Sunrise, Sunset

Maggie’s headlights flash off the chrome bumper of an old Chevy pick-up as she pulls into the trailhead parking lot. She flicks off her Subaru’s lights and gets out. Darkness envelops her, but when her eyes adjust, the sky is a slightly lighter shade of black than the forest around her. An infinity of stars waits for her to look up. She doesn’t.

Maggie pulls on a lime green cap, straps on a headlamp, and attacks the trail without preamble. She knows this trail backwards and forwards, muddy and dry, sunny and snowy, at a breezy walk and at an all-out sprint. She knows the curves, the straightaways, the ups, the downs. She knows this trail because it unconsciously connects her to something bigger. What she doesn’t know is that today, this trail will lead her to a stranger who will die in her arms.

The world holds its breath as if it knows. The buttery yellow and blistering red leaves that still cling to trees silently anticipate the first rays of daylight that will set them alight again before they, too, die and fall. Bears, jays, beetles, and squirrels patiently wait for the sun to start a new day where they may or may not survive. Nature is more perceptive of the struggle between life and death than humans, and it senses what Maggie cannot. 

In the early predawn twilight, Maggie only perceives her pounding feet, her furiously rushing heart, and the measured breath she drives in and out.

Maggie’s headlamp shines a focused beam on the path ahead, illuminating the obstacles before her. A hidden rock, a crack in the packed earth, a misogynistic boss from whom she needs a letter of recommendation, a root stretching across the trail. Maggie’s eyes never stray from the spotlight; move forward, look forward, always forward. 

If she looks to the right, she could see soft mist meandering through the trees cloaking the mysterious unknown with tiny, white droplets of clouds fallen to earth. But she doesn’t dare dream of what treasures may be hidden there. 

If she looks to the left, she could see a brook flowing in the opposite direction, its dark, bubbly water skipping along, eager to be where she has just been. But it will not encounter Maggie there. Her past stays in the past. 

She glances down at her smartwatch to check her heart rate and swears. It’s well below her target. 

She engages the afterburners. 

The extra pace singes her lungs and jellies her legs. Less time to train was the consequence for signing up for that cursed Princeton Review. The LSAT class is daunting, but it “guarantees” a score of at least 165. When she read that, her credit card crept out of her wallet and paid all by itself, while Maggie was still fixated on the price tag. 

The class devours her time, and she’s not sure her job is guaranteed if she misses much more work for her LSAT prep. Nearly every day, her boss says, “In my day, at least men studied hard for the LSAT, didn’t miss work, and didn’t pay someone else to study for us!” 

That pompous, woman-hating, old asshole, she thinks.

Maggie’s flash of anger turns into even more speed. But six years ago, Maggie learned the hard way that while this emotion may be good for the short term, it will eventually sap every last bit of strength. 

That day, Maggie was propelled by fury all the way up. But she’d had to half-walk, half-crawl back to the trailhead after her legs refused to support her. They wouldn’t drive her car either. So she called LeAnne, and even though LeAnne only had her permit, she came. 

The air in the car headed back to town was a thick and heavy blanket, the worst kind for conversation. LeAnne hands gripped the wheel, her knuckles turning white at every sharp curve and her foot pumping the overworked breaks. Even if she could speak, nothing would span the gulf between them and deliver her friend solace. Maggie’s dad’s funeral still wrapped her like a burial shroud, though her mind and body had finally surrendered to a blissful nothingness. The agony of grief and self-loathing still churned under the surface, and she was afraid that words would rupture the thin film and let it out again. But, maybe mustering a few words would’ve kept her best friend around a little longer. 

Now, Maggie knows the cost of fury and paces herself. The ponderosas that loom on both sides of the trail regard Maggie’s increased energy and slowly reach out to soak it in. Life feeds life in a predator/prey kind of way, however, on another plane, the exchange of energy between two living things amplifies each without diminishing either. With winter coming, the old, venerable pines need all the help they could get, but Maggie’s myopic vision prevents her from accepting their gift in return, and the weight of her burdens remain unchanged.

The anger at her boss gradually becomes frustration, then irritation, then finally background noise. It crackles and flows while she struggles to push through the searing pain in her lungs and limbs. If she can push through the pain, there will be a balm on the other side, maybe even a high. If she can push herself, she will accomplish everything she needs to. If she just keeps running, her enduring pain won’t consume her.

The trail makes a sharp turn at an immense boulder, and Maggie instinctively lowers her head and moves the spotlight to the right before it can illuminate the rock face and reveal any ghosts of her past. A little girl with a toothy grin halfway up its craggy face, single-minded and stubborn. A man standing behind her, letting her climb by herself but ready to catch her if she falls. Two pairs of feet swinging off the top while a dad teaches his daughter how to use the binoculars to look at a red-tail hawk’s nest full of babies in between mouthfuls of gorp. If Maggie gives them a chance, those ghosts will roll that rock right over her.

The last time Maggie looked at that boulder, she had to crawl down the mountain and beg for a ride home.

To avoid accidentally remembering her dad, Maggie’s brain dredges up her mom instead. She wonders if it’s time to invite her to lunch again. The part of Maggie who resents that she always extends the invitation to her mom, not the other way around, interjects, “Nah, we don’t need that brain damage.”

Maggie’s mom was a workaholic for most of Maggie’s first sixteen years, but after her husband’s death, she became more and more absent until she vanished completely. She did pay for her daughter to attend the same university where she was a physics professor, though. The same university where Maggie went to football games with her dad with little mascot stickers on her cheeks and—NO! 

Her mom…lunch with her mom. The resentful part of Maggie concedes that lunch is back on the table, saying “Someone needs to pay for law school, and it ain’t gonna to be us.” 

High, wispy clouds flush pink to herald the sun. The sky behind them turns indigo, then sapphire, then azure. Maggie’s eyes don’t ever leave the ground. Suddenly, a euphoric numbness replaces the air in her lungs and the blood in her limbs, dissolving Maggie’s discomfort. When it spreads into her heart, the gnawing ache of loss is softened. As it blooms in her mind, every nerve ending tingles. She comes alive.

Maggie desperately clings to this bubble of living, knowing its impermanence. Inside it, it is perfectly normal to have neither close friends nor lover. It doesn’t matter that her mother doesn’t want anything to do with her. She can forget for a while that she is a coward. Every obstacle in front of her crashes to the ground, and she can briefly see a way out, the way through. A life far, far away from this haunted state.

Abruptly, the trees on the east side of the path part, and the trail widens onto a large overview soaring above a magnificent high-altitude glacial lake. A remnant of a retreating mass of ice, the lake has an opaque turquoise hue from the fine silt suspended in the meltwater. Towering formations of sedimentary rock loom over the lake and are perfectly reflected, their symmetrical forms jutting upside-down into its depths. Patches of snow linger in the shadows and on the ledges at high elevations, the phantoms of glaciers past.

Maggie sends dirt and pebbles flying as she slides to a halt and looks at her watch. Five miles in thirty-seven minutes and 47 seconds. 

“Whoa! You scared me!” 

Maggie starts and looks up quickly.

“Oh no, now I’ve scared you! I’m sorry.” 

Maggie turns towards a woman sitting on a rock near the edge of the overlook. She is backlit by a nearly risen sun, so Maggie can’t see her face, only her smile. She raises a hand to wave, and Maggie waves back, remembering the pick up in the parking lot.

“No worries,” Maggie says breathlessly. “Sorry I startled you first.” She puts her hands behind her head to open her lungs and paces around to cool off. Her breath and heart still squeeze hard and fast.

The woman says, “Don’t be. I’m just glad someone else is here to witness…THIS!” She flourishes her arm behind her then turns back to behold it herself. 

This stranger encourages Maggie to do something she never does. She looks. 

Orange and pink and red streak across the clouds. The warm pastel light casts an aura over the stunning alpine landscape and softens all the edges of the world making Maggie feel as if she is encased in a furry cocoon. Making her feel…safe.

Then, the first blinding rays of sun peek over the rugged mountain range behind the multi-layered sandstone. The world takes a breath and comes alive. A carefully concealed memory breaks through her walls. 

Maggie’s dad looked out over the lake and took a deep breath. “Ahhhh,” he sighed. “This place is my church.”

“What do you mean,” little Maggie asked. Here was about as far away from a church as she could imagine. 

“Well, look above us. The dome of the sky is our cathedral, and the trees all around us are pillars, buttressing the grand arch of the heavens. Over there are monuments of rocks, and over there stained-glass windows of flowers decorate our sanctuary.”  The melody of a chickadee’s morning greeting floated to their ears. “Oh, I almost forgot, the songbirds are our choir.” He paused to glance around before adding quickly, “And the boulders are our pews!” 

Maggie looked at everything as he spoke, skeptical. But after she imagined birds lined up holding little hymnals, she couldn't help but join in. She said, “And all the other animals are the priests and ministers and stuff.”

“You’ve got it, Mags.” Her dad’s smile broke like the sunrise. “I love you infinity.”

“Well, I love YOU infinity plus one.”

The memory fades, and at the same time, her fleeting peace sours into shame. Maggie’s life returns to darkness.

Suddenly, a gasp splits the air. Maggie turns in time to see the woman topple off the boulder and onto the ground. Maggie sprints to crouch down next to her, breath fast and heart about to break through her ribs.

“Oh my God, are you okay?”

The woman’s eyes are wide and wild. She shakes her head and gasps for air again, clutching her chest.

“Are you choking?” Head shake. “Do you need an inhaler or something in your pack?” Head shake. Gasp.

Maggie’s fear ratchets up with each ragged inhale. Is she having a heart attack? Tiny pebbles press into her kneecaps as she kneels and fumbles for her cell. But, she already knows what she will find. No signal.

She shouts, “Help!” Then again louder, “HELP!” Her voice echoes off the rocks and absorbs into the wilderness. She starts to stand. “I’ll go find someone!”

The woman seizes her arm and shakes her head again. Her fingers have a stranglehold on Maggie’s forearm, and the plea in her eyes is unmistakable. They say, “Don’t leave me!”

Maggie thinks, Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. This can’t be happening. Death is the enemy. Death is fear. Death is the end. You can’t fight death. You run. 

I have to get out of here.

Another unwanted memory slams into her.

Maggie was sixteen the night her mom’s quiet voice floated up the stairwell, calling her down, saying it was time.

Maggie needed to move, but she couldn't. Instead, she sat at the top of the stairs of her house remembering every little detail about her dad. The warmth of his rough hands, the smell of his Brut aftershave, the solidity of his presence, his pocket always full of rattling orange Tic Tacs. And her favorite, his booming cheer of “Afterburners, Mags!” at track meets. 

Her dad’s hospital bed was their living room, sitting between the mahogany coffee table and the brick fireplace. The soft crackling light of a fire set in the hearth reflected in a picture frame mounted on the wall of the stairwell. Her dad loved camping, so they lit a fire for him every night since he came home to die. Tonight though, its diminishing flames mirrored his fading vitality.

She wanted to go downstairs, she needed to go downstairs, but an invisible barrier blocked her way. She jabbed and shoved and tried to smash the blockade down, but her terror of his death wouldn’t budge. 

She was not with him to hear his last breath, to experience his last second of life, to witness the moment he passed into the unknown. When he needed her the most, Maggie could only sit at the top of the stairs sobbing.

She is the worst kind of craven.

Maggie’s guilt and shame nearly destroyed her on this mountain the day after his funeral. She’d recklessly driven up the mountain at breakneck speed only wearing shorts, a tank top, and a pair of Crocs. That was all that stood between her and the pelting rain and hail of a sudden afternoon thunderstorm and the dirt, sticks, and rocks of the trail. That day, she hadn’t even brought a water bottle, all she brought was shame and rage.

So, as she sat there shivering, blistered, bleeding, and parched waiting for LeAnne, her brain made a deal with her shame. Her brain promised to never think about her dad again. Shame agreed not to kill her. But idleness inspires contemplation, so she moved and hustled and achieved and tried to convince herself that she was running toward something, but when Maggie started running she stopped living.

Maggie comes back to herself in the present. Her dad’s church lay bare in front of her. At once, the turquoise lake becomes the color of his eyes. The pointed pines scattered through the valley become his scratchy beard, and the lofty formations surrounding them become his arms wrapped around her. His voice floats through the air in the bird song, in the leaves that tremble in the wind. All of the colors, textures, feelings, and sounds that she banished from her life come flooding back. 

Her dad is here, ephemeral and hard to locate, but Maggie can almost feel his warm presence behind her ready to catch her if she falls. 

Maggie looks down at the woman. Her leather boots are worn and faded to a light tan but have new red, nylon laces. Her Camelbak must be at least 25 years old, and her pullover windbreaker is sun-faded and abraided. The woman’s face has seen many seasons of sun, wind, and cold, and her mouth has smiled many years of smiles. This woman and Maggie’s dad would have had many adventures to compare with each other. Maggie’s heart cracks open.

A calm settles over her. 

Maggie takes the woman’s hand, looks into her eyes, and says, “Okay, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Teardrops gather in the outside corners of the woman’s eyes and spill down her cheeks when she nods. Her gasps are weaker now, but some of the wildness has left her eyes. She squeezes Maggie’s hand.

“You are not alone. I was here to witness the sunrise with you, and now I am here to be your witness.” A wan smile briefly curves the woman’s lips.

“This place was my father’s church, his sanctuary, his cathedral. And it’s yours, too.”

The woman closes her eyes, and her muscles relax.

“He received so much from all the magnificence around us. I’m guessing you have too.”

Maggie brings the woman’s hand to her lips and kisses it. “You are loved.”

  The woman’s grip slackens. 

Maggie closes her eyes and whispers, “When you see him, tell him I love him infinity.”

The woman’s last breath stays in her lungs. In that precious moment, Maggie feels her dad fill up the holes in her soul. On a lilting breeze she swears she hears, “I love you infinity plus one.” 

Tears stream down her face. She misses him so much. She misses missing him.

She holds the woman’s hand to her cheek, and her heart fills with profound grief and wonder for the beautiful moment she was privileged to behold. 

For the first time since his death, she is aware that her dad is in everything, right here, right now. He was and always will be here for her, even when her shame made her run from his memory. Maggie asks for his forgiveness.

There is nothing to forgive. Love is all that matters.

She looks to the right. 

She looks to the left. 

She looks up.

The sun rises over her life. It was on this trail all along.