Lava Falls Read online

  “Don’t be stupid. I’ve been a beast since the day I was born, as have you. If you think there is any difference, any difference at all, between you and the rest of the animals on Earth, then—”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. This again. Yes, yes, yes. I know. Ninety-eight percent and the chimps. Oh, yes, and seventy percent with the mice. I know, Regina. But truly, I don’t care how much my DNA resembles a hippopotamus’s, I’m not going to wallow in mud.”

  The words were harsh enough, and the tones of their voices even more severe, but the feeling that they had hit rock bottom, each on her own and in their relationship to one another, was palpable. They had reached cold places, separately and together, from which they could not return.

  Regina left for the clinic, knowing now for sure that her sister would be making plans to move out. She felt heartsick.

  Janet too felt devastated, and yet, after a short walk with the dogs, she found within her thicket of upset a tiny heart of excitement in the frisson of it all. Something had broken, and speaking strictly from a physics perspective, that meant energy had been released. Janet used it, after putting the dogs back in the fenced yard, to call Orca Expeditions. She gave the nice lady on the phone her credit card information to reserve two places in an upgraded cabin. For the first time since Doug’s death, she had a bit of extra money, and she saw no reason to hoard it away in a bank account. Especially when she glimpsed out that window to the wall she knew to be the end of her life.

  When Regina came home that evening, Janet said nothing about having booked the trip. To her immense surprise, Regina brought it up herself, saying that okay, she would go. Janet knew that this was an apology for her hard words this morning, but still, it was a whopping big apology. Janet still said nothing about having booked the trip already, and didn’t apologize for her own hard words, although she wished she knew how to. Both sisters pretended nothing had happened.

  When, two weeks later, the thick packet of vouchers from Orca Expeditions arrived, Janet simply left it out on the kitchen table. Another two weeks passed before either sister mentioned the trip again, and when Regina did, it was to suggest they shop for parkas and long underwear. Janet told herself that Regina was secretly excited about the trip.

  The night before their flight to Ushuaia, the town on the southernmost tip of Argentina, a spit away from the deathtrap called Cape Horn, Regina worked late. She checked in on every single boarder at the clinic and reviewed all her patients’ files, double-checking that she’d made every necessary arrangement for her two-week absence. They hadn’t yet replaced Maury, but George and Cecelia were more than happy to cover for her. Regina had always been the one most willing to come in on weekends, or in the middle of the night, when there were emergencies, and she never complained about covering for her colleagues when they went on vacations with their families. Their enthusiasm to reciprocate made Regina a little uneasy, an echo of Janet’s acid assessment of her life.

  None of them—not George nor Cecelia, and certainly not Janet—knew about Maury, that she had in fact experienced an enormous and reciprocal love for these many years, limited in practical terms as it was. She didn’t like them feeling sorry for her. She hated them feeling sorry for her. But she was deeply grateful that she and Maury had never hurt anyone else. With their impeccable secrecy, they had managed that much.

  Dreading the trip, Regina stayed at the clinic for as long as she could that night. Agreeing to Antarctica was the only way she could think of to make amends to Janet for her mean words. She might not have even minded enduring the miserable trip if she thought it would make Janet happy, but of course it wouldn’t. How could it? It would only last for two weeks, and then they would return to their lives, which Janet apparently now found intolerable. The trip would only forestall more dramatic changes.

  After leaving the clinic, Regina drove by Maury’s house. She hadn’t done this in over a year, not once since he’d ended it. She had only ever done it a handful of times. Now she parked in the dark across the street, thinking that she had nothing to lose. Maury had made a clean break, and now she was going to Antarctica. She had a right to view this part of her life, from the outside, one last time.

  Maury lived with his wife and remaining child—the other two were in college—in this pleasant ranch-style house. Tonight the windows were buttery with light, only darkened now and then by a passing figure. She couldn’t tell if it was Maury, his wife Susan, or their sixteen-year-old Thomas moving about the house. She sat there in her car until someone turned off the downstairs lights, and then the upstairs ones, all but one bedroom. That, she suspected, would be the boy’s. Even though it seemed too early for Maury and Susan to be going to bed.

  Regina started the engine of her car and drove home. When she came in the front door unwrapping her scarf, Janet—still cautious in her triumph about this impending trip—said, “I thought you’d gone AWOL.”

  “I’m worried about the animals,” Regina said and dodged a particularly penetrating look from her sister by rushing to her bedroom. She had a hard, silent cry and then lay awake most of the night.

  Two days later, Janet knelt in front of the toilet heaving up her last two meals while Regina held her head. The bent-over position hurt Regina’s back, and she was angry because she had known all along that this voyage would be hell. And here, not five hours out, it was indeed.

  More heaving and moaning from Janet.

  Unfortunately, there is no possibility of bailing when you’re on a ship. They were onboard for the duration. Regina missed the beasts already.

  Janet raised her head and sat back on her heels. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Perhaps,” she said, “that’ll be the end of it.”

  Regina sincerely doubted it. She helped Janet move onto the bunk, where she whimpered and closed her eyes. Regina patted her knee. It was all she could do to not state the obvious, out loud, that this trip was a mistake.

  “Go look at the sea.” Janet spoke as if her mouth was full of marbles.

  To keep herself from saying something irretrievable, she took her sister’s suggestion, suited up, and made her way through the labyrinth of close corridors and stairwells, until she managed to emerge onto one of the decks. A cold spitting rain struck her face, and she welcomed it. The only other passengers hale enough, and stupid enough, to be on deck were two women, perhaps also sisters as they looked alike with their dark hair and rosy mouths, walking brisk laps. They laughed their hellos each time they passed Regina, as if this voyage was a hilarious joke. It was a more sensible response, Regina supposed, than any other one, short of staying home. If Janet was so intent on noting the difference between humans and other beasts, then this was one perhaps Regina should mention to her: our ridiculous pursuits. Rockets to the moon. Treks, strapped to oxygen tanks, to summits towering above our atmosphere. Voyages in steel tanks across the roughest stretch of sea, this passage named after Sir Francis Drake. Regina was in the business of comfort. She reduced pain, healed illness, and yes, ended lives when they became unbearable. Only humans, so far as she knew, engaged in behaviors that increased pain and called it fun.

  She stopped and looked over the edge of the railing. The water was cold and turbulent, tossing them about, and gunmetal gray. She hoped the neighbor girl was as responsible as her references said she was. She’d only ever left the beasts for three or four days at a time, never for two weeks. They would be sick with worry, and the neighbor girl didn’t know their habits. Regina had given her a twelve-page set of instructions, well in advance of their leaving, so that the girl could study it, and when she questioned her the day before their departure, she did seem to have grasped most of the content. Still, it was imperative that Willa have her own water bowl, in the downstairs bathroom, and that it was filled daily, and preferably twice daily. That Dendur be watched carefully for any weakness in his back legs. That Sugar be groomed regularly because he’s too old to do it himself anymore. That the birds’ cages were covered at
dusk, not before and not after. That Florence—well, the list goes on. They were certainly paying the girl well enough. Regina had assumed a place to live for two weeks was recompense enough, but Janet looked into it, and apparently it’s customary to pay house sitters. The girl actually argued for a particularly high rate because of the beasts’ special needs.

  Regina sighed, wishing she were a bit nicer of a person. At least she tried to be scrupulously honest, Maury notwithstanding, even when she was the only one who knew the difference. So a couple of hours later, when the seas suddenly calmed and her sister recovered from seasickness, she admitted to herself the ugly truth that she might prefer Janet remaining bedridden for the duration of this voyage.

  Janet lifted her head and declared, “It’s calmed, hasn’t it!” Before Regina could answer, Janet was up brushing her teeth and dressing for dinner. Regina thought she might skip the meal, but Janet insisted, and so they went to the dining room and found two places at an empty table. She was relieved that no one joined them.

  “Who’s that silver fox?” Janet asked.

  Regina breathed deeply and removed her reading glasses. She’d brought the information packet from the cabin to read at dinner, and now put the tip of her index finger on her place in the text. She followed Janet’s far too obvious gaze to see an utter stereotype of a cruise gentleman sitting at a table much too close to theirs. He actually nodded slowly, raising two fingers to his brow in what Regina assumed was an attempt at a suave greeting. She felt stabbed by an ache of missing Maury, his fresh genuineness.

  “I think he’s looking at you,” Janet said.

  Had Regina answered at all, she would have said oh, shut up. Their first night at sea, and her vow of patience had stretched to gossamer strands. A hot flash washed the back of her neck and dripped between her breasts. She forced herself to return to reading the information packet, although she couldn’t concentrate after her sister had used that ridiculous term “silver fox.” If she closed the reading material, it would signal an openness to conversation, which would be erroneous, and so she kept her glazed eyes on the page until a plate of food arrived.

  “Handsome,” Janet said. She was still looking at the man.

  “He’s eighty if he’s a day,” Regina commented.

  “Not yet sixty-five,” Janet returned.

  “And you’re fifty.”

  “It’s you he’s looking at.”

  Regina lowered her glasses and examined her sister’s face for signs of impending dementia. For someone who spent her life reporting on scientific fact, she sure could summon some doozy fantasies. Janet carved up her chicken breast and forked it into her mouth as if she hadn’t been vomiting into the head, as they call the toilet on a ship, just hours ago. Regina pushed her chicken—dry as an old rag—away and signaled for the waiter. She asked for a glass of wine. And didn’t Janet grin at that. She thought Regina was loosening up. Her mission, apparently. No, Regina was simply anesthetizing herself.

  She noticed the two dark-haired, rosy-mouthed sisters sitting with two other women. Who wouldn’t notice them? They were howling with laughter. Two empty wine bottles already littered their tabletop. The four women were probably in their thirties. One had prematurely gray hair, cut short, and bright blue eyes. The fourth in their group was thin and mousy, with straggly hair and a pinched nose, and every time the laughter erupted she looked shocked for a moment and then, as if she got the joke a bit late, joined in. When she laughed, her face became merry like a pixie. Regina had an inexplicable urge to tell that table of women about Maury.

  The seas were rough again the next day, and Janet passed a few hours, after throwing up her large breakfast, lying in her bunk. But like the day before, she was fine by dinnertime. Downright festive, in fact. She put on a new pair of jeans and an also new royal blue silk shirt. The silver fox sat down at their table, right next to Regina and across from Janet.

  “What’s brought you two ladies to the ice continent,” he asked, apparently thinking himself witty.

  Janet didn’t even begin with niceties. She launched, “I woke up one morning and realized I could see the end of my life. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I pretty much know what will happen between here and there.”

  Regina interrupted to say, “The words ‘barring unforeseen circumstances’ negate your whole point, Janet.”

  The silver fox grinned at Regina as if she’d been witty.

  Janet barely gave her sister a glance and continued. “The thought was horrifying to me. I told this to the checker at our grocery store, and she gave me this look. Like a cross between pity and disapproval. Because, you see, my husband was killed by a drunk driver eleven years ago. Of course I know perfectly well that I haven’t a clue what’s around the next corner. No one knows that better than me, because of what happened to Doug, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling. Then, I thought, why should I shake it? Or, maybe it was more that I should shake it, as in, shake up my life. So I booked the trip for me and my sister Regina. I’m Janet, by the way.”

  Regina shook the silver fox’s hand—he said his name but she didn’t listen—and looked for the four women. There they were. Laughing again, although more quietly this evening. Regina wondered what their occasion was. Certainly none of them thought she could see the end of her life.

  When Clayton invited the sisters for an after-dinner drink, Janet readily agreed. She could tell that he was more interested in Regina, and she tried to subtly cajole her sister into coming along. One of Regina’s charms was that she remained entirely unaware that she held sway with some men. Not most men, but Janet had seen it a few times, the exceptional man who found the force of Regina’s personality, alongside her stark kind of beauty, irresistible. She projected both autonomy and sorrow, setting up a lovely dissonance, her own energy field. Janet liked men who were drawn to her sister; it was a sign of intelligence, of complexity.

  Though the sisters actually looked a lot alike, Janet did not have the same effect on men. It was probably true that she attracted more men—though we’re not talking big numbers here—but she felt they were an inferior sort. She always felt plain and flat next to Regina. Her sister’s hair looked passion blown while hers merely messy. Regina inhabited her extra fifteen pounds, as if she needed them to house her love for the beasts, while Janet just felt fat. And yes, as Regina had pointed out, Janet came off as slightly desperate.

  So be it. Off she went to the bar with Clayton, while Regina opted for yet another walk on the deck. Clayton wasn’t bad looking. His silver hair was plentiful and coifed. His face a little too red. He had a generous smile and wide eyes, grayish-green. His blocky build had the appearance of conscientious maintenance. There was a gold chain, but if—and she was embarrassed to have this thought even privately—things ever developed, she could certainly find a way to get him to lose the jewelry. In any case, Janet was delighted to sit at one of the small round tables with him and order a white Russian. Clayton had scotch. He told pleasantly boring stories about his life, and Janet enjoyed herself immensely.

  Regina walked around and around the upper deck, breathing the cold, wet salt. She liked the silvery light. She liked how the vast sky floated atop the vast sea, the clean line of the horizon, its burnished shimmer. She cast her thoughts farther and farther out, the expanse a balm.

  On her eighth lap, she saw, off the bow, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards away, a disturbance in the sea. A froth. No, a spray. Yes, it was a spray! She’d never seen whales before. Regina gripped the railing and strained her eyes, and there it was again, a seawater fountain spouting high into the silver sky. Two! Regina caught a glimpse of both shiny black hides, mounding out of the water, side by side, and then rolling back into the immense sea of tears.

  She longed to tell Maury. She tried to imagine what he was doing at that very moment, but she couldn’t remember the complicated time difference between northern Illinois and the Antarctic, nor did she know what his life looked like now. Maybe his eyes were no lon
ger haunted. He had suffered so much. No one believes affairs like theirs can happen innocently, but they can and do. And once love happens, how can anyone turn their back? Who on Earth can give up the one thing worth living for?

  Yet she admired him for leaving. Love can be a gigantic paradox. No use thinking there is something to understand. Other than people do what they have to do. He loved his wife. He’d never stopped loving her. Their three children had been four, six, and seven when the affair began. Regina never ever expected him to leave his family. Slowly, over the years, what he lost was himself, and once that happened, there was no one there to love anyone else. He’d become a ghost of guilt.

  Maury must have been applying for other positions for some time. He’d figured out, and rightly, that changing clinics would be the only way to make a clean break. He had a much longer commute to work now, and she wondered how he had explained the change to Susan.

  When the four rowdy young women approached, Regina tried to point out the whales. But they must have dived deep and swum away, because they were no longer visible. The women introduced themselves. They’d met and traveled together, over a decade ago, during a college year in Spain. The two dark-haired ones were indeed sisters, in fact, twins. By sheer coincidence, all four friends had experienced devastating breakups last year. The twins came up with the idea of taking a trip together.

  “Well, me, too,” Regina said. “Although I can’t say that’s why I’m on this trip.”

  “Details,” Pixie said.

  “His name was Maury and he was married.” A couple of “Ahs” and two of them pointed at the short-haired, blue-eyed one, apparently part of her story, too.

  “Don’t mention this in front of my sister,” Regina said. “She never knew about Maury.”

  Janet didn’t return to the cabin until after ten o’clock, and while she could tell that Regina wasn’t interested in hearing about her evening, she was compelled to share the details anyway. She said Clayton owned a picture-framing business and had been married twice. He never planned to marry again, he’d been clear about that, and Janet laughed merrily. “The idea,” she crowed, “that he thought he had to warn me!”