This or That Path

I was torn. I was at that point, that space at the tip of the crevice between two paths. It's not a crossroads. It's two roads diverged. That's where I was: standing there looking at one and slowly rolling my eyes across the divider to look at the other. While I studied each, I started to get tense. I could feel my hostility in the knots in my neck. I was only mad at myself, either for allowing myself to have choices or for not being able to make a choice when faced with two fairly decent prospects.

I could stay in Los Angeles and work in hotel development. I could move back to southern Ohio and teach at the university near my hometown. In one scenario, my relatively new interests in architecture and planning would be indulged. In another scenario, I'd be teaching - which is what, according to almost every professor in my MFA program - a serious writer is supposed to do. To go down the hotel development path was to give up on my dream of writing.

Maybe I was really angry with myself not over having choices, but letting voices from my graduate writing program plant the teaching equals serious writing notion in my head in the first place.

Maybe I was really angry with myself because I wasn't really writing, and I knew that was the only way to be a serious writer. I had to do the thing. I had to do the work. Instead, I was huffing and puffing over which path would provide me the most time to write - and the most material. Among other things. I let the choice be a distraction. Which was really another path altogether.

When I felt uneasy or uncertain, I usually bothered one person in my life. I left work early and drove over to Noel's apartment. I didn't call ahead, which said a lot about how I was feeling. We were the type of people who made plans in advance. We didn't interrupt one another's time. It was too jarring. But this time, I already felt jarred, so I just walked up to the stoop and knocked on the door.

It was four o'clock and Noel was still in his bathrobe. He opened the door, saw it was me, and swiftly shut the door before I even had the screen door open to step in. I took a breath and opened the screen door, the front door and stepped inside. Noel was sitting on the couch, remote back in his hand. I walked over and sat at the other end of the couch and started in.

"I have two options," I said.

He glanced over at me before fixing his eyes on the television screen. Light poured through the window behind the TV, and it made the fixture look like it had a halo. It glowed. I continued.

"Remember that article I read about placemaking?" I asked.

"Sure," eyes on the glow.

"Well, it turns out that there's a division at work that collaborates with cities on transforming old, historic buildings into new, updated hotels."

Noel nodded, eyes on the glow.

"I could work for that division. I could do it. I think it would be highly satisfying."

He nodded.

"Or," I said. "I have this chance to move back to southern Ohio to live in a farmhouse with L. for a year. I could teach at the university."

He sighed.

"I could work in development and help determine the shape of some towns, but what does that have to do with writing?"

He turned away from the glow. "What does that have to do with writing?"

"I don't know."

"Who are you if you're not a writer?"

"I don't know."

Letting go of that identity was the hard part. As long as I had a low-responsibility job, I could say I was a writer - I was working one gig while working on my art. If I was teaching writing, I could still claim to be a writer - I was seeking refuge in academic life while working on my art. If I started taking meeting with developers and talking about historic architecture and usability, I couldn't be a starving artist, a struggling artist, or an aspiring writer. I would be this other thing.

The choices were so limited in my southern Ohio imagination when I was a teenager that I couldn't grasp a life beyond the one thing I chose - and then I couldn't imagine a life being that choice, either. I didn't know hotel development jobs even existed. People became teachers or civil servants or nurses or school administrators. I only thought of being a writer because I read magazines and saw the bylines. I also saw them rubbing elbows with celebrities, but some of that was just the magazines to which I subscribed. As my experience in the world expanded, my idea of who I could be did not. I wanted to be this one thing. Who was I if I didn't want to be that anymore?

Who would I have been if I'd known that things aren't always all or nothing?

I was this one thing. I had to do whatever the heck I could to stay this one thing.

The Glass Carafe

There was still a touch of romance in the way I was living: road trip, farmhouse, coming home. I could end my twenties in more than style. I was making a promise to myself, not with words, but with gestures. I would follow roads and take in scenery and stare out the front window while I tried to understand the whole of my experience.

Pieces of the life I was after were lies. Pieces were honest attempts. Pieces were manufactured for comfort and pieces were avoided at all costs. Some days were Nutella on a cinnamon bagel and some days were plain white toast.

Every day, though, one small measure of a routine was played out. One of us boiled water. While the kettle was on, we might brush out teeth or start working on our hair. The unbleached, brown paper filter was inserted into the top of the small glass carafe and the coffee grounds scooped in with a clean spoon. If we were using the fancy coffee, we dumped it into the filter straight from the shiny package. Then, one of us had to man the pour over. We didn't know to call it pour over. We just poured it over. L's grandmother had been using that very Chemex for over thirty years. The glass carafe was older than either one of us. Like so many things in the house. We lived in a space in which you didn't encounter history. You confronted it.

Or you made your way with it.

Modern appliances wouldn't have felt quite right anyway. No toaster. No coffee pot. We had a fussy microwave. We had two crock pots and a sink full of dishes most of the time.

The Glass Panel

The door we sometimes locked, sometimes didn't lock, had nine 5 x 7 glass panes in it. They were stacked three high and sat three across. The door was painted pale yellow to match the house. It was technically the side door, and the door that faced us when we pulled in to the spaces in which we parked. There weren't designated spaces. There wasn't even gravel. We did park near the garage, but not facing it. We faced the door.

When you walked through the door, you entered the mudroom. To the left was the bathroom and to the right was the door into the kitchen. At one point in time, it had been the back door. But, when they added the indoor bathroom to the house, they connected it with the mudroom. It had probably been the back porch at one point. The ceiling wasn't covered and the floor was simply poured concrete. It's where we started leaving the dogs while we were gone all day. It was supposed to keep them from getting in trouble in the house. No one was going to come home to chewed shoes, books or other personal items if the dogs couldn't get to those items. We shut the door to the kitchen and left the one hundred pound farm dog and the puppy in the mudroom - where the only accessible window was the bottom row of those glass panels.

It started innocently enough. Both dogs just wanted to see who had pulled in. Or at least, that's what I thought. Later, I realized they knew who pulled in. They knew the sound of the cars. When L pulled in, F was at the window. When I pulled, little B stretched himself as long as he could, and peered out the corner panel.

That corner panel didn't stand a chance.

It was late Fall the first time they knocked it out. I came home and there was glass on the floor. I swept it up and hoped that L wouldn't be too upset. She didn't really react at all.

'The dogs knocked out the window," I said.

She lit a cigarette on the stove and nodded.

There was a glass company a block away from the university, just across the street from the floodwall murals. I stopped and picked up a new pane and we slid it into the spot fairly easily, although we didn't know how to secure it.

"Super glue?" I asked.

"Duct tape?" L asked back.

We let it stay in place, but unsecured. It didn't take long before the dogs knocked it out. They liked that particular pane. Once it was gone, they started sticking their heads out the little space. They could see us getting out of our cars. We could see them shake and bark with excitement. It was heartwarming.

But not housewarming.

It started to get cold and the loss of the panel seemed to stand out more. I offered to pick up another one at the glass company, but it seemed futile if we didn't know how to make it stick. Besides, they'd just break it like they did the last two.

L had a bag of old clothes next to the door since I moved in. On a particularly cold late Fall morning, she grabbed a handful and shoved them in the hole.

The dogs couldn't break them. We spent the winter with old clothes shoved in the door. I didn't mind. I didn't really notice. It was one more quirk, one more quick fix that worked. I didn't need things to be perfectly mended, I needed things to be functional. We let the dogs back into the house during the day and dealt with the occasional chewed shoe.

Locked Doors

We were somewhere between Kalispell, Montana and Minot, North Dakota, driving Route 2 across the northern plains on our way to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was pleased to see that Montana kept up its espresso and thrift store habit all through the reservations and towns as small as the one I was from (and as small as the one to which I was moving.) We could stay caffeinated and pick up secondhand souvenirs all the way to North Dakota, where the fun dried up altogether.

But we weren't quite to North Dakota when we started talking about all the things we would need to do that first week once we got to the farmhouse. Once we got home. 

"Buy paint," I said.

"You'll have to scrape those layers of wallpaper off first," L said. 

The room I was moving into needed some work. I knew that, and I was ready. My co-workers, upon hearing that I'd be moving 3,000 miles back to the land I told stories about, asked a million questions, including, "Where will you get your remodeling supplies?" When I casually - and without any suspicion that they were up to something - answered, I didn't know I was giving them gift ideas. On my last day, they presented me with a gift card, loaded with a handsome amount of money, to get myself set up in my new room. It was incredibly thoughtful and overwhelmingly generous. I could do a lot with what they gave me.

"Paint the floor," I said. L nodded. 

"Make a place for my chair in the living room," I said. L nodded.

"Get a key made," I said. 

"For what?" L asked.

"For the door," I said. 

"It doesn't lock," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, I don't lock it," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean you won't need a key," L said.

"Why don't you lock the door?" I asked.

"I never have," she said. 

We both grew up in small towns, but I grew up in a house in town, and in a household run by a career firefighter and Marine Corps veteran. Everyone in my family had a healthy distrust of other people, no matter how well we knew them or how close we had to live to them. We locked our doors. It's what we did. We locked them when we were in the house and when we left the house. It was a modicum of control. We said who entered our house, and when.

My friend N's family never locked their doors, but I always thought it was because they lived on a street with other family members and a close relationship with their immediate neighbors. I still didn't understand it, but I at least made up an explanation for it. 

"Well," I said. "How do you know people won't just come right on in?" 

"They don't," L said.

"But, what if they tried?" 

"They haven't."

In my mind, the lock was the signal that you control your home. I couldn't let go of that control. Not yet. I needed that illusion.

"How do you keep someone from just walking in and taking your stuff while you're at work?" I asked.

"If they want in, they'll find a way in. The lock's not going to stop them," she said, and had a point. "Besides," L said, "that's breaking and entering."

"But you can keep them from entering," I said. I said it with conviction because I was convinced. It's what I knew: lock your doors, in your house and your car, while you're there and while you're away. Have a smoke detector on every floor of your house. Keep a blanket and jumper cables in your car at all times. Know where the exits are. Safety. Safety. 

"The door needs a new knob anyway," L said, and we moved onto the next chore for the list. 

We each silently chewed on the conversation for a while, though. Something was revealed in our differing door locks philosophies. It felt fundamental. It seemed important. But so many conversations hold a greater weight when they're had on the road. 

It was just a door. If it's unlocked, it's easier to let people in. And that's where I had trouble. That's where I insisted that my doors stay locked. People had to knock or be given a key. I didn't know another way.

Wolf Stuff 6

I chewed on that anger all the way to Glacier National Park, and then chewed on it some more. I gripped the steering wheel of my little, gas-efficient economy car as if it might save me if we drove over the side of the very steep, very narrow road we were told was magnificent and something to see. It was something to see, alright. And it was scary.

The terror wore off somewhere around Bird Woman Falls. We stopped to take a picture by the sign. Then we continued on, saying things like, "Wow," and "Are you kidding?" We marveled. We mocked. We just couldn't believe what we were seeing.

"I've been to the Alps!" I said. I declared it. And, with residual anger, added, "And this shit puts 'em to shame!"

We stopped at the lodge deep within the park, and the regular stop, I suppose, for travelers going to the sun. I passed over all the wolf stuff. I headed for the bookshelves. I couldn't believe that in all those years of mythologizing Montana, I didn't know anything about that park, those mountains, or the road that will casually lead your through.

Most of the books were history books. I pulled Native North America from the stack because I liked the look of it: copper with confident blue text. I felt fine judging the book by its cover. I opened it to a random page and learned that some tribes isolated their women while they were menstruating because the blood was considered so potent, so powerful and dangerous that it could contaminate sacred objects if it came in contact with them.

"L!" I called out. She came over and I read aloud, "The first period usually included the girl's isolation in a small menstrual hut set apart from the village."

"Is that so the bears and wolves could eat her without putting the others in danger?" L asked.

I shut the book, but I bought it. When I stepped outside on the patio where L was smoking a cigarette, I gasped. There was magic in Montana, and it was in those mountains. It was in that view.

It wasn't at the White Birch Motel and Campground, which was why we'd made the pilgrimage to Kalispell in the first place. I was searching for a spirit, but it wasn't for my dad's deceased friend, after all. It was the spirit of discovery, fueled by the act of traveling roads revealed to you by strangers. It was Going to the Sun or nowhere at all.

Wolf Stuff 5

We woke up cold and hungry. The tent was covered in morning dew and the campground was quiet while I gathered all my toiletries from the trunk of the car and trekked to the public restroom and showers. I was on a mission. I wanted to investigate the White Birch, if only for an hour. While L showered and dressed, I'd be out exploring the grounds of the almost mythical motel of my childhood.

There wasn't much to it. The motel was a two story deal with an office and a laundromat and a shed. The signage was large and imposing. I liked it. It seemed confident. I needed to borrow some for the moment.

I fixated on the shed. I remember hearing it so clearly: Roger shot himself in the shed. In the shed. In the shed. I walked over to the shed. I stood in front of it. I felt nothing. For a minute. Then, I started to feel a little silly. I glanced over to make sure the new owners didn't see me staring at the shed. I also didn't want them to see me taking pictures of it. But, I thought if I had a photo, then I could use that, I could stare at the photo until some profound feeling came over me, some moment of clarity where I all my childhood questions about Roger's death were answered.

Even though I didn't really have questions. I just had sorrow. I didn't know Roger well enough for it to make a big impact on me. I knew his daughter. I knew his best friend. I don't know what I thought I'd learn about the man for whom they grieved. I don't know what I thought a shed on a campground in northwestern Montana would tell me.

"Let's go," I said to L after I stomped back to my car. She was packing everything up, giving me time to talk with ghosts. There were no ghosts there. Unless you counted my childhood thoughts. I didn't.

"I'll drive," I said.

We headed further north to drive the narrow road inside Glacier National Park. I'd never even heard of Glacier before plotting my way back home. Maybe I had heard of it and it didn't register. I wasn't really a kid who paid attention to national parks or state parks or that sort of thing. We had a state park back home that my family and I hiked through a lot, but it was just a part of the area. You could cross the street in front of our house and start hiking. And it wasn't a state park. I didn't know what the fuss was about. I didn't know.

I mean, I'd been to the Grand Canyon by that time. I'd seen a few geographical wow-ers. But I wasn't prepared. The bartender didn't tell me. He didn't describe it accurately. He got it wrong. Simply because he didn't get it right. He didn't describe the majesty of the mountains in Glacier National Park, and for that, I was angry.

Or maybe I was angry that I didn't meet the ghost of Roger while I camped at the White Birch Motel and Campground. Maybe I was angry that I couldn't get an answer to whether or not Roger 1.) took his own life or 2.) why he took his own life. I wanted to know why so I could give my father an answer. He'd lived for almost twenty years without his best friend. That made me angry.

Wolf Stuff 4

We waved at Buzz as we drove away for the evening. We were tired and hungry and wanted to find a restaurant downtown that we could write home about. Or, at the very least, we wanted to find a restaurant that we couldn't find in every other state we were passing through. L was driving, because I couldn't. I was almost putty. I was almost a puddle. All I could do was point and say, "There."

On a side street in downtown Kalispell, we found a little wine bar. We sat at the bar and L ordered an appetizer while I sucked down a glass of red from a local vineyard. I didn't want a buzz. I wanted the knots out of my neck. I tried to sit upright on the bar stool while L went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"What's there to do in this town on a night like tonight?" I asked the bartender.

"Nothing," he said, but not in an unfriendly way. He shrugged and smiled. We talked a little about the wine, then a little about the July weather, and then a little more about winters in Kalispell. "You can always spot an out-of-stater by two things," he said. "Their fancy trucks and their fancy trucks in the ditch when it snows."

Apparently, driving in the snow was something you learned when you were young and all the folks who came from out of state had a hard time adjusting. I thought of Roger. He was a resourceful sort. When one of his horses kicked him in the face, and his jaw was wired shut while it healed, Roger didn't stick to an ice cream and mashed potato diet. He put a Big Mac in a blender and drank it with a straw. That's not the kind of man who comes to Kalispell and blinks at a little snow.

But, as I learned, it wasn't a little snow that the bartender was talking about. I shook my head. I was still in a California state of mind when it came to naughty weather. I frowned when I had to wear a hoodie in the evenings because it gets chilly in the desert. But, many feets of snow? I pursed my lips.

I'd rather drink a Big Mac.

"What are you girls doing in town?" the bartender asked. I was a little self-conscious about my real reason for coming to Kalispell. I didn't want to spill my secret to the bartender.

"Passing through," I said. I explained the drive from California to southern Ohio. I sold it as a simple road trip. All the details could get exhausting for a stranger.

Somehow, in our chit cat, the bartender told me to check out Glacier National Park. I'd barely noticed it on the maps when I was planning the trip. It was north a little ways, and a tiny bit out of the way. I said so.

"Yeah," he said. "But Going to the Sun Road is something you've got to see."

I nodded. I liked to happen upon things when I traveled. I liked to talk to the locals. I wanted to know about the places they thought made their town distinct. I listened to the bartender describe the narrow road through the mountainous park. I kept nodding. It sounded exquisite.

Wolf Stuff 3

We sat in the car and watched the man with the hippie hair walk by. We watched him in silence. He climbed into the passenger seat of a waiting pickup truck.

"What was that?" L said. I shrugged. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or give up. I still hadn't recovered my language skills, and I was aggravated that our left turns were getting us nowhere. It was still somewhat early in the day. If we could just find the damn place, then we could set up camp and relax for a while. I was desperate to relax. I was desperate.

I pulled the car back into traffic and made my way to the place where we were supposed to turn left. "What if we didn't go left?" L asked as we approached the intersection.

"You mean, what if the directions were wrong?" I asked. By then, I couldn't remember where we even got the directions.

"Yes. What if we just went straight?"

I aimed the car straight. About a mile ahead, we could see a giant sign for the White Birch. It boasted a big white arrow directing us to turn right.

And then there it was: the motel of my adolescent imagination. I'd made it up in my mind and when presented with the real thing, I wasn't disappointed. It was rustic, but clean. I pulled up in front of the office.

"I'll go pay for a camping space," I said. L stood outside the car and smoked a cigarette. I took a deep breath. I had no idea what or whom to expect.

The woman behind the counter was friendly. "What can I do for you?" she asked. I mentioned that we wanted to camp. She told me the prices. I told her we'd only be there one night. We chit-chatted and I handed her the cash. I was about to chicken out. But, I heard a pause in the conversation and I knew it was my chance. I couldn't ask her if she was Roger's second wife, that seemed too personal and too forward. Plus, I wasn't sure I wanted her to know who I was.

"Are you the owner?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. She went about her business, pulling together my paperwork.

"How long have you owned the place?" I asked.

"Oh, my husband and I bought it from the previous owner a few years ago," she answered.

I smiled. She wasn't Roger's second wife. The timeline didn't work. But she probably bought it from Roger's second wife.

"Why, honey?" she asked.

"Oh," I said. I didn't know how to answer her. "My dad's friend owned this place for awhile."

"From Ohio?" she said.

I felt my face go numb. I showed up without a plan. I was too scared to make a plan. I didn't ask my parents about to whom Roger left the place or if his second wife had stuck around after his suicide. I didn't know whether to ask the new owner, "Yeah. Where did the guy commit suicide?" I never looked up a newspaper article about it and I never read an obituary. I was just a girl on a road trip, headed back  to Ohio, leaving a little life in Beverly Hills to make a bigger life for herself in the foothills of Appalachia. I felt very young, then, as I stood in front of this stranger and said, "Yeah. From Ohio."

She smiled and handed me my receipt and a copy of the campground rules. I smiled back, took the papers, and spun left on my heel. L was leaning agains the car.

"Well?" she asked.

"She doesn't know Roger," I said. I was shaking my head. I didn't want to answer questions or talk about it. I wanted to pitch the tent. And I wanted a drink.

We found a spot between two other tents and bent the poles and inserted them into the openings and created the tent structure in no time. It sat upright. It looked like the other tents. We went back to the car to get all the blankets, then turned around to watch the tent tumble away. It rolled and rolled and wanted to jump over the little summit and down into the creek nearby. L ran after it while I stood and watched with all the linens in my arms.

"What. The. Hell." I said under my breath. But, even under my breath was loud enough for the man across the little paved path to hear me.

"You didn't anchor it down. You've got to nail it into the Earth," he said. He went into his camper and came out with a hammer and some ties. L placed the tent back in the spot we'd originally chose, and the man kindly secured our tent in place.

"There you go," he said. His dog barked from the open camper door. We all walked back to the little paved path.

"That there's Buzz," the man said, pointing at the dog.

"Hi, Buzz," L and I waved at the dog.

The man walked over and picked the dog up. I pulled my tiny digital camera from the glove box. The man hugged Buzz close to his face. Buzz was an overweight dachshund. He seemed practiced at having his picture taken.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot Part 2

L and I went into the thrift store. While I browsed for my next great souvenir, she bought pink gingham sheets and a few thick blankets. I walked out empty-handed.

We had some trouble finding the White Birch. We stopped at a gas station and they told us to go up the road and take a left. The left turn took us back the way we came. We stopped at a fast food joint to eat grease and steady ourselves. We'd been on the road for only six days, but we'd managed to tour the Hearst Castle, stop at Nepenthe near Big Sur, eat a tuna melt at the Madonna Inn, spend hours in Powell's in Portland, avoid fireworks on the 4th of July and then shop at Pike Place in Seattle. We drove on toward Montana, with a pit stop in Idaho. In Montana, we'd managed to stop at a large used book store in a town with only ten houses. We bought wolf stuff at the trading post and from the guy who warned us against camping while menstruating. By the time we made it to Kalispell, we looked as wild and as unkempt as we felt.

And we kept trying out left turns with the confidence that eventually, one left turn would be the right one.

The White Birch would eventually have to reveal itself to me.

After ingesting roast beef and curly fries, we continued on. One more left turn took us to another gas station. I went in to grab snacks, while L smoked a cigarette outside. I had my arms full of soda bottles as I turned away from the coolers, and turned straight toward a man wearing little round sunglasses. I couldn't see his eyes. His hair was long - hippie long, not metal long. It was graying slightly. He held his hands up when he saw me, like I was about to place him under arrest.

"Whoa!" he shouted. "No guns!"

I stepped around him and joined L in line. She was waiting to buy another pack of cigarettes, and I had all the soda we could need for the night. The man with the hippie hair sauntered up behind me. When I looked at him, he pointed at L.

"She," he said as he pointed at my friend, "is beyond reckless."

L stared at the man. She was wearing a "Hard Times Saloon" t-shirt from the lone bar in the poverty-stricken town in which I was about to live. Her long curly hair was unwashed since Washington state. Mine was too.

We paid quickly and ran to the car. We had a motel and suicide scene to find.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot

When I was a little girl, my family and I spent a lot of time with my dad's best friend, Roger, and his family. Roger had a daughter exactly one year older than I was. When I say "exactly," I mean it. Kara and I share a birthday. We were fairly close, or at least we were as close as some cousins are close. More importantly, my dad and Roger were close.

Eventually, though, Roger and Kara's mother divorced and Roger remarried and moved from southern Ohio to Kalispell, Montana. He and his new wife bought a motel and campground. There was talk of possible visits. There was talk of a family trip to Big Sky Country. There was talk of wilderness. There was event talk of domesticated wolf pups. But we didn't go. I was too young to know why. It just seemed to me that, as a family, we weren't supposed to cross the Mississippi River.

As an individual, I crossed it. Several times. Back and forth I went from east to west and west to east. I crossed it with my best hometown friend and I crossed back over it with my brother. I crossed it again by myself, and then headed back east with L, my college friend, the one in the farmhouse. When I was ready to leave California and come back home, she flew out to make the journey with me. And that journey, I insisted, had to include a pilgrimage to Kalispell.

I was going to see that motel. It had taken up a lot of time in my childhood. My imagination exercised regularly to thoughts of Kalispell. Kalispell. I always remembered the name of the town. It seemed so sharp and awkward. Kalispell.

But I wouldn't be seeing Roger. Because part of what my imagination used for fuel was his story. His violent, tragic ending.

I was eleven years old when my father lost his best friend. He got a call from Roger's new wife. One day Roger went out to the shed and shot himself. Suicide. My father raged. He grieved. He speculated all the reasons why his best friend might take his own life. Some evenings, he dared to suggest that maybe Roger didn't. I was privvy to these conversations, even as a young girl. And they made an impression.

My father didn't go for a funeral. Roger was cremated. Montana stayed a distant dream.

Until I left California. I was going to Kalispell. One of us had to get there eventually.

L liked my itinerary, and we were both eager to see what the Big Sky state had to offer. We drove in from Spokane, across the top of Idaho, after making an overnight stop in Cour d'Alene. It was July, and everything was a deep green. We started to notice subtle differences from Washington and Idaho. In Montana, you could always get an espresso. They served espresso at rest stops. Also, they had a lot of junk. We drove through whole towns populated only with thrift and antique and junk stores. I was okay with all of it. I like coffee and gently used things.

At the start of the trip, I knew I needed to pick up souvenirs for the two boys who called me Aunt Mandy. Cam was about the age I was when Roger moved to Montana, and he had a thing for wolves. Somewhere near San Francisco I asked L, "Do you think I'll find wolf stuff in Montana?"

L and I stood outside a giant tourist trading post. I held a bag in each hand, each bag was filled with wolf t-shirts, trinkets, faux scrimshaw pocket knives. At one junk shop, I found a plaster cast of a wolf paw print. L turned to look a me and said, "I think you'll find wolf stuff in Montana."

Montana is full of wolf stuff. Any kind of wolf souvenir you could ever want, you'll find in Montana. I would go so far as to say that Montana is the wolf stuff jackpot.

But finding wolf stuff wasn't my only agenda.

We had to get to Kalispell. To the White Birch Motor Lodge and Campground. When L heard the word "campground," she started collecting gear. We were going to camp. In Montana. She bought at a used tent at the junk store where I found the plaster print. The man who sold us the stuff said, "If you ladies are going to camp, be sure it's not during your lady time. That attracts wolves and bears."

It wasn't lady time for either of us, but the prospect of wolves and bears being attracted to us in any way or for any reason made me nervous. And then he gave us further advice.

"You'll need to get some deet," he said.

I grew up camping with my dad. We sometimes sprayed ourselves with bug spray. We mostly just dealt with stings and bites after the fact. A little calamine lotion went a long way in our household. But in Montana, in July, I learned all about deet and why it was important.

By the time we reached Kalispell, we were beat. We stopped at a thrift store to get a few more things for a camping adventure. And because we were enjoying the number of thrift shopping opportunities. I pulled into the parking lot and suddenly lost all ability to speak. I tried to say I was tired. I opened my mouth and said gibberish. I parked the car, and the gibberish continued until it turned into giggles. I had never been that tired in my life. Or maybe I was nervous, too, that I'd made it to Kalispell. I didn't know what I'd see or learn there. I didn't know if I'd gain insight into Roger's death. I was pretty certain I wouldn't. I didn't have a plan beyond walking around the White Birch property. If anything, I'd close a long case of curiosity only about what the damn place looked like.

And no one cared but me. I wasn't reporting anything back to my dad. I wasn't in contact with Kara. We hadn't seen one another in years.

The Bottle Tree

My roommate was driving. I was in the passenger seat, but I was turned toward the driver and the passenger in the backseat. We'd picked up my roommate's mother, who asked, "How's the house coming along?"

"I need to get a hold of old bottles," I said in response. "In various colors."

"What for?" she asked.

"For a bottle tree," I said. I'd wanted for all the years I lived in Alabama and I fantasized about one day having a tree that I could convert into a bottle tree. The lore intrigued me. And the colorful glass in the sunlight didn't hurt either.

"I want a bottle tree to protect us from evil spirits," I said. I'd learned in the South that bottle trees were thought to ward off bad juju and keep a place safe from harmful intent. I wanted that: good juju and safety. I wanted it immediately and I wanted it at the farmhouse.

"Goodness gracious, Amanda," my roommate's mother said. "We have the blood of Jesus Christ for that."

I turned to look at her and said, "You might."

Jesus wasn't my guy. I was interested in him. I believed he was a wise man and I respected his teachings, but I could never understand how some guy way back in the way back died for a some sin I wasn't yet born to do.

I don't mean to ruffle any feathers. I was interested in bible stories, in the path it gave people. I'd attended church many times. But I never believed.

When I was a kid and my mom or a friend took me to church, I always panicked when the preacher started talking about how having the love of Christ in your heart was the way into heaven. I didn't really believe in heaven either, but from what I was hearing, you were supposed to have the love of Christ in your heart. You were supposed to believe in him. You were supposed to believe.

I didn't believe.

I often ended up in the ladies' room, waiting out the rest of the service. Hiding. Because I didn't belong among all the believers.

To hear people talk about their struggle with faith, it seems like something I could overcome with a little effort. Although, honestly, I wouldn't pretend to believe in something. I wouldn't fake it. I wouldn't be that dishonest. With others or with myself.

I could respect the faith of others. I could enjoy bible passages that my roommate read to me.

And I could have a bottle tree. I may not necessarily believed in whether or not it would keep bad things at bay, but I could enjoy its presence in my life. I thought bottle trees were delightful and I didn't care whether or not they worked. I cared that the thought of one lifted my spirit.

The way faith works for others.