It took us the longest time to calm down that night. Ellen and I kept snapping at each other over stupid stuff like who would wash what dishes. I knew it was only the jitters and the fatigue talking.
The wine helped. Ellen scrounged a dusty bottle of Merlot from the basement. I might not have cared to clink Heinekens with Wendell, but I didn’t mind tipping a few glasses of wine with the girls. It wasn’t like I was some teetotaler.
Our relations improved almost immediately. We had only needed a little something to take the edge off our day. Finally, I could relax.
Urszula didn’t need any wine to get loose. She seemed not at all traumatized by her woody imprisonment. But she was certainly determined to get even with Wendell.
She finished up her huge meal by polishing off a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s while curled up on the couch. She kept running her fingers over the splintery hunk of wood she had salvaged from the ruined beech, fondling it like a kitten.
The alcohol made Ellen even talkier than usual. We got to hear all of her childhood tribulations, from latchkey loneliness to college disasters. I could have dredged up plenty of traumas of my own, but I didn’t bother.
My past was irrelevant now. I had flushed it all away. All that moping over would-be girlfriends, it seemed so trivial now. I didn’t even want to tell her anything about my time in Root, or about Karla, if only because it still felt too raw. I just let her talk, nodding my head, tossing in a word now and then. She didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t reciprocating.
The late shows came on by the time we finally noticed that Urszula had conked out on the couch. We covered her with a blanket and retreated to our rooms. As I brushed past Ellen in the kitchen, she kept trying to read me with her eyes. There was something hungry and inquisitive in them that made me queasy.
I knew exactly what she wanted, but I pretended to not to notice. I just got myself a glass of water and went straight to my room. I mean, I can’t say her unspoken offer wasn’t tempting. I had no reason not to be attracted. She was charming and pretty enough. But things were complicated enough around here; I didn’t need to complicate them further.
***
Again, I slept soundly, with peaceful dreams, waking up to wavy light reflecting off the lake onto the opposite wall. This made two nights in a row of genuine, restful sleep. I could get used to this.
As I lay in bed, basking in calm, thoughts of Karla came crashing into my head like hailstones on a pond. Coward that I was, I had dealt with my longings mainly by shunting thoughts of her aside. But I could never keep her away for long. She was part of my soul.
It made me feel guilty for avoiding the Deeps. I don’t know if my attitude that was keeping it away or if I was locked out for good, but either way I was glad it hadn’t come for me in my sleep.
The Deeps terrified me way more than Root ever did. Why such a bland, boring landscape devoid of Reapers should scare me so much. Maybe it was the life-robbing cold, or the absence of anything green.
Going there had sure improved my attitude towards life. Every moment I remained in the living world was a blessing. I truly hoped that my days of shuttling between existences were over. And if so, I hoped Karla would forgive me.
Imagining life without her, I hated to say, was getting easier and easier to accept. Her dying request would haunt me till the end of my days, but I could handle moving on without her. I saw a path where there had been none.
Sure, I would always have regrets, but regrets were nothing new to me. I could just add my failure to warn Karla about the Fellstraw to all the other baggage in my head. Like my paralysis of indecision when my dad collapsed with that aneurysm. Or being totally oblivious to my mom’s fading health when an early intervention could have saved her. What were a few more suitcases for my attic?
