BYPASS

HEIDI NAYLOR MACK AND NATALIE HAVE GOTTEN VERY COMFORTABLE IN IDAHO

Mack’s new atlas was gilt-edged, cloth-bound and hand-sewn; two-hundred creamy pages – must have cost a fortune.

“So lovely,” Natalie said, “the colors intense, like Japanese woodblock prints.”

What he needed was not an atlas but a new truck. They’d been saving up, keeping the old one running.

They sat at the dining table, in evening light. She rubbed his calf with her stockinged foot. Mack turned the page to an orange peel of the globe.

“Did I ever mention,” he said, “how world maps in Asia are Sino-centric? China on the left, Japan. The Pacific down the middle.”

“That makes sense,” she said. “You see the world from your own perspective.”

Mack had seen the world in Japan. He’d taken the bullet train, the Shinkansen, across the prefectures. He said Japanese were formal, eager, on the same team. Homogenous. Team Japan.

He’d lived in Germany too, until his money ran out. Bussed tables for a week and scythed a Bavarian wheat field for train fare. He’d stood at the Berlin Wall, when they still had that.

“Let’s see,” he was saying. His finger traveled over the page. “South America. Paraguay.”

“Wellspring’s doing a community water system southeast of Asuncion,” he said.

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“Tell me again about Wellspring.”

Mack sat back and crossed his ankle over his knee. “It’s that not-for-profit K works for. Water systems in third-world countries.”

Natalie bit her lip. “Is something up?”

Mack picked at his jeans. “Maybe. I could probably do this project. It’s a design I know.”

She bent over the map. “Near Asuncion.” Some fabric behind her eyes seemed to loosen. “So, you bought this atlas. Why, exactly?”

He exhaled. “I just thought.”

“Mack. Do they pay you to design the system?”

“Sure, honey. But…on-site. They need someone to oversee construction too. They can’t pay much.”

He stood and laid his hands on her shoulders. There was heat in his touch.

“Pay’s in the experience, the chance to do something that matters. Wouldn’t it be unforgettable? If it goes well, there’ll be other projects.”

“Oh good,” she said. “Nice atlas.”

His hands moved away. “I’d like to come straight out and tell you something, but you make me feel like a sneak.”

She sat back. Jonah was running cross-country. Ethan, their loner, had joined Chess Club. Michael was learning to read. Evenings, they did the Just So Stories, and she bought stuffed miniature animals, one-by-one, to go with.

“It’s pretty sneaky. Bring home these maps, like we’ll be taking a vacation. Mack, let’s not change the subject. You think we could move down there, and sell the house? Home-school the kids?”

“Never mind. I might have guessed.”

8

She felt a ringing in her ears. It was Michael’s childhood – the kid she was going to do right by, the one they’d planned for, been able to actually afford – his childhood, shoved aside for some tubercular thirdworld pipe dream.

And then, selfish, pure and straight. She couldn’t even object on her own terms. It was always about the kids. She had no idea if she would want this venture. She was furious with Mack’s certainty about himself.

Her legs felt like paper ribbons.

“Mack, this – heart, ambition, whatever. I’m the heartless one, the practical one. It’s too big for me. A poor country, the politics probably a mess. We have a family, a whole situation here.”

He rested his fingertips on the map. She spoke to the floor. “The kids are doing well. Let’s not mess things up for them.”

Stupid. As though they’d go if the kids were doing badly.

“You go! And come home for a long weekend every few months. Right?” She caught his eye. How annoying to again find his eyes beautiful. But she had to look away, because she’d been bluffing. She knew it and knew he did too.

Before long she heard the clank of a wrench, the soft clatter of wood and metal in the garage. Sometime later, she kissed his brow.

“Come to bed?”

“Soon.”

In the night, he slipped in behind her. His heavy warmth, an embrace. Maybe she was dreaming.

9

The next morning Mack had a trip to a faraway drill site, ten days with a crew; no service. He stood trimming his beard at the mirror. Natalie was behind him in the glass, getting ready for a shower. Mack kept stepping slyly to the right and she hopped along behind him, pulling off her socks.

“Hold still, Mack!” How she hated an unexpected mirror. Too late, she looked up to see something hard come into his eyes.

“A lot of folks are right where they should be.” Soap foam flecked his lips. “Me, for instance.” “Something about hearing you say that breaks my heart,” she said, from the shower. She could hear him rinsing. He’d take a moment to enjoy the cold water, to cup it over his beard, his closed eyes – so easily, wonderfully pleased.

She wanted to call out, to have him leave with a proper goodbye, ten days is ten days, but she couldn’t do it.

Dressed and made up, she walked to the living room; picked up the newspaper, Ethan’s socks, a coffee cup. Very casually she glanced out the window to check the weather, to make sure – yes, he did it, oh shit – he had in fact driven away. No lovemaking last night, their protective charm, a vaccination. No kiss. She turned to the most necessary tasks of the day.

On the last night he was away, Natalie sat in the captain’s chair, paging through the atlas.

They’d purchased this dining set from a widowed grandmother. Beautiful walnut, three leaves, chairs Natalie re-covered herself. She’d asked if there weren’t two armrest-ed captain chairs, like dining sets in

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showrooms. “Sugar,” the woman explained, “back in those days there was only one captain.”

Captain Mack. A tiny flower deep inside her pelvis burst, a little sweet explosion. He’d had a motorcycle in college, a tinny Yamaha, whose engine always brought off in her a sexual whirr. He sold it when Jonah was born. The buyer – a kid – came up short, and Mack released the bike anyway. He said: drop by with the money when you can, I’ll hold the title until then.

He never got that money – she’d seen the title, still in its folder – and wouldn’t bring it up even for nostalgia’s sake. Mack didn’t look back.

He looked forward, altered by events and choices, never sidelined. Not jealous or suspicious, one straight shooter. She’d never known anybody less haunted. But Paraguay was to say he wasn’t satisfied with what had become of his life. Their life. Tightness gathered above her eyes.

Was she satisfied herself?

Dangerous question.

She’d arrived someplace comfortable, yet fearful. Slow-moving, quiescent – the center of a pond, where things are calm, not much is happening. There was a term for this; Mack had used it once, helping a boy with homework. What was it, now? She had it – A low-energy depositional environment. Lord. That was her.

Light softened of its own accord. The moon outside disappeared behind some high, scudding clouds – the same moon Mack could see. Such a bloom of tenderness she felt. He’d been so steady, so decent. She’d overlooked him.

She traced a red line on the cover of the atlas, Next day he’d be driving home.

11

Mack’s truck finally failed. A well-loved pickup with crazy mileage, which expired just east of home.

He worked a salvage deal with a towing company and phoned Natalie to come. She parked ahead on the gravel shoulder. Dusk was coming down.

“Hey, honey,” he said, as she walked back. He kissed her, absurdly nonchalant. “Timing chain I think.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“Not worth the trouble.” He pulled a duffle and a hard hat out of the back and clapped his hand on the hood. She wasn’t even sure he’d cleaned out the glove box.

“Lucky most of the equipment had to stay at the well. I’m going back next week.”

“Driving something better, I guess.” She smiled. “Maybe something new.”

“Nothing new. But an engine with more kick to it. That’d be nice.”

Natalie touched his waist and they walked to the car. Michael was inside, stringing Transformers across the seats.

“Dad,” he said when Mack opened the door. “Want a sip of my soda?”

“Sure.” Mack took a swallow from the can. “What have you got that’s good for a laugh?”

“I don’t know,” said Michael, adjusting a Transformer arm. He grinned and lifted his eyebrows, a flicker of light skittering across his face. “There’s this one about Helen Keller.”

“Yeah? Not the one where she answered the iron. I’ve heard that one.”

“No, Dad, it’s another one.”

“Let’s have it.”

12

“What’s Helen Keller’s favorite color?”

“I give up. What?”

“Corduroy.”

“Ha!”

They took the off-ramp and swung west. Soft conversation. Spectacular sky. Mack’s fingers touching Natalie’s on the console. Working car. First-world. Home.

So lovely and insufficient.

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