Acid commentary bubbled up in me as we followed the trail of trash:
Recycling: how original!
The only thing more beautiful than these “sculptures” would be the desert without them.
We reached a section of plastic bags: bags inside bags inside bags inside bags, tens of thousands of crinkled plastic membranes crammed inside huge cracked plexiglass boxes that resembled gargantuan ice cubes.
“It all gets melted?” I asked.
“Everything. Monitors gauge the breakdown of the plastics with surface swabs to make sure they don’t leach.”
Hey, I have an idea: How about recycling this crap WITHOUT spreading it all over the desert in the first place?
Is there a direction we can walk where I DON’T have to look at this stuff?
The balloons floated overhead like silent sentinels. I had a guilty fear they were reading my thoughts.
You’re sure they’re not up there trying to ESCAPE from the art?
But I kept my mouth shut.
DREW
By the time we get back to the house, I’m having an uneasy feeling about Miles. I have to keep slowing my pace not to leave him behind, and he’s still breathing hard: troubling in a guy who was once such an athlete. I can’t tell whether he hates the art or doesn’t know what to say, and it irks me to have to wonder. All of which awakens a Pavlovian wish to go to my clinic, followed by the knowledge that I can’t—that my patient is right here, panting beside me after a two-mile walk. But I don’t know what’s wrong with him, or how to fix it.
At dinner he hangs back, watching the rest of us laugh around the firepit. I’d looked forward to showing off Lincoln—graduated early from Stanford and working nearby in tech—and Alison, who everyone loves, a junior at UCLA. But Miles’s awkward solitude makes me feel petty for having craved these triumphs. He hardly interacts with Beatrice, his half sister, and I wonder if it’s shyness—whether Sasha and I should be asking him more about what he’s doing. But Miles’s history makes those questions feel loaded, or patronizing, and anyway, we’re all in our fifties—do people even ask what we’re “doing” anymore? Hasn’t that already been decided?
The young people drift indoors, and the topic turns to a group of art collectors visiting tomorrow, from Virginia. They’re what I call the hardy rich—the types who climb Kilimanjaro, occasionally even Everest. They’ll want to do the predawn balloon launch, no question. Afterward, they’ll walk the sculptures with Sasha and decide how many pieces they want to buy.
“I’d like to try riding in a balloon,” Miles says. “Do you think there might be an extra spot?”
“I doubt it,” I say. “They book up months in advance.”
I feel Sasha’s perplexity. “There’s usually a no-show or two,” she says.
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I’ve never done the predawn launch.”
“Why don’t you both go?” Sasha suggests, and it’s like the old days—Sasha urging me toward our difficult son, me frantic to escape. I feel a blast of frustration with Miles for bringing all of that back.
“No need on my behalf, Drew,” he hastens to say, and I suspect my resistance must be palpable.
“Not at all! Let’s go together,” I say with a heartiness only Sasha will know is forced.
Later, in bed, she smooths my forehead with her cool hand. “He’s had a hard time, Drew,” she says. “Is it too much to ask you to be patient with him?”
“He’s not our son. I don’t know him, and neither do you.”
“He’s family,” she says. “Isn’t that enough?”