Page 28 of Anywhere with You
There were large spotlight-style flashlights, insect repellant, and a stack of towels by the back door. We helped ourselves, emptying Cara’s tote bag of paperback books to carry our supplies, along with some water bottles, her awful granola bar bricks, and the rest of the wine.
Cara and I wore our swimsuits with shorts and shirts on top, both aware of how strong the sun seemed here and how rare the shade in comparison to home.
We walked out the back door and immediately stopped.
Lane’s mom had a terraced cactus garden, now in full bloom after the recent rains, with white and yellow and pink blossoms. Some of them lived in beautiful glazed pottery.
Some of the flowers were prickly looking themselves, but others just the same as any other spring flower, sprouting soft-looking petals.
The cacti themselves were in every shape and size, in dozens of hues of green.
I had no idea how many species they represented.
There were rocks, too, boulders really. Granite and what looked like volcanic rock, all arranged amongst the plants, and behind it all, huge yucca and a few palm trees, their wide accordion leaves making a slight rustling sound in the breeze.
In one corner, Lane’s mom had a brick firepit and wooden chairs. I’d be willing to bet there were s’mores ingredients in that wonderfully stocked kitchen. That would be a worthy Mesmio reel for Grandma Singh: American-style s’mores.
Lizards darted away from us over the rocky soil as we started down the path between the shrubs and spindly bushes and wild cacti and short, gnarled trees.
The sky was a crystalline blue, the wind warm on my face.
“I thought the desert was just sand,” I confessed as I stopped to let a dozen white butterflies cross our path.
“Like the Grand Canyon is a big hole?”
“Yes. I feel like my education has some, well, some really big holes. Are lakes not just water? Is the Arctic not just ice?”
“Really, really not.”
I pointed. “Even the rocks are beautiful out here. Layers of red and cream and orange in these amazing formations.”
Cara didn’t answer. I put a hand on her shoulder.
“It is beautiful here,” I said.
She stopped and looked at me, then looked around. “Is it beautiful where we live, too?”
I leaned closer to her. “So beautiful. We have millions of trees, oaks and pines and others, I’m sure, but that’s all the tree names I know without making shit up.
We have rivers and bayous and botanical gardens.
And there are those incredible vines with dark orange flowers that grow up under the overpasses, fifty feet into the air. Have you seen them, Cara?”
She nodded slowly. “I think…I forgot to notice it. Before this week, I hadn’t stopped and appreciated anything in a long time.”
I wanted to kiss her so badly. I swear, her lips took over ninety percent of my thoughts these days.
But instead, I turned so we were standing side by side, looking out over the landscape together.
I felt the same, in a way, like I’d been caught up in my own thoughts too much to notice the beauty around me, but I suspected that for Cara, it had been much longer than a couple of months.
She’d been unhappy for a long time, whereas I had been mostly happy, running my store and living my life in cheery ignorance of the fact that my lying slug of a wife was cheating on me.
Still, I wasn’t in a hurry to move from this spot. If I’d tried this with Bridget, if I’d said Hey let’s take a minute and enjoy the view , she would’ve rolled her eyes and gone back inside.
I decided a long time ago that I didn’t need her to pay attention, that I could enjoy the world without having someone to share my joy, and I was right.
But damn, it was nice to share it. It was beyond nice, when Cara noticed the blue outline of the mountains in the distance, to hear her breathing change.
It was beyond nice, when she looked down, to watch the toes of her sneakers sift the multicolored stones, knowing that she, like me, was watching how the sunlight glinted off the surfaces and how quickly the dirt darkened as she brushed away the top layer, the ground still wet underneath from the rain.
“I used to read Mary Oliver’s poetry every day so I didn’t feel alone,” I told her, the words bursting out of me like a confession.
“Mary Oliver?”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re a science nerd. Not a literary nerd.”
“Or a music nerd,” she said, grinning. “I don’t know why it surprises me so much that you’re a poetry reader.”
“I don’t either. Poetry is music. I’ll show you later. I brought…a couple of her books with me.”
“How many is a couple?” she asked, catching my hesitation.
“All of them,” I confessed. “She wrote about paying attention, about nature, about wonder, about being a person in a world that doesn’t make it easy.”
“The music nerd has hidden depths,” she said with a little laugh. “Don’t forget, later. I want to see all your favorite poems.” Then she took my hand just long enough to pull me forward. “Come on. Hot springs, remember?”