in two weeks at my office.” He walked to the door
and looked back. “I’m very proud of you.”

It took six months before she could run a full quarter mile
without stopping. At first, she just walked around the track, once, at Ralph
Young Field, MSU. In three months she was fully running part way, taking the
quarter mile oval track curve as fast as she could in sprints, her long hair
flying. As she hit the straight away she eased up and jogged easily to the
outside.

Almost autumn, and the football players were released from the
stadium. Some of them stood by the fence.

She didn’t really notice the football players at first because
lots of folks were jogging and pacing and running. The same group she’d seen,
older people, younger people, some athletes. Non-athletes were supposed to run
on the outside three lanes, but she considered this elitist. So she did what
she wanted as long as she didn’t interrupt anyone else’s routine. When she did
the sprints she took the lane she wanted. When she walked she made her way to
the outside. She was on her last two sprints, her long legs running. Her arms
pumped, hands open, eyes focused, first on Case Hall, and then the big round
curve of the stadium. It was freeing to run so hard. Any pain, any residual
burn, dissipated in her running, legs and feet punishing the cushy red surface
of the track.

At the fence line, as she finished her last sprint and gently
jogged to the outside to slow and then walk, clapping reached her ears and she
realized other people were in her world. She saw three or four football players
openly admiring her.

“You have some fast feet, girl.” It wasn’t sexual. It was true
admiration.

Tessa felt herself flushing. They high-fived her and turned and
walked away—their helmets in their hands, their cleats clacking against the
blacktop path.

“You keep working it,” one of them called back, and she waved,
smiling.

Tessa felt like a rock star.

TESSA HAS A recurring dream involving her mom and her twin
brother, Eli. In it they’ve narrowly escaped a monster. They’re running in the
woods back of the first home she can remember. A treacherous trail of roots and
large trees. It seems like it’s October, because they’re in Halloween costumes,
and it’s cold. Tessa has lost a shoe, but her mom is quietly pleading with her
to run anyway, so Tessa runs silently, their breathing the only noise.

All of a sudden the monster is in front of them. His face is
grotesque and misshapen, as if he too is wearing a Halloween mask, but he
isn’t. He’s growling and bleeding and he swings his arm back and forth.

He has a sharp machete in his right hand, and the monster laughs
at them. “Little bits. They’ll never find you. No one will ever know.”

Each time she wakes from this dream, it’s like she’s under water.
She’s inhaling huge gasps of air, as if she hasn’t been breathing at all.

ANOTHER DREAM, BUT more like a memory and this one is true,
because her grandmother still speaks of it. Tessa was only four or five at the
time.

Grandmother had sent for them. She lived in the remote area of
Ontario. Between Sioux Lookout and Sudbury, along the rail line was a singular
post with a stick on it.

When the stick was up, the train stopped and picked up the pair of
Anishinaabe and took them into town for supplies. Heading north out of Minnesota,
her mother told the conductor where they needed to stop and he nodded,
knowingly.

They looked out the windows until their mom said they were close,
and they gathered their packs and put on their shoes again. Her mom ushered
them to the front of their car, and the train started slowing, slowing,
slowing. Each braking a puzzle to the other passengers looking up from their
papers and snacks. What could be the problem in this wilderness? Then they
spied the trio in the front and stared.

Each time the train braked, Eli and Tessa swayed into their
mother’s wool pants and soft coat. It was the color of deer. Then the man in
the hat and uniform slid open their car and they dismounted from the black
grated steps, their mom helping lift them off.

They moved from the big white sharp rocks and down the slope, and
the man leaned way out and waved toward the front of the train. The train
started chugging slowly away. Some people waved at them, and Eli and Tessa
waved back.

When the train was gone, there they were, in the middle of nowhere
with no one around and only the humming of the tracks as it registered the
steel wheels long down the line. 

In the midst of tall pine and tamarack, was a little footpath to
follow. Maybe it was more a wildlife track. They begin the mile long walk to
Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Tessa loved the smell of pine and tamarack. This
was late spring, but not fly season. Still a cold nipped to the air, but the
sun was up and full. They trudged alongside their mother, carrying their little
backpacks of food. They would wear the same clothes day in and out for the week
that they stayed. It was more important to take food, and Senna leaves and
greens for her grandmother and grandfather. Her mother sang, “Carry me down the
old Piney Road.”

Her mother carried the larger pack with all the supplies her
adopted mom and dad requested. Fat back, side pork, salt, and coffee, maybe
some sweets, honey, and tea. And a fifth of Seagram’s V.O for Grandpa. As they
walked along the mushy melting snow, her mom suddenly stopped singing and put
hands across the chests of Tessa and Eli, as if stopping them from going
through the windshield of a car.

In front of them, a large black bear stood, sniffing the air.
Sniffing, sniffing. It sank down on all fours and growled and struck a huge paw
through the snow, warning. Her mom froze, then, ever so slowly, placed Tessa
and Eli around behind her, not taking her eyes off the bear.

The bear stood once more, and sniffed left and sniffed right,
grunting, and suddenly two cubs scrambled up on the trail with her. The bear
padded a few steps forward and struck her paw through the snow again. Warning.
Keeping her cubs close, she huffed and snuffed breaths in, as if reading the
air. Then she stopped all movement. Her cubs stayed very still behind her, as
if knowing their mom was making a decision.

“Mmmmmmm,” the bear seemed to say. At least, that was what Tessa
heard. Then the bear turned left and crossed into the pine. There were little
noises of the pine brushing against her fur and then nothing.

Their mom remained motionless.

Eli and Tessa looked up at her.

Later she would say a million thoughts went through her head.
Should they make a break for it and head back to the rails? Should she drop the
packs with all the food and honey and peanut butter?

She stayed rooted, listening, every muscle straining to sense if
the bear was still there. Finally, their mom cautiously stepped forward, as if
walking along a steep ledge, keeping her twins near and to her left side, away
from where the bear had crossed into the pine.

As they stepped into the big melty footprints the bear had left,
her mom stopped once more. There, not very far in the pines, was the bear,
quietly watching on all fours, her cubs behind her, soundless and motionless.

Silently, her mom pushed Tessa and Eli forward. They continued
walking ahead of their mother, her gently pushing them along, her back to them,
as she walked backward.

The bear came out, walking on all fours, and then stood once more.
She took in one large breath, and dropped down, pushing her cubs ahead of her,
treading slowly down the path toward the train tracks, continuing her path from
hibernation.