{"id":15232,"date":"2019-04-01T01:27:13","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T06:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=15232"},"modified":"2019-04-01T08:11:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T13:11:12","slug":"fever-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/15232","title":{"rendered":"Fever Creek"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the tourist season in Breckenridge, it was my job to wade upstream and shake bags of pyrite, also known as fool\u2019s gold, into the current. This was called seeding the creek<\/em>. There were other attractions there, too\u2014the abandoned mine shaft, slick underfoot and cold as a walk-in freezer, available for tours. A museum of glossy black-and-white photographs, a replica mining town complete with squeaky-hinged saloon doors. But the most popular activity was always found at the wide, shallow elbow of the creek, where tourists could pay ten dollars each for panning equipment and a glass vial.<\/p>\n

Gold fever struck about once a day, like clockwork, normally within a few hours of me unloosing my pyrite. Someone was always the first to delve through the white froth and come up with something that looked just right, that took the shine from the sun.<\/p>\n

Within minutes, every tourist in sight could be found knee-deep in the creek, sieving excess water from their pans. There was always at least one, of course, who came up with nothing, sourly sifting through pebbles and mud. It had to be that way\u2014I could only seed the creek so much on any given day.<\/p>\n

And it helped, too, that one unlucky tourist. Finding gold wasn\u2019t supposed to be easy. Everyone else could wade in even more convinced of success, of paydirt that only they could unearth. You would always be a little lucky\u2014even if you took a sip of water from that creek there\u2019d be gold flakes in it, shimmering up from the cup of your palms.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In the six years I worked there, my mother only ever visited me once. When she did come, it was because she finally took off her wedding ring.<\/p>\n

When she called me on the near-end of my lunch break, she said, \u201cMy finger is practically naked without it, Marie. I swear I can\u2019t even look at it. I walk around feeling indecent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScandalous,\u201d I agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I can put up with myself out here alone anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cI think I\u2019ll come for a visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother was not normally spontaneous. She was a sensitive person who saved moths caught in webs and couldn\u2019t stomach the nightly news. She never got a driver\u2019s license because my father drove her everywhere. But she decided she would fly to see me in Colorado.<\/p>\n

This was a tricky situation because in order for her to stay with me, I had to kick Kevin out. He and I were not doing well anyways, and I needed the extra space. It was a good excuse. When I told him, Kevin did not appreciate the short notice, either. He needed time to work up to real outrage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t even look your mother in the eye and say hello,\u201d he said. He was standing in the doorway with his bags but he hadn\u2019t left yet. \u201cWow, Marie. That\u2019s cold, Marie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019ll just be for a few days,\u201d I said. I tried to at least make it seem like there was still a possibility for us. Kevin, like me, was not from Colorado, although he tried to be. He\u2019d moved here from Arizona for college, dropped out a few months in, and burned through a series of odd jobs before he eventually made himself indispensable at a divey concert venue as a bouncer and bartender and janitor and anything else he was needed to be. By the time I met him, he was convinced he was more of a local than any of his regulars. He despised the tourists who made my job necessary\u2014the pasty, sunscreen-lathered kids who expected to find gold on their first try, or the men on business retreats, always in tall socks and polos, who left self-satisfied, convinced they\u2019d conquered something. To him, I was the dark truth of supply and demand, the man behind the curtain. When he first told me this, carding me at the bar, I was equally attracted by how confidently he spoke his opinion and how red he turned when I told him he was wrong.<\/p>\n

To be fair, Kevin had good qualities. In the early days of dating, he would draw me a bath after an especially exhausting day on my feet, read aloud the articles from an outdated National Geographic <\/em>while I soaked. He said he now hated my job because he knew I deserved so much better. He also had perfect teeth. But this was the Kevin I was dealing with when my mother came to town.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s home was snugged up as far east in Kansas as you could go. The drive topped ten hours, and I could only afford to fly back once every year or two, so I was used to noticing the changes in my mother, keeping snapshots of her in my mind that subtly refigured themselves every time we were together. After my dad died and I moved away, she morphed from wearing almost all black to wearing some black and then to wearing mascara. Her calves became as firm and ripe as an athlete\u2019s, since she walked rather than learning to drive.<\/p>\n

When she arrived I didn\u2019t see her most recent change, at least not right away. She kept her gloves on all the way home from the airport, tucking her hands away between her thighs too.\u00a0 She even ate dinner with them on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bet it\u2019s not as bad as you think it is,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t like seeing it,\u201d she said. But finally she pulled her gloves off and set them aside.<\/p>\n

There was a slightly paler band of flesh around her ring finger, but that was it. Nothing that someone who wasn\u2019t looking closely would notice. I rubbed my finger over it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWow,\u201d I told her. \u201cYou really oversold this whole situation. It looks completely normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always said it was his grandmother\u2019s,\u201d she said, shaking her head. Now that the ring was gone, I was having a hard time remembering what it looked like. A simple gold band, maybe, with a modestly-sized diamond.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s no one\u2019s,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

She frowned and slid her hand away.<\/p>\n

Kevin took a psychology class once, so he was confident in his judgment that my dad was a rigid authoritarian. He said it explained why I had struck out on my own, moving miles away to get out of my dad\u2019s shadow, why I couldn\u2019t give up any control in our relationship. This was back when I didn\u2019t want to fight with Kevin\u2014I had still wanted someone who could puzzle out the mysteries that made up me. I thought, with Kevin, I could retrain myself into someone with less meanness\u2014if I could just curb my tongue, restrain the urge to cut him down. He explained me to myself, and for a while I told myself that maybe sometimes I could let him be right. For someone like Kevin, getting that was almost the same as love. But the truth was that Kevin got just as much wrong: my father and I were best friends.<\/p>\n

When he was alive and I was much younger, we\u2019d watch TV together. He would patiently explain golf or football, and push his empty sodas across the coffee table towards me when he was finished. I would run to the fridge and bring him a cold new can, and for that he\u2019d let me take the first fizzy sip. Sometimes at night I\u2019d hear her arguing with him through the bedroom wall\u2014my mother\u2019s wet, cracked voice, and the silence he gave back to her, and I knew exactly what he was feeling. Annoyance growing like a heavy stone in his chest. Sudden hot rages at how pathetic she was. All those tears. All that fuss.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath, he\u2019d sometimes draw me aside and commiserate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mother,\u201d he\u2019d say, and heave a deep sigh. \u201cShe\u2019s fragile. She thinks everything\u2019s a personal attack against her.\u201d I was old enough, now\u2014I had noticed that too, hadn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t seem important to ask my mother why she finally took off the ring. All that mattered was that she had, so whatever her reason was, I didn\u2019t ask.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Kevin asked once why I left Kansas. I told him to imagine the perfect line, like the one in math textbooks. No end points, unsegmented, perfectly immeasurable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your point?\u201d Kevin asked, in a wary, narrow-eyed way.<\/p>\n

\u201cKansas contained the line,\u201d I said. Since a line can go on forever, Kansas could, too.<\/p>\n

When I left home I didn\u2019t have a job waiting for me, or even a general sense of where I was going. But my Kansas, a small farm town in the middle of the state, was flat and endless, inevitable\u2014you could always see what was coming for you, even if you couldn\u2019t move out of the way. It was also very gold: perfectly squared fields of grain, gun barrel roads heading straight into the sun. All that gold and not a piece of it you could keep for yourself.<\/p>\n

When I left, I had never seen a building higher than four stories. I knew there would be mountains in Breckenridge, purple-blue as a bruise against the sky, building on top of each other in elaborate origami folds. Clear cold streams and green wildernesses to get lost in. Breckenridge was the closest place that felt as far from Kansas as possible, and that was enough to point my car west. I had initially planned only to pass through, but it was easy to linger a day, and then a day more. By the time I met Kevin, all that lingering had necessitated finding a way to stay there.<\/p>\n

My job was in the middle of that, tucked in the shadow of Bald Mountain. The morning after my mother flew in to see me, I brought her there. I still had to work. I showed her the rough-hewn logs of the replica town and the line of tourists in yellow slickers and hard hats that I\u2019d be leading through the mine. It was a sunny day, busy, with buses unburdening themselves of people in the parking lot. I looked at my mother\u2014who didn\u2019t go to church on holidays because it was \u201ctoo crowded,\u201d who watched neighborhood block parties from behind her blinds\u2014and knew it was not the kind of environment she would like.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can drop you off in town for a few hours,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u2026 it\u2019s fine,\u201d she said. She looked around dubiously. There in the bright sun, with her gloves pulled primly past her wrists, she looked especially out of place. \u201cI\u2019ll find something to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I found her later she showed me the thumbnail-sized collection of gold flakes she\u2019d found in the creek.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not much,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s pretty, even if it is fake. Only took me an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid anyone show you how do it?\u201d I said. \u201cThat\u2019s really not a whole lot. You\u2019re supposed to leave here feeling rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just something to do,\u201d she said. When she thought I wasn\u2019t looking she tipped out her handful of flakes and scuffed them into the dirt with the toe of her shoe.<\/p>\n

Dad used to make fun of her\u2014he said she was gullible. It was the kind of mocking that always seemed tinged with something else. Sometimes Mom would spend late nights in the blue wash of our old PC\u2019s computer screen, clicking on ads that promised she was the millionth visitor. Or she bought scratch-off tickets. She hid them deep in the trash can when she didn\u2019t win, but the tip of her thumbnail was always smeared silver-gray on those days.<\/p>\n

Mom didn\u2019t like being caught. She always claimed it was her way of helping out. If she just won the money somewhere, she said, it could go towards home repairs. The cracks in our drywall. The weed-choked driveway. Dad didn\u2019t believe her, always thought she had some kind of problem. But about that, at least, I always thought she was telling the truth.<\/p>\n

I gestured over to the car and pretended I didn\u2019t see her grinding the gold into the dirt. Driving home, she fixed me with a look.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo where have you been keeping Kevin?\u201d she asked. \u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to meet him. Thought he would have been around by now.\u201d<\/p>\n

I sighed. Of course the two of them would be equally interested in each other. \u201cKevin\u2019s not been around much anymore,\u201d I told her. \u201cI think it would be safe to say we\u2019re on a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Marie,\u201d she said, putting her hand on my arm. \u201cI wish you would have told me. That\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really not that bad,\u201d I said. \u201cNot that bad for me, I mean. Kevin\u2019s been having to sleep on a friend\u2019s couch since I told him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom shook her head sympathetically.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably for the best, though. He was always trying to psychoanalyze what my job says about me. And he said I talk about lines too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLines?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was, well, I was trying to explain to him why I don\u2019t want to go back to Kansas,\u201d I said. I didn\u2019t miss the way her gaze dropped, sliding away. \u201cHow it\u2019s so open. You know. Empty. And no matter what direction you turn, the horizon is just this long, flat line and you could walk towards it forever and\u2026\u201d Mom was rummaging in her purse, so I trailed off. She fished out a Kleenex and glanced over.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd still be in Kansas,\u201d I said. \u201cI guess you never felt that way?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLines,\u201d she repeated, mystified.<\/p>\n

I turned up the radio volume, tried to swallow down the frustration. After Dad died, after I left, I had to remind myself that if Mom didn\u2019t understand me, I didn\u2019t understand her, either. As condescending and rude as Dad could be, she seemed to take it as a matter of course. Sometimes she even laughed with him, shaking her head at how absurd she was. Or she would make faces to me as soon as he turned away, as if this was a game they played for my benefit. As a teenager, I could drive her to tears by sitting in stone silence, refusing to look at her, just to see if I could.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just a phase,\u201d she would say, her hand clamped over my knee, her voice watery. \u201cYou\u2019re just going through a phase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe Mom didn\u2019t understand me, but she still came with me the next day too, this time with a book to read while she waited. She smiled and waved me off when I said I had to start my shift. Halfway through, thinking she might be bored, I brought her along with me to the supply shed and showed her the burlap bags of pyrite stacked against the wall. I opened the mouth of one to show her\u2014shaved down into flakes, vaguely crescent-shaped, like thousands of goldish hangnails.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe smaller stuff floats down the creek better,\u201d I told her. \u201cAnd it looks more believable. Every once in a while, I find a big nugget and then it\u2019s really obvious it\u2019s not gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you tell?\u201d After a moment she peeled off a glove, sunk her naked hand down to the wrist into the bag, feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just look different, is all,\u201d I said. \u201cIf you looked at \u2018em side by side\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSide by side, what?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cPyrite\u2019s harder. Shiny. Looks more like the color of brass. If you find a raw piece, it could have as many sides as a dice.\u201d I shrugged. \u201cIt\u2019s only gold here because people want it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight,\u201d she said. She drew her hand out and looked it over carefully, like she hoped it might be scaled with the gold flakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you\u2019ve been behind the scenes,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in on the secret,\u201d she said, and smiled at me conspiratorially. I suddenly felt a burst of affection for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWanna come with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I\u2019m just gonna go back to reading,\u201d she said. And then, \u201cCome with you where?\u201d<\/p>\n

I found an extra pair of rubber boots. They were slightly too big for her and made a sucking noise like a plunger with each step she took. We went back out into the sunlight and walked around a group of newcomers lined up for panning equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one ever catches you doing\u2026 this?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeding the creek?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d She was still looking at the tourists as we took a path into the trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking awkwardly in her boots, she looked gangly, a newborn calf. I had to slow down for her, but I didn\u2019t mind. Out here I didn\u2019t have to deal with any tourists. We weren\u2019t at the river yet, could only hear it through the trees, and it was cold in the shadows. Mom gasped when we stepped from the tree cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting that<\/em>,\u201d she said. The river was more muscular here, frothed with white. She seemed impressed when I stepped from the bank and right into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou coming or not?\u201d<\/p>\n

She put a hand on my shoulder to steady herself and lowered herself down with a splash. She was close enough I could see every line that smiled around her eyes. The current knocked our knees together.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can do the honors,\u201d I said, handing over the bag to her.<\/p>\n

She took it and glanced around.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I just\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s around the bend,\u201d I said, gesturing to where the river curved away. \u201cWater\u2019ll carry it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

She sloshed forward several unsteady steps into the center of the river. I laughed when she lined herself up like a bowler taking her stance, carefully calculating angles. We both fell silent when she emptied the bag upside down, watching as gold slivers danced and scattered like bright fish before twining away on an unseen current.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that enough?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll keep the out-of-towners happy for another day or two,\u201d I said, holding my hand out for the empty bag.<\/p>\n

Mom passed it over. We stood there for a moment more, feeling the pull of the current around our knees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe you get to see this every day,\u201d she said, soft, trailing her fingers through the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerks of the job,\u201d I told her, and grabbed her elbow, helping to steer her to the shore.<\/p>\n

Mom read the rest of my shift, while I rang up admission tickets, handed out matching yellow slickers and hardhats for the mine tours. When we got home that night, Kevin was waiting at the door of the apartment. He hardly even looked ashamed as I glared at him, my mother right behind me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just came to get some things I forgot,\u201d he said. He looked over my shoulder. \u201cI hope this isn\u2019t a nasty surprise, meeting me like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a surprise, no,\u201d my mom said, faltering.<\/p>\n

I stepped past him to unlock the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can grab whatever you left behind,\u201d I told him. \u201cIt will only take a second. You don\u2019t even need to come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time I unearthed a tub of his winter wear from the hall closet, my mom had already invited him in to dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll make it,\u201d she said. \u201cMy treat, for giving me a place to stay this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin and I sat at the kitchen table while she rifled through my cupboards, pulling down jars and boxes, tsking when she found something out-of-date.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look nice today, Marie,\u201d Kevin told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure if that was something I was doing wrong, not telling you enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Annoyance like a small stone settling in my gut.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother, pouring noodles into a pot, looked over her shoulder at me. I couldn\u2019t tell what the look meant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking about leaving Colorado,\u201d Kevin said. \u201cThinking a lot about it. It just doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019s a good fit for me anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s too bad,\u201d Mom said. \u201cWhere are you thinking of going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot sure yet. I\u2019m actually from Tucson. Sometimes I miss that, the dry air. Maybe a place like that.\u201d He glanced at me. \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout Tucson?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Too many lines? Not enough?\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother tittered at the stove, putting a hand to her mouth. I glared at the two of them, at Kevin, who was smiling over at her, and felt a stab of anger in my stomach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just wondering what you think is gonna happen if you move again,\u201d I said. \u201cYou might take better to the weather, sure. There might be better opportunities. But Tucson is probably no better than anywhere else when it comes to employing people who dropped college after a semester.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Marie,\u201d Mom said. Her voice was heavy. She came to the table and sat down between us. \u201cHe was just having a bit of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d Kevin said. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing I haven\u2019t heard before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t start,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

Mom turned to face him, her shoulders high, boxing me out. \u201cTell me more about your plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

I could feel a blush laddering up my neck, burning red. It took this, took Mom being in the same room with Kevin, to make me feel it. It was probably why I made Kevin leave in the first place, because I had some inkling this would happen. That Mom would look between us and see something familiar there\u2014something of herself in Kevin, something of my father in me. I didn\u2019t want it to be like that, but I couldn\u2019t help it. Like an itch that was always beneath my skin. It was not something I could leave behind in Kansas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, if not Tucson, maybe New Mexico. I\u2019ve heard about how you can live in these homes out in the desert\u2014earthships, they call them. So remote that you can see every star in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds lovely,\u201d Mom said. I forced myself to listen, penitent, not interrupting.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Kevin said. \u201cYou\u2019re forced to become really self-reliant out there. There\u2019s no one else for miles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLonely, too,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might not be very practical, money-wise,\u201d Kevin said. \u201cBut it\u2019s nice to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom stood to move the pasta from the burner. She went to the cupboard and lifted down a stack of plates. \u201cAren\u2019t you sick of people telling you what\u2019s practical?\u201d She passed the stack over to me without another word.<\/p>\n

Kevin turned to look at me. \u201cIf I go, I\u2019ll send you something back,\u201d he said. \u201cArtwork, or something. Would you like that, Marie?\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt a tenderness for Kevin, then.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I said, gently placing his plate in front of him. \u201cI think I would.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

After dinner, my mom announced she had a headache. She didn\u2019t look at either of us when she said that, just said a bland goodnight and left the kitchen. Kevin and I eyed each other for a moment over our sauced plates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll help you clean the dishes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

We passed dishes back and forth at the sink, up to our wrists in suds. Kevin took in a breath, let it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mom\u2019s really nice,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m glad I met her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wrung the dishcloth out between his fingers, rolled it out limp again. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t have come here tonight without telling you. I was being stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were,\u201d I agreed. I still felt that swell of tenderness for him, left over from dinner, and it made me generous. \u201cIt\u2019s okay, though. I\u2019m glad you came.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin took in another breath. His hand found mine beneath the water, a slight enough touch that it could have been accidental. I could have let that pass\u2014should have. But then we turned to each other, our hands coming wet and soap-wrinkled to each other\u2019s faces. I thought there was something to this\u2014his desperation something only I could salve away. He lifted me to the counter and fisted my shirt up, thumbed open the button of my jeans.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod, I\u2019ve missed you,\u201d he said. He palmed over my zipper.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve missed you so much.\u201d I turned his face into my neck, bracketed his hips between my knees. We had always been able to give each other this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll stay, Marie,\u201d he said, breathing hard against my ear. \u201cI won\u2019t go to Arizona.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took a second. Then I leaned back, away from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? What now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin,\u201d I said. \u201cThis is only <\/em>happening because you\u2019re going to Arizona.\u201d That tenderness was souring in my stomach now. I pushed his hands away, tried to slide down from the counter without stepping on his toes.<\/p>\n

Kevin\u2019s face was turning pink. \u201cYou act like I\u2019m some kind of joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wanted to tell him how ridiculous he was, this whole situation was. Soap suds from our hands were still on my stomach, daubed across his cheek. I wanted to laugh in his face. For a moment Dad loomed up before me, as he was years ago. He would have reduced Kevin to something mite-sized and insignificant, with just the wordless shrug of a shoulder, a conspiratorial grin. But he was gone, and the picture in my mind warped itself into the image of my mother, the one I still had left, who must have known something would happen when she left the room. Or maybe I didn\u2019t even want to talk. I just wanted my mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, okay? But you have to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re really telling me to leave? Again?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKev, there\u2019s not a whole lot else I can do,\u201d I say. \u201cI\u2019m not a good person with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one I know gets why you\u2019re acting like this,\u201d he said. \u201cNot even your mom <\/em>thinks\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

I wiped the bubbles from his cheek. Couldn\u2019t help the tenderness, new-sprung in my chest, even as I said, \u201cGet out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Locking the door behind him, I felt vaguely ashamed, my shirt still rucked up around my ribs. My skin felt rubbed raw, like I\u2019d been ducked into bathwater and scalded clean. I smoothed my shirt down, paused outside my mom\u2019s bedroom. I wondered if she\u2019d been listening. But her room was quiet, the sliver underneath the door dark, so I walked on.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have to work the next morning. But I did end up there, anyways, because when I woke up my mother was gone. I waited around for hours, calling her cell phone. When I thought about it, though, there was only one place she was familiar with.<\/p>\n

When I found her, it was with some relief, recognizing the short woman walking shin-deep in the creek as my mother. She had found the place where the water bellied low in the shallows, a perfect place for debris to sink down and stick. Her shoes were waterlogged, her dress hitched around her thighs. Lined along the shore was a small audience of children, crouched low enough over the water to wet their backsides, watching her. They seemed to think she knew what she was doing, and I sat down with them.<\/p>\n

For an hour I watched her kneeling in the rocks, her deliberate routine. Her fingers rasped through the pebbles and sand in her pan over and over, carefully combing through before dumping everything out and starting again. I couldn\u2019t tell you how many times she did this. I watched with something approaching fascination, Mom swilling mud through her pan with slow, methodical patience, like it was something she had done for more years to count. And when she stood up, water slopped all down her front, there was something large and glittering held in her fist. When that happened, the children came tumbling forward with their pans and bare hands, scrabbling all around her feet, hoping to find the same.<\/p>\n

Whatever she found, she wouldn\u2019t let me see it. During the last two days my mother was there, I noticed she always kept a certain vial nearby. That, at least, was familiar; equipment we sold at work. I only ever saw it in brief glimpses. First it was sitting on top of her half-packed suitcase, then on her nightstand as she got ready for bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you have there?\u201d I asked, lingering in her bedroom doorway.<\/p>\n

\u201cA nice souvenir,\u201d she said, nudging the door closed behind her. \u201cI\u2019m tired, Marie. It\u2019s just something small to bring home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next it was hanging by a chain around her neck, hidden by the collar of her shirt. I had seen enough to know it contained something large and yellowish, uncomfortably wedged about halfway down the glass tube.<\/p>\n

I tried to confront her about it. I tried to take it away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not even real<\/em>,\u201d I said. \u201cJesus, you know that. You know it\u2019s part of my job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMarie, you can\u2019t just go grabbing at me like that.\u201d Her fingers disappeared into the neck of her shirt as she patted the chain into place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d I said. \u201cWhy did you even come? For that? For a replacement?\u201d I pointed to her naked ring finger, and she balled up her fist in response, like a reflex, hiding it away. \u201cIt obviously wasn\u2019t to see me.\u201d I walked away and sat down in a kitchen chair. After a few minutes I heard the other chair scrape back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like that,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I could afford to come more\u2014if you could come back\u2014I wish it would always be the two of us together.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t say anything. She leaned forward over the table, her voice hesitant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was gold in the creek a hundred years ago, how can you be sure there isn\u2019t any left? Just a little bit,\u201d she said quickly. \u201cEnough for me to find.\u201d<\/p>\n

I knew, then, I wouldn\u2019t be able to get through to her. About the gold, about Kansas\u2014about any of it. It was just her way\u2014to go into it eyes open, to stand in a place so wide and empty that she could see exactly what was coming and still ask to be not hurt by it.<\/p>\n

I held my hand out across the table. \u201cLet me see it, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her hand lifted to the vial and formed a hard fist over it. She shook her head, not moving, and I realized she was waiting. My mother thought I knew everything about gold, which was untrue. I knew everything about what wasn\u2019t<\/em> gold. But she was looking at me, in this half-hopeful way, like I held the truth of it.<\/p>\n

Something came unfolded in my chest. This, I could give to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be heavy,\u201d I said. \u201cBut still so soft you could bite into it. There\u2019d be marks left from your teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is,\u201d she said immediately. She still had her hand clasped over it. I blew out a breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be the goldest gold you could imagine. It would be like the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is,\u201d she breathed. \u201cIt is, it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Melanie Ritzenthaler<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the tourist season in Breckenridge, it was my job to wade upstream and shake bags of pyrite, also known as fool\u2019s gold, into the current. This was called seeding the creek. There were other attractions there, too\u2014the abandoned mine shaft, slick underfoot and cold as a walk-in freezer, available for tours. A museum of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1704,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[58],"tags":[20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3XG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15249,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15232\/revisions\/15249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}