Chapter 1: Switch of Gray

The year 1991 was not even fifteen hours old when our parents dropped a little bomb on us.

As it was, the first day of the new calendar was already bittersweet. It was the end of a two-week period inundated with both highs and lows. Not unlike my beloved Catskill Mountains, I knew, with its mounts and vales. But in the physical world, these complementary features were distinct; in my mind, the peaks and valleys seemed only to blend together, whirling into a heady mix of unsteady emotion.

For a few crazy weeks I was nameless, hailed as a rock star and a wild man – well, according to one excessively kind friend, anyway. The warm excitement of rocking the school talent show, followed by a most unexpected winter dance populated by my favorite devils and angels, had led right into the outrageous glory of Jonah’s holiday party.

And then, everything had gone to pot. Of all my friends, it ended up being Pete that shat the bed. Pete, who would’ve been my last guess: Brian topped the list by generally being a selfish jerk, even if he wasn’t as tight with our group these days; Carl, second, on account of his constant cynicism; and Bruno in third, the frequent victim of bad luck or sheer incompetence. Pete wouldn’t have even been on the list, and this made his ill-fated decision to start fooling around with that damned redhead all the more strange.

I grew up with those guys and for better or for worse we were still on the same bus route. We liked the same music and we’d done great things, when we were given the chance. So I had no idea if Pete had just swerved, taken a long detour, or driven us off a cliff. Not yet, at any rate, although the occasional pit in my stomach made me wonder how high such a precipice might be.

Admittedly, that’s a harsh way to see your friends. But as I walked through these woods that I adored on this first afternoon of January, the two people I cared most about on earth were not any of those guys, not by a long shot. No, one of my favorites was driving away, putting miles between us that would not be recouped for over a month, at best.

The other, mercifully, was walking right beside me.

The morning flurries that had accompanied our earlier snowball fight eased up around lunchtime, and we were now meandering in the woodland. Trekking through the powder was a challenge but certainly worth it for the absolute beauty of the melancholic forest. The black trees reached for us, arms dressed in fine white sleeves, perhaps hoping for a caress. We dared not disturb them.

We picked our way along our creek, occasionally stopping to throw large rocks into the flat expanses of snow that betrayed their underlying ice sheets. Sometimes the projectile would shatter the frosty window, causing a cave in. The hidden current would then start to pull the wreckage down into itself, carrying the specks and flecks anywhere from an inch to a hundred miles. Either way, it was a little closer to the Atlantic. This modest brook did the work of a thousand housekeepers, constantly floating last season’s dead foliage away to make welcome the new that was to come. All this, despite the weight of winter bearing down on it; somehow it never let itself be stopped. Somehow, it coursed over the highs and lows, never complaining.

We left a little trail of these craters, continuing upstream only when the chill started to sweep away the warmth that had been gained by the effort of hiking. We were almost to the edge of our property line, near to the public lands that protected the roots of the mountain nearby. The brook was more active as the terrain steepened, flowing faster up here and indeed, it seemed as if the water was even less affected by the cold, a brazen display of defiance against the icy fingers that gripped everything else around it.

“Was last night real?”

I turned to glance at her. She stared at the stream but was clearly seeing something else.

“It was,” I confirmed.

“Everything already feels like it’s turning into a dream,” she murmured.

“It happens every time. She leaves, and a bit later, real life hits you and it all turns into a see-through memory. And the memory is nothing like the real thing. You think it is, but then she comes back and you realize how much it wasn’t. But then she leaves again, and a bit later real life hits you, and...”

She picked at a nearby trunk. “It makes me so sad.”

I turned Lara toward me and looked at her. Her eyes were open, and everything was in there at once: the highs and the lows. There was no separating them, no unstirring them.

“Hey...” I murmured.

“It’s only been a few hours since she left and I’m already trying to think when we might see her next,” she whispered.

I gave her shoulder a squeeze, knowing that we had a long way to go. From experience, I knew this mood could easily become unsustainable. “Welcome to the club,” I said gently, trying to lighten the feeling.

“February? Don’t we have winter break then?”

“Yeah, a week off,” I confirmed. “Heather couldn’t remember when hers was, though.”

“Hopefully the same. It has to be the same in the whole state, right?” she pleaded, her eyes full of hope.

“I don’t know. But hey, we’ll have the twins to entertain, right? With some luck, the time will fly by and before you know it, Heather will be back.”

“Yeah, I know. Although...” Lara stood still, her hands warming up in her pockets.

“What?” I finally prodded.

She shrugged, unsure of herself. “It’s a bit weird having the twins stay with us now.”

“Why?”

“Well, last night was amazing, but also something completely new. Something crazy. I don’t know what it means, let alone what to tell people.”

“I hope you won’t be telling anyone about it any time soon.”

“Of course not. That’s not what I meant.”

“I’m not sure our moms would understand. Heck, I’m not even sure we understand,” I added, these words seeming to come from some subconscious part of my brain.

“I know. What I mean is, what if the twins ask if I’m, like, seeing someone? You have it easy, since everyone already knows you’re with Heather. But me?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not sure what to tell you,” I replied quietly. “I guess you’re not with anyone, but not looking either?”

Lara huffed. “That’s kind of rough.”

This is all getting weird...

“It is rough,” I agreed quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. But for the last few days, I really thought it was okay to be myself. Now I’m not sure again.”

“Lara, you still can be yourself. It’s just ... complicated, I guess.”

“Am I with Heather, anyway? I don’t even know if that’s true.”

“Look, this is new for all of us. You did say you wanted to take it slow. Really, I think it’s up to you. I’m not expecting anything, and I don’t think Heather is, either. I mean, if you want to get back together with Pete, neither Heather or—”

“I don’t want to get back with him,” Lara interjected firmly.

“Okay, with anyone then. Tommy ... Heck, Muireann even, I don’t know. We wouldn’t be upset.”

Lara was silent for a time. I moved close to her.

“But I think, well...” I started. “I think that you’ll always have a place with us, too.”

“How long have you felt like this?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“That you, me, and Heather could, you know ... be a thing? In this ... half-triangle kind of way,” she said, waving her hand uncertainly.

I sighed. “I know we’ve joked around about stuff like that, but honestly? I only really saw it a couple nights ago. There was a moment where it was all so crystal clear; everything made perfect sense.”

“Hmm. Me too,” she agreed. “I think you looked at me, and we were both seeing it.”

A tingle ran up my spine. “I remember that ... But yeah, right now it’s not so obvious. You know, like how are we going to do this day-to-day? I have no idea. I feel bad, though, because it’s unfair to you. You’d have to hide it. Unless I fake-break up with Heather and you start going with her? We could trade off every six months or something.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“It was just a joke.”

Lara didn’t laugh. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“Who do you think hid, of our parents?”

The question was unexpected. I considered for a while. “I really don’t know. But I think that’s why they ended up moving out here, to the middle of nowhere. Maybe they thought if they all hid together, then none of them had to hide by themselves, you know?”

“Yeah,” Lara breathed. “That’s the only way. Because that’s what I wish we could do. Take Heather with us, go deep into the woods and never come out.”

“Welcome to the club,” I repeated.

She finally let out a small laugh. It was melancholy, but at least it had some humor to it. “What the hell are we going to do, Matt?”

I put an arm around her shoulder. “I wish we knew ... But since we don’t, I think we should go back to how things were before, pretty much.”

Lara’s eyes turned up to me, burgeoning with moisture.

I smiled wistfully as I continued. “Hey, don’t cry. It’s just for the time being. You should live your life how you want. Like I said, what we did last night wasn’t some temporary thing, take it now or leave it forever. It was more like finding, I don’t know ... some new truth or something. It’ll always be there for us. We don’t know right now what it means, or how it works. And we definitely don’t have to try and do it, especially with the twins around.”

She seemed to slump a bit. “As much as I hate saying this, I think you’re right. I really saw it, last night ... but I don’t know if I can be that person. Not yet. Not all the time, anyway.”

“Of course not. Let’s just see what happens for a while. We don’t have to take this too seriously, you know?”

“But it felt so right, Matt!” she cried.

“It did, it did. But there’s plenty of time to figure things out. We’re still in high school. I mean, we should probably just be out getting smashed and fooling around for the fun of it, not all this serious stuff.”

She eyed me. “Is that what you want? To go out and fool around with people?”

I sniffed and said nothing for a while. “No. But my basic point is still true.”

“Do you think... ?” she started.

“What?”

“Will Heather understand, if I, you know... ?”

“None of us can really do this right now. She has to know that too.”

“So this whole thing is more like a goal, than a reality, I guess.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“But what if ... what if I do fall for someone else?”

“Then you do and that would be great. Anything can happen. Last night was just one way, not the only way.”

“But it would be weird. Here you and her would be together, not with other people, but I’m in and out of it... ?”

I sighed. “Lara, I wouldn’t blame you. You have the hard part, coming in to what Heather and I openly have. Besides, who says it has to be even anyway? My thing with Heather doesn’t have to be the same as yours, at all. In fact, it mostly won’t be.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that’s true. But it just seems weird, for me to do that.”

“Right, because being in some love triangle with Heather and me isn’t weird.”

“In a way, it isn’t,” she breathed.

“We’ll figure this out as we go along and we’ll be fine. I don’t know about you, but if nothing else, I feel like, well, like you and me can truly can talk to each other now.”

Lara looked at me, her face melting into a soft smile. “Oh, Matt, you don’t know how that makes me feel, to hear that! I do love you, so much.”

“I love you too, sis. And no matter what happens, I always will.”

We held a long embrace. Her body relaxed as we shared our warmth together. I had no idea what the coming months would bring, but I felt little anxiety about it, oddly for me. The world seemed open, even if trickier to navigate.

Things will work out...

After a while, I pulled out of our hug and gave Lara a small smile.

“We’ll have a good time this winter, all right?”

She nodded and squeezed my hand, and then we continued our slow walk. We funneled into a little glen and climbed a steeper section. The snow was significantly lessened up here, particularly to each side of the creek bed, to the point of even being strange. I was just about to remark on this when Lara pointed up ahead as we approached a crest in the rise.

“Hey, look. That old log is all ripped up.”

I looked more closely at the scene she indicated. It was always an odd section of the stream. Long before we ever lived here, a thick tree had fallen across the banks, forming a little bridge beneath which the water spouted forth. Upon death, the horizontal mass had sprouted new vertical shoots, short spindly and bushy daughters that stretched their branches out over what appeared to be a sizable pool of water, if a bit muddy. Their many limbs intertwined like a net and the whole thing had the look of an oversized bonsai arrangement. Indeed, it might have been some secret goddess’s little garden. In the warmer months, and even into late fall, the banks surrounding this hole supported unusually thick undergrowth. Whenever we hiked this way, we didn’t do more than glance at the interesting grotto and move on. Fear of poison ivy and sticky muck prevented any further exploration of it, despite the inviting sounds of a small cascade therein.

As we approached, I saw that Lara was right. The parental log had finally rotted beyond the demands put upon it by its children. It had cracked and split into many chunks, sitting just on the edge of the pool like a broken dam. Strong winter winds had likely helped in dismantling the bridge, and the daughter trees were now strewn about. Some smaller clumps were finding gentle support on the iced-over surface, but most had tumbled and rolled downstream.

The grove seemed to have been cracked open like a crab shell, allowing a better view of what was hidden within. A small outcropping of rock was the upstream water source for the pool, but the face of this little five-foot cliff was frozen solid in a sheet of icicles. The gurgling brook departing the area was a stark contrast with the seemingly dead feeder creek. But as we well knew, even where there was ice, there was usually flowing water hiding underneath.

“Help me move some of this stuff,” Lara called out, indicating the remains of the thick log.

Between us, we managed to drag, roll, and throw the larger pieces to the bank and into the woods. It was a strenuous effort made more difficult by the lack of solid footing, but soon the dammed area was relatively clear. The depressions where sections of the log had recently sat were now filling with water, and the noise was increasing as the flow swelled. The stream was, perhaps, showing her gratitude at being able to do her work a little less impeded.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been up here in winter,” I said, surveying the icy pool that had been fully revealed now. “That frozen waterfall is really cool.”

“Yeah, definitely. I wonder how thick the ice is.”

Lara stooped to pick up a large rock. With a bit of a struggle she heaved it into the air. I watched with anticipation as it arced toward the area near the waterfall. The sound of impact was dull and thick and the stone slid and came to a stop against the base of the frozen cascade, having failed to snap through the ice. A few icicles cracked and tinkled onto the white sheet.

“Completely solid,” I remarked.

Lara narrowed her eyes, before selecting another one. She threw it toward the downstream edge of the pool, near where the water had filled up the log holes and was now feeding the wilder channel that carried on in the direction of our house. This time, there was hardly a crackle as the bomb disappeared. Instead, a deep splash sounded in our ears and a gaping rounded hole revealed dark waters. I threw my own stone at the center of the pool. It didn’t go through quite as transparently as Lara’s had, but it too left an opening.

For a long moment, we studied the strange results of our haphazard experiment. Then Lara put a foot on the ice in front of her and leaned her weight onto it. A loud crack made her pull back.

“No way!” she breathed.

I approached with interest, abruptly realizing the possible discovery. We looked at each other, and then gingerly stepped over to where the old log had earlier sat. Lara pulled off her mittens and knelt, dipping her fingers into the unfrozen water there. She let out a gasp.

“What?” I started.

She moved aside, so I got down and put my hand in, my eyes widening at the sensation.

Warm... !

“Damn!”

We always figured that our stream was fed by some springs. We were able to swim in fall months when most waterways in the area would induce frostbite. We’d found only a few small feeders over the years, and those were tenuous discoveries at best. Lara was convinced that our own swimming hole near the house had a direct source under the rocks, as she periodically would feel a swirl of warmth drift by her skin. In my younger days, I’d joke that it probably wasn’t water she was feeling, which invariably elicited a disgusted scoff. We never knew if there was a significant source upstream, or just many little seeps. But there was no doubt now.

Lara grabbed one of the larger tree limbs that lay on the ground and started smashing it down onto the ice around the small hole that her second stone had made. The thin layer complained with gnashing cracks, but it was no match for her enthusiasm. Soon mini glaciers broke apart and melted away as the hungry pool expanded. I joined her, working my way along the other bank. After a little time and effort, we had opened a wide oval. We both knelt down and felt the water. Released from its erstwhile dam, it was spreading through the pool, slowly warming everything it touched.