He stopped, and Dana didn't say anything. Several moments passed and he finally finished. “I don't know. That's the best answer I can offer. I'll work on ways to hurt you without causing this sort of bruising, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do what Max did."
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Chapter Twenty-Two
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Dana was thankful her therapist's sofa was soft as she took a seat. She'd called Kirsten Monday afternoon, telling her she'd need more than an hour this week, and Kirsten had scheduled her from four until six on Wednesday, instead of their usual Thursday appointment.
She began at the beginning of the weekend and ran through it quickly, wanting to talk about her current mix of emotions, but Kirsten kept stopping her to ask questions about how things made her feel. It annoyed her at first, until she realized where Kirsten was going, and by the time she'd finished telling the story she saw how important Zach had become in her life, how attached she was to him.
"Kirsten, I think I need... this might sound odd, but I need to have one final conversation with Garnet. I want to explain I'll always love him, but it's time for me to move on—to give my loyalties, and my love and trust, to someone else. I've never felt his presence at the cemetery; his body may be there, but his spirit isn't. There's this place we used to hike, up on Monteagle, called Raven Point. I want to go there and talk to him, ask him to give me a sign showing he understands, granting me permission. Is that an unhealthy thing to do?” She reached for a tissue from the table beside her and caught a tear as it spilled over.
"This is where I'm supposed to inquire if you think it's unhealthy, without giving you my opinion, but I'm going to break the rules. My personal belief system tells me those who've passed over can sometimes be aware of what we're going through, and can occasionally manage to send simple messages across in unexpected ways. However, it also tells me they don't always have access to this reality, this frequency, and then they can't hear us or convey messages. It's also my belief that time doesn't work the same in both dimensions. While it's been several years for you, he may feel as if only a couple of weeks have elapsed, or perhaps an entire decade."
"You're saying I shouldn't put too much stock in whether or not I get an answer?"
Kirsten nodded. “If you don't receive a response, consider he may not have heard the question. I believe this trip can be healthy, whether he hears you or not; however, I'm familiar with the trails leading to Raven Point, and most of them shouldn't be hiked alone. Which do you plan to use?"
"I don't know. I could take the shortcut through the pastures, but I think I'll start at the top of the mountain and take the Fiery Gizzard trail—make it kind of a quest.” She took a breath, tears threatening to spill over again. “A final goodbye to him—the Chimneys, Sycamore Falls, the Fruit Bowl—we've hiked that section together countless times. I'll need to do it during the week though, so I can cry without worrying about running into too many hikers."
"That's a ten-mile round trip, if I remember correctly, and it's a rough hike in the best of circumstances. I'm sensing you aren't planning to take anyone with you, so I'd like to suggest you have someone drop you off at the Grundy Forest trailhead and pick you up near the orchards—as that would reduce it to a six-mile trek. Do you have someone who can shuttle you back to your car?"
"Yeah—I have a friend who lives in the area and it'd be nice to have dinner with her, catch up.” She inhaled deeply and let it out, relieved to have worked it out in her head. “If I'm not up to coming home yet I think I'll camp at Foster Falls; that'll give me a chance to hike into the canyon the next day and get some negative ions from the falls."
Kirsten smiled. “Foster Falls is great for that. When do you plan to do this?"
"Tomorrow, if my friend can pick me up. I'll call her when I leave here. Zach wants to have a big conversation this weekend, and I don't think I can make the promises he deserves to hear from me until I've had this final talk with Garnet, or, with Garnet's memory, if he can't hear me."
"Why do you think Zach deserves promises from you?"
"Because he's important—I care for him, and I need to give him some kind of commitment, to show he means something to me."
By the time Dana arrived on Raven Point she was exhausted, with no tears left. She'd had to stop to cry at the Fruit Bowl, a giant hill of boulders the size of houses, tricky to navigate on foot at the best of times and impossible with tears blurring your vision. She'd left the trail for a cry at Sycamore Falls to keep from being seen by a happy couple eating a picnic lunch. And now, on the arduous last mile of the hike, straight up out of the gorge, her eyes were dry, leaving her no way to show the grief in her heart.