Bright Young Women(120)
I drop my backpack and drag open the zipper. Inside are two folding shovels, root stimulant, garden shears, a can of smoked Blue Diamond almonds, and not enough water.
“I’ll start here,” I say, indicating one of several copper markers planted seemingly at random in the glade.
Tina works a hand into a mannish canvas glove and sets herself up at another marker in this haphazard but precise design.
* * *
When the news of the Lake Sammamish disappearances first hit the papers in 1974, Tina received a call from a woman named Gail Strafford, who at the time headed up the Forensic Anthropology Department at the University of Tennessee. She had met Ruth at the medical conference in Aspen and relayed for Tina the conversation they’d had outside her hotel room door—about Gail’s field of work, which was being used to help narrow down the timeline of Caryn Campbell’s death. Gail was stricken to hear that Ruth had gone missing less than five months later, that foul play was suspected in her disappearance too. If there was ever anything she could do to help, Tina should not hesitate to reach out.
Gail Strafford is retired now, but she sent a team here, to this slight hillside in Issaquah, and over the last few weeks, they have conducted extensive testing on the area where The Defendant confessed to dumping Ruth’s remains. They succeeded in zoning a medium-sized radius where the ground showed dynamic changes to the nutrient profile of the local ecosystem. They tagged locations and told us to plant any sort of hardy, shade-loving fern. In six months, they’ll come back and assess the reflectance of the plant’s foliage, which has been found to take on a reddish cast from soil containing human remains, even in places where a body decomposed decades ago.
* * *
For the next few hours, the two of us dig shallow holes, loosen the roots on a half dozen cinnamon ferns, pack them tight with native soil, spritz with root stimulant, ration our bottled water, and start again.
We site the last plant in the direction of the fading sun, and Tina leans hard on her shovel and closes her eyes. Her lips are moving silently around words I recognize. I carry you like my own personal Time Machine, as I put on my lipstick, smile, and head out to the party.
It’s a line by one of her favorite poets, a woman named Donna Carnes, whose husband went out for a sail in San Francisco Bay and has not been seen since. I love it too. How many parties have I gone to over the years, and laughed, and had a good time, while still managing to hold Denise close?
Something shifted for me after we got that guilty verdict. It was a bit like going to the chiropractor for a stiff back and regaining full range of motion. Long before my mother told me about the four days I went missing in the Florida swamplands, I’d sensed there was a part of me that was mislaid. I’d gone on a pilgrimage to Florida State to find it, not understanding why I needed to be there, only that I did. I’d cleaned and straightened and organized in an attempt to bring order to my surroundings because inside, I was in turmoil. I’d stayed home on nights when I should have gone out because kicking up my heels and having a few beers at a party did not feel fun for me the way it did for others my age. This was the wellspring of shame—the feeling that I was different, that I was somehow wrong. In the days and weeks after the trial ended, that conviction softened, then sloughed in phases, as life revealed to me that I’d been exactly who and where I needed to be, that I was the only person on the face of the earth who could have sent Denise’s killer to the electric chair.
Denise’s short life had meaning. She helped to fuse the parts of me with jagged edges, pieces that ergonomically should not fit together but somehow do. It was an alignment, a relief from pain that would have been chronic, and it was Denise’s lasting gift to me.
* * *
The sky is brushed pink and lavender as we pack up, roll our heads on our stiff necks, and head back down the hillside, pants ruined at the knees.
The hope is that when we come back in the fall, one of the ferns will flag Ruth’s final resting place. But I can do better than hope. I have faith, because nature is the very best example of integration. Things grow differently when they’re damaged, showing us how to occupy strange new ground to bloom red instead of green. We can be found, brighter than before.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, my profound gratitude to Kathy Kleiner for responding to my email in 2019 and generously sharing your story. I am blown away by your indomitable spirit, courage, and mostly, your capacity for joy. From one survivor to another, I see you, and you inspire me.
Thank you, Pauline Boss, a pioneer whom I have never met but whose book The Myth of Closure served as inspiration for Tina’s work with “complicated grief.” To anyone going through a hard time or struggling with past or generational trauma, I highly recommend this small but mighty read, which helped me find meaning in something I’d long considered meaningless and gave me a newfound sense of agency in my life.
Thank you, Marysue Rucci, my incomparable editor, who pushed me to the point of (nearly!) breaking. This book needed it, and so did I. Everything I write from here on out will be better because of the standard you held me to on this one.
Alyssa Reuben—friend, confidante, and extraordinary literary agent—I would not have this life without you. Thank you for the nudges, the gentle and the not-so-gentle ones, and for always telling it like it is so that when you tell me something good, I know I can believe you.