Treasured

Three buckles on the carseat. Four on the Baby Bjorn. Chelsey pulls her son Max’s legs securely through the Bjorn’s leg holes, adjusting him onto her chest, pulling his sweatpants down to cover his pink flesh from exposure to the late fall chill. Four weeks into her role as a mother and things are starting to feel automatic, and she is feeling less and less like a babysitter everyday.  Once she’s fitted his tiny cap on his head and has experienced a pang of guilt at not remembering who made him this particular knitted item, she opens the hatch of her car and releases her two dogs who immediately bound from the vehicle and head straight for the water. 

As they head towards the trailhead, Chelsey sighs appreciatively at the empty parking lot, save for their car. She thought that staying at home with Max all day would make her feel starved for adult interaction, but actually, any extra human interaction just exhausts her these days.  

It’s a cold, gray day. The rural landscape looks flat, muted. The Madison river flows a deep navy over the black rocks. The fallen leaves are a tired, pale brown, worn tissue-paper thin. Chelsey can relate. Thanksgiving will be here soon; her husband, Thomas, will have a few days off work, and Chelsey thinks wistfully of being able to have his help during the day. 

Max lifts his head to peer over at the dogs as he hears them plow through the tall grass, sniffing for deer, other dogs, rotten fish to roll on. They’ve been taking this walk most days since Chelsey was able to walk post-C section. After she heads back to work in a few weeks, she will need to adjust their schedule and head down here after picking him up from daycare. It’s become a routine, or more of a ritual. It clears her head and seems to bring Max solace that is hard to come by at home. Since his birth, the small boy has only been content when experiencing movement, and seems to enjoy the fresh air, snuggled into a warm human combo. Chelsey relished watching his still-blue eyes (now a deep brown) taking in the reds and golds of his birthday season, and now his youth is a stark contrast to the death in the Earth all around them. 

Half a mile in, the ancient cottonwoods thin and the trail opens to a panoramic view of the Madison range, Fan Mountain posing in a deep violet, making sense of that patriotic song Chelsey’s 4th grade teacher used to make them sing every Monday. Her dogs know the way, and they take the sharp turn onto the narrow trail along the river that will loop back to their car. Here the grass is high and dense; Chelsey shields Max’s head from being poked as he sleeps peacefully. Abruptly Chelsey’s foot hits something on the trail and she almost plummets face first on top of her child. Luckily, she catches herself, and Max stirs slightly but takes up his rumbling snores after a moment. She looks down to see what the obstruction is and toss it off the trail, and she is surprised to see not a rock, but a small paperback. She’s also surprised to find that it isn’t cold yet; it hasn’t been there long. She thinks back to the empty parking lot, puzzled. Turning it in her hand, she notes a familiar author: The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins, a poetry collection.  She smiles as it brings back a vague memory of reading one of his poems in high school, something about tying a poem to a chair.

As she opens the book to see if she can find the poem in the table of contents, she notices an inscription written in black ink on the title page. It reads, “I love you THIS much!” and there is a drawing of two arms, one on each side of the text, reaching around the words like an embrace. 

Well, shit, she thinks to herself, I bet this book is important to someone. She thinks of all the inscribed books sitting on Max’s bookshelf in his bedroom, lovingly inscribed with hopeful wishes for his wide open future. Max begins to wriggle in his cocoon, alerting Chelsey that she better keep walking. She clutches the book and treks back to the car. She looks up and down the river as they walk, hoping to catch a glimpse of a fisherman who may not have noticed he’d lost his treasure. Solitude, however, seemed to be their only companion.

Upon reaching the empty parking lot, she sighs and considers what to do with the book. No one had realized their error and turned around, returning to the trail. Thinking of the common encounters she’s had on their walks, she considers Kathy, the retired teacher with the two large sheepdogs. She seemed a prime candidate for losing a poetry collection. There was also the young married couple that never seemed to have to work, with their German Shepherd. The woman was nice, but was always calling Chelsey “mama”, which she didn’t love. Plenty of time to read poetry, I bet. Chelsey checks her watch. 11:58. It was a little later than usual for them to be leaving the trail head. Probably why she hadn’t seen any of her usuals. She opens the passenger door and gently places the paperback on the seat, vowing to go back with it tomorrow at her usual time.

Brooks is taking a rare nap that will most likely be quite brief, so Chelsey relishes the moment to lie on the couch, thumbing the pages of the book with a sleeve of Ritz crackers resting on her chest. Since she’s been nursing Max, she seems to be averaging about a sleeve a day. She checks the pages for another sign of whom the book could belong to, but finds nothing. She is deep in thought over what other steps she could take and is startled to see her husband’s face through the glass in the front door. She springs from the couch and races to the door before he can open it, calling the dogs out to the yard before they can start barking at his entrance. She ushers them out and lets him in simultaneously, giving him the shhh symbol. Thomas grabs the baby monitor off of the dining table and they head down to the basement, where they can talk without disturbing Max’s slumber. 

Thomas shares a few anecdotes from his day, but mostly just seems happy to be home. Chelsey recounts her discovery and plans to reunite book with owner, and Thomas gives a small laugh. 

“You are really concerned about returning this book,” he remarks, “is it autographed or something?”

“No, but like I said, the inscription! I feel like it must be special to someone. Imagine losing a note from your mom or grandpa or something.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He seems to get it enough, but Chelsey figures he’s probably worried she’s been at home for too long and is seeking some excitement, but that’s not it. She can’t find the words to explain why she feels so much worry for this hypothetical book owner. No matter. He’s home, and they have time to have a beer together before she’ll need to pump again.

In the days that follow, Chelsey succeeds in striking out on the trail with every dog walker, tourist, and stoned teenager she passes. People mostly entertain her inquiries politely, but no one claims the book. Several residents recommend she donate it to the local thrift shop if she doesn’t want it. She responds by asking them if they recognize the handwriting in the inscription, which some are taken aback by. 

One particularly cold morning, the frosted trail loud beneath her feet, Chelsey spots two teenagers coming her way. She remembers that it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and the students are out on vacation. They seem to be a young couple, a short brunette in sweats and a high, messy bun on her head, and a much taller young man, also in sweats, hands deep in his pockets as he huddles close, her shoulder leaning into his abdomen. She has large hoop earrings and an infectious giggle.  

“Excuse me,” Chelsey says, smiling at them. They stop and smile at her sheepishly. “I was just wondering if one of you had possibly dropped this on the trail about a week ago? I found it by the river while I was walking and was hoping to return it to its owner.” After she extends the book towards them, the girl unexpectedly tips her head back and starts cracking up. 

“Oh…my….gosh…” she manages between giggles. The boy with her starts to laugh quietly too. 

“You should have thrown it into the bushes,” he says to her quietly.

“Oh, did you mean to leave it there?”

“Well, kind of. My English teacher makes us read books of our choice, and I kind of really hate reading, so he gave me that book and told me to try it. We were walking out here after school with our backpacks and I just kind of dropped it, hoping he’d stop giving me stupid books to read if I kept losing them.” After another less enthused giggle, the girl seems to register the look of disappointment on Chelsey’s face. “It was really stupid of me,” she says, “I’ll take it back and tell Mr. Nelson I found it. But I definitely won’t be reading it!” 

Chelsey furrows her brow. “Did he happen to tell you where he got the book?” she asks. “I’m just so curious about the inscription.”

“Oh yeah! I did ask him about that, too. Isn’t it cute? I even took a picture of it with my phone. He said he didn’t know anything about it though. He got the book at the Nearly New.” 

Chelsey spends the rest of the afternoon in a daze. Max’s cries don’t cut into her, stressing her the way they normally do. When he falls asleep in his swing she stays in his room, sitting in his nursery rocker in the dark with the white noise blaring. What in the hell is going on with my hormones? she thinks to herself. Why is this bothering me so much? The tears start to fall, and she looks down at Max’s tiny form rocking back and forth in the swing. She’ll be back at work before Christmas. He won’t remember any of this. She glances at his bookshelf. He won’t keep any of those books. He’ll just leave them at a thrift store. Some stranger will read the inscription from my sister about what a loved little boy he is. My baby book I made while I was pregnant with letters to him about all my hopes for him will probably get tossed out when he has his own kids and runs out of room in the garage. The doom and gloom thoughts were flowing from her brain through her tear ducts onto her face that hadn’t seen makeup in weeks. In her lap, the book responds with an image of an ocean and a stick-thin dog. She turns on the flashlight in her phone and opens to a poem called “Death Beds” and knows she is in no capacity for that one, so she skips ahead and smiles at a page titled “On Turning Ten”. “You tell me it is too early to be looking back/but that is because you have forgotten/the perfect simplicity of being one/and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.”

She pauses, wipes her eyes, and closes the book. She kneels down next to the swing, spreads her arms wide, and whispers, “I love you THIS much”.