“Come on,” I say. “Let’s walk. I think there’s a memorial near those trees.” I point to a cluster of aspens at the lake’s edge and we cross the parking lot.
There’s a narrow trail that follows the wavy edge of the lake, dotted with forest service signs detailing the history and geology of it. They’re the types of signs only tourists and old people usually stop to read, but while Kat and Trevor walk on, I linger at the first one. It’s a series of pictures showing how the surrounding mountains burst out of the ground as a result of fiery volcanoes, and then the canyons and gorges between them were carved out and scoured over thousands of years by slow-moving glaciers. Its title is “Fire and Ice.” Like the Frost poem, and a line from Julianna’s journal about the night she and Orion went to the hot springs and kissed under a blanket of stars. I make a mental note to look the actual poem up when we get back to the car. It seems fitting that there’s a reference here. Her world, the one that she knew, with Shane as her constant, ended with fire—the desire for Orion. And then it ended again, here, in the ice of the river and lake. Or maybe it didn’t.
I jog a few steps to catch up to where Kat and Trevor have stopped. I was right about the memorial. Raised up from the ground on a cement platform is one of those oversize, bronze plaques. It has a permanent vase at the top, filled with snowy white flowers, which I’m sure are kept up by the Cruz family, who probably also installed the memorial. The inscription below the vase reads:
In loving memory of
Shane Cruz
and
Julianna Farnetti,
Two stars
Whose light was gone too soon.
I read it over two more times, focusing on the words and wondering if Josh has ever come out here and what he must’ve thought when he looked at those words. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for him in the beginning, not to be able to show the depth of his grief for her or what it meant. Not to be acknowledged as someone who lost her. If I were him, I don’t think I would’ve ever come out here. I would’ve stayed away, and then, if I wanted to go somewhere to feel near to her, I’d go to McCloud, which even I thought of now as their special, secret place.
“So what do you think, Frost?” Trevor says. “Is she here? Or are we going to find her?”
“We’re gonna find her,” Kat says. “I know we are.”
I glance down at the plaque, then out over the lake, trying to feel what I really believe. “I don’t know,” I say softly. And it’s the truth. I really can’t say.
“Well then,” Trevor replies, “let’s get on the road and go find out.”
Kat squeezes her arms tighter to her chest and nods. “Yeah. Let’s get going. This is pretty and meaningful and all that crap, but I’ve had enough of this place.”
“You guys go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute,” I say.
“You all right?” Kat asks.
“Yeah, yeah, I just want to stay another minute. I’ll meet you at the car.”
“Whatever you say.”
She and Trevor turn and head back down the trail in the direction we came from. I watch for a moment, half-curious if I’ll see a glance pass between them or her hand on his arm—something that might explain why she invited him to come along, but there’s nothing. I look back over the still surface of the lake like maybe I’ll hear something if I listen close enough. But the only sound comes from the other side where the river meets it in a constant hush. An indistinguishable whisper.
Don’t be here, under the water, I say to her in my mind. Don’t be a lost love for Orion. Be a miracle. Be alive, and living a beautiful life somewhere new, however impossible it seems. Let me find you because I’m supposed to, and because you’re supposed to be with him. Not just a distant memory. Let me find you so that this means something.
Kat’s voice echoes off the granite mountains, interrupting my prayer/plea. “Parker! Come on! We’re losing road time!”
“Coming!” I shout back.
I take one last look at the lake and decide that we’ll find her. That it’s meant to be. And then I turn and run for Trevor’s car where he, Kat, and fate are waiting for me.
22.
“Peril of Hope”
—1961
Three hours down the empty two-lane highway, I’m happy that it’s leading us to the coast at least, because after passing through the familiar string of one-blink towns named after various types of pine trees, we are traveling down a stretch of road so barren and plain it’s hard to feel like we’re making any progress at all.
“We should’ve brought snacks,” Kat says from the back. “It’s ridiculous to be on a road trip without snacks. I could use some candy right now. And a Diet Coke. And maybe some chips. Those spicy red ones that make your face sweat.” She leans forward, resting her elbows on mine and Trevor’s seats. “When’s the next place to stop?”
Trevor points at a sign as we pass. “Casa Junction, in another sixty-two miles.”
“Well, could you give it a little gas, then? I’m starving.”
I turn around. “How can you be hungry? You ate two breakfasts.”
Trevor glances down at the speedometer. “I’m already doing eighty.”
“I have a fast metabolism,” Kat says. “Apparently faster than Trevor Collins here is willing to drive.”
He laughs at this and I feel the car accelerate.