Read Online Melt by Robbi McCoy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robbi McCoy
Tags: Gay & Lesbian
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birthdays, vacations. The albums ended by the time Kelly reached her teens. That was when everything fell apart and happy family occasions no longer took place. Pretend happy took place for a while. Then even that ended. Dad left and their house became a place of mourning.
Some people grow stronger from defeat. Wiser and more determined, they take life’s lessons into the future with them. Some people let disappointment break them. That’s what her mother had done. Her disillusionment turned to despair and she remained stuck there, full of bitter regret, to the present day. When anybody asked her if she would ever remarry, she would answer, “Why? So I can be tossed on the trash heap again?” She was afraid to risk her heart. But one thing Kelly knew was that you can’t win if you don’t throw the dice.
No, Kelly didn’t remember that birthday. She couldn’t have said who else was around that table or whether or not she got a bicycle or who took the photo. It was her mother’s happy memory, not hers. Funny how you think you remember something when there’s a photo. It begs a philosophical question: what was the difference between a memory of an event and the memory of a photo of the event?
In a way, those ever-joyful photos could seem ironic, and that’s how her mother saw them. Her mother looked at them and thought, It was all an illusion . But it wasn’t like that for Kelly. The photos were her proof that for many years they were all happy. At the time, life was wonderful, and the fact that the happy period ended didn’t change that. It had still happened. It was her childhood. She thought it was a mistake to turn bitter about the good times just because they didn’t last forever. The way to avoid regret over the past and fear of the future was to live in the moment. For Kelly, a photograph was a symbol of that philosophy. It was a true, unchanging glimpse of a moment in time.
Rousing herself from her thoughts, she contemplated her surroundings, trying to decide how to proceed. Ahead of her was more of the same terrain, ground soaked with the water from melted snow and ice. Spotty patches of dense green plants marked the danger zones. She had to try harder to keep out of them. Unfortunately, that meant slowing down.
She felt like crying or screaming. I should have stayed and waited , she thought. Pippa would have come back, eventually. She had probably come back right after she left, found her note and cursed her for leaving. She had probably walked back to town already on her own, on the proper trail, and was in the midst of arranging a search party to look for the stupid American woman who had gotten herself lost on a simple hike from point A to point B.
I am not lost , she assured herself. She knew exactly where she was. All she had to do was look at her GPS receiver to see that she was sitting on the west coast of Greenland beside Disko Bay just a few miles north of a little dot labeled “Ilulissat.”
She was struck with the oddity that a place so alien just two weeks ago, a place she had never even heard of, had now become her symbol of refuge. Ilulissat represented everything that home ever did to anyone: safety, comfort, people who cared.
Yes, Kelly sighed, Ilulissat and the cozy boarding house with its hazardous balconies and dour-faced landlady was the only place she wanted to be right now. She checked her phone again just in case she had wandered into a pocket of reception. “No service” flashed across the screen, just as it had every other time she’d checked. Not a lot of demand for cell phone coverage out here in the unpopulated Arctic, she mused.
How easy all of this would be if I could just dial 911. She shook her head mournfully, realizing that even if she could make a call, she didn’t know the emergency number in Greenland. The day was full of ironies.
She took the last birke out of her pocket and ate it, wishing they had brought more food.
Trying to entice her to come to
Some people grow stronger from defeat. Wiser and more determined, they take life’s lessons into the future with them. Some people let disappointment break them. That’s what her mother had done. Her disillusionment turned to despair and she remained stuck there, full of bitter regret, to the present day. When anybody asked her if she would ever remarry, she would answer, “Why? So I can be tossed on the trash heap again?” She was afraid to risk her heart. But one thing Kelly knew was that you can’t win if you don’t throw the dice.
No, Kelly didn’t remember that birthday. She couldn’t have said who else was around that table or whether or not she got a bicycle or who took the photo. It was her mother’s happy memory, not hers. Funny how you think you remember something when there’s a photo. It begs a philosophical question: what was the difference between a memory of an event and the memory of a photo of the event?
In a way, those ever-joyful photos could seem ironic, and that’s how her mother saw them. Her mother looked at them and thought, It was all an illusion . But it wasn’t like that for Kelly. The photos were her proof that for many years they were all happy. At the time, life was wonderful, and the fact that the happy period ended didn’t change that. It had still happened. It was her childhood. She thought it was a mistake to turn bitter about the good times just because they didn’t last forever. The way to avoid regret over the past and fear of the future was to live in the moment. For Kelly, a photograph was a symbol of that philosophy. It was a true, unchanging glimpse of a moment in time.
Rousing herself from her thoughts, she contemplated her surroundings, trying to decide how to proceed. Ahead of her was more of the same terrain, ground soaked with the water from melted snow and ice. Spotty patches of dense green plants marked the danger zones. She had to try harder to keep out of them. Unfortunately, that meant slowing down.
She felt like crying or screaming. I should have stayed and waited , she thought. Pippa would have come back, eventually. She had probably come back right after she left, found her note and cursed her for leaving. She had probably walked back to town already on her own, on the proper trail, and was in the midst of arranging a search party to look for the stupid American woman who had gotten herself lost on a simple hike from point A to point B.
I am not lost , she assured herself. She knew exactly where she was. All she had to do was look at her GPS receiver to see that she was sitting on the west coast of Greenland beside Disko Bay just a few miles north of a little dot labeled “Ilulissat.”
She was struck with the oddity that a place so alien just two weeks ago, a place she had never even heard of, had now become her symbol of refuge. Ilulissat represented everything that home ever did to anyone: safety, comfort, people who cared.
Yes, Kelly sighed, Ilulissat and the cozy boarding house with its hazardous balconies and dour-faced landlady was the only place she wanted to be right now. She checked her phone again just in case she had wandered into a pocket of reception. “No service” flashed across the screen, just as it had every other time she’d checked. Not a lot of demand for cell phone coverage out here in the unpopulated Arctic, she mused.
How easy all of this would be if I could just dial 911. She shook her head mournfully, realizing that even if she could make a call, she didn’t know the emergency number in Greenland. The day was full of ironies.
She took the last birke out of her pocket and ate it, wishing they had brought more food.
Trying to entice her to come to
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